Thinking of joining DVC...Yes or No?? What do i need to know??

[Disneyfun1]

Just returned from 11 days in WDW, and we talked to the DVC people. We had spoked last year and gave up on the idea because family said timeshares are no good. It really seems good to us. We plan to go to WDW every year. We have for 3 in a row and this trip bought PAP's. We talked to the same rep we had last year-Jenna, who is very friendly and knowledgable. She even remembered our sons name from last year. Anyway, no pressure to buy in, just all the answers to questions we had. We are considering it because this trip we rented points and stayed in a BWV 1 bed and loved it!! So......what are the good and bad, in's and out's?? We go in September when its the slow period, so i dont think getting a room is a problem. We are thinking about getting 170 points. Is it had to get financing from disney??Anything i forgot to ask or need to know i would appreciate. Thanks.

 

[Firefighter Mickey]

The absolute worst thing about DVC is how adicting it is. You start with 170 points, but then you think.....what if I had more, we could take longer vacations, or even rent a 2BR, or maybe a Grand Villa. So your first impulse after signing that original contract is to give even more of your money to the mouse.

Financing via DVC is incredibly easy; even people with blemishes on their credit history have been able to purchase (worst case, they may ask for a larger down payment if you are in this situation).

Sounds like you already know what the good aspects are; it only gets better when you start figuring out how much money you saved on incredible accomodations. I figure our investment paid for itself by the second year, and by the end of this year, it will have paid for itself twice over - there is absolutely no way we could have afforded to pay cash for all the times we've stayed at DVC.

 

[wdwnut]

hi: here's a link to the faq on this board: http://64.225.125.24/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1571
financing through disney is incredibly easy. we financed through disney on our initial purchase and through our bank via home equity on our add-on. see which rates are better for you. firefighter mickey is correct; this is addictive. it will work out well for you if you plan on going to wdw at least every 2-3 years; this doesn't sound like a problem for you. the points system is much better, in my opinion, than purchasing certain weeks like some other timeshares do.

 

[Pa@okw95]

There maybe some specials coming up just around the corner. Wait for while and see what they are before you buy into DVC. You could save a lot of money or receive some special deal in the near future for your purchase.

 

[TheWho]

Don't make the same mistake I did and not buy enough points initially. I brought 180 points at BW and would like to have 20 to 50 points more today (of course BW is sold out and most resale contracts are bigger chunks). If you want a one bedroom every year you made need more. Anyway, your vacations plans and love of WDW make you a perfect candidate. Buy what you can afford and start planning years of vacations (for me, that's almost the best part).

I also financed thru Disney and they deduct from my checking account monthly, interest is tax deductable.

Good Luck

 

[PKS44]

"what are the good and bad, in's and out's?? "

We just bought, so I can't give you the benefit of experience actually using DVC-yet...but I can tell you some of the issues in the decision making process that led us to decide to buy.

Flexibility vs availability- the exact room(s) you want may be limited when you want to go...September is a slow time for WDW but from what I have read here, slow for WDW does not always mean slow for DVC. To us this was not a big issue since we have to plan vacations well in advance we expect to find availability to be easier to come by than someone who travels at the last minute alot. we are flexible, too. I definitely did not want a fixed time period (a week) or time of year as in most timeshares.

Deluxe vs. Economical- The most flexible is to pay cash-in the long run-that will be the most expensive IF you would stay in deluxe on site accomodations. If you always hunt for the best deal you can definitely find cheaper places to stay-even on site. DVC is a committment to a deluxe way of vacationing- you WILL stay in deluxe places-not econolodge...I have done both and have justified both ways in my mind--("sure the place is kinda cheap-but hey we'll spend the savings on other fun things") I needed to make that committment to luxury in a way that satisfied my inner cheapskate-DVC did that for me.

Lifetime vs 40 years-DVC is a lease- in 40 years you have only your memories. A traditional timeshare is yours for life until you sell it. Again, for us this was no big deal...I would rather stay on property than own off site. In 40 years I don't want the responsibility for dues, or trying to sell somethng that may be hard to sell. I want to be able to walk away easily.

Dues -they are high for timeshare but cheap for what you get compared to paying cash for a WDW room every year. If room rates plummett at WDW then it will not be a savings. I am betting even though now rooms are deeply discounted that over the next 41 years they will be at levels similar to the last 10 years-not like the last 2 months. (If this economy or the war lasts 41 years-WDW probably won't even be there -and that will be the least of our worries...)

WDW (or Orlando) for life-you are committing to vacationing regularly for years. Yes, you can trade out, but the value is diluted when you do that. If you tire of WDW there is HH and VB-again we just did not see even the dilution of value over 40 years a big deal as we love WDW and expect to go there for most of the next 41 years. If we don't, we still won't have nothing to show for it, we will just have vacations that are a bit more expensive than if we had bought those vacations ourselves rather than with DVC points. (unless we are really dumb and don't use our points at all-and we are not that dumb )

Good luck with your decision.
Paul

 

[ripleysmom]

Yeah what Paul said....

 

[gfox1]

We were concerned due to the fact that we live in the Western US the added cost of travel would cause us to not fully utilize the benefits of membership-were we wrong!

We joined in 1999 under the Magical Beginings program (wherein you sell back some points to lower the down payment). Since then we traveled in 1/01 for 2 full weeks at Boardwalk and are looking forward to the 7 day Magic Halloween Voyage this year! Because we can bank and borrow points from year to year we can plan larger vacations than we could normaly afford (at much nicer accommodations).

If airfare is a concern, just get into the habit of checking the individual web sites for bargins every couple of weeks several months prior to departure. For our upcoming trip I found a rate of less than 170.00 round trip (our last trip cost us around 800.00 for 4).

I would encourage to review the travel options both within the parks and outside. While we look forward to "going home" to Boardwalk, the opportunities for national and international travel realy entice us. Another BIG PLUS is that with Disney Quality and committment to service, there's the peace of mind that the "trade out" properties are going to be top notch, verses some of the "bargain basement" places you might get going through a standard travel company (don't mean to insult any agents-but you know what I mean).

In the end, make the decision that best suits you and your family-look at the ages of your kids (if any) and decide if this is something that you can utilize both now and when the kids are grown-(I know we will, the idea of going to WDW and being able to choose our own course of travel is but a 13 1/2 year dream away:>).

 

[MinnieMe2]

To quote everybody here, we should have bought sooner. As it is, we closed last April and have already used points for two trips. And DS is planning to go down in June with friends after H.S. grad. I hope current events don't interfere with this. I wouldn't be comfortable having very young boys drive themselves to Florida, but a plane might be out of the question, so we're being as positive as possible. DVC isn't your typical timeshare. We felt it's very 'user friendly', and so far we're happy as can be with our membership....

 

[dianeschlicht]

The main thing is not to compare DVC to most "time shares". We toured many timeshares after taking our first DVC tour, and found NOTHING that could begin to compare! We too were skeptical about the whole timeshare scheme from our previous experiences. Yes, it really is as good as it sounds! Like most here, we didn't buy enough points to begin with and didn't buy as soon as we should have.

DVC is great if you like staying on-site at WDW and go once or more trips a year. We get APs and try to plan multiple trips in one calendar year. Works great, and we are saving a lot of money from those "old days" when we paid several thousand $s for each trip. DVC was a "no brainer" for us.