Hi All -

We have been vacationing at WDW as an extended family group for the past 15 years, always traveling for a week and usually vacationing every other year. When we first started traveling to Disney, we never anticipated that it would be a vacation destination that we would want to return to year after year, even as our children grew older, so our thoughts about buying into DVC were always pushed aside as "not making good sense". Obviously, over the intervening years we realized that we had made a mistake, but instead of remedying that, kept visiting and paying rack room rate, essentially spending several tens of thousands of dollars more than if we had bought into DVC.

Fast forward to 2019. We have a trip this summer on the drawing board which will cost us about 7500 in room charges and another trip on deck for 2021 which will probably also be about 6k. It seems like our enjoyment of a Disney vacation is likely to continue many years into the future, even though our kids are grown.

I am thinking that since I have 2 hard trip commitments coming up, now is the time to invest that money into DVC. I would like to hear from some of you experts about how I should approach this. I know about DVC resale, and I realize that that is a very good value, but I see that some of the resorts don't have as many years left on their contracts and I also understand that with resale, there are some amenities that are not available compared to the DVC amenities that are available when you purchase directly from Disney.

I'd like to purchase into a home resort through Disney at maybe 150-200 points, with the future option to buy additional points, if we want them, from resale. But I realize that there are lots of things/tips to maximizing the value of DVC that I might not be aware of or be fully considering.

Can you share with me your knowledge/insight? Also, if I have a trip already on deck, what is the liklihood that I could get into DVC for those same travel dates, at this time?

Thanks in advance!

Marian