re: Disney Vacation Club

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Just reading this thread, the whole thing sounds insanely complicated to me. Why not just decide when you want to take a vacation and where, rent a room, and buy park tickets?

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Heres an example.

August 6 - 13
1 bedroom Villa standard view at the Board Walk
Cost directly from Disney website = $4,575.41

Now lets rent some points
Cost directly from a rental co = $3,190

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This is on point. The only time I have ever found value for a high end resort/hotel is on a ski vacation when you are actually using the resorts amenities. One time we were upgraded to a HUGE 2 BR presidential suite with a kitchen and everything and we were like - awesome. All we used was the bedroom and the lanai. Spent maybe 5% of our waking hours in the room on a week long vacation. we couldve stayed in a Motel 6 and have had just as good of a time tbh.

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A couple of years ago I was the chair of a planning committee for a conference at a 5 star hotel. As part of being on the committee, my room was paid for by the conference. I had been on the committee two years prior and was in a regular room. This time I enter the room, and it is this huge 1 bedroom suite with a sitting area, very nice balcony, on a concierge floor, etc.

I was so busy with the conference I basically spent the hours of 2 am - 630 am every day in the room asleep, and that's it.

I found out later that this hotel gave the conference a premium room free because we booked so many rooms, so since i was the chair it was assigned to me. But when I figured out how much it actually cost, I realized I probably would never pay for that kind of room. Just wasn't worth it to me.

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I found out later that this hotel gave the conference a premium room free because we booked so many rooms, so since i was the chair it was assigned to me. But when I figured out how much it actually cost, I realized I probably would never pay for that kind of room. Just wasn't worth it to me.

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The exact same thing happened to me. I was on staff of a non-profit that hosted a convention for 3000 people. We took over a resort in Lake Conroe, Texas, and the penthouse suite was assigned to me. It was gorgeous. But it went for $1100 a night. Would have never paid that.

Like I said earlier in the thread, Ive done Disney just about every way you can - and I prefer staying in a nice off property hotel like the Gaylord or Hilton for cheaper than the value resorts at Disney. Transportation has always been sufficient for me.

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If I was looking at this type of set up, I would multiply my "week" by 52 to see what the entire year was worth.

Most (really all) timeshares do not stand up to this simple calculation.

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But you are not buying a year, you are buying a week. You would need to apply valuation discounts because of that.

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Would you discount 50%?

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Not sure what exact number I would use. On one hand, you have more flexibility with DVC than you do with a traditional timeshare, since you can vary the week of use.

On the other hand, DVC comes with an expiration date, where traditional timeshares do not.

Traditional timeshares lose their value when newer complexes are built and people want to spend their time at the better, newer places.

With DVC, you basically are paying for a depreciating asset, as the value effectively is reduced with every passing use, as there is a finite number of years it can be used.

I don't know of anyone that looks at it as a financial investment with the idea of a massive financial return. You could get a financial return in the form of discounted future vacations.

You are basically locking in most of the future cost of your hotel stay for future vacations. Your future cost each year is the cost of assessments, plus an amortized amount of the purchase price. If you buy 150 points at 80 a point, before closing costs, it is $12,000. If there are 40 years left on the contract, that's an additional $300 a year. If your annual costs are $6 a point, that's $900/year, so you are looking at roughly $1200 a year the first year with a 3-4% increase each year.

You also have to consider that the point values needed for a stay change (increase) over time. 116 points currently gets you a week in the summer at Animal Kingdom Lodge in a standard view deluxe studio room. But in the future, the dates of each season can change - which may effect how you can use your points, effecting value of them.

Our family goes to Disney most years, but we never pay $1200 in hotel costs on a trip, so, the club does not make sense to me.

Aluani resort - look into point changes from 2015 to 2016 and date changes

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but I don't know how else to explain the point system and why disney can't just change how many points needed to stay in a room. Seasons can change, rooms can get new categories, etc. But it all must equal out.

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So what you are saying is that, a resort has a total number of points per year, say a million, and that million points can be divided among room types and dates however they see fit, but they can't change the total of a million points (unless they expand the resort)?

I asked two different DVC salesmen about that over the last year and both of told me that over time we should consider buying add-on points because over time, our points will be worth less as more and more weeks will get moved into peak seasons as well as some point requirements will just flat increase.

Now, it's certainly possible that the salesman were not correct.

I looked at it this way.... Went for a week vacation 2yrs ago, cost me $5k. So then bought enough pts for a week at the same place cost me $25K. My vac contract is until 2064, so other than maint fees I get 48 yrs of vac for the cost of 5. Grand Fla is generally $900 a night if you pay cash.