Disney Vacation Club

What a deal! Before we start talking about money, Disney Vacation Club Reviews will focus on all of the perks the Disney Vacation Club has to offer. Let’s begin with a list.

• Travel anyplace. North America, Europe, Caribbean, Hawaii, Australia – Anyplace!
• The value of your points never changes. That’s right, inflation proof!
• The Point System –The ability to “bank and borrow” makes your vacation of a lifetime a reality.
• There is just something about being greeted upon arrival with a warm “welcome home”.
• The sales experience. I cannot speak for all of the sales reps, but mine was the best! Not the least bit pushy, incredibly knowledgeable, willing to make it work for my family. (I have a feeling they’re all like that).
• New members always seem to get a little extra. When we joined, we were given a free Disney Cruise! (Those crazy folks at Disney are always offering something!)
• We have 4 kids, the Disney World memories are priceless. Simply priceless.

One of the best things Disney Vacation Club has to offer is the opportunity to travel to a different destination every year. We deed at Bay Lake Tower, whenever we want to stay there we have the privilege of booking eleven months in advance. This is important because where you deed (your home) attempts to ensure that you are able to reserve your room prior to sellout. If you try to book anywhere other than where you deed, you have to wait until you are seven months away from arrival. Again, this rule is in place to make certain that if you want to “come home” you are able to do so. Now, I will tell you that we have only stayed at Bay Lake once. We love to stay in different places!

The Disney Vacation Club system is based on points. The nice thing about this is the amount of points required to reserve your vacation does not change. The price per point can change, and it often does, but the amount of points required to stay at Animal Kingdom, for example, will not change. What does this mean? You guessed it, hurry up and buy before the price per point goes up! Click here for the current chart.

Another advantage of the point system is Disney’s “bank and borrow” policy. Let’s assume we want to plan to go to Hawaii one year (yes Disney has property in Hawaii for its members to enjoy). Our annual allotment of points allows to stay at Bay Lake Tower, but it falls short of the amount required for Hawaii (no surprise there, ever been to Hawaii?). This is where we would “bank” (fore-go a year), then “borrow” (use next year’s points). Now all of a sudden we have enough points for (what we consider) a vacation of a lifetime! All this at no extra cost to us. You see every year at the same time we get our 200 points deposited into our account. If we save a year, use the current year, and borrow from next year we have 600 points for use. Aloha. I’ll let you in on a little secret in a little bit.

I want to take a minute to tell you about the sales experience we had. When we scheduled our sit down with the Disney sales rep we knew we were in for something special. We are a family of six. Each of us was given a $15 Disney Gift Card (same as cash) just for showing up. We were shuttled from our front door to the Disney office. We were all given ice cream cones from an old-fashioned type of parlor where we got to add all of the toppings. It was, as they say “magical”. Anyway, in the office it was a no-pressure, informative, brief meeting where we were educated on the process and all of our questions were answered. Oh, remember I promised you a secret? Well, oftentimes Disney will run a promotion that will give you double the points for joining! That means if you decide to join, for say 200 points like we did, you will start with 400 points in your first year! With 400 points you can take TWO vacations a year, or save 200 points that you can borrow from in the future when you want to take that life-changing trip to Europe (or wherever you have always wanted to visit).

There are so many reasons to join the Disney Vacation Club. Many of which played a role in our decision to purchase. The number one reason we decided to purchase our deed though is our kids. The memories we have already created are priceless. It is such an incredible bonding experience and we all look forward to it every year.