To me, my time is precious. While I'm walking to my DVC room as the park closes, I'm thinking about the the folks spending 15-20 mins waiting for a shuttle, fighting for spots on the tram or walking to the end of a parking lot, stuck in traffic for another 10-15 minutes, or going thru a separate security gate in the am wasting another 10 minutes. Meanwhile in 5 - 8 minutes I'm at Boardwalk or Beach Club or Bay Lake Tower in my room.... I'll gladly pay the premium to save 90 minutes everyday in transit.
Only true if you are staying at a walk-to-park location and you are only visiting the walk-to park(s) on that stay. Ex., if staying at Boardwalk Villas, you cannot claim this for visits to MK or AK. If staying at AKL, OKW, or SSR, this doesn't apply at all. We have had very mixed "time" results of waiting for a Disney bus or boat. Unless visiting MK, we've found it's usually faster for us to drive our car from most DVC resorts. We do enjoy the boats and monorail but really, most Disney travel between most DVC rooms and most Disney parks is accomplished by bus and it's rarely faster than driving. Due to Wyn Bonnet Creek's location, it takes about the same amount of time to drive to Disney parks (except MK) as it does from Disney properties.
My take on DVC is one of two things typically happen:
1. People buy and use for awhile, 10-15 years, and they sell at a profit
2. People buy and hold to the end of their contract, and get a “lifetime” of use but nothing to sell at the end
Will everyone who sell in senario 1 get all of their monetary outlay back? No, of course not. Will some people? Yes absolutely.
Generally agree, especially regarding
retail purchasers in the past, which is where the greatest distinction may be made between DVC buyers and other timeshare buyers, IMO. But before advising a new purchase from Disney, consider
how the future may differ from past performance. In the last decade or so, Disney has raised their retail pricing at a faster pace than their competitors. They may have caught up with what the market is willing to bear, to account for onsite benefits. When/If they do, recouping monetary outlay will become more difficult in years ahead, for retail buyers - besides the leasehold expiration date approaching as well. If Disney sales slow due to too-rapid price increases, and the pace of increase slows down, recouping monetary outlay during resale will be tough.
For
resale purchasers of many timeshares, not just DVC, it's not that hard to get back initial outlay monies either, IMO. We've recouped our money easily with the buy&sell of DVC points, as well as with the buy&sell of resale Marriott and independent resort weeks. Our resale (prime red, converted) Wyndham points were super-cheap and have very reasonable/low maint fees. After 20 years of low cost vacations at high quality resorts (internal and RCI trades), recouping monetary outlay doesn't even cross our minds. Giving them away or to Ovation would be easy. All of our adult kids have actually expressed interest in them anyway. We certainly shared many exciting family adventures and made many wonderful vacation memories together, even after selling DVC.
Sometimes, people forget that there are lots of ways to do this without owning.
I guess it just makes sense to me that Tuggers can say the same about other resale purchases as you've said above about a DVC purchase (if resale, IMO). My "profit" after reselling would actually be from having more invested in our Roths, 403b, 457, and 401k than we would have budgeted to invest, if we had opted to commit $20K-$30K more than our Wyndham cost us, and paid $500-$1,500 more in annual maint fees for the DVC 2BRs our family needed. Over the years, we adjusted payroll deductions according to what we could manage, and we considered our monthly maintenance fees as part of our fixed expenses. It would have been different if our maint fees were higher or if we were saving for a large DVC purchase or
paying a DVC loan.
Truthfully, as we plan to take grandkids to Orlando in future years as they get bigger, we certainly have no plans to get rid of our Wyndham points contracts and we would not if we currently had a DVC points contracts either. We expect more of a draw to Orlando again. But if we had a commitment with higher maint fees, it might bother us more as we get closer to retirement. Disney vacations are pretty expensive, not just for the lodging, so lower maint fees are great. It's also really nice for us to have very little sunk cost, where it makes sense to just keep what we have - no regrets about keeping and not selling now.