DVC & Living in Orlando

What are your thoughts on whether DVC is worth having if you live in the Orlando area? We are thinking about moving to the Orlando area from SC but have also toyed with the idea of buying DVC.

I can’t imagine how it would make sense. If you have an AP (highly recommended) you can go a virtually unlimited number of times and go back home at night. If I lived in Orlando, unless it was a very special occasion, I couldn’t imagine staying at a Disney resort (this from someone who stays only at Disney resorts when I go).

2 Likes

I have friends who live in Orlando that bought DVC about 2 years ago. At that time, they were about 45 minutes away from WDW. They recently moved about 5 minutes from WDW and decided to sell their DVC. It didn’t make any sense at all at that point to own.

One advantage to owning and living so close is the DVC only events. Total flexibility to go to those when they happen to come up (and you are able to get the tickets). For us, living a flight away, those events are a longshot at best. They need to coincide with a planned trip.

2 Likes

When I was buying, I confided in my driver to and from the signings (boy, that sounded hoity-toity) that it all sounded a bit “too good” and that there had to be a downside. I asked, ever so subtlety, “what’s the catch, what am I missing?” and he went on to mention he was a DVC owner even though he and his wife live in Orlando and even work for Disney and said he loved it and kept his DVC membership even though they had been living down there 5+ years.

The original reason they were DVC members were his wife and him would make 4+ trips to disney a year before moving to Orlando(they originally lived in Texas I think), so they needed a way to save a bit of cash and saw that this was the best way. Once they moved to Orlando, they kept their DVC membership and treat themselves to hotel-accommodations every once in a while. Given that they’re kinda on a fixed budget and their DVC is paid off, it makes sense.

Obviously, given the circumstances, it’s a story that should be taken with a grain of salt, but I definitely know friends of mine who go into Philly for a weekend every few months and rent a hotel room just to have a change of pace or for anniversaries so it doesn’t sound out of the realm of possibility.

if you haven’t gone in with DVC yet, I probably wouldn’t. The DVC benefits are almost identical to the Annual Pass ones with the exception of free events which are few and far between. But if you’re thinking really long term, it might be a good to treat yourself down the road to deluxe accommodations on Disney instead of “slumming” it at the Moderates or value :rofl:

2 Likes

The idea of being able to live in the bubble for a short amount of time whenever we want sounds appealing to me. If we pay cash for the DVC it would be paid off, so it would be like having a vacation planned. Plus, our two older kids could come down and stay with us sometimes; and we’d only have to purchase them tickets. On the other hand, would we feel like we want to have our vacations elsewhere if we had the opportunity to go to WDW whenever we wanted? Or would we feel we didn’t have the time to go to WDW? It’s so hard to decide. I’m leaning toward having the option of staying at a deluxe resort even if we live close by.

LOL! After staying at AKL at Christmas, I may never want to stay at a value or moderate again.

1 Like

Yup.

How many points are you considering?

1 Like

I’m not really sure at this point. The minimum ix 75, right? I’m thinking maybe 150 - 200 would be our preference, but I don’t know if we can afford that. We’ll see. I have to find either a remote job or a job in Orlando before we can even think of doing anything.

I think it depends how close you are to Orlando/WDW and what you enjoy to do.

I know some people who live a little further out and who enjoy touring and perhaps a little drinkie winkie and being DVC allows them to have a paid-for crash pad (and a nice one too!) for a couple of days or weekend. And it makes it easy for them to come and visit those of us who don’t live close by when we are in the World.

I love the locals

ahem. they know who they are. meow

2 Likes

I believe 75 is the minimum, yeah. Not sure you’d actually need 150-200 though. That is roughly 2 weeks for a studio and if you’re local, I think you could easily get away with a 75 point buy in and just cherry pick the times throughout the year (and 1-2 day stays are far far far easier to get than week-long stays).

Yes, but what if we’d like to stay a LOT? Birthday celebrations, anniversary, Christmas, Easter, July 4th? LOL!

1 Like

heheh you are facing the same dilemma I am always facing. It would just be easier if I could live in one of the hotels for free. But they have these “rules” and I’m not “allowed to do that.” Stupid rules.

So a few things:

  1. 75 points is roughly 5 nights on average (depending when you actually go and all that). So even with those slotted events as hypotheticals, you can nail each one short of multiple birthdays. And that can be adjusted by borrowing/banking from year to year so might even be able to hit the multiple birthdays.

  2. Don’t forget you’ll be local. So for those events you can drive home when it’s done and be home in about an hour (if you’re going to be living around Orlando) do you really need to stay overnight for all those? Or will just spending the day be enough and then trekkin’ home?

  3. The chances of you getting a room on Christmas and other holidays is difficult. Heck, right now it seems even non-holidays are difficult for anything that is longer than 2 days. Just because you’re DVC doesn’t give you a guarantee you’ll get a room (especially where you want to stay).

1 Like

Need is such a harsh word here. Of course, I want to stay at WDW as often as I can.

Sometimes just getting away sounds fun. It’s not something I’ve been able to do for many a year. Of course, Gregg wonders if we would get tired of WDW and not go as often.

Part of the fun of going to WDW is staying on property. We may change our minds when we move there.

1 Like

Think a lot will depend on how far you would live from the resort and how often would you end up staying onsite.

You can also consider getting less points and taking advantage of banking and borrowing use years points to adjust your usage as needed.

1 Like

But if you’re not staying onsite, you often have to wait to book these events. DVC don’t release details of how many tickets they hold back for the second booking window, but it would put you at a definite disadvantage.

On the other hand, for previews etc, it does mean you can book without having to worry about getting flights.

It would also be nice to have the option of a long weekend onsite. Maybe with friends coming to visit.