Made the move to Florida - How will DVC change?

[ILoveMyDVC]

After living in RI for 54 years and the last 2 in MT (temporarily for work), I obtained a long needed divorce; packed up 20 years of my favorite things; and moved to Tampa.

So now what changes as a DVC member? One other fact, I will need to sell about 600 of my 1600 points. Taking a massive loss but it's the only way to $$ living expenses.

I have 4 Owner's lockers. Did you keep them after moving the FLA? How did your visits change? Frequency? Did it feel less like a vacation because you weren't flying into MCO (my favorite airport where the vacation officially begins)?

I always stay at OKW and now my new apartment has a view almost identical to the water/woodsy/animal life view I love at OKW. It feels like vacation every day - of course, I've been on medical leave for 3 weeks. perhaps when I go back to work on Monday, it won't feel like a vacation anymore

Please share your thoughts. DVC member since 1993. I've been on this site forever and feel like I 'know' many of you.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Don’t have the answers to your questions, but welcome to the best state in the country!!

 

[Disnydad]

When moved to Florida (about 25 miles south of EPCOT) we had 600 DVC points. Within a year we sold off all but 210 OKW. Yes, we got to keep our Owners Locker.

 

[Narcoossee11]

Only short trips. 1-2 nights
No need to hit all attractions.
No need for locker.
Many want to sell all your points
As you mentioned , may have no need for Disney . You are already 'home'.
You will be pleasingly surprised on that first winter day...NO SNOW.
You will be shocked about how we Floridians handle hurricane's. It has been 50+ years since Tampa was been hit but
now that YOU live here, we will get one. LOL
Traffic will drive you crazy. It may take you 2.5-3 hours to get to ORL from Tampa.

 

[NicoleLarson]

Only short trips. 1-2 nights
No need to hit all attractions.
No need for locker.
Many want to sell all your points
As you mentioned , may have no need for Disney . You are already 'home'.
You will be pleasingly surprised on that first winter day...NO SNOW.
You will be shocked about how we Floridians handle hurricane's. It has been 50+ years since Tampa was been hit but
now that YOU live here, we will get one. LOL
Traffic will drive you crazy. It may take you 2.5-3 hours to get to ORL from Tampa.

I agree with all of the above. Especially the traffic on I-4 from tampa to orlando, its ALWAYS awful.
We sold the vast majority of our points as well. Our trips are much shorter, 1 or 2 nights here or there. You can finally attend a Moonlight Magic without planning a whole trip around it but they do feel less like a vacation and more like quick weekend trips, which are still great, just a little different mindset.

I know exactly what you mean by some of the resorts dont feel like a vacation anymore. I have nothing bad to say about the poly but it just doesn't give me the feels like other resorts do. WL and AKL are some of our favorite because we truly feel like we are somewhere else.

When we moved here my friend from childhood asked so where do people who live in FL go on vacation? My answer was other places in FL. Haha. Its a big state with lots of diverse areas, so there's always somewhere new to explore besides just going to the theme parks.

 

[MM1102]

We moved to the Orlando area a couple years ago after 20+ years as DVC members living in Indiana. Since moving, we've booked a couple DCL cruises with points (I know, purists, I could rent out the points and pay cash, but I don't want to). We like Vero Beach, so we've done that once. We also did a staycation and stayed a couple nights at Riviera, just because we wanted to check it out. We also made a reservation for one of our kids. So, it's different, but still useful for us (we have many fewer points than you, so less of a burden with the maintenance fees).

 

[macman752]

We lived in the Tampa Bay area for a long time and recently relocated about 45 minutes north of WDW. As others have stated the drive from Tampa to Orlando in I-4 is brutal - our worst was a 5 hour trip with 3 of those hours moving just a few feet at a time. Our DVC visits are 3-5 nights and rarely include a Friday or Saturday. We’ll stay in a studio for 3 nights, any longer will be a 1 bedroom. We’ve never needed an owner’s locker. We have 2 small containers, one for kitchen/coffee supplies and another for food and snacks. Always having a car makes it easy to make a Publix run if necessary.

 

[corpcomp]

Bought a townhouse last year near north Orlando in Longwood, about 30 minutes from WDW (during non rush hour) as my winter home.
Have 300 points at the Beach Club but have arranged just short 3 day visits when I'm down meeting contractors renovating the place instead of 6 day flying in - will keep the Gold AP for now. Really prefer to stay in luxury villas so I'm keeping the points but will likely rent at least 100 per year to help.
Suggest you rent yours to help you financially.
Get ride of the owners locker.
Hold onto the points for another year till the economy improves and the resale value grows back if you can.

 

[PalmettoPath]

After living in RI for 54 years and the last 2 in MT (temporarily for work), I obtained a long needed divorce; packed up 20 years of my favorite things; and moved to Tampa.

So now what changes as a DVC member? One other fact, I will need to sell about 600 of my 1600 points. Taking a massive loss but it's the only way to $$ living expenses.

I have 4 Owner's lockers. Did you keep them after moving the FLA? How did your visits change? Frequency? Did it feel less like a vacation because you weren't flying into MCO (my favorite airport where the vacation officially begins)?

I always stay at OKW and now my new apartment has a view almost identical to the water/woodsy/animal life view I love at OKW. It feels like vacation every day - of course, I've been on medical leave for 3 weeks. perhaps when I go back to work on Monday, it won't feel like a vacation anymore

Please share your thoughts. DVC member since 1993. I've been on this site forever and feel like I 'know' many of you.

Why would you take a loss on those points? We sold 200 AK points last year and doubled our money (almost exactly). We purchased those resale in 2012, so exactly 10 years later they doubled in value (we are all direct now, as we added to our VGF with those funds). Just curious which points would be a loss (if that's not too personal...if it is, I understand) as I have generally seen DVC to be a good investment that appreciates over time.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

While we don't live in FL my folks moved to Tampa. We still do our Chicago to WDW trips and also have done some WDW trips within a trip to see my folks. Being able to get up...be in the car a couple hours...and be at WDW is awesome. If we lived there we would do a ton of Friday to Sunday trips. And once we retired we'd probably do midweek instead.

If I was the OP I would probably try and rent as many of my points as I could the first year just to be able to keep the points while seeing how their WDW habits change. After a year you can reassess and decide with better information as how it is to be a FL DVC member.

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

Why would you take a loss on those points? We sold 200 AK points last year and doubled our money (almost exactly). We purchased those resale in 2012, so exactly 10 years later they doubled in value (we are all direct now, as we added to our VGF with those funds). Just curious which points would be a loss (if that's not too personal...if it is, I understand) as I have generally seen DVC to be a good investment that appreciates over time.

I have a loan on the points and because it's a lot of 520, And I need to sale to go quickly, I'm doing a direct sale. If I could afford to wait and go through all the BS that it takes to do a resale contract, maybe I could break even. The thing is I only paid $109 a point. 2057. It was a steal.
But it's in my name and my ex's name and he agrees to split the $10,000 loss with me.


Having bought resale a bunch of times I'm in no mood to go through all the hoopla it takes to buy never mind sell and I need the money because I'm renting an apartment now and all its associated expenses.

 

[PalmettoPath]

I have a loan on the points and because it's a lot of 520, And I need to sale to go quickly, I'm doing a direct sale. If I could afford to wait and go through all the BS that it takes to do a resale contract, maybe I could break even. The thing is I only paid $109 a point. 2057 It was a steal
But it's in my name and my ex's name and he agrees to split the $10,000 loss with me.


Having bought resale a bunch of times I'm in no mood to go through all the hoopla it takes to buy never mind cell and I need the money because I'm renting an apartment now and all it's associate expenses.

Oh, shoot. I feel for you That's a lot. Hoping it goes as smoothly as possible for you.

 

[RoseGold]

Just curious which points would be a loss (if that's not too personal...if it is, I understand) as I have generally seen DVC to be a good investment that appreciates over time.

Easy to lose money with a loan with a crazy interest rate (and financing costs). Even without a loan, most (all?) direct buyers of RIV and CCV selling right now would lose money. Buying pretty much any sold out resort recently would lose money. Even buyers of VGF1 and Poly1 would be right on the line, and that was a while ago.

It's possible to lose money on resale right now as well. A lot of resale has taken a hit since the 2021-ish highs. I bought SSR in 2019 in the 90s, where it is now again. Between then and now, it had gone up to 120s or even 130s. That's a huge gap.

DVC pricing is SO high right now, it's tough to imagine the kind of performance it had last decade. Maybe not even possible.

 

[LYSE]

We have 625 points and have switched to renting most of them out, when we do go it's 1 bedrooms for us or two bedrooms and grand villas to invite family.

We also go for less time ..no more 10 nighters

We MAY end up selling one of 3 contracts but we'll see how things go over the next year or two.

We live about 2 hours away so not super close but we often times do come down for the day.

 

[Sharene0724]

Welcome to FL! Our vacationing habits now are mostly the same as they were before we moved. We still like to stay DVC and be in the Disney bubble but we take shorter trips, long weekends versus a whole week. Still do some park days some resort days. What I like is knowing we are going to be back more often so the pressure to get everything done in a trip is gone. It's much more relaxing!

 

[PalmettoPath]

Easy to lose money with a loan with a crazy interest rate (and financing costs). Even without a loan, most (all?) direct buyers of RIV and CCV selling right now would lose money. Buying pretty much any sold out resort recently would lose money. Even buyers of VGF1 and Poly1 would be right on the line, and that was a while ago.

It's possible to lose money on resale right now as well. A lot of resale has taken a hit since the 2021-ish highs. I bought SSR in 2019 in the 90s, where it is now again. Between then and now, it had gone up to 120s or even 130s. That's a huge gap.

DVC pricing is SO high right now, it's tough to imagine the kind of performance it had last decade. Maybe not even possible.

I guess it all depends. We bought AKV Kidani resale in 2012 for 65 and sold those in 2022 for 125. So we nearly doubled. AKV Kidani is even higher now (130/135), so no drop at all there -- maybe it's property dependent. We were happy with that and used it towards adding on another 250 VGF.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

Have you thought about selling (transferring) the current years points to a broker or individual (if there are any) for some short term cash to not have to sell? Stripped contracts tend to not take the hit they should....and if someone is willing to buy that many it might not stop them.... especially if their next trip isn't until 2024.

 

[Cfabar1]

After living in RI for 54 years and the last 2 in MT (temporarily for work), I obtained a long needed divorce; packed up 20 years of my favorite things; and moved to Tampa.

Congratulations! Welcome to this amazing state! And welcome to Tampa, a booming city. You will LOVE it!!!

So now what changes as a DVC member? One other fact, I will need to sell about 600 of my 1600 points. Taking a massive loss but it's the only way to $$ living expenses.

Wow! Hoping it won’t be that many… 1600 points is an impressive number though. 1000 should still be plenty, and keep you a legend on the DISBoards too

I have 4 Owner's lockers. Did you keep them after moving the FLA? How did your visits change? Frequency? Did it feel less like a vacation because you weren't flying into MCO (my favorite airport where the vacation officially begins)?

It is still absolutely a vacation! You get to the park and the whole world melts away… Disney really is magical that way. You will have more options with how to best use your points… I might not be in a huge hurry to eliminate those 600 points…. Plus! You can now get a Florida Resident AP, and have more affordable AP options depending on your travel needs.

I always stay at OKW and now my new apartment has a view almost identical to the water/woodsy/animal life view I love at OKW. It feels like vacation every day - of course, I've been on medical leave for 3 weeks. perhaps when I go back to work on Monday, it won't feel like a vacation anymore

That’s great! The “Disney Vacation Club” is a truly special resort As the one that started it all. Now that you have shorter trips, and can maybe do so more frequently, you might want to give some of the other resorts a try. We LOVE being able to drive in, park our car, and be RIGHT THERE at the magic And able to walk into EPCOT or the Magic Kingdom!

Please share your thoughts. DVC member since 1993. I've been on this site forever and feel like I 'know' many of you.

Wow! My main thought is CONGRATULATIONS on being here In Florida and I hope you get to enjoy your DVC points Now that you’ve so close!

 

[Nennie]

We moved to Florida 2 years ago. Have had 175 pts since 2004, but after we moved here, we purchased another 100 pts resale. We have FL Resident Pirate Passes, which are cheaper than the DVC passes, and they work perfectly for our family. We currently have 5 trips booked! LOL!!!

You won't need an Owners Locker anymore! Since we drive now, we have branched out to other resorts, and have fallen in love with SSR. We used to avoid resorts that relied on buses, but having a car is a total game changer.

Also, since you are local, you may want to join the DVC rental FB groups, as last minute deals pop up, and they are easy to jump on when you don't have to worry about booking a flight.

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

Congratulations! Welcome to this amazing state! And welcome to Tampa, a booming city. You will LOVE it!!!

Wow! Hoping it won’t be that many… 1600 points is an impressive number though. 1000 should still be plenty, and keep you a legend on the DISBoards too

It is still absolutely a vacation! You get to the park and the whole world melts away… Disney really is magical that way. You will have more options with how to best use your points… I might not be in a huge hurry to eliminate those 600 points…. Plus! You can now get a Florida Resident AP, and have more affordable AP options depending on your travel needs.

That’s great! The “Disney Vacation Club” is a truly special resort As the one that started it all. Now that you have shorter trips, and can maybe do so more frequently, you might want to give some of the other resorts a try. We LOVE being able to drive in, park our car, and be RIGHT THERE at the magic And able to walk into EPCOT or the Magic Kingdom!

Wow! My main thought is CONGRATULATIONS on being here In Florida and I hope you get to enjoy your DVC points Now that you’ve so close!

Thank you so much for that well thought I don't answer. I appreciate all the time you took and everything that you said.