My husband and I are seriously looking into purchasing points with Disney Vacation Club (DVC). Is anyone here a member? Any advice or anything we should know before we go through with it? We would be buying into one of the resorts in Florida for our home resort.
Many thanks!
I’m a DVC member, but only for a couple of years.
Fundamentally, it’s a timeshare. Most of the standard timeshare caveats thus apply.
You probably hear things in their pitches about how you’ll “save” money in the long run. Ignore this, because if you don’t buy in, you probably wouldn’t be spending a week every year at Disneyworld in their more expensive rooms.
Yes, some people “rent” weeks out to others on the open market and make some money for years they don’t go. Don’t bank on being able to do this, however.
A fundamental rule of any vacation is that you should not finance it–if you don’t have the money in the bank to pay for it, don’t take the vacation. I consider DVC, or any timeshare, vacation spending. If I couldn’t have written out a check, I wouldn’t have bought it.
There is a resale market for people trying to get rid of their points. You can get points cheaper that way (though not absurdly cheap, the contracts have a clause that allows Disney to buy the points back if they’re undervalued). But note that since it’s a points system that allows borrowing of future points, you will see a lot of “stripped” offers that you wouldn’t be able to use for a while.
Disboards has a whole section dedicated to DVC, you will get a lot of good information there.
As a single guy, I bought enough points for a studio at Bay Lake during peak time (Christmas). Since I don’t go at peak times, I’ve already accumulated quite a decent surplus. I’m not yet sure if this is a good thing 
Watching the fireworks from the Top of the World Lounge is pretty damn cool.
If you have not officially contacted Disney yet for their official information stuff, feel free to PM me for a referral name if you want. If you have a referral, you’ll get a discount if you choose to buy. I imagine I would get something as well.
That’s what I can think of offhand.
Member for ten years.
Its a timeshare. As timeshares go its rather expensive. It CAN be a good deal if you regularly go to Walt Disney World and want to stay in a multi-room unit on site. The best use of DVC points is at DVC resorts. Don’t buy it to cruise, go skiing in Colorado on a trade, stay at the Polynensian. If you don’t mind offsite, there are cheaper timeshares. If you don’t mind working the system - and aren’t picky about which resort you stay at, there are cheaper timeshares that trade in.
Resale is a LOT cheaper, although Disney is currently changing their resale rules - it used to be that resale owners were indistiguishable from direct owners. Now resale owners won’t qualify for some non-DVC options (basically the Disney owned ones, you won’t be able to use your points to cruise on the Magic if you buy resale).
Second going over to the disboards.
Thanks for the directions to Disboards - it looks pretty amazing over there, I’m checking it out!
My husband got a nice bonus this year, and he particularly wants to do something like this with the money. We were at Disney in early December, and it proved to be a wonderful vacation and stress release from all of the stuff we deal with. He wants to invest in some vacations we can do as a couple, or with our college-age daughter, or with his brother and his family. We had a big realization that we need to get away together more often for our physical and mental health. (We spend a lot of time separated due to job requirements) We also both realized that we could probably have a great time on the property without even visiting the parks if we wanted to. It’s a place we like and feel relaxed and comfortable.
We’re going to explore the ins and outs a bit more before we make a final decision, but all the advise is much appreciated.
The best way to think about DVC is that IF you are the type of people who have consistent vacation habits (once a year, generally speaking interested in Disney) the lifetime break even is about 7 years for your vacation costs. Because it’s Disney, you have a lot of favorable flexibility with other destinations as well.