Daisy1940
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2018
Hi all,
I want to share my DVC tour experience from Monday, Sep 16 for those considering a tour in the future. I really hope that most tours are not what we experienced but I want to share this given the recent DVC show on this topic.
Warning: this is a long, detailed post!
Background info: My husband scheduled the tour two months ago when we were trying to decide whether to buy direct or resale first. Since that time, we have made an offer on resale and have gone through ROFR and are we are currently in the closing process. But, we know we need 75-100 more points and are trying to decide if the blue card benefits are worth it to us to buy direct.
My husband, two kids, and I were picked up at Animal Kingdom and our tour was at AKL. While unloading the car, we told the person who greeted us that we had never been to AKL before. Despite this, we were taken in a side door and ushered straight into the sales room and a video was put on the screen for us to watch (we didn't watch as we had already watched the DVD they sent in the mail). After about 15 minutes our guide comes in and while making small talk with her, we again mention that we had never been to AKL but that we knew this was the resort we want to buy at. She started pushing Riviera but I told her we weren't interested at all in Riviera and wouldn't buy there because of the resell restrictions.
She then starts her sales pitch in the sales room while asking us a lot of questions. This was the perfect opportunity for her to show us the resort while giving her pitch. I am honestly baffled why they don't show potential buyers the product! Why wouldn't you actually take buyers on a tour of the resort?!? The product is beautiful, show it off! DVC would sell itself if Disney just showed buyers what they are actually selling. This is just completely baffling to me.
During the sales pitch, we indicated that we were well researched and I told her honestly that we were buying the bulk of our points resell and that we wanted information on direct benefits to decide whether buying any points direct was right for us. She immediately got frustrated at the idea of resell. I asked what the direct benefits were and I was told "you can look that up online". She gave a few examples of blue card benefits but didn't articulate anything specific. She just kept saying "don't you want the pride of buying direct from Disney?" My response was that wasn't important to us, we want specifics to make a sound financial decision. I also asked what contractual guarantee of discounts Disney offered and was told that they don't guarantee benefits but that Disney has never taken any blue card benefits away, only added new ones (that is a complete lie).
At this point, she started in on the scare tactics to get us not to buy resell and continued this for the rest if the tour. She said Disney can do whatever they want with resell. She warned us resell is only valid for use at 14 resorts (true) but that soon Disney may limit resell use to your home resort (lie) and would likely in the future make it so that you cannot use your resell points at all and they would be worthless (complete and utter lie). She then warned us about the shady resell market where brokers aren't looking out for your best interest like Disney does. She started grilling us about why we would buy resell and implying that we were being unethical by buying from the resell market by saying Disney works so hard to make a great product and buying resell undermines it and de-values it. She kept questioning why we would want to take chances on resell (as though the resell market is some shady underground market filled with brokers trying to scam you) and buying direct is the only safe option. Again I reiterated that we have done our research and will buy resell but are trying to get information on the direct purchase benefits.
At some point during this conversation she did mention that the next day the points required to get direct benefits was increasing to 100 points. The guide should have used this as an opportunity to get us to buy 75 points direct that day, which we were actually prepared to do if we had gotten more information about blue card benefits that were compelling enough. We wanted more information about annual pass discounts (which we have) as well as having a "welcome home" stay this December (we had told her we had a December trip booked at Caribbean Beach). Those two savings would have pushed us to buy that day as the savings gap by buying resell would be closed.
By now we were an hour into our tour and my kids were getting restless and we still hadn't heard a compelling reason to buy direct so we asked to see the rooms. We walked across the hall and saw a studio and a one bedroom. I asked what savannah we were seeing (again, we've never been to the resort) and the agent didn't know. I asked for more information about annual pass discounts and the logistics of potentially having a December welcome home stay as those things may make up the financial difference to purchase direct. Her response was "I don't understand why you would buy from eBay when you can buy from Coach." It was such an odd response! I wasn't asking about resell, I wanted information to make a financial decision. She never did answer my question at all.
The tour was clearly going no where and the agent wasn't listening to me and answering my questions. She was incredibly frustrated at being asked about blue card benefits. She kept responding to my questions by saying "Don't you want the pride of saying you bought directly from Disney?" "Don't you trust Disney?" Eventually she got tired of us (and she was visibly very upset/annoyed/frustrated) and printed some information on point prices and asked when we would be ready to buy. We gave a vague answer to just get out of there because we were completely done with the agent. She wrapped up by implying we only did the tour for the gift card and fast passes (we didn't at all, we booked the tour with zero intention of getting anything out of it other than information regarding blue card benefits).
We closed by asking her to give us 15 minutes before getting the van for us to return to Animal Kingdom as we had never seen the resort and wanted to actually see what we were potentially buying. I can't believe Disney doesn't have a resort tour as part of the sales process and that the buyer has to wander around themselves to see the product. Disney, you can (and should) do better selling the product!
Overall, we had a pretty poor experience. Our sales person was not effective at answer our questions or communicating benefits. She said she has been selling DVC for 12 years so her pushiness surprises me. After leaving and talking it over, we decided that it actually did financially make sense for us to have bought 75 points direct that day if she had offered to set up a welcome home stay for us in December (which would have saved us about $2500 in lodging for our planned trip-again, something she never even mentioned) coupled with annual pass discounts over the next several years. We were frustrated she didn't articulate this and in the moment during the tour we couldn't talk financials through between ourselves because she was being so pushy.
The new 100 point requirement for blue card benefits coupled with not getting the welcome home stay to replace a current hotel booking pushes us into the camp of buying the extra points we want through the resell market. Basically, DVC lost a direct sale that day as we will not be buying direct.
I want to share my DVC tour experience from Monday, Sep 16 for those considering a tour in the future. I really hope that most tours are not what we experienced but I want to share this given the recent DVC show on this topic.
Warning: this is a long, detailed post!
Background info: My husband scheduled the tour two months ago when we were trying to decide whether to buy direct or resale first. Since that time, we have made an offer on resale and have gone through ROFR and are we are currently in the closing process. But, we know we need 75-100 more points and are trying to decide if the blue card benefits are worth it to us to buy direct.
My husband, two kids, and I were picked up at Animal Kingdom and our tour was at AKL. While unloading the car, we told the person who greeted us that we had never been to AKL before. Despite this, we were taken in a side door and ushered straight into the sales room and a video was put on the screen for us to watch (we didn't watch as we had already watched the DVD they sent in the mail). After about 15 minutes our guide comes in and while making small talk with her, we again mention that we had never been to AKL but that we knew this was the resort we want to buy at. She started pushing Riviera but I told her we weren't interested at all in Riviera and wouldn't buy there because of the resell restrictions.
She then starts her sales pitch in the sales room while asking us a lot of questions. This was the perfect opportunity for her to show us the resort while giving her pitch. I am honestly baffled why they don't show potential buyers the product! Why wouldn't you actually take buyers on a tour of the resort?!? The product is beautiful, show it off! DVC would sell itself if Disney just showed buyers what they are actually selling. This is just completely baffling to me.
During the sales pitch, we indicated that we were well researched and I told her honestly that we were buying the bulk of our points resell and that we wanted information on direct benefits to decide whether buying any points direct was right for us. She immediately got frustrated at the idea of resell. I asked what the direct benefits were and I was told "you can look that up online". She gave a few examples of blue card benefits but didn't articulate anything specific. She just kept saying "don't you want the pride of buying direct from Disney?" My response was that wasn't important to us, we want specifics to make a sound financial decision. I also asked what contractual guarantee of discounts Disney offered and was told that they don't guarantee benefits but that Disney has never taken any blue card benefits away, only added new ones (that is a complete lie).
At this point, she started in on the scare tactics to get us not to buy resell and continued this for the rest if the tour. She said Disney can do whatever they want with resell. She warned us resell is only valid for use at 14 resorts (true) but that soon Disney may limit resell use to your home resort (lie) and would likely in the future make it so that you cannot use your resell points at all and they would be worthless (complete and utter lie). She then warned us about the shady resell market where brokers aren't looking out for your best interest like Disney does. She started grilling us about why we would buy resell and implying that we were being unethical by buying from the resell market by saying Disney works so hard to make a great product and buying resell undermines it and de-values it. She kept questioning why we would want to take chances on resell (as though the resell market is some shady underground market filled with brokers trying to scam you) and buying direct is the only safe option. Again I reiterated that we have done our research and will buy resell but are trying to get information on the direct purchase benefits.
At some point during this conversation she did mention that the next day the points required to get direct benefits was increasing to 100 points. The guide should have used this as an opportunity to get us to buy 75 points direct that day, which we were actually prepared to do if we had gotten more information about blue card benefits that were compelling enough. We wanted more information about annual pass discounts (which we have) as well as having a "welcome home" stay this December (we had told her we had a December trip booked at Caribbean Beach). Those two savings would have pushed us to buy that day as the savings gap by buying resell would be closed.
By now we were an hour into our tour and my kids were getting restless and we still hadn't heard a compelling reason to buy direct so we asked to see the rooms. We walked across the hall and saw a studio and a one bedroom. I asked what savannah we were seeing (again, we've never been to the resort) and the agent didn't know. I asked for more information about annual pass discounts and the logistics of potentially having a December welcome home stay as those things may make up the financial difference to purchase direct. Her response was "I don't understand why you would buy from eBay when you can buy from Coach." It was such an odd response! I wasn't asking about resell, I wanted information to make a financial decision. She never did answer my question at all.
The tour was clearly going no where and the agent wasn't listening to me and answering my questions. She was incredibly frustrated at being asked about blue card benefits. She kept responding to my questions by saying "Don't you want the pride of saying you bought directly from Disney?" "Don't you trust Disney?" Eventually she got tired of us (and she was visibly very upset/annoyed/frustrated) and printed some information on point prices and asked when we would be ready to buy. We gave a vague answer to just get out of there because we were completely done with the agent. She wrapped up by implying we only did the tour for the gift card and fast passes (we didn't at all, we booked the tour with zero intention of getting anything out of it other than information regarding blue card benefits).
We closed by asking her to give us 15 minutes before getting the van for us to return to Animal Kingdom as we had never seen the resort and wanted to actually see what we were potentially buying. I can't believe Disney doesn't have a resort tour as part of the sales process and that the buyer has to wander around themselves to see the product. Disney, you can (and should) do better selling the product!
Overall, we had a pretty poor experience. Our sales person was not effective at answer our questions or communicating benefits. She said she has been selling DVC for 12 years so her pushiness surprises me. After leaving and talking it over, we decided that it actually did financially make sense for us to have bought 75 points direct that day if she had offered to set up a welcome home stay for us in December (which would have saved us about $2500 in lodging for our planned trip-again, something she never even mentioned) coupled with annual pass discounts over the next several years. We were frustrated she didn't articulate this and in the moment during the tour we couldn't talk financials through between ourselves because she was being so pushy.
The new 100 point requirement for blue card benefits coupled with not getting the welcome home stay to replace a current hotel booking pushes us into the camp of buying the extra points we want through the resell market. Basically, DVC lost a direct sale that day as we will not be buying direct.
). Thank her for the ice cream, the fastpasses and the gift cards and be on your way. You did get ice cream, fastpasses and gift cards, right?
I did want to be honest and let her know we would not be purchasing 300 points direct from Disney, which she was trying to talk us into at first (my post was getting too long so I left out some of the details of the conversation). We were interested in 75 direct points, however, which she should have listened to us about and tried to sell.
