I’m asked this over and over again. Usually by people who have never been to Walt Disney World. They don’t get it. And that’s absolutely fine. You have to experience it first-hand. Not everyone falls in love. Its hot, it’s busy, it’s expensive and no matter how many times you say, “Disney World is constantly changing” They only see you visiting the same place over and over again!
While we were at WDW last year, we did have a lovely chat with a DVC agent. I’ll be completely honest; we did it for the $200 gift card 😊. We toured the Riviera Resort which was beautiful but at the time buying direct from Disney was just a little out of our reach. We got very close to buying there and then. The temptation when in the glorious grounds of the Riviera was great but common sense prevailed.
We returned home, probably a little deflated and I declared “That’s it! I’m taking a break!”
We visited in July, school holiday time and July is hot. It’s humid. I sweated in places I didn’t know I could sweat from. I’m also now older. I loved being there but, on this trip, the days were a chore. I came back and swore it would be 10 years before we went back.
A few months had passed, and Andy and I were discussing what we would do for holidays in the future. We aren’t beach lovers. The idea of laying around a pool all day drinking mojitos is, for us, the height of boring. So we looked at getting ourselves a caravan on a caravan park site. We live in the South West so anywhere in Devon or Cornwall was a possibility. We popped online to a localish website and browsed for an hour.
The cost was insane! For a brand-new holiday home in Cornwall, we were looking at a cost starting at nearly £40,000. This was in addition to the annual dues. The particular site we looked at quoted us annual dues of approximately £10,000 per year. We did some digging and after 15 years you are then expected to move the caravan to another site or upgrade to a newer model. Compare that to the Riviera Contract, that expires in 2070! The contract will outlive us!
Compared to this. DVC looked attractive. The weather in Florida is certainly better than the traditional British Summer.
So, we looked at the resale market and to our surprise, the costs were more than half the quoted direct price. It was doable! We had a moment of mad impulsiveness and made an offer. Within 30 minutes it was accepted. Argg! No going back now! And here we are 9 months later with 185 points at the Riviera Resort. We have our first visit in the Autumn then it’ll be yearly from then on.
There are downsides to buying indirect and I will cover those and the difference in cost with buying direct from Disney in a different post but for now, as they say in France, Au Revoir!
