I keep looking at renting thru David's, but the whole not able to cancel thing makes me nervous. I know you can get travel insurance, but do you buy that after they confirm your reservation?
Part of the fun for me is planning a year out and booking my own ADR's and Fast passes. The one time I used a travel agent she took a shower before calling disney the morning of our ADR's and I didn't get one of the restaurants.
I only wish AKL was closer to everything .What a beautiful resort but we felt secluded there.
We are staying at AoA for a night since our youngest loves the Little Mermaid so we will go to AK that day and then do the rest of the parks once we get to Poly so everything is just a monorail or quick bus ride.In case you don’t know, even if you use a TA who will do adrs it doesn’t mean you have to let them. You can still do all the FP adr etc planning you want to.
Didn’t you say you’ll have a car? Once you have a car everything is just a car ride away. I think you said your husband wants to be on the monorail, and that’s fine, but then AK is far away.
AKL is my least fave resort that I’ve stayed in at Wdw, but when you have a car it’s fine.
What you'll be missing is daily housekeeping. You'll only get limited services every four days. If you are there seven nights or less, you'll only get your towels replaced (and other amenities) on day four. Plus daily garbage pickup (Disney spying). If you stay eight nights or more, you get a full cleaning on day four and your towels and amenities replaced on day eight.We will be making our first trip this June on DVC rental points. We have paid cash for the past 20+ years but hearing about the savings from people on this board made us quite interested in trying it out. We are working through a private owner... it is a friend of my husband's boss so we feel pretty comfortable with them. For years I wanted to try and rent but could never get over my nervousness. Everything seems to be the same as when I booked through Disney myself so I don't think that we will be "missing" anything.
There is no option to decline housekeeping with deluxe or DVC (which are considered deluxe). You could decline if you wish, but you wouldn't get any gift card.Thanks for posting about the housekeeping info. Last time we stayed at AOA for five nights and got the $50 gift card for declining housekeeping and we thought this would be an option for our second trip at AK renting Dvc points. Good to know! thanks!
Are the washers and dryers free to use? Wondering in case we decide to want to wash some towels before day 4.What you'll be missing is daily housekeeping. You'll only get limited services every four days. If you are there seven nights or less, you'll only get your towels replaced (and other amenities) on day four. Plus daily garbage pickup (Disney spying). If you stay eight nights or more, you get a full cleaning on day four and your towels and amenities replaced on day eight.
But if you make your bed at home and pick up after yourself, you won't miss anything at all.
Are the washers and dryers free to use? Wondering in case we decide to want to wash some towels before day 4.
If you are in a one bedroom or larger, you'll get one single use box of laundry detergent each service day. And no dryer sheets. So you'll probably want to bring your own stuff to do laundry. If you are in as studio, there are usually small laundry room near the pools of SSR and OKW or in a single room in the DVC resorts attached to hotels. There will be a limited number of washers and dryer in these laundry rooms and most of them are HE washers. Getting your laundry in the washer might be tough, but you have to watch it because if you aren't there when your load is finished it will be moved from the washer or the dryer is someone else needs it. You can't just leave your laundry while you head to the park (unless you are doing it in your villa).Yes! If you are in a studio, however, you will need to bring your own laundry soap, etc.
Yes, it's a big decision. I think with renting points and then buying insurance I will still save us $1200. I can't justify paying that much more for the same vacation. I totally understand where you are coming from. If something was so drastic that we had to cancel completely I'm not even sure I'd be worrying about the $2500 I lost.OP--I know this has already been mentioned, but, to me, the main disadvantage of renting DVC points is that you can't cancel or change anything once you've made the reservation. You're planing for something 7 or 11 months in advance and anything could happen in the interim, or even when you're there. I've had trips I had to totally rearrange the dates of for various reasons--and I was able to move my WDW reservations without a problem. I also once had a trip when I had to leave mid-trip because of illness, and WDW didn't charge me for the days I wasn't there. That was a room-only reservation, btw. For me, the cost of renting DVC points would have to be an amount of money I wouldn't mind losing, which is why I've never rented DVC points.
Yes, of course, it's very possible that everything will work out, that the dates that seem fine when you book will still be fine at the time of your trip. Yes, you can buy trip insurance, but that's another expense and also may not cover some circumstance that would cause you to cancel or want to rearrange the dates for your trip.
For me, these are big considerations. You may not feel that way.
There is no catch (in the sense of it being fake). It's cheaper because you're booking it from someone who "owns" it. It's like renting someone's timeshare at another resort, it ends up being cheaper than buying direct.
The only "catch" is that you can't cancel it or change the booking once you book it through David's or another company. You also don't get DVC member discounts (but you do get free hotel parking). Also, you typically need to plan your vacation much further out than originally because DVC rooms get booked up fast.
For example, we booked our two upcoming trips 9 and 10 months in advance.
We've used David's (Polynesian @ $17 per point) and everything went smoothly. You can still control fastpasses, add ADR, do magical express, etc. (You link your reservation to your MDE app.)
We now just book straight from members for a bit cheaper. We create and sign contracts with them, and if you build a good enough relationship with the owner, you can sometimes edit your booking or cancel it last minute. But for a first-timer, I'd suggest using David's or DVC rental because everything is taken care of for you and they do the heavy lifting (hence why it's a bit more expensive).
If you have any questions, feel free to message me. I've learned a lot about this over the past couple of years.