Why I LOVE Disney Vacation Club

I should probably begin this post with a little bit of background. I have a wife, two kids ages 10 and 5 and my mother-in-law lives with us. So, when we travel, it is a 5 person trip. Up until 2006, when we joined the Disney Vacation Club, we would take trips and stay in traditional hotels. Since the youngest child was a baby then, we could all squeeze into a hotel room. Not much in the way of privacy, but it could be done. As he continued to grow, the hotel room became less and less comfortable.

Another bit of background...for a brief period of time in the late 90's, I worked for a competitor in the vacation ownership industry and had a really bad experience with the management…so I had no love for the industry as a whole.

However, one year my wife and I took a short trip by ourselves to visit Disney and we took the opportunity to tour the Disney Vacation Club sales tour. Boy were we impressed. Our representative took the time to explain the process in depth and there was little to no stress or pressure. In fact, we left the presentation without buying anything. We went back to our room and began talking about what we had seen.

For about the price we would pay for a week in a regular hotel room, we could vacation in style in a world class resort. So, we took the plunge. It is without a doubt one of the best investments we have ever made.

So far, our family has been more than happy to take our annual pilgrimage to Disney World. The kids still love it and all of us adults do too (did you catch the fact that my wife and I took OUR trip to Disney?). On top of being located where we like to go, the accommodations and benefits are priceless. We get a two room villa with all of the amenities which allows privacy for the mother-in-law, there is bus service directly to the parks and there a number of discounts that we receive as DVC members.

We also realize that one day the kids are going to be too big to enjoy Disney World. This is where the flexibility of the program comes into play. They also have resorts in Vero Beach, Hilton Head and are currently building one in Hawaii. On top of the DVC resorts themselves, we can trade our points to stay at any Disney hotel anywhere. They also offer the ability to trade using the exchange program which gives the ability to stay at nearly any affiliated resort around the world.

Overall, my family and I are very happy with our decision to join the Disney Vacation Club. If you are in any way considering improving your family vacation, I would be happy to put you in contact with our representative at DVC. As I said, he is very informative and easy to talk to. Shoot me an email at jqmurf2@gmail.com if you would like more info.

UPDATE as of 21 November 2010

We just got back from another DVC vacation.  Stayed at Saratoga Springs Resort.  AWESOME as always.  Great accomodations, easy transportation and we used the Community Center for the first time...played ping pong, rented (for free) movies.