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Are Vacation Clubs Worth It

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Is Disney Vacation Club Worth It?

There are 350 destinations around the world and youll be given access to a site where you can view and book properties. Even though the best value for your DVC points is at Disney, it can work like any other time share. If youre not feeling Disney on a particular year but still want to take a trip, you can. But back to what I said earlierif an every-other-year trip to Disney World doesnt sound like something you want to sustain, DVC membership probably isnt for you. Try renting DVC points instead of buying.

Dvc Cost Vs Paying Cash For Your Resort Stay

Lets say you buy 160 points at Saratoga Springs Resort. For purposes of this example, 160 points would cover 11 nights of vacation in a Saratoga Springs Studio unit: a 6-night stay in Magic Season and a 5-night stay in Choice season. These roughly correspond with regular season for cash pricing of resort rooms.

  • Your dues for 160 Saratoga Springs Resort points are $1,083 in 2020, which pays in advance for points that straddle 2020 and 2021.
  • If you rented points from an owner to stay in a Saratoga Springs studio for the same dates at $19 a point, it would cost you $3,040.
  • Maybe youd be just as happy staying in the least expensive Disney Deluxe hotel room, and youre able to get a modest discount on the hotel room. If you stayed at Wilderness Lodge in Regular Season with a 25% discount, 11 nights would cost you $4,592 with tax in 2021.
  • If you paid the full rack rate charged by Disney to stay in a Saratoga Springs studio for 11 nights in Regular season, it would cost you $5,687 with tax in 2021.

All told, the $1,083 in dues compares pretty favorably to the much higher cost of $4,500+ to stay in a discounted cash room, or even the $3,000+ it would cost to rent the points from an owner.

How Does Disney Vacation Club Work

DVC operates on a points system that allows members to use their points in a flexible fashion at any of the DVC resorts. Those who have purchased their DVC points directly from Disney can also use those points at Disney resort hotels in California, Florida, France, Hong Kong, Japan, the Disney Cruise Line, and other vacations.

While Disney likes to emphasize the flexibility of the points system and your ability to use them outside of Disney, the reality is that the most cost-effective use of DVC points is at the DVC resorts. Using points for cruises or regular hotel rooms just doesnt give you as much bang for your buck. For that reason, DVC membership generally is not worth considering unless you plan to stay at a DVC resort at least every other year.

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About Disney Vacation Club

Disney Vacation Club, also known as DVC for short, is without a doubt one of the best vacation clubs in the hospitality world. Families traveling to Orlando every year commonly stay in their favorite Disney resorts or hotels to level up their vacation, and totally immerse themselves in the Disney themes. With all of the love that goes around, Disney began the Disney Vacation Club with their first resort that is known today as Old Key West in 1991. Since then, Disney Vacation Club has proven its worth it to thousands of families that own across 15 DVC resorts.

How Much Does Disney Vacation Club Cost

Is the Disney Vacation Club Worth It

Like we mentioned earlier, the biggest factor to answering the question is Disney Vacation Club worth it? comes down to the cost. When purchasing, Disney requires you to make a down payment like buying a home or a car and then you have to pay the remainder. The minimum initial cost is 10% of the total cost of your membership.

They will allow you to finance the remainder, but they encourage you to pay the rest either on a credit card or pay by cash/debit card. Being able to pay upfront instead of financing or using a credit card would be the best option, considering your monthly payments could be quite large and it could lead to financial strain.

If you decide to finance, you will pay per month like mortgage. You are also required to pay closing costs on your membership, just like buying a home, and the current closing costs start at $587 but go up based off of the number of points you buy and the room size you choose.

You also have to consider your annual dues. These take care of things like maintenance, and they go up every year. On average they increase 4%-6% each year, and right now the annual fees start at $70 a month.

Currently, Disney has reduced the minimum number of points required to purchase down to 100 points. For 2020, each point costs $195. This means the absolute cheapest DVC membership right now is $19,500 without closing costs and annual dues taken into consideration.

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Priority Booking At Your Home Resort

Deciding if Disney Vacation Club is worth it for you depends on the way you like to vacation. If you love your Disney home resort or find one you really like, youll be glad to know youll have priority booking there, and you should have no trouble going back. The con to this is that its not as easy to book stays at other resorts in the brand even though youll have access to them.

Additionally, there are no international resorts in the Disney brand as of yet, so if international travel is important to you, you wont necessarily be able to do this with just your DVC membership. However, you can add an RCI membership to your vacation ownership that will allow you to travel abroad.

What Is Disney Vacation Club

If youre not sure what it is, Disney Vacation Club, or DVC as it is often called, is Disneys version of timeshare ownership, except they do it a little bit differently than the traditional timeshares like the one my parents bought into when I was a kid. For a more thorough look at DVC, read our Disney Vacation Club Overview

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Downsides Of Dvc Membership

While there are tons of perks to having Disney Vacation Club membership, nothing is without its downsides.

First, its impossible to look past how expensive DVC membership is. The upfront cost, the overall cost, as well as the yearly dues arent cheap. Plus the annual fees increase every year, and can be unpredictable.

Not only is the cost of the membership expensive, but it doesnt include other costs you incur on Disney vacations. Admission, food, merchandise, and travel are all other costs that you have to take into consideration especially if going once a year.

You have the membership for 50 years, and your families desire to go every year may decrease after awhile. Going every year may become tedious, and it does limit where and when you can go on vacation. While there are a lot of choices for booking, even places all around the world, not all of them will be easy to get to or affordable to travel to for the average family.

Having a Disney Vacation Club membership takes some of the fun and spontaneity out of booking for Disney. You arent able to book a Disney World trip on a whim and just go for a little trip whenever you want. In order to use your points, you have to book quite a ways in advance and plan for a trip in order to get the most out of your points.

Is Disney Vacation Club Worth It The Pros And Cons

Is DVC Worth It? | Disney World Moderate Resort vs. Disney Vacation Club

If you make regular vacations to the Land of the Mouse every year or even hold an annual pass to Walt Disney World Resorts, you may have pondered if Disney Vacation Club is worth it. Certainly, this top vacation club holds a lot of value for many owners that look forward to their vacations year after year. Plus, it may ease the spending burden every year when you pay for your timeshare all at once. Even if you love all things Disney, make sure to weigh out the pros and cons to determine if Disney Vacation Club is worth it. Just because you love Disney doesnt mean vacation ownership is necessary for you!

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How To Handle Sales Presentations

You may have gotten flyers in the mail or seen ads inviting you to attend free live presentations to learn about timeshares or vacation clubs. Promoters often offer free vacations or other prizes for attending the sales pitch. At the presentation, the entire atmosphere is set up for you to feel like youre already on a vacation. They show you amazing blown-up photos of luxurious resorts, or they may take you on a tour of a similar unit you may be buying as part of the timeshare.

Sales staff sometimes use tactics designed to pressure you to buy. They may, for example, make you wait a long time between parts of the meeting, and you may have to meet with several people. They tell you the offer is available only now and wont be there tomorrow to make you act quickly. They hope that by the end of the presentation youre so exhausted that youll sign anything just to get out of there.

Here are a few tips to help you handle timeshare or vacation club presentations:

  • Research the company before going to a presentation. Search online for complaints about the resort developer and the management company offering the presentation. See what others are saying about them.
  • Dont act on impulse or under pressure. Youre committing to paying thousands of dollars potentially for decades or for the rest of your life. Take time to make a decision you can live with.

Know The Difference Between Points And Resort Ownership

One of the most important decisions in choosing to buy a timeshare is whether to go with a brand that offers fixed-week or points-based ownership. Heres how it works: fixed-week is pretty much what it sounds like accommodations at the same resort within the same timeframe, year after year. Though fixed-week arrangements do allow for rental opportunities or trading with other owners, they are limited in terms of flexibility. It stands to reason that points systems have been embraced by more and more resort brands, and have grown in popularity.

In the points system, youre essentially part of a vacation club within a network of resorts. Think of points as a sort of currency. Owners can book dates throughout the year, and even break up their week into shorter stays at some destinations. The benefits of points clubs extend beyond resort bookings, as well. At the Marriott Vacation Club, for example, owners have access to various collections in their Destinations Exchange Program, and can trade points for cruises, culinary tours, and excursions like mountain biking and river rafting.

So whats the downside to points? In a nutshell, it boils down to options. Many of the best windows at the best resorts come with high redemption costs. Moreover, these prime windows tend to get booked fast in some cases, within a few days of availability. This means you not only need to own a lot of points to book that dream vacation you might need to plan it up to a year in advance.

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Is Disney Vacation Club Worth It How To Decide

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Is Disney Vacation Club worth it?

This is a question we know a lot of Disney lovers have asked themselves, and want an answer to. Booking Disney vacations can be expensive, and being able to have your resort accommodations basically prepaid could save you some money in the long run.

There are so many other things to consider though when it comes to figuring out if Disney Vacation Club is worth it for your family and were here to help! Weve compiled the most common questions here to help you figure out if becoming a member is right for your family.

My Disney Experience App Replacing Magic Bands

Is Disney Vacation Club Worth It 2019

This point really depends on your preferences. Since Disney began incorporating Magic Bands into their theme park experience, more and more fans have become accustomed to the wearable tech. Not to mention, Magic Bands have taken off for being so customizable to the wearer. Annual pass holders often have multiple bands to coordinate with their outfits of the day! However, Disney Vacation Club recently announced that Magic Bands will no longer be complimentary to your stay at a resort. Instead, owners and visitors can download the free My Disney Experience app to access theme park tickets as well as their room key. Of course, you are still able to use a Magic Band if you own one.

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So Is Disney Vacation Club Worth It

There isnt a cut and dry answer to this question, and ultimately, this is up to you.

There can be a lot of benefits to having DVC membership, and its a great program for those who want to secure their Disney vacations every year, and be able to book well in advance. Its also great for those who want to travel to different Disney locations, go on Disney cruises, and take advantage of the trips offered by Adventures by Disney. Plus, you have the ability to stay in a lot of nice resorts as well, and enjoy more luxurious accommodations on your trips.

Buying into Disney Vacation Club may also be worth it for those who can pay the total cost upfront and dont have to finance the cost of membership. That makes it more affordable overall, and keeps the yearly costs limited to the annual maintenance fees.

But, it can be expensive, and 50 years is a long time to hold onto a timeshare. And, of course, it is a timeshare program. These are hard to get out of, and can be difficult to resell.

If youre considering buying into Disney Vacation Club, we recommend taking a lot of different factors into consideration. We have laid out the biggest factors to consider, and we hope this helps you decide whether Disney Vacation Club is worth it for your family or not.

Are you a DVC member, or are you considering it? Let us know in the comments!

Disney Vacation Club Review

Its true that at times it can be hard to get what you want but the trick is to plan what you want in advance and then go for it.

The biggest perk for most is the cost. Sure, its expensive and guests need to visit at least every other year to make it all worth it in the end but those that choose to buy into the Time-share system are guests that plan on coming back year after year. And when you look at the size of your resort room vs paying out of pocket, a DVC room is always the better deal.

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How To Save For Your Next Vacation

With the job market and economy on shaky ground finding a way to afford a vacation could seem harder than ever â thatâs where we come in.

My Best And Most Important Advice

Buying Disney Vacation Club?! Is it worth it?

Take your time, do your research and dont make an impulse purchaseunless youre in the habit of making impulse purchase that are in the $20K+ range.

Youll see people in the Disney Parks, in the resorts, and on the Disney Cruise Ships offering to give you a presentation on the Disney Vacation Club or even take you to tour a property. You might be offered incentives, such as extra FastPasses or free meals in exchange for attending. While theyre not going to be those obnoxious, high-pressure, these people arent leaving my office until they buy something sales people, their objective is to sell you something that costs a lot of money while youre in a happy place enjoying yourself.

While theres nothing wrong with going to a presentation to get more info about the DVC thats why they exist if youre seriously considering membership read up on the process before you say that big I do.

I had done my homework on the Disney Vacation Club before we went on our cruise. I knew it was a fit for our family. Waiting to join while on a Disney Cruise because of incentive pricing was intentional. Id done my research before I ever set foot into the presentation. I still had questions but I was able to make the decision based on knowledge and not being caught up in the moment.

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