is DVC worth it??

we're considering buying in at 100 points, and with all the incentives right now it's about $97 per point- not financing, and choosing AKV as our home resort...but is it worth it, or are we still under the disney spell, and thinking about soemthing that is not worth it?? I know the accommodations are waaay better, but i feel like it is tying us to WDW for the next 50 years, and is that really a smart decision?? It's a great way for us to "ensure" that we go back, but who knows what the future holds.... i also want to travel other places, so it may not be the right thing, but please, chime in if you have any pros or cons for us to consider... we have 10 days to make our decision with the package offered to us at the tour-- including the 09 points, and a $1500 credit.... oh the agony!!!

Well, I would search here on DVC and see what you think. We own DVC and it is worth it for us. But we go to WDW frequently and had been going frequently when we decided to buy. I personally think that the re-sale market is the way to go. This is the place we used:

http://www.dvc-resales.com

IMO, it is seldom a good idea to buy a timeshare with the intent to trade it. I would buy DVC only if you plan to go to WDW at least every 3 years.

Also, make sure to read the DVC forums on disboards.

Don't forget the annual maintenance fees!

I'm also not a fan of financing purchases like this. If you can pay for it outright, that's another story. And keep in mind that the resale market tends to slow down with the economy, so if you decide to try to sell for financial reasons, you may be stuck for a while.

These are some of the reasons we haven't done it, plus I keep on getting great deals at the resorts that I don't feel like a comparison of the cost to rack rates is appropriate.

Ah good point. You will only "make back" your money on DVC if you stay Deluxe or higher. You will never break even if you typically stay at moderates or values. We actually bought it (with my ILs) to use for large family vacations every 3 years. It works well for us for this purpose, that way we can get two 2 bedrooms or one grand villa and our extended family can all stay together. In between the DVC stays, if we go, we stay at lower price point hotels.

We also paid cash. I would not finance either. If you ever need to sell it, well, look at the prices on the re-sale page. Most place go for $64-$85 a point depending on the location, so it can be hard to re-coup your full investment if you need to.

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Originally Posted by kochh2

we're considering buying in at 100 points, and with all the incentives right now it's about $97 per point- not financing, and choosing AKV as our home resort...but is it worth it, or are we still under the disney spell, and thinking about soemthing that is not worth it?? I know the accommodations are waaay better, but i feel like it is tying us to WDW for the next 50 years, and is that really a smart decision?? It's a great way for us to "ensure" that we go back, but who knows what the future holds.... i also want to travel other places, so it may not be the right thing, but please, chime in if you have any pros or cons for us to consider... we have 10 days to make our decision with the package offered to us at the tour-- including the 09 points, and a $1500 credit.... oh the agony!!!

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My parents have it and it is great. The whole family uses it and now I am looking forward to taking my daughter when she gets a bit older. Besides over 20 trips to Disney world over the years by various family members:

We have also used the points for Disney cruises and my parents used points for an Aventures by Disney Tour. They used points for a London hotel and a NYC hotel for a weekend getaway. You don't have to use the points only at Disney.

It is fantastic as long as you will use it. We have no regrets getting into it as a family and we have added on more and more points as the years go on.

We're probably under the Disney "spell" too but decided to go for it -- we just bought into Bay Lake Towers. We bought with my sister's family and figured we each would use the points every other year. In November we rented points from an owner at stayed in a 2-bd in Jambo House at AKL and loved it. When we rented, we spent only $207/night whereas Disney was charging $650+ tax for the same room. By renting, we were able to do the dining plan and use the transportation and we thought it all went great. We totally got spoiled and said we would only want to stay in condo-type accomodations (with kitchen, laundry) in the future and DVC is really the only option if you want to stay on property and take advantage of the dining plans, transport, etc.

On disboards.com, you can find a lot of good info in the DVC section. From what I have read, you can trade in 160 points for a weeklong stay at other non-Disney properties so that would be an option if you wanted to travel elsewhere. At 100 points, you can bank and borrow and have a nice chunk of points at a given time. Don't feel pressured to make a desicion within 10 days -- they've been running similar promotions for a couple of months now.

And if you do purchase and decide to sell a few years down the line, I don't think you can expect to get back what you paid -- you would have gotten several years worth of trips so it makes sense that the resale value would be less. The amount of years left on the contract would be less and the contract should cost less.

For our family, it seems to make sense. Only you can really decide if it makes sense your yours. And if you are not ready to make that committment, you can always find owners willing to rent their points on disboards.com very reasonably.

We also bought at Bay Lake Towers- had to buy direct from Disney, definitely resale is a better value but we wanted to ensure we could book BLT 11 months out as it is our favorite resort. We always stayed deluxe or villas so I think it is worth it to us; however, we bought it for use at Disney properties. I don't think it's a good deal if you use points for RCI properties- I could get a week at many of these places for less paying cash than what you paid for maintenance on your points that year.

You guys are all killing me. We stayed at Bay Lake Towers (not renting DVC points or anything - they were allowing people to book them under the buy 4/get 3 promotion since they were not fully booked) when we went a few weeks ago. It was so wonderful, I was ready to move into the place. (Well, maybe with one more bedroom, since I can't imagine that we'll want to share a room with the girls for too many more years.)

If we didn't have to either spend several hundred dollars on airfare or drive for 24 solid hours to get to WDW we would have bought into the DVC in a heartbeat. As it is, we're thinking we'll rent points from people in a few years and go back. I'm totally spoiled for accommodations now, and can't imagine taking that same trip without a kitchen - we had groceries delivered and ate more than half our meals at "home", which was much, much nicer than eating out every meal with a toddler!

Sarah :)