DVC....I wish.....

[ANGEL]

OK so I know nothing about the DVC really, but the board looked so lonely! And I would love to own some DVC points or whatever they are! OK bye now.....

[AlisonB]

Angel - I couldn't leave you here with no answers to your post!

DVC sounds wonderful! It's just all that money up front sounds scarey! <img src="http://www.purple-paw.com/~disneybb/iB_html/non-cgi/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':0'>

[ANGEL]

Yes, Alison, scary...and we don't have it!!!!! .

[MickeyMcMouse]

Hello Girls,(long story ahead)

Its not so scary,....we looked at it about 3 or 4 years ago, and each trip after that we promised to go on the tour. Always chickened out at the last minute.

Then in aug 2000 we had upgarded to pe from manchester and when we had arrived were told that the plane we should have had was taken away and we were given this smelly old thing. We received a full refund of our upgrade and used it to book at sneaky week in dec 2000.

(Bear with me)

When booking the aug trip, we had also booked a trip end of march/ april 2001 to get best use out of our annual passes, so we ended up going 3 times in nine months.

(told you its a long story)

When sitting down in march to work out budget, we realised how much we had given &quot;Mr Disney&quot; for hotel rooms(Wilderness Lodge - you have got to try that place, been 5 or 6 times and feel in love with it.) we decided that we would definately do the trip.

When we got there we booked a spot for the last night at wilderness before we went to Gulf Coast, and guess what, on last day chickened out again .. Had a good reason this time, reasoned that if we had done it, I would have moaned about money for the rest of the holidays, so rebooked the trip for the last day. Perfect thing to do on your last day after checking in a downtown.

(getting there !!,

On last day, as usual it was mad rush, so missed the trip round DVC andgot home. About a month later we got a phone call from a great guide (Jim McCoy) asking if we needed any info about anything so eventually we bit the bullet and bought into DVC. (thats how I found out about the dis boards)

My only regret is not having done it when we first noticed it 3 or 4 years ago. It would have just about paid for itself by now.

We got a great deal financing it( work in the motor trade so had a little inside info on that - eventually put it on credit card and got airmiles HA!, and we now have the next 40 years of holidays to enjoy with only flights and a car to find.

So ......... if you go to to WDW every other year or more, its definately worth thinking about.

If I had been clever we would have realised that the 3 visits in 2000/01 would have paid over 1/3 of it, but you can't win them all &nbsp;,

any questions ........


David ,

[Kazzie]

David

You make it sound quite easy , &nbsp;I'll know you'll say now it is!

As we prefer to stay off site DVC is not applicable for us.Is it true the sooner you but into it the better ie not having several holidays and then becoming members.Or does it benefit you whenever you join? Just curios!

[MickeyMcMouse]

The quicker you buy into it, the more years you get to use your points.

The programme last until 2042 and its looks like the costs of your points go up every other yearish, so the quicker you buy, the longer you have to use your points for the same or less money.

Does that make sense ?

ps its definately easy - just get your credit card out ! &nbsp;,


David ,

[ANGEL]

AH, not so easy for me.....I don't have a credit card!!

[MickeyMcMouse]

Seriously tho, if you take a trip to WDW and stay on-site at least every two years, this is IMHO the way to go.

I think, apart from maintainence fees that it will have &quot;paid&quot; for itself in about 4 to 5 years for us.

David ,

[Anita]

Always wonder and know I now
Thanks guys &nbsp;,

[MickeyMcMouse]

we spent around $15,000, around £10,700 depending on exchange rate which will let us have around 15 days ish in prime wdw property for the next 40 years. i think you can do it for less initially maybe around £8000.

(can you tell i am totally hyper about dvc &nbsp;. )

David ,

[BevS97]

how many points do you have? &nbsp;I know the min is 150 but when I looked at the points calculator it didn't look like that would go very far.

Bev

[MickeyMcMouse]

We bought 200 but got a use year of april(our points run april to march), so when we signed up in sept, we had a whole years worth of points to use before end of march.

We only used half for our trip in jan so we banked the other half. It looks like this will probably be an ongoing thing so will have the option of using 300 in a year.

David ,

[Carole]

We've just had the info video from them and are waiting for an info pack with more details. I think we will go for it this year, probably when we're there in October. Three of our peps have £7000 plus in them and they're not performing that well so we may well cash one in and invest in our holidays instead. Failing that, my new marbles credit card just informed me that my credit limit has just gone up to £8500. Are they mad?? .

[MickeyMcMouse]

Carole

The price per point is $75 at the moment and i think its going up to $80 june time ?, but you can get a deal on the site just opened ( beach club villas ) which takes it down to $70. I think there's a few ifs and buts.

If using your cc you will get a better exchange rate than the tourist rate anyway, but try and make sure you wait and get the best rate. I know that we saved hundreds of pounds because the rate had went up from about 1.30 to 1.42 from when we looked at it around end of 2000 till we bought in sept 2001.

If you've any questions, shout and i'll try and answer some for you. The only thing about dvc is that apart from disney themselves, the only other place you can get any info is on the boards. We scoured the internet and most of the sites we found we out of date, until we found dis...


David

[Kaylee]

I love my DVC, we only have 150 points and can go for a couple of weeks every two years. But will have top-notch on-site accommodation when we go.

Hoping to buy more points - not just yet though ,

Kaylee

[MickeyMcMouse]

Hi Kaylee

Yee Haaaa, another DVC'er, I was getting lonely. ,

David ,

[Michelle]

Well 150 points is better than no points ,
We looked into it last year, but decided that it wasn't the time for us YET!!

[BevS97]

I guess I'm just scared that it's a bit limiting - who knows one day we might decide we want to go somewhere else on vacation! (I know it seems unlikely!,
But it does seem very tempting - even Phil seemed interested the last time I mentioned it, &nbsp;normally he just rolls his eyes and says 'yes dear' while completely ignoring me, &nbsp;but this time he asked how much it cost and what you got for that etc and didn't turn pale at the cost - so who knows, &nbsp;maybe one day...

Bev

[Carole]

Thanks David, if I think of anything in particular I'll give you a shout.
We're both very excited about it at the moment, as we want to buy into BC villas, and we couldn't afford to stay there otherwise. Really looking forward to the close proximity to Epcot and the Food and Wine Festival &nbsp;, .

[MickeyMcMouse]

BevS97

Remember you not only have the propertys in florida, plus hilton head(south carolina), plus disney hotels in california, plus disneyland hotels in paris and the disney cruise line, you also have the exchange system thro II, which gives you umpteen hundred worldwide exchanges.

There's even some in the UK ,

David ,

[ChristineUK]

Just thought I would add #my bit.

We chickened out a few times before buying, it seemed such a lot of money. #I found the DIS boards and realised you could buy DVC resale. #We bought 380 points in Jan 98 for $52 a point! #Since then we have had 4 wonderful holidays, that we wouldn't have been able to afford. #One of them included a cruise on the Magic. #

Last October we took our friends with us and we all stayed in WLV followed by OKW. #They were blown away and are desperate to buy. # They #are saving like mad to buy into BCV's and returning this October to buy them. # I think once you have stayed at a luxuary resort in Disney, it is very hard to stay any where else. #

Saying that we are splitting our holiday this year and staying 4 nights in the new Royal Pacific Hotel. #Got a great rate of $139 at club level! #

We are planning a 7 night cruise in 2004, something that we would never have been able to afford with out DVC.

[Jan]

Christine - whilst I would certainly not discourage any from buying DVC or going to that wonderful place called WDW, do your friends know that they don't actually have to go to WDW to buy the points - it can be arranged over the telephone with a guide. &nbsp;DVC will then send out the documents and instructions for their return by Fedex. &nbsp;It's just that there is an offer on at the moment of $5 per point off the cost. &nbsp;Just thought I'd mention this.

[ChristineUK]

Jan - Thanks, they do know. &nbsp;I have been trying to persude them to buy before June, but they are hoping to save more money by October. &nbsp;They already had the holiday booked before coming on holiday with us. &nbsp;They didn't expect to like it as much as they did and are really regreting booking the holiday. &nbsp; &nbsp;My friend says that she doesn't want to stay anywhere else and is not looking forward to staying in the QIP on ID. &nbsp;I said that it was a lovely hotel and in fact we had our honeymoon there! &nbsp;

I think her husband is getting nervous about spending all that money and when you are 1000's of miles away from DVC it starts to fade. &nbsp;I think they will buy, but they will pay the higher price.

[MickeyMcMouse]

ChristineUK

Just wait till they watch the video, over and over and over and .....................

David &nbsp;,

[Disneymad]

It IS scary, forking up all that cash up front...we bought in with 160 points last May...and already I'm most likely going to take advantage of the BCV offer this time round too - it means adding on 100 points to qualify which is a bit more than I had planned, but I don't think you can have too many points really.

As an indication of what you can get...it's cost me 160 for an 8 night stay at BW in prime time August. I can say for a FACT, I would never have stumped up the cash or justify staying at BW at anytime of the year, let alone August!

For that reason alone, I love the DVC .

Penny .

[Hil]

We bought in last year with the minimum 150 points to 'see how it went' knowing we could add on later if we felt we needed to.

We stayed for 6 nights in OKW in October, went for a studio to save up some points for a big trip this year, and used the princely sum of 61 points!

That seemed like pretty good value to me . &nbsp;

I'm looking forward to the addition of the Institute into the DVC programme as, in my limited experience to date, it seems that the biggest 'problem' with DVC is its popularity. &nbsp;Hopefully every new property added will help make it easier to book somewhere in WDW.

[MickeyMcMouse]

Hi Girls,

It's good to see some more posters on the DVC boards. .

We're nearly all together again .

David