Hi there,
My family is considering buying into DVC after our recent trip to WDW. We have two kids(aged 1.5 and 3.5 right now) and know we want to take them to disney multiple times in the future. With all the information out there I'm feeling overwhelmed on making the right choice for us. Wondering if someone can just be blunt and honest to me for the questions I have.
- Is it really worth it?
- Is it better to buy right from DVC or on the 2nd market?
- If buying on second market are you stuck at only one resort?
- Are there big pros/cons on buying straight from disney vs resale?
- If in the future we feel its not worth it for us any more is it hard to resale what we have?
Thanks in advance!
1) I recently wrote a post about how as soon as we starting doing DVC rooms, it was hard to go back to regular rooms. Are the DVC rooms worth it? Yes. Do we spend MORE money as a result, YES. But, our vacations feel like vacations. Previously we would be up at dawn and come back from the parks well after dark. By the end of our trips, we felt like we need a vacation from our vacation. Now, we enjoy the parks rather than become exhausted in them. We know we are coming back so not doing something on this trip isn't as big of a deal.
2) This used to be a really easy answer of YES. However, with some of the changes that they have been making with the new resorts, I'm less inclined to think so. For example, we go to
Disneyland more often than we go to Disney World. So if we buy resale, we probably can't stay at the new Disneyland DVC they are building unless they change their policies. We also can't stay at any of the other future resorts that they build. They might not build anymore, but I highly doubt it. Also, there are some perks that you miss out on. In the past this has been cruise discounts (30% off the year we joined), Moonlight magic, Epcot Lounge, special ticket offers, etc. It can be argued that none of these would make up for the savings from buying resale, and I kind of go "eh..." 22-50 years of no perks is actually a fairly long time to say you will never make up the difference. I personally have probably saved 4-5k from the member benefits. To be fair, quite a bit of those savings could also be achieved with an annual pass.
3) You are only stuck at one resort if you buy Riviera. I personally wouldn't buy any of the new resorts resale because you would be limited to just the one resort. You aren't going to save very much and it isn't worth it. You'll see why in my food for thought below.
4) Disney is very much about making you happy as soon as possible. You will see the points in your account very quickly. They will do a Welcome Home booking and try to get you rooms where there would otherwise not be availability etc. The process is really quick and painless. I've bought a couple contracts resale and it is agonizing finding the contract you want, negotiating with the seller, waiting for ROFR from Disney and finally getting the contract on your account (it can take up to 2 months total), and chances are that you bought a stripped contract because you wanted the best price. So now you have to wait a year or two before you can take advantage of it. But you can save a LOT of money.
5) Reselling a contract is not hard. You pick a broker, price the contract at the market rate, get a buyer, sell the contract and pay about 10% in commission. However, as the Legacy 14 get closer to expiration, I don't think any of them will hold their value as well as they have in the past. Even having some of the newer resorts like Polynesian will probably suffer because it will get to the point that buying resale at Polynesian will only give you access to a few resorts. That is several years down the road, but something to think about.
Some food for thought:
We bought 200 points in Riviera direct recently. If you are disciplined you can "save" some money. Riviera has 50 years left on the contract. If you buy direct and pick a use year that is April or later, they will give you the 2019 points. You will also have the 2020 points and the 2021 points that you can borrow. Points through brokers are currently paying out at $15.50-$16 a point. If you take all of your points (2019-2021) and rent them out, that will reduce your cost basis by $46-48 a point and you will only lose "2" years of your contract (since the 2019 points aren't counted in the 50 years from what I can tell) This takes the cost of the points from $195 a point to about $160-$165 a point after you take into account annual dues for the 2020 (prorated) and 2021 years.
This effectively took our cost basis from $195 + Incentives = ~$175 - $30 = $145 a point direct.
With current incentives and 200 points, it would $195 + Incentives = ~$180 - $30 = $150 a point direct.
Does this strip your contract? Yes. Does it make the cost quite a bit more palatable? Yes. Reducing your cost by almost 20% by only giving up 2 actual years is a pretty good deal. This approach does rely on people wanting to rent at whatever resort you are wanting to buy direct.
Resorts that this would work at:
Animal Kingdom
Bay Lake Tower
Beach Club
BoardWalk
Polynesian
Riviera
Grand California (You can't actually buy this direct, but if you are looking resale, then you could)
Grand Floridian
You can rent points from any resort, but you will get less for your points and will be subject to the 7-month booking window.
Also, you could do this with a resale contract, but they tend to be stripped (have no points available and no points left to borrow) which makes it less feasible.
Final Thoughts:
If you are planning on reselling, I probably wouldn't buy. But with respect to resell for the next 10-15 years, the Legacy 14 would probably be best bet. I think Riviera benefits from proximity to Epcot and that makes it a desirable resort. I don't think they could have put these restrictions on something like Saratoga Springs or Old Key West and been even remotely successful.
You are probably going to spend more money, but will enjoy your vacations more. We would have never thought to do a 10-day WDW trip. But we are planning one right now. The only thing we have to think about is food, tickets, and transportation. Paying cash for the whole trip would never have happened. I wouldn't be able to justify the cost. Also, we have found that we tend to take people with us. Grandparents, sibling families etc. 2-Bedroom villas are a great use of points.
Having a nicer room (especially with young kids) is just so much nicer. I've done DVC and I've done regular hotel rooms and I know what I prefer.
Since you have young kids, I would plan on getting enough points for staying in 1-bedrooms or 2-bedrooms and bring another family. There are a couple reasons for this.
1. Studios book up super fast. So if you aren't at your home resort, you probably aren't going to get one unless you are staying at Old Key West (OKW) or Saratoga Springs.
2. With young kids, you can put them to bed and still have a separate room you can go to and watch TV, play games, talk etc without worrying about disturbing them.
3. Having a separate bedroom for the kids/adults is just much nicer.
4. Availability of 1-bedrooms across all the resorts is much higher. You will have a much better chance of getting 1-bedrooms than any other room category at the 7-month window. The rooms taken are typically Studios, Grand Villas, 2-Bedrooms and 1-Bedrooms in that order.
As has been mentioned before, buy where you want to stay because that is the only place that you are "guaranteed" to be able to get the room you want when you want. There may be some places where you can't always, but most of the time if you book at 11 months, you will get what you want. Also smaller resorts are much harder to get anything at 7 months than places like OKW, Saratoga Springs and Animal Kingdom Villas (except Value rooms).
OKW and Saratoga Springs almost always have availability for everything until 2 months before a trip. Usually even closer than that.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Edits: Punctuation
