Seeking Advise on Disney's Vacation Club

My parents are DVC members and love it! We have gone with them on vacation every year and have had no problems at all! The quality of resorts with Disney is excellent. We have stayed at the boardwalk several times. We took the Disney Cruise with my parents last year. It was amazing!! Disney is a quality company with a great customer service record. I would definately recommend investing in DVC.

Hi S.,

We have been DVC members since 2002. I also wish that we had joined sooner now. We joined after going to Boardwalk with my brother and sister-in-law on their timeshare. We fell in love with the enviroment and the way we feel like we are at home while there. I read what some of the others said about timeshares and I would agree with some but not with DVC. We went down to Florida and stayed nine nights with our timeshare. If it wasn't for us joining there would have been no way that our family of four and also my parents could have stayed that long. They also have tons of perks once you join. This year we opted to get annual passes because with our DVC membership we get a $100 off per pass. That is pretty awesome. We love having the DVC because it gives us the chance to go on vacation every year even if money is tight. I wouldn't give it up for anything.
As for problems we really haven't had any. If we have they took care of them right away. We have always got the dates that we wanted. It truly has been a great thing for our family. If you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me at ____@____.com if you haven't been talking to anyone our rep from the DVC is great. If you need her name let me know. She is really good!
Hope this helps. If you need anything else please let me know. We are headed to Disney in July! Not soon enough though!
Have a great day!

S.

My sister and her boyfriend are members (no kids) and they love it! She goes several times a year.

Dear S.,
I am a 50 year old mom of seven. I have a set of twin boys age 25 from a previous marriage. My husband has a set of twin boys age 29 , a daughter 23 and a daughter 18 all from a previous marriage. He and I have a 10 year daughter together. We love to take vacations where we can stay in a home like atmosphere. We are planning a trip next year as a family to Disneyworld and are also looking into the vacation club villas. We were advised by a Disney consultant to first try out a villa in the size we are looking for. You can do that first so you will know if it is what you like at which ever one of the deluxe Disneyworld hotels. That is what we are going to do first at either the Wilderness Villas or the
Beach Club Villas. Since we have such a large family we just need to decide on the size, two or three bedroom villa. Our sons are in the military and away but we like to get together during their leave time and do the family reunion thing, LOL.
I am sorry that I couldn;t give you any advice about the club other than what I was given. I hope this will help you some before you make such a big decision concerning your family and expenses. Disneyworld also has the Wilderness camping cabins too.
E. M.

Check out www.disboards.com There's a board about DVC. There's also a site called dvcbyresale, I think. You can link to it from www.allearsnet.com and maybe the disboards, too.

People seem to love DVC. You are not locked into a particular week or even a particular resort. You can book 7-9 months out depending on what resort you choose. You also have a number of other locations around the globe that participate in DVC. They work on the same points system, so you can go whenever you want, as long as you have the points available.

Good luck!
--H.

As a child of two teachers who took summers to travel and camp with us, I have to say that locking yourselves in to going to the same place over and over and OVER seems kinda boring. By the time I graduated high school I had been in every state east of the Mississippi plus a handful to the west including the Bad Lands, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, etc...
Disney is nice once or twice, but I really think there is more learning in going to national monuments, parks, and different big cities.

S....I WAS READING THE OTHER RESPONSES...PARTICULARLY THE ONES AFTER MINE, AND I WANTED TO RESPOND THAT THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENY PLACES ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD FOR THAT MATTER, THAT YOU CAN GO AND USE YOUR POINTS WITHIN DISNEY VACATION CLUB. SO PLEASE DO NOT MAKE YOUR DECISION BASED UPON THE FACT THAT YOUR KIDS "MIGHT GET BORED!" THERE ARE PLACES AS CLOSE AS NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA, AND PLACES AS FAR AWAY AS AUSTRALIA AND CHINA!!! MY KIDS HAVE NEVER BEEN BORED AND WE'VE BEEN GOING FOR TEN YEARS!!!!! WE SOMETIMES TAKE A YEAR OFF AND BANK OUR POINTS SO WE CAN GO LONGER THE NEXT YEAR (LIKE 14 DAYS INSTEAD OF ONE WEEK) BECAUSE THEY LOVE IT SO MUCH! ONCE AGAIN, GOOD LUCK! T.

Hi S.! You have had many responses so far...mostly in favor of DVC so I won't go on and on about them as I so easily could! Let me just say this, we are so incredibly happy that we did this almost 10 years ago and have paid off our dues twice and are adding MORE points this year! If that does not say what satisfied customers we are, nothing will! We have 5 children ranging in age from 13 to 20 and we even go by ourselves at least once a year just to get away. I personally do not see any way that you would regret the decision to join...the availability is awesome; we have never not been able to get what we wanted, and every other year we take ALL the kids, plus each set of our parents. We've stayed at MANY different of the Clubs and have our 2 memberships through Saratoga. But we have never been disappointed anywhere we have stayed. We have never encountered any problems and it actually DOES feel like a home away from home! All kidding aside! So good luck in your decision making, and don't hesitate to contact me if you'd like more info! (P.S. It does not have to be 50 years!!!)

Hi S.!
My family is a member of the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) and have been for over 5 years! I wish we had only known about it sooner! I have looked into other timeshares and totally steered clear. I did NOT want to be locked in to a certain week of the year or be limited on were I could go on vacation.
There are SOOO many differences with DVC! First of all, when I stay away from home, I do not want to chance staying at a rat hole. I was running into the problem of booking a room with a GOOD HOTEL CHAIN and ended up leaving after changing rooms twice. I just don't want to subject my family to any more germs and grime than I need to. I know that I only want to stay at the best place I can afford. Saying that, Disney quality is totally UNSERPASSED!!! Not only are the accomadations totally great, but you are treated great! The Disney philosophy of how they treat their guests is awesome! Every business should really take a lesson from them! If I am going to spend good money, I want to make sure I'm happy. My husband and I totally found that with Disney! We have stayed at Vero Beach - Totally relaxing and super staff! We have also stayed at The Villas at Wildnerness Lodge, very different twist from our home resort, but once again - great accomidations! Our Home resort is Beach Club Villas. This is by far my favorite! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Storm-a-long Bay! It is so great for kids of all ages. When my little one was 9 months, she loved it and still my older kids totally dig it! We love to stay at BCV due to the location. It's a 3 minute walk from the International Gateway to our rooms, or it's a boat ride to the Studios. To get to MK, we usually go thru Epcot and ride the monorail. The girls really love ridding up front with the conductor. I could go on and on about how great Disney is, but I won't :) If u want to hear more you can email me at ____@____.com
I do want to point out a few more benefits to being a DVC member. Think about how much it would cost you to stay in the same accomidations at Disney for a week you are looking at well OVER $2,000, just for the a one bedroom Villa (full kitchen, washer and dryer, large whirlpool tub and seperate shower. Also seperate area for the toilet - nice - huh!) We currently pay like $225 per month for a total of 10 years. Think about paying $2000 for every year for 50 years... Do the math... That comes out to OVER $100,000!!!! EEEKKK!!! You are totally ahead if you join DVC.
If you decided not to go on vacation one year, simpily bank the points until the next year. We opted to do that one year and then we took all of my in-laws the following year. It was AWESOME!!! You can also borrow from "next year" as well.
I just can't tell you how much we enjoy DVC! Not only Disney... but you can go to over like 400 places in the world :)
TTFN!
Marg

Hi S.
I'm not in the vacation club but I have some experience (from my husband's family) w/time share. Be very careful when you sign timeshare paperwork and ensure that everything is disclosed. Try to really envision the future and how it will benefit your family when your kids are teenagers and beyond that. My husband's family has timeshare and after a difficult experience with one, they are now w/another company and absolutely love it. They are able to travel 6 plus weeks out of the year. It can be a great asset to your family if you can do a lot of traveling. If you only have 2 weeks a year to use it, I would not recommend time share mostly because of the cost and time commitment...

Save your money. Would be great if you wanted to go take Disney vacation every year. but even kids get bored with that. Open a separate savings account, put at least $30 week thru payroll deduction and you would be amazed at how soon you can save for family vacation to any of hundreds of place where kids can have fun too.

we also use to have a timeshare, we ended up having to pay more to get vacation time (which is much better)just to get rid of the timeshare.
My answer to timeshare is NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why buy into even a Disney Vacation Club?????
Go to AAA. They have a magazine on many different hotels and the packages they have for Disney. They are awesome deals!!!!!!!!! You can get a week booked at most of them anytime you want. The key to that is being able to book as far ahead as possible. Even at last minute, you will find one of the hotels/resorts, that would have openings.

Hi S., My parents at Disney Vacation Club members and THEY LOVE IT... as do the kids and grandkids.....There has never been a problem with availablity. Our "home" at disney is at the Boardwalk. My parents went there 3 times last year, and they are taking the grandkids in October... I would say its a great investment, even though I personally dont have one, but my family does.... Good luck