disney vacation club

[bears163]

please any info will help. like cost of points. yearly fee. anything. i know the basics of ponts per night but not the costs and hte amount of points per night. we just got back friday and i am ready to go back. i will be writing a report of our trip soon. and pretty much all good things to say.

steve

 

[Ergens2]

Hi! You may want to go to the official disney site and request a DVC video and info package. It has a lot of great info that will answer your questions.

Shelley :wave:

 

[maelstrom]

Yes, get the official DVC video and such. It seems like buying into DVC is a lot of money. We looked into it back in 1991, but my dad deemed it too costly and there went that.

 

[dmperry134]

Disney vacation club info

Hi Steve,

We were looking into it last year. Take a look at the following site its quite informative. http://www.dvc-resales.com/index.htm


Regards

Dave
Worcestershire UK

 

[DisneyPhD]

Check out this page. If you have any questions after reading it, c'mon back and ask.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/dvc/faq.shtml

Ohhhhh, I wish I could have bought DVC in 1991. Just the free park admission (which ended in the late 90's) would have made it worth it.

 

[bears163]

thanks for all the help. i did order a video.

 

[DisneyPhD]

DVC is great, but there really is a lot to learn about it to understand it. We are still learning things. Sorry about the site link, I just get a little tired of answering the same questions again and again. You can also do a search on here for DVC, it has a few preious theads.

If you have any other questions after reading all that and looking at the viedo, feel free to ask.

It is a lot to spend up frount, but it does pay off in the end. (after about 5 years you have the intail investment paid for and you need to come up with is dues every year. ) There is a lot of math adding it all up and divding. It is worth it in the end. However there are some (like Woody13) who's math and logic I don't yet understand that feels it isn't worth it. Still don't understand it, but to each his own! What matters is it worth it for you.

We have 170 points at VWL and are dues are around $600 a year. More points more dues (I belive they are around $4 a point depending on your resort.) With only 170 points it is hard to do a one bedroom every year, but you can do well with a studio and then a one bedroom every other year. (or studio a few times a year.) You don't need to buy where you want to stay, but people recomend it. So far we have not hard a hard time getting in on the 7 month window for other then your home resorts.

SSR is the only one open to buy right now, but you can get resale of any other resort. SSR cost a bit more too then resale, but the contract is good until 2052 (I think not sure of the exact year) where all others end in 2042. I will be pretty old by then so I don't worry too much about it.

My word of advice is buy as many points as you think you are going to need, add ons can be contaous. We need more points, but don't have it it the budget currently. The sooner you buy, the more use you get out of it. The prices keep going up too.

We love being DVC members. Remember members are magical!

 

[bears163]

i know the points are around 89 each. and you have to buy 150 up front. so while u are paying the initial points do you have to pay the 600 per year for up keep. are there any other benefits like park admition discounts or anything like that?

 

[DisneyPhD]

i know the points are around 89 each. and you have to buy 150 up front. so while u are paying the initial points do you have to pay the 600 per year for up keep. are there any other benefits like park admition discounts or anything like that?

We paid cash for the 14,000 (that is how much it was at the time, 170 points at WVL with a think I 10 per point by back.) They are offereing a smilar deal with SSR right now. Actually we paid on a credit card over 3 month to get the points (didn't have disney visa back then, wish I did!) I don't remember when the dues were due, not right at that time, but I think with in the year. We bougut in Febuary, and our use year is sept so that might be when they were due.

There is a deal for current DVC members, get 130 point add on and you get 2 AP free.

There is a 10% discount for lengh of stay passes. I haven't done that since we used at AP for our past visit. Next time we get an AP isn't until 2006 so I might use it next stay in Feb 2005.

There are a number of discounts around the parks at restarants and stores, guided tours, spa treatments. Mostly 10% off. They are very close to the AP discounts. You also get a magizine in the mail vacation magic 4 times a year (maybe more) and a monthy email magizine.

 

[artvandelay]

i know the points are around 89 each.

Right now DVC is running a special. If you buy 150 points (that's the min. you can buy), you can get either a free WDW vacation or $10 off per point (makes it $85 per point). Saratoga Springs DVC expires in 2054. If you do buy from Disney, your use year doesn't start until, at least, March '05. Your first years maitenance will only be for 9 months. Mait. fees for Saratoga are $3.80 per per point. 150 points is around $570 a year.

We decided to buy from DVC instead of a resale because:

1 With DVC actively using it's right of first refusal on resales, resale prices have jumped up to $75 for Old Key West. With closing costs, it now comes out to $77 a point. We felt it was worth the extra$1000 to get the 12 more years of DVC at SSR.

2 SSR has the second lowest mait. fees (only OKW has lower).

3 Buying from DVC, there was no closing costs.

If you do buy resale, DVC will treat you as if you were the original owner. You will not be denied any of the perks. Some timeshare companies (Starwood) treat you differently when you buy a resale.

 

[lilkitty819]

Also remember that the cost of hotels will continue to go up in price and your amount of points won't change..So your always going to be able to stay at one of the villa's with your points...So you spend alot now and later down the road your week or 2 of staying will only cost you the maint's fee's.. which depending on time of year may be the price of 1 or 2 nights in a deluxe hotel..So DVC is really worth... :sohappy:

 

[joviacdan]

This is where I got confused when talking to the DVC rep a couple weeks ago.

We get that's $14,000 to buy 150 points up front. We're we got a bit lost was with the buying extra points and what not. I did the numbers a couple of times, and it just wasn't working for me.

I go at least twice a year - 7 nights both trips. Where I stay isn't overly important to me, as long as it's on Disney property. We figured, well, we have annual passes already, so that's out of the way. And with AP discounts, you can stay at a Value resort for about $50 a night or a moderate resort for about 80 a night.

So, we basically averaged about $1,200 a year for accomidations which gave us 2 weeks.

And from what the guy was telling us, that initial point buying, would give you probably 1 week per year, with the option of buying additional points to come down more often than that.

I just couldn't justify it.

One thing I was SHOCKED to find out - When you're a DVC member staying at one of the resorts, you don't get room service. You don't get more towels, unless you buy them. May sound like a silly thing, but it certainly doesn't help sweeten the deal.

 

[DisneyPhD]

I go at least twice a year - 7 nights both trips. Where I stay isn't overly important to me, as long as it's on Disney property. We figured, well, we have annual passes already, so that's out of the way. And with AP discounts, you can stay at a Value resort for about $50 a night or a moderate resort for about 80 a night.

So, we basically averaged about $1,200 a year for accomidations which gave us 2 weeks.


One thing I was SHOCKED to find out - When you're a DVC member staying at one of the resorts, you don't get room service. You don't get more towels, unless you buy them. May sound like a silly thing, but it certainly doesn't help sweeten the deal.

If you just want to stay at all stars, then it isn't worth it for you. Just stay at all stars. However if you want to stay at a deluxe resort, with better then Deluxe accodations do DVC. Once you stay DVC you don't want to go back, because having the kicthen in the room is just so nice and saves you so much money over the week (espcailly if you have kids.) Even if you don't eat meals in the room, it really saves you with snacks and breakfest or a bite for a fast lunch. Even Studios (the cheapest rooms) are better then normal hotel rooms. If you only want to get 150 points you and go once a year you will need to do sutdios. One way to save points is stay DVC during the week and move to another hotel for the weekend (the points are double on weekends, they say this is to keep them open so local DVC's didn't rent out every weekend room for short trips.)

One way they do make it more afordable is you don't get mousekeeping daily. You get trash and towel service on the 4th day and if you stay more then 8 days you do get a whole room cleaning halfway through your stay. There is a vacum cleaner in the room. You can always grab more towels from the pool. In a one bedroom you have a washer and dryer. A studio you have access to free washer and dryers but they are not in your room. At home I don't get new sheets and towels daily so I don't mind not getting them on vacation. Once at OKW my SIL and BIL were staying with us in a studio. They called and asked for more towels while we were out, Mousekeeping brought them, didn't charge us. Also in VWL and other resorts you often can just grab new towels of the mousekeeping carts sitting in the hallway.

I rather like it better this way, I don't have to worry about staff coming into the room while the kids or we are napping. :sohappy:

 

[joviacdan]

See, I think I'd like to stay once at the Contemporary or Wildreness Lodge, but honestly, I'm very comfortable at the All Stars or Pop Century.

I will say this - We stayed 5 nights at OKW as guests of a DVC member. We decided to stay an extra night. Anyways, we checked with central reservations and asked how much the room we were staying in, a studio, would be for 1 extra night. We were told $250. I was in shock. Seriously, that room was not worth $250 a night. We ended up going over to Pop Century instead for the extra night, which cost us onnly $80.

Three things we noticed when we got there - Beds were more comfortable. TV was bigger. We got clean towels in the morning.

I wasn't in the least bit impressed with OKW. The room, though nice, wasn't any great shakes over the rooms at All Stars or Pop Century. It had a bigger bathroom, which I could have cared less about. It had a little hallway, which again with a refridgerator and a sink, which again, never even used. And it had a closet.

I can say in all honesty though, if OKW cost the same as either the All Stars or Pop Century, I would stay at All Stars or Pop Century over OKW any time.

My thing is basically just that I don't spend much time in the room at all. I'm up and off to the parks at 7:30 AM. I'l either come back to the room around 6:00, shower, head pack to another park or go to Downtown Disney. Or, if we got to the Magic Kingdom, we're there by 8:30 AM, and don't leave until closing.

 

[DisneyPhD]

well joviacdan, it sounds like value resorts are right for you. I haven't ever stayed at one yet. Before we had kids I wanted a more relaxing and romantic astomphre, now that I have kids I need the kicthen and other DVC acomodations. I think I will try all star movies some trip on the weekend to save some points, I think 3 year old DD would like it.

I will say this (and some OKW die hards will flame me for it too!) I wasn't that impressed with a studio room at OKW either. (the one and 2 bedrooms are amazing though!) I don't really like being in the spred out accomodations, some people love it (privacy, close parking). To get a real feel of DVC I think you need to stay in a new resort such as BCV, VWL or BWV. Some will argue that OKW is the only true DVC resort, but just a studio isn't a true representation of how great DVC is. That is one reason DVC has many different options to chose from. Also the points are always less at OKW and many people love that! You also were compareing a over 10 year old resort with a brand new one. (OKW to PC)

 

[joviacdan]

Yeah, I have no doubt that if stayed in one of the other ones I'd have a difference of opinion.

I'd LOVE to stay at the Boardwalk. I think it's beautiful there.

Yeah, the All Stars are a great bet for kids. For me, there's just something that screams Disney about it. I got much more of a Disney feeling there than I did at OKW.