Other vacations than DVC

[Cyberc1978]

hi all

I’m kind a curious as an dvc owner do you vacation other places than dvc if so where do you go?

My family and I we tend to visit Disney 1-2 times a year, as Europeans we also go to Europe but we also visit NYC once a year.

Even though we love Disney we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket we want to experience the world.

 

[DieHardJoe]

We bought BLT early in 2009 before it opened and have made a number of visits using our points at a number of different DVC resorts both by ourselves as well as with our 2 daughters and their families. Since 2009, we have spent 10 days in the Canadian Rockies, spent 2 weeks in California traveling from San Diego to SF (with a 5-night stay at the Grand Californian), 2 weeks traveling from South Dakota to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, last year we spent 2 weeks in Hawaii for our 40th anniversary (with one week at Aulani) and later this year we'll be spending 2 weeks in Utah visting the 5 national parks (and can't leave out our 1-week grandparents trip in July staying at BLT!). We are still working but are retiring within the next couple of years and feel there is still plenty to see in the U.S. and are already starting to plan a trip for next year. We live just north of Boston and consider ourselves lucky that we are within easy driving distance to the ocean as well as the mountains and can take vacations without having to fly everywhere. So while DVC has given us some great vacations, we love travelling to other destinations as well.

 

[mj2vacation]

We go to Hawaii every few years, do a few trips to the beach a year and some smaller trips.

Just did a trip to Atlanta to do some of the movie and tv tours. Many of the Marvel movies are filmed there as well as Walking Dead.

 

[TexasChick123]

Hawaii, Grand Cayman, Vegas once a year, the beach in NW Florida, NYC, Colorado, California coast, Savannah, and on and on. We spend a lot of our disposable income on traveling.

 

[CarolynFH]

Oh yes we do travel elsewhere! California, Caribbean cruise, European river cruise, etc.

 

[3 Hobbits 2 Disney]

We have been WDW biased for the last couple of years because of life factors and DD’s age. However, by the end of 2018 we’ll have been 6 times in a year, and we’re taking a planned break in 2019/2020 while the parks are under construction. We may use a smidge of the points but I’m planning to rent/transfer most of them and travel with the proceeds. Once DHS is finished and MK is ready for its 50th in 2021 we’ll be back.

 

[Simba's Mom]

Most of our non-DVC vacations have been cold climate, country type vacations. We've been to Yellowstone National Park 4 times, Wisconsin, Alaska (rented a car and drove, staying in cabins), Grand Canyon and Monument Valley (not cold climate), New England in the fall.

 

[VegasMike]

hi all

I’m kind a curious as an dvc owner do you vacation other places than dvc if so where do you go?

My family and I we tend to visit Disney 1-2 times a year, as Europeans we also go to Europe but we also visit NYC once a year.

Even though we love Disney we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket we want to experience the world.

You may want to check into Las Vegas. It can make for a very nice family trip.

 

[com_op_2000]

We go to non-DVC beach vacation at least every other year; have done:
Washington, DC
North East, Georgia
Miami
family in Jacksonville

 

[Murron]

We are retired, so we can be extremely flexible regarding vacations. We cut WDW trips to once per year and that once lately is Vero Beach. Last WDW trip was 2016. Before that, it was twice per year to WDW for too many years than I can count. 1971 was first trip as teenagers. Since retirement, we've been great fans of river and ocean cruises on small ships (namely Viking). Loving it. Did a Royal Caribbean to Canada and hated it. Too big. My SIL's desire is Hawaii, so the plan is Aulani for 2019.

 

[iheartglaciers]

I love balancing Disney and non-Disney trips! In the last year I visited Ecuador, Trinidad, China, Taiwan, San Diego, and Maine. I also spend almost all my winter weekends in Vermont snowboarding and try to do some national parks, although I didn’t do many this year. I don’t have kids yet l, so it’s easier for me now to bounce around

But besides the places I go snowboarding and hiking in the north east, there’s not really a vacation place I return to over and over like Disney.

 

[pineapplepalms]

A lot of our non-Disney traveling was done pre-kids and before buying DVC. For now we love Disney trips with a 2 year old but will add on other destinations along with DVC stays in the future. There are lots of places we've loved visiting in the US, and internationally some of our favorites have been London, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, Bora Bora, and the Canadian Rockies. Haven't done a Disney cruise yet so hope to do so at some point (perhaps a member cruise!).

 

[lovin'fl]

Aside from WDW DVC we also own HHI points and visit there about every other year.

We cruise too. Going on the 10th in Oct and then 11th in Jan 2019.

And our DDs, in college now, played a travel sport for like 8 years. I think we figured they played in 12 states from OK to MA to TN to FL and many in between. So we did a lot of visiting other states and tried to sight see while there as much as possible but wasn't always do-able with busy game schedule.

 

[rcs]

We're fortunate to typically take 4 weeks vacation/year. We've fallen into a 3 year cycle. Some might call it a rut. We prefer to call it a groove!

Year 1. Buy APs. Visit WDW 3 times with some combination of kids/grand kids on each trip, and once with just us two for the F&W festival. We mix up the resorts and take it easy and not kill ourselves overdoing the parks as we'll be back again soon enough. To us, that beats having to go bonkers trying to squeeze in all the favorites into a single trip. We'd rather take it easy at the pool, playing shuffle-board, or renting a boat when the parks get crowded.

Year 2. Become a beach bum at Vero or Hilton Head for a lovely, peaceful week in the spring with the whole family. In August visit DL for a week (sometimes with kids/grand kids) and spend a second week elsewhere in S. Cal (San Diego is a favorite). Maybe a camping trip or a week in Boston, NYC or DC in the fall.

Year 3. Nothing Disney... letting points replenish and refreshing interest. A winter ski vacation in February to to the White Mountains. A week in Las Vegas or Phoenix in the spring. A week in Sonoma/Napa in early summer. A week visiting Montreal/Quebec City in late summer. Occasionally we do something totally different for one of the trips (Nashville, Grand Canyon, cruise, Hawaii).

Repeat.

We did splurge for the 30th anniversary a couple years ago on our non-Disney year and did a 3-week combination trip consisting of the Seattle, Vancouver, the Rocky Mountaineer, Jasper, Banff, and Lake Louise. That was very special.

 

[Lancer]

"I’m kind a curious as an dvc owner do you vacation other places than dvc if so where do you go?"

For many years, we took yearly(some times twice yearly) trips to WDW. About 11 years ago, I took up Scuba diving. So now, we go to WDW every other year, and alternate with dive trips to Micronesia, South pacific and the Caribbeans. It works pretty good in that it allows us to roll over points for a year and when we do go, we can get larger rooms and/or get rooms for friends joining us. In addition to the change of pace, each time we go, there is usually something new or updated since the last time we went. Having said that, I am in a bit of a quandary. We went this past February which means a trip in 2020 for the Star wars opening and the newly open Toy story land. Perfect timing! But, isnt 2021 WDW 50th Anniversary? Cant miss that, so maybe back to back trips those years.

 

[DSLRuser]

absolutely...

Just did a week skiing in colorado for spring break. (this replaced our normal Disney trip).....and we do a week at gulf shores Alabama every July.

have to mix it up. Next Disney trip is this June at BWV

 

[Dean]

hi all

I’m kind a curious as an dvc owner do you vacation other places than dvc if so where do you go?

My family and I we tend to visit Disney 1-2 times a year, as Europeans we also go to Europe but we also visit NYC once a year.

Even though we love Disney we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket we want to experience the world.

We travel almost exclusively with timeshares. Mostly with Marriott, Wyndham and Bluegreen plus exchanges. Aruba every 2-3 years, HI every 4-6 years, Gatlinburg EOY, HHI about 2 or every 3 years, Orlando 1-2 times/yr (often exchanges to DVC + points), PCB/Destin plus a smattering of other things here and there. We also cruise about an average of once a year or slightly less on cash. We do a family trip the summers we don't go to HI or do some other large trip that precludes it (AK), we had 51 people last year in HHI, 43 the year before on Singer Island & 43 the year before that in Gatlinburg.

 

[bwang123]

We have done many vacations outside of DVC since owning. Turks and Caicos, Mexico and other places. We also did a 2 day DVC stay in California, went to Disneyland and then drove down highway 1 over several days to San Francisco. We may not have done that specific trip without DVC though.

 

[bobbiwoz]

We especially enjoy cruising. We have a RCCL Vancouver to Hawaii cruise, a Celebrity cruise around the horn of South America and a Princess Cruise in Europe which will enable us to get to the WW II cemeteries as well as Rome have all been booked.

Earlier this year we did partial Panama Canal transit, and we did excursions in Panama and Costa Rica.

 

[DenLo]

We use our DVC points strictly for DVC vacation, but that includes Aulani every other year, and when we go to Hawaii we either attach a cruise to one end of the stay or we spend 5 or so nights on another island. Since we love to cruise we take 2 cruises yearly. And if we fly out of the country to board the ship we often 4 days or so before or after the cruise to see the area. Since we are retired we can take so many trips. But when we worked we were restricted to a cruise once every 18 months and then we drove to vacation areas often National Parks in the West as we lived in Denver. Disney was a rare event back then as we did not own DVC and the cost of going to Disney and staying on property was more expensive than a 7-10 day cruise.