Points Well Taken Travel

My first exposure to Disney Vacation Club came way back in the late 90s. My parents planned a trip with our cousins and we all stayed at Old Key West in separate 2-bedroom villas. My parents and aunt and uncle booked them through the Disney website just like any other room. I remember loving that we had a hang-out space vs just a 2-Queen room for me and my sisters to share. We returned to Disney a couple of years later with almost our entire extended family on my mom’s side. No one owned points at the time but we booked a few 2-bedroom villas at The Beach Club. It was an epic trip filled with happiness, humor, and now-classic memories and inside jokes that have stood the test of time. Being a typical 18 year old, I was more concerned with enjoying the trip and gave little thought to the type of room we stayed in or how my parents booked it. Many years would pass after this trip before I returned to Disney.

Time passed and life changed. My mother, sadly, passed away in 2009. Family vacations to Disney became a thing of the past for us until one day one of my aunts mentioned that she and my uncle had purchased something called Disney Vacation Club points and asked if my sister and I would like to join them on a trip. We enthusiastically said yes! They had purchased their points at Bay Lake Tower and we stayed, along with them and our cousin, in a 2-bedroom villa. We had so much fun! I was fortunate enough to accompany them for a couple more trips over the years and really understood the value of those villa-style rooms. Being able to do laundry at the end of the day and having access to a full kitchen is such a luxury on vacation, especially with young children!

As it does, time marched on, and life changed for all of us. My aunt and uncle added in-laws and grandchildren to their travel party; I got married and had children of my own. It wasn’t long after having my first child that I began dreaming of her first trip to Disney. Less than two years later, we added a set of twins to the family and the dream trip grew bigger! Dreaming turned to planning and I began browsing vacation packages on Disney’s website. Because of my privileged trips in the past, I was a deluxe girl at heart and knew I wanted to bring my children to the deluxe hotels as well. Sticker shock sent me straight to google to read about “how to save on a Disney trip”. I was already familiar with discount ticket sellers like Undercover Tourist, and although nice, the discounts wouldn’t bring the price of my dream vacation down all that much. The room was the real tricky part. Disney vacation club came up in my searches and I priced out direct contracts, but it seemed out of reach. With more googling, I learned about the resale market and began pouring over websites and watching contracts come and go. All of this was merely a hobby at the time, I was busy with many babies, and this was all just for my own entertainment at naptime and bedtime. Then Covid hit. Travel seemed like a distant goal. I stopped browsing the resale sites. That was a mistake as prices plummeted and people were able to get amazing deals. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. But truly, we weren’t ready to buy then. My husband didn’t even know I had this idea yet! By the time we were ready to seriously consider scheduling our first family trip, our financial position had strengthened enough to make DVC a legitimate consideration. I made a powerpoint presentation for my husband, along with a couple of spreadsheets. I am pleased to say he didn’t have to think too long on it, he was on board right away!

My husband and I are both conservative when it comes to personal finance. We don’t often spend frivolously, and we value stability and financial security. How does this mindset lead to such an extravagent purchase then? I knew we would not take the trips we wanted to give our children without it. As a young child I lived within driving distance of Disneyland and I have such fond memories of taking day trips with my family. As a pre-teen/teen, I remember the excitement any time my parents told us we were going to Disney World. I wanted my kids to feel the same joy and excitement during their childhood. But I knew I would say no, over and over again, when faced with the incredibly high cost of a Disney trip (of course I could have considered different accommodations but once spoiled by DVC villas, it’s hard to). I would dream about the trip and mentally plan it but I would always say “maybe next year” and save that money instead. And then, before I knew it, their childhood would be gone. Purchasing DVC gave us access to a hotel stay every single year. It made those dreams of Disney trips a literal must-do and not a fantasy. This purchase was a commitment to family time and memories. This is the number one reason that we bought in. We wanted it, it was an emotional decision, and it was a concious choice to make Disney trips a priority. I will go on to explain other factors that helped rationalize this decision but I want to be clear that this choice was made more with emotion than logic. And that’s ok to do. Life is short and logical choices don’t always make for the best memories. The other factors that influenced our decision are as follows:

1. We could afford to buy it with cash. I am not a financial professional and I pass no judgment on those who choose to finance their DVC contracts but for us that was a non-starter.

2. We wanted access to 1 or 2 bedroom DVC villas for every trip and we did not want to rent points. We prefer to have control over the points for booking.

3. DVC contracts hold their value well. If you look at the resale websites, you will see that these contracts are not being sold for a song like many other timeshares people are trying to get out of. Many people even make a profit when they sell their contract. I do not consider this purchase to be an investment at all, but I do have peace of mind knowing that the value has held over decades and that the Disney parks are going to be a tourist hot spot for decades to come.

I ran some numbers based on our total buy in cost, dues paid to date, and cash price of the actual trips we’ve taken with a 30% discount applied. If we continue to take an annual trip, we will reach our break even point in four more years. I also ran a calculation based on investing that initial buy in, assuming a 10% annual return, and a withdrawal for each actual trip taken and then a similarly priced annual trip going forward and the money would run out in four more years as well. I feel good about our purchase since now, after 2029, we will be able to continue to take annual trips and only pay the cost of annual dues vs that initial Disney Vacation fund being dried up and having to come up five or six thousand dollars for a hotel stay every year. If our dues increase at 3% each year, and Disney’s rack rate increases at 3% each year, come 2029 we would be getting 73% off of Disney’s rack rate for our trip. Additionally, even if we decided we were done with Disney by that year, we could sell our contract and recuperate a portion, if not all, of our initial investment. That aunt and uncle who took me on trips to Bay Lake Tower? They purchased their points at $100/point and they could sell them now, conservatively, for $130/point.

As a family who wants to take an annual trip to Disney, and only wants to stay in larger deluxe villas, Disney Vacation Club makes a lot of sense. If you don’t plan to make an annual trip or are happy staying at the Value or Moderate hotels, or staying offsite, then DVC might not be right for you. For us, we have no regrets! We only wish we would have bought sooner!