Disney Vacation Club (DVC) is Disney’s time share program that allows guests to use “points” on their contracts in exchange for room stays instead of paying cash. Members can use their yearly points stay at any of the Disney Vacation Club Resorts.
My family and I are DVC members and we are so happy to belong!
Common Questions I get asked about Disney Vacation Club:
What resorts are included in Disney Vacation Club?
Resorts at Disney World: Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary, Boulder Creek Villas at Wilderness Lodge, Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Wilderness Lodge, Jambo House at Animal Kingdom Lodge, Kidani Village at Animal Kingdom Lodge, Beach Club Villas, BoardWalk Villas, Old Key West, Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, Riviera Resort, Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, and The Grand Floridian Resort & Spa.
Resorts at Disneyland: Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, Villas at the Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, Paradise Pier Hotel, and Disneyland Hotel.
Resorts not on theme park property: Aulani, Vero Beach and Hilton Head Island Resort.
How do I know what Disney Vacation Club resort to buy into?
When you buy a DVC contract, your points are assigned to a specific resort. We refer to this as your ‘home resort.’ However, you can use the points at ANY of the resorts listed above. The resort on your contract dictates your annual dues cost – so the oldest resorts tend to have the highest dues because of the cost of maintaining the property while the newer resorts tend to have lower yearly costs.
For us, choosing a home resort meant choosing the resort we love the most because we would want to stay there over and over again. That resort is the Polynesian for us – we could stay there year after year without getting tired of the food, the ambiance, the smells and the theme park proximity. The other benefit to a home resort is the ability to book your stay 11 months out, while you have to wait until 7 months out to book stays at another DVC resort that is not your home resort. Both of these are before the 6 months out window that guests paying cash have to wait for.
If your family has a favorite of the resorts listed above, I would recommend buying a contract there so you can guarantee your stays for the years to come. If you do not have a favorite, or are open to staying at any of them, I recommend choosing simply based on cost. In this case, choosing the resort with the lowest price per point or the lowest yearly dues cost will allow you to get membership with the smallest hit to your wallet.
What is the cost?
This answer will be annoying, but true… it costs as much as you want it to. The price of a contract depends on the resort you are buying into, how many points you are buying and where you are buying the contract from. Contracts bought directly from Disney cost more per point, but come with additional benefits – like a discount on food and merchandise and access to DVC specific lounges in EPCOT and The Contemporary Resort. Contracts bought through resale shops come at a lower cost per point and leaves room for some negotiation with the current contract owners, but come without the perks mentioned for a direct contract. We get a discount on food and merchandise because are annual pass holders and the lounges were not appealing enough to us enough to justify the additional cost of membership direct from Disney – so we purchased our contract resale.
Any of the links above will let you know what the point cost per night the resorts are. Time of year, day of the week and room view all impact the cost of the rooms, just like if you were paying cash for a room.
Currently, prices per point to buy into DVC range from about 130 – 220 dollars a point. Only select resorts are available to purchase contracts from Disney, but every resort is available on the resale market.
How many points do we need?
This too will depend on what resort you want to stay at, how long you want to stay and what time of year you want to visit. For us, we decided that we would need between 125 and 150 points to cover about a week’s stay for our family of 4 (two adults and two kids). We based our calculation on the points we needed to stay at the Polynesian for a week, knowing that about every other year we would want to stay there. Sure that perspective has changed since we moved to Central Florida, but we are still using those points to cover smaller ‘staycations’ as we attempt to stay at all of the Florida DVC resorts. Disney has a calculator that can help you estimate how many points per year would fit your family’s needs.
What are the benefits?
As I mentioned earlier, contracts bought from Disney include a food and merchandise discount as well as access to the lounges. Beyond that, when you buy your contract, you are essentially paying for the hotel stay portion of your vacations for years and years to come. Once that contract is paid off, the only additional money you pay is your yearly dues that goes towards upkeep of your home resort. The dues statement provides a breakdown of what the money is going towards.
Who should buy into Disney Vacation Club?
Anyone who is planning on vacationing at Aulani, Disneyland, Disney World, Vero Beach or Hilton Head once or more a year. I believe that it doesn’t matter if you live in Central Florida or not, everyone deserves a little time away! When we lived in Michigan, we planned to bring our girls to Disney once a year and being able to cover that with our DVC points was attractive to us. Once we paid off the purchase price of the contract, our only fees associated with membership are our resort dues every year. These fees are based off the price per point on your contract and are typically under $10 per point. Now we are using those points to cover smaller trips that are only a night or two since we can drive from our house to the resorts now.
