Monday, April 27, 2015

DVC : A conversation.

In my last blog post, I let you know about the benefits of getting an Annual Pass. Hopefully you found it useful and worth the read. Today I was going to write out all sorts of specifics and details on owning a Disney Vacation Club Membership, but instead, I remembered a conversation I had with one of my friends who was intrigued and wanted to know more about DVC. Since I had just come home from a Disneyland trip where we purchased the membership from the most amazing Uncle Andy (Andy Berry), all the info was on the tip of my brain and I was so excited, I just had to share. While not a typical blog post, I still think it is a great read! A lot of great questions were asked, ones I hadn't thought to ask in the pitch room. So here you go, sit back, read and enjoy! And at the end, be sure to head to the DVC Membership office and ask for Andy Berry. He'll be able to officially guide you through the amazing world of DVC! 
Tell me more about the DVC. We don't fully understand how it works
DVC.... One sec. Let me get on my computer
So DVC is a timeshare...obviously. But it's one that you can purchase points (from 50pts to 4,000 pts) which 50 pts get you like 3 days a year in a suite, and 4,000 is like 11months..The guy Andy Berry (he's on my friends list) was our agent. He's pretty cool. He said they've only sold 3 4,000pts memberships..anyways, I digress...
Basically you're buying a timeshare but no actual condo or physical address. You own these points for 50 years.
So what we did, is we bought 170pts (between my family and my sisters) to share for our family vacations we do together.
Since we bought into Aulani, (it's what they're offering) we have the ability to book rooms 11 months in the future.
But if we wanted to stay at the Grand California, we'd have to wait until we were 7 months out to give those who 'own' under Grand California a chance to reserve
The rooms are amazing.
BUT you don't have to stay at a location on property. They have over 4,000 hotels all over the world you can use points on
So for us, we pay (cause we had to finance it) $180/mo and will for 10 years, but after the 10 years, we'll have 40 years of a week of "free" vacations
170pts gets us a 2 bedroom villa for a week at really any property
YOu can borrow from future years, bank your points too if you don't use them
Gift them...
Am I helping at all? Lol

Yes. I'm reading to DH and you type haha
This is a 2 bedroom that my sister stayed in this last time. It can easily fit 9 people.
So like this year, we're banking our points, as we will be doing our cruise (which you can use points towards but cost doesn't really make sense to do cruises with the points..even Andy would say that)
But because we have the cruise next year, we're banking ,and will go to WDW at some point and have enough points to get us 1 week for us and for my parents
It makes sense for people like us to do it, because of how often we go. We spend easily 5-6k a year on vacations to Disney and other places. Might as well spend it towards that and after 10 years get the places for free.
They're partnered with RCI (which is a time share company I'm sure you've heard of)
So they have a points lock. Basically they locked in the amount of points it takes to reserve a room. It will never change (the cost of the points will increase over time) but the closed system guarantees that in 2015 it will take "X" amount of points for a 1 bedroom and in 2020, it will take that same amount of points.
There are annual fees for 'maintenance' and such...but it works out to like $640/year.
I'm kind of rambling. Do you have any specific questions?

No this is awesome

He actually said "I guess it does make sense for us since we go so much"

Nice!

Muahahahaha

He has always been hesitant on time share stuff
And each level of hotels costs different points, and it's actually lower or cheaper to stay at the suites and villas they have than say the Disneyland hotel basic rooms
Then there are the premier collection, which is like the nice one up in Tahoe, the Coronado in San Diego...
And then there are 1,000's of them all over the US. It's really cool. AND
Oh this is the best part.

the pitch. Ha! It's supposed to take 60-90 mins, and the kids go off to play and be entertained, you get drinks and food and watch videos and then when you're done they give you fast passes that don't expire
Our 'pitch' was 5 hours (ha! ) but that was unusual due to our set up, but we got like 60 fast passes and will be taking them back with us next week...
we could even bring them back in a year to their office and they'll switch them out.
But the point is, it's NO pressure to go check it out. For us the 1st time, they were like so here's the info, go home, it's a big decision and just let us know.
Dude our guy Andy HOOKED us up with stuff, we got pins, hats, toys, cookies, sodas. We walked out of there with more swag than we could carry.
I'm stoked we finally went through with it. It just made sense for as much as we travel.
And we've been through Time share pitches before and they always felt too good to be true, but with Disney it's not. It's exactly what we wanted.

You should send them that as a testimonial hahaha that was awesome

So 5 hours?!

How in the hell!! What did the kids do??

Do you have to stay that long if you go in saying you want to do it?

I could not sit there for 5 hours

So how does it work if you want to let someone else use it? How do people sell their points? Just curious
Yeah our kids are rock stars, and they had a ton of entertainment, they offered to feed them lunch...
But it was only due to the way title had to be held and that was from pitch to signing papers. It should only take an hour to two hours for the whole thing for normal people
Plus we got up took a break, walked around the villas (they have examples of them there)
And to share points, you just make the reservation, but put it under someone else's name.

So if you have a week somewhere. Can you do 2 rooms for 3 days instead somewhere else?
No, if you went in saying you want to, you'd be out in an hour.
yes. You have your points and you can use them however you want. And if you're short between 1-24 points, you can pay $12 point to get what you need
You can always add points to your plan too.
So start at the minimum then see what you use and if it's more, you can add more.

Sooooo interesting

Super intrigued. It really does seem to make sense for us

What is the difference between the grand Californian and the Alauni? Do they do DVC for grand cal
Yes, but they sold all the 'points' they were offering in that hotel as being a 'home' hotel. It's kinda of like first dibs. They can only allow so many or there'd be no points for all the members.
So right now they're offering 'home' points in Aulani and Grand Floridian.
Rumor is the next one they're going to make DVC is the Polynesian in WDW


Oooh I see. So how often would points be available to use at the grand cal? Are they hard to come by?

We would want to use other places but since we mainly go to DL, it would be a bummer if we couldn't use them.
No you just have to be on it 7 months out. We have friends who just joined and they get put on a request wait list, and ended up getting 4 days at the Grand.
It really isn't an issue from my understanding.
Holidays and more peak times it may be harder

Gotcha! We don't do peak times so that could work
Yeah, I totally recommend you guys checking it out.

I want to find someone who has the DVC for the grand cal hahah

The idea of the waiting list freaks me out a bit haha

Does Paris have Disney hotels?

I guess I could look... Sorry hahaha I'm just thinking haha
It's something you'd have to ask them about. The availability at 7 months. I don't think we asked that but it was never something they said...

Gotcha. I want to go to one now. Where do they have them? Only at the parks?
Have what?

The pitch

What's it called... The timeshare appointment? Haha



That's the disney Paris point for 2013-2104
And I don't know.... Let me ask uncle Andy
It's what we call him. You'll want to go to him
And yes it's at the kiosks in the park. You can do it over the phone but where's the fun in that

Ya I want the swag! Haha

So the Disney hotel is 110 points for 1 night?

It's seems value, and peak are the same
hold please.
lol
let me look

Hahahahahah
So that was Disneyland Paris I sent you

Ooooh
and yes, Fri-Sat during value season and peak season is the same

I saw Disneyland hotel
and that was for the standard room but sun-thurs is way less

Thought it was anaheim

We usually go thurs- sun
no, for disneyland hotel....in anaheim is super value season, standard room 32 pts/night for premium view it's 36pts sun-thurs

I'm loving the idea

Oh wow!!
fri-sat it's 40 and 45

What the grand?
but peak it's 45/54
stand / premium
let me look..
hold please.

Hahahaha
*insert disney park music here
and those were just for standard hotel rooms in the hotel. at the grand...for a studio (which holds 4) is sun-thur 17 fri-sat 22 and weekly 129
so one bedroom it's 31/ then fri sat is 40 and weekly is 235
and goes up from there
that's the adventure (low) season
premium season is 30pts sun-thurs
A deluxe studio is 1 queen bed, 1 queen size sleeper sofa 1 bathroom and kitchenette

Hmmmmmmmmm
one bedroom is 1 king size bed, 1 queen size sleeper sofa, 1 pull down bunk sized bed, 2 bathrooms and full kitchen
They really want you to stay in the villas, so they make the points more reasonable

So when you sign up. What's the final paperwork like? Do you have to finance?
If you're poor like us, yes. Lol. But no, you can outright purchase points.
Yeah it's like really any other loan documents. I was familiar with it. You have a purchase contract, a GFE etc.
You sign a note and a deed

So it's a 10 yr loan?
yes
No prepayment penalty

And how ever many points you buy is what the monthly is
yes

Is the a set pt cost? Or the more you buy the less they are?
I feel like i'm at work!
lol
no worries. I like doing this
each point is a set amount.

Hahahahahaha
i'm looking to see what it is now...
so that is with a standard 10% down payment. They give you incentives too. So we got an extra 'year' of points in our account
so right now we have 170 points we could use for this year, but we're going to bank them so come 2016 we'll have 3 years of points

The Maintenance fee. If you pay upfront, do you still have to pay it?

How is that paid for? Is it part of the financing?
Yes, that's an annual for the life that you own it.
Yeah, ours is all together. You don't have to though. You can just finance the points and then pay that on your own

It's $600 a year for the full 50 yrs?
yes. think of it as like an hoa fee
it's to maintain the grounds blah blah blah blah

I really should just go to the meeting haha

I'm going to have no questions for them because I bugged you to death about it hahahah
Ha! No worries. It's Disney and I love talking Disney


Does the fee go up by what they feel it does it stay at what you sign up as?
Yes, historically it's been something around 1%-3% per year.

Okay. That's good info.
Yeah, so it's not free obviously after the 10 years, but $600/year for a week or so in one of the villas isn't bad either.
Considering if we wanted to just stay at the Grand, one room for one night averages $700
And that's just a hotel room

Oh totally!!
And you get discounts from around the park too

Last time we went, we had our friend who used to work there contact a current employee for their half off hotel discount and it was still $350 a night. So $700 for the two nights. Ya. Totally get it! P

What are the discounts for the park?

I like that the points are the same year after year.
10% on meals at nearly every place in the park...10-20% off of merch

Oh that great. Like a pass holder
and you can pool hop. Like we went with our DVC friends to the Disneyland Hotel pool while they stayed at the Grand.
Yes.

It all adds up!
It does!

We go in feb. I'm making him go to a meeting hahaha
Nice. Totally. Let me know when you go and I'll let Andy know and he can schedule you an appointment.

Oh good idea. When we book our dates. I will let you know to have him set it up. There has to be some kind of referral!
ha! I just love spreading Disney magic.

Totally




And if you haven't caught my name dropping, I'll say it one more time since it's worth being said, you'll need to visit with Andy Berry at the DVC Membership office. He's the best hands down....Tell him Michelle says Hi to Uncle Andy if you do! 

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