help me come up About This Page:

[EmpressLizBunny]

with ways to convince my mom to buy into dvc(with me)

we almost always stay in a deluxe and we always book 2 rooms(she snores and im a light sleeper) and we have taken 2 trips a year each year so far and i realy love disney(i know she will be worried that i will lose interest and not want to go to disney anymore)

please help me come up with an argument to at least get her to look at an open house(shes a statistician and so i need numbers)help please thanks in advance

[tjkraz]

If you want to take the emotional approach, order a promotional DVD from DVC and see if you can get her to view. Just tell her it's a "Disney trip planning video" and see where that gets you.

If you want to take more of an intellectual approach, I'd start with an Excel spreadsheet. In one set of columns, list what you paid per year for your rooms a Deluxe resorts. Be sure to include the room tax! You can continue to project your annual expenses by increasing prices 3-5$ per year. Warning that the numbers will get pretty jaw-dropping after 30 or 40 years, but that's inflation for you.

Now you'll have to figure out how many DVC points you would have to buy to maintain that pattern. Points for a single night vary by resort, season, room size and even day of the week. This may be your biggest challenge.

You'll have to decide which DVC room size best suits you. If you're booking two standard rooms now, a DVC One Bedroom villa would be a nice upgrade in many respects. But staying in a 1B means that one of you is in a king-sized bed while the other is on a sofabed in the living room. The trade-off is that you gain a full kitchen, jacuzzi tub and washer/dryer right in the room. You could stick with two Studio units, but DVC doesn't have any connecting Studios. You two could be on different floors or, at some resorts, separate buildings altogether.

Once you've settled on a number of points, add the DVC info to your spreadsheet. List the up-front investment in Year 0. If you buy direct from DVC, prices will start around $94 each for points at Saratoga Springs with a minimum purchase of 160 pts. You can save a few dollars per point buying resale if you have the cash available.

In subsequent years, your only financial responsibility is the annual dues. Dues are billed according to the number of points you own. For example, the 2007 dues at SSR are set at $4.12 per point. That amount covers everything including taxes. If you don't charge anything to your room key during a stay, the bill they leave on check-out day will show a balance of $0.00.

If you buy 160 points at SSR, your 2007 dues would be $659.20 ($4.12 x 160).

List the dues out as many years as you wish in to the future--just like you did with the cash rates--and apply 3-4% inflation per year. If you list the cash and DVC costs side-by-side, chances are the cash room will cost you less for about the first 6-10 years. After that, the savings of buying into DVC will add-up very, very quickly.

Hope that helps.

[chezp]

I suspect you're going to need the Excel spreadsheet, as it sounds like she's going to be interested in figures, but the DVD would be a great way to start winning her over to the idea!

[EmpressLizBunny]

i was thinking a one bedroom I'm pretty used to sleeping on a sofa bed on other vacations also i was thinking 400 points(i want to be able to do a one bedroom twice a year) what do u think?

it looks like if we spent a week at the only the cheapest deluxe resorts one in value season and one in regular season a year then we would break even(buy in purchase wise)in 6 years but i didn't ad in annual dues or the hotel tax
sorry if that isn't clear

[tjkraz]

Originally Posted by EmpressLizBunny

i was thinking a one bedroom I'm pretty used to sleeping on a sofa bed on other vacations also i was thinking 400 points(i want to be able to do a one bedroom twice a year) what do u think?

That sounds like it should accomplish what you want. It's difficult to analyze too closely because that still leaves a lot of variables unknown. DVC has 5 separate seasons and the nightly points for individual resorts vary greatly. Also, would your typical trip be 6 nights or 7 nights? The weekends are just sooooooo much higher than weeknights that many of us avoid them whenever possible.

I think with 400 points you can book two 6-night stays (including just one weekend night) at pretty much any resort, any season. Some seasons you may even be able to do 7 nights. It just depends on the specifics of your point usage for that year.

it looks like if we spent a week at the only the cheapest deluxe resorts one in value season and one in regular season a year then we would break even(buy in purchase wise)in 6 years but i didn't ad in annual dues or the hotel tax
sorry if that isn't clear

To be fair, I'd try to add-in the dues and taxes. Then you'll be getting the most accurate analysis possible. That may extend your breakeven point by another year or so.

What you really want to be able to demonstrate is how much you'll save AFTER you've reached that breakeven point. After year 6 (or 7 or 8) your only responsibility will be the dues. On 400 points your dues will probably be about $1800 - 2000 per year. By comparison, paying cash for 12-14 nights per year in a deluxe resort will probably cost $5000 - 6000 per year when you include taxes and 3-5% inflation in the prices over the next 6 to 8 years. If mom is a statistician, you want her to see that come 2015 (or sooner), you'll be able to vacation at WDW for as little as 1/3 of what cash guests will be paying.

The next thing you'll have to determine is which resort to buy into. Note that although there are 8 DVC resorts, they all have different ending dates on the ownership. If you buy into Saratoga Springs, you get use of the points until the year 2054. If you buy into the Animal Kingdom Villas, the points are yours until 2057. All of the other resorts--Beach Club, BoardWalk, etc.--have contracts that end in 2042.

Those ending dates are critical to your analysis. If it takes you 8 years to reach breakeven, owning points at the BoardWalk means that you get about 27 years of low-cost vacations. But at the other end of the spectrum, owning at the Animal Kingdom Villas gives you 42 more years of vacations after breakeven.

Finally, don't forget to take the annual dues costs into consideration when making your choice. In the end, your annual dues payments will end up costing you much more than your initial purchase price. Currently SSR has the lowest dues and it's likely to stay that way due to its size (more owners sharing in the costs of common-area expenses.) AKV member dues will help support the savanna (animal care, feeding, etc.) Dues at the Vero Beach resort tend to be much higher because it is on the Atlantic coast and is subject to hurricane damage.

[tjkraz]

One other quick note: If you're visiting 2x per year, I assume you are both annual passholders. DVC members currently get a $100 discount on the price of an annual pass and $125 off of the premium annual pass. We've had those perks for about 3 years now. There's no guarantee they will continue indefinitely, but that savings may help in your argument.

[buzzspal2]

I just wanted to say Good Luck

[EmpressLizBunny]

Originally Posted by tjkraz

That sounds like it should accomplish what you want. It's difficult to analyze too closely because that still leaves a lot of variables unknown. DVC has 5 separate seasons and the nightly points for individual resorts vary greatly. Also, would your typical trip be 6 nights or 7 nights? The weekends are just sooooooo much higher than weeknights that many of us avoid them whenever possible.

I think with 400 points you can book two 6-night stays (including just one weekend night) at pretty much any resort, any season. Some seasons you may even be able to do 7 nights. It just depends on the specifics of your point usage for that year.



To be fair, I'd try to add-in the dues and taxes. Then you'll be getting the most accurate analysis possible. That may extend your breakeven point by another year or so.

What you really want to be able to demonstrate is how much you'll save AFTER you've reached that breakeven point. After year 6 (or 7 or 8) your only responsibility will be the dues. On 400 points your dues will probably be about $1800 - 2000 per year. By comparison, paying cash for 12-14 nights per year in a deluxe resort will probably cost $5000 - 6000 per year when you include taxes and 3-5% inflation in the prices over the next 6 to 8 years. If mom is a statistician, you want her to see that come 2015 (or sooner), you'll be able to vacation at WDW for as little as 1/3 of what cash guests will be paying.

The next thing you'll have to determine is which resort to buy into. Note that although there are 8 DVC resorts, they all have different ending dates on the ownership. If you buy into Saratoga Springs, you get use of the points until the year 2054. If you buy into the Animal Kingdom Villas, the points are yours until 2057. All of the other resorts--Beach Club, BoardWalk, etc.--have contracts that end in 2042.

Those ending dates are critical to your analysis. If it takes you 8 years to reach breakeven, owning points at the BoardWalk means that you get about 27 years of low-cost vacations. But at the other end of the spectrum, owning at the Animal Kingdom Villas gives you 42 more years of vacations after breakeven.

Finally, don't forget to take the annual dues costs into consideration when making your choice. In the end, your annual dues payments will end up costing you much more than your initial purchase price. Currently SSR has the lowest dues and it's likely to stay that way due to its size (more owners sharing in the costs of common-area expenses.) AKV member dues will help support the savanna (animal care, feeding, etc.) Dues at the Vero Beach resort tend to be much higher because it is on the Atlantic coast and is subject to hurricane damage.

yah but all this would require much more math and im bad at that i was going to tell my mom that we would be staying at delux acomadations for (highly discounted) moderate rates
btw does anyone know how long a tour take

[DVC Mike]

Originally Posted by EmpressLizBunny

btw does anyone know how long a tour take

About an hour, then you get free ice cream!

[tjkraz]

If this post works correctly, I've attached a document that does a quick down-and-dirty analysis of the Cash vs. DVC savings. Anyone who has Word and Excel installed can customize the numbers to fit their situation.

The fields that should be edited are all shaded in yellow. I based my figures on a purchase of Saratoga Springs today from DVC. For another resort and/or buying resale, you'll have to edit the 2007 dues and the purchase price. Also for any resort other than SSR and AKV, make sure you cut off after 2041 as the points expire in January 2042. AKV runs until 2057.

The 2007 cash room price can also be edited. I simply guessed at a figure that seemed appropriate given OP's report of 2 deluxe rooms for 2 weeks each per year.

I assumed 3% increase on cash rates and 4% on DVC dues. That's a fairly generous approach, IMO. Cash rates have steadily increased 3-5%, at least over the last 3 years since I've been watching closely. SSR, OKW, BWV and HHI have increased less than 4% annually over the LIFE of each resort, while the others are slightly over 4% annually on average.

As high as some of the figures may seem far down the road, that's the reality of inflation. Things like employee wages, health insurance, property insurance, fuel prices (busses and boats), property taxes, etc. are constantly increasing. Disney won't simply absorb those increases--they have to be passed on to consumers.

In this analysis, the savings begin to appear in year 7 and ultimately amount to over $600 thousand! (Off Topic: I'm often critical of those who today buy into resorts other than SSR and AKV. This spreadsheet really helps highlight the reason why. If you change the 2007 dues to BCV's rate of $4.63 per point and cut off the spreadsheet after 2041, the savings go from $665 thousand for an SSR owner down to $330 thousand for a BCV owner. Unless there's no chance of using the points in the years 2042 to 2053, people who buy into the resorts with earlier ending dates are making a tremendous financial sacrifice for that 4-month booking advantage.)

The one thing I didn't account for here is interest paid on the initial DVC purchase or, for those paying cash, an accommodation for interest forfeit on the dollars paid to buy into DVC. Since there are so many variables involved here (interest rates, payment periods, etc.), I'll let people come up with their own estimates.

Hope this helps.

[DVC Mike]

Cool, Tim! Thanks for posting this.