Disney Vacation Club Questions

[shoeless]

Background:  Looking to travel the week after thanksgiving.  Two kids 6 and 3.  Due to my three year old's numerous/extensive allergies and eating issue I needed access to a kitchen for vacation.  Which brings us to DVC. 

So here is my list of questions:

1. Experiences good or bad with any of the common DVC websites (David's or DVC rental seem to pop up the most).

2.  Any gotcha's I should be aware of?

3.  I think we want to do Animal Kingdom Lodge since it will be cooler temperature wise and normally not great swimming weather in my experience (so the lack of great pools isn't an issue).  Are there other resorts we should consider?

Thanks in advance!

[breebug]

We rented DVC on a few occasions through DVC Rental Store. I never had any issues with them and the process was pretty easy. You tell them which dates you're interested in, as well as which resorts and room size. They check availability and if there's availability for your dates and preferred resort, you pay a small deposit and they reach out to their DVC owners to find an owner who's willing to rent the points to you for your stay. The owner books the reservation, DVC Rental Store sends you the confirmation, and you link it to your Disney account. If they aren't able to find an owner to rent points to you, you get your deposit back after a certain period of time.

The only bad thing about renting DVC, in my opinion, is the lack of flexibility once you book. DVC Rental Store offers a protection plan, which costs a significant amount and doesn't necessarily guarantee you'll get all of your money back depending on when you cancel. You can get trip insurance separately through a company of your choosing (I use Squaremouth), but my understanding is that timeshare rentals are often excluded on these policies, so you'd need to be careful and read the fine print. Sometimes, DVC owners are willing to reschedule for you if something comes up, but this isn't guaranteed as oftentimes there's an expiration date on their points.

I would also make sure you compare the prices to Disney's current specials and promotions. You can still rent DVC rooms with full kitchens directly through Disney, and if the rooms are on sale, you might end up paying the same price or even less than you would to rent through DVC. For example, we stayed in a 1 bedroom at the Riviera last month and paid less than we would have to rent it through DVC Rental Store at $21 per point because Disney was running a promotion.

AK Lodge is very nice, but quite a distance from all of the parks except Animal Kingdom. We love Bay Lake, which is connected to the Contemporary, for easy walking/monorail access to Magic Kingdom. Saratoga Springs and Old Key West are going to be the more affordable options, but you would want to request a room in a "preferred" location as the resorts are huge and spread out.

Finally, I'll also say that we've rented points from DVC members directly through the Disboards message board, which can be quite a bit less expensive than using a broker like David's or DVC Rental Store. Obviously this is riskier, however, and may not be best for a first-time renter. If you go this route, I'd ask for references, find an owner who uses a contract, and check the Orange County property records to confirm the person you're renting from is a verified DVC owner.

I hope you have a great time!

[shoeless]

Thank you! Appreciate the insights!

[curbsideprophet]

Is this for this year?

You may have troubling finding the exact room you want given those dates are so close.

Are you interested in a 1 or 2 bedroom? If you give me specific dates I can check availability for you, but keep in mind it can change at a moment’s notice. We are inside the 7 month booking window so any DVC member can book at any resort.

We have used DVC Rental Store in the past. We were happy with them. My parents now own points so we have not rented recently.

I would make sure you are aware of the cancellation policy and would consider insurance.

I can go into more details about DVC if you want.

[jaycee]

We had a horrible experience with the DVC rental store. Disney closed due to covid but we still lost our $3,000 deposit. They were cold, harsh, and just awful. In order to be covered, you need the insurance. After buying the insurance, it doesn't save you any money than just buying from Disney without insurance. Great thing about Disney and no insurance though, is they will still give you a credit (just not your money back), which would have been perfectly fine with us.

[huskymom]

Another one who got burned during COVID (but with David's). In the end we got a credit and did use it this past year but had to pay a lot more beyond our credit for a 5 night trip, as room prices had skyrocketed and when I checked at booking, the rate was exactly the same whether we booked with Disney or David's. Only used David's since we had a $3500 credit to use (only covered 3 nights at BCV!). Never again. Will always book with Disney in the future for the flexibility.

We used DVC rental store pre-covid with no issues but didn't need to cancel or anything...agree their insurance is $$ and doesn't get you back what you paid if it's close to the trip.

Honestly next time we may go back to staying at Wyndham Bonnet Creek like we used to when the kids were really little. We had a HUGE 3 bedroom there and it was very close to Epcot and HS.

[wawa]

Jun 14, 2022 9:15:54 GMT -5 huskymom said:

Another one who got burned during COVID (but with David's). In the end we got a credit and did use it this past year but had to pay a lot more beyond our credit for a 5 night trip, as room prices had skyrocketed and when I checked at booking, the rate was exactly the same whether we booked with Disney or David's. Only used David's since we had a $3500 credit to use (only covered 3 nights at BCV!). Never again. Will always book with Disney in the future for the flexibility.

We used DVC rental store pre-covid with no issues but didn't need to cancel or anything...agree their insurance is $$ and doesn't get you back what you paid if it's close to the trip.

Honestly next time we may go back to staying at Wyndham Bonnet Creek like we used to when the kids were really little. We had a HUGE 3 bedroom there and it was very close to Epcot and HS.

I'm curious about this - when you say that booking directly with disney gives you more flexibility - in what way? Would that reservation have been something you could reschedule for a similar room type regardless of current pricing, or would disney have still given you a 3500 credit and you'd have to pay the difference, but you'd have more options because it's disney credit rather than david's credit?

We had pre-covid David's reservation too, which converted to credit during covid, and we are finally using it next week. We had to switch locations because there was nothing at our prior location available for the dates we wanted that we could cover with that credit, but that didn't seem unreasonable. But I also wasn't the one who made the reservation, the friend we're traveling with did, so I might have missed some details along the way.

[huskymom]

Jun 14, 2022 14:21:34 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jun 14, 2022 9:15:54 GMT -5 huskymom said:

Another one who got burned during COVID (but with David's). In the end we got a credit and did use it this past year but had to pay a lot more beyond our credit for a 5 night trip, as room prices had skyrocketed and when I checked at booking, the rate was exactly the same whether we booked with Disney or David's. Only used David's since we had a $3500 credit to use (only covered 3 nights at BCV!). Never again. Will always book with Disney in the future for the flexibility.

We used DVC rental store pre-covid with no issues but didn't need to cancel or anything...agree their insurance is $$ and doesn't get you back what you paid if it's close to the trip.

Honestly next time we may go back to staying at Wyndham Bonnet Creek like we used to when the kids were really little. We had a HUGE 3 bedroom there and it was very close to Epcot and HS.

I'm curious about this - when you say that booking directly with disney gives you more flexibility - in what way? Would that reservation have been something you could reschedule for a similar room type regardless of current pricing, or would disney have still given you a 3500 credit and you'd have to pay the difference, but you'd have more options because it's disney credit rather than david's credit?

We had pre-covid David's reservation too, which converted to credit during covid, and we are finally using it next week. We had to switch locations because there was nothing at our prior location available for the dates we wanted that we could cover with that credit, but that didn't seem unreasonable. But I also wasn't the one who made the reservation, the friend we're traveling with did, so I might have missed some details along the way.

With Disney i would have been able to get my my money back, or I could have easily moved my trip.  In this case, i had to send in my request 11 months in advance, still pay a fee for them to search for a reservation, and then wait a month to find out if we could get it.  And if something had happened this time - no refund/credit.  With Disney i would have had the flexibility to change it until very close out (not sure of the timing since we've only booked on property with a DVC broker, but I think its like 2 days).

Never realized we needed the flexibility until we did, so now I know going forward that that is important to me.  I also found the way they dealt with us during the shutdowns to be pretty shady, and i thought the contract was pretty clear we should have gotten a refund as the hotel was still closed, but that didn't happen.  I would have appreciated better dialogue, but realize they are a small company. But overall not seeing the same savings you used to get with booking this way isn't worth the headache.

[wawa]

Jun 14, 2022 14:37:58 GMT -5 huskymom said:

Jun 14, 2022 14:21:34 GMT -5 wawa said:

I'm curious about this - when you say that booking directly with disney gives you more flexibility - in what way? Would that reservation have been something you could reschedule for a similar room type regardless of current pricing, or would disney have still given you a 3500 credit and you'd have to pay the difference, but you'd have more options because it's disney credit rather than david's credit?

We had pre-covid David's reservation too, which converted to credit during covid, and we are finally using it next week. We had to switch locations because there was nothing at our prior location available for the dates we wanted that we could cover with that credit, but that didn't seem unreasonable. But I also wasn't the one who made the reservation, the friend we're traveling with did, so I might have missed some details along the way.

With Disney i would have been able to get my my money back, or I could have easily moved my trip.  In this case, i had to send in my request 11 months in advance, still pay a fee for them to search for a reservation, and then wait a month to find out if we could get it.  And if something had happened this time - no refund/credit.  With Disney i would have had the flexibility to change it until very close out (not sure of the timing since we've only booked on property with a DVC broker, but I think its like 2 days).

Never realized we needed the flexibility until we did, so now I know going forward that that is important to me.  I also found the way they dealt with us during the shutdowns to be pretty shady, and i thought the contract was pretty clear we should have gotten a refund as the hotel was still closed, but that didn't happen.  I would have appreciated better dialogue, but realize they are a small company. But overall not seeing the same savings you used to get with booking this way isn't worth the headache.

That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

[kellytaylor]

Lurker chiming in - I tell everyone I know to stay far, far away from DVC. I too got burned during COVID as our reservation was in the 2-3 week window when the resorts were open but the parks were not. Unlike
David’s, DVC wouldn’t do anything for us, not even a credit. They were borderline rude to deal with and wouldn’t even reach out to the points owners about rescheduling. Even buying insurance through them would have only resulted in a portion of our $ back. We will book directly through Disney going forward and have for our trip planned for November.

[Deleted]

As appealing as it is to have the bigger room/space, if the last two years have taught me anything, I won't ever again book anything that can't be changed. And this is especially relevant to DVC after reading all the horror stories from owners and renters during COVID and seeing how many people got screwed.