Here Are Tips for Planning Your First DVC Vacation

You’ve reached an exciting moment in your life. Your Disney Vacation Club Points have finally hit your account. Now, you’re finally ready to book your trip. Here are a few tips for planning your first DVC vacation.

Learn How DVC Points Work

Before you do anything with your DVC Points, you must learn how they work. Otherwise, you’ll make repeated mistakes. And I speak from several regrettable experiences here.

You should understand how your DVC Points empower you to book at Disney’s best resorts. Just as importantly, you should compare and contrast the various DVC Points Charts. 

This step will allow you to understand how to maximize the value of your points. Some resorts cost more than others for what is basically the same room. Others provide better discounts during certain Travel Periods. 

You shouldn’t feel the need to memorize the Points Chart, but you should at least glance at it. This step allows you to identify the best values for your various hotel stays. 

You should also familiarize yourself with concepts like Banking, Borrowing, Use Years, Annual Dues, and the like. At first, the sheer volume of information may seem overwhelming. Thankfully, you’ll quickly realize that it’s a user-friendly system designed to make every vacation magical. 

Do What Makes You Happy

This seems like such a simple suggestion, but that’s also the point. Please don’t overthink your first DVC stay and outsmart yourself. You know where you want to stay, and that’s probably why you joined the program. So, stay there!

Down the road, you can pick other resorts based on DVC Points requirements or amenities or whatever. Right now, you’ve just spent money to guarantee you enjoy dream vacations for years to come. And that’s what you should do. 

As an example, when I was a small child, I said I was going to live at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, not understanding it was impossible to do that. As soon as the Polynesian joined the DVC program, I booked a trip there because that was my childhood dream. You’ve probably got a fantasy, too, and now you can turn it into a reality!

Book Early

Once you’ve decided where to go on your first DVC trip, you should book immediately, presuming you can. Your ownership interest entitles you to reserve a DVC hotel room up to 11 months in advance at your home resort. At all other DVC resorts, you may book up to seven months ahead of time.

Those are the cutoff dates for when you should be ready to book. Otherwise, you’ll encounter a grim reality of the DVC program. The most popular resorts generally book at least seven months ahead of time. While some availability may open later, it’s a risk you don’t want to take.

So, please know where you want to go and be ready to book. Preferably, you should reserve a room at your Home Resort more than seven months before your travel date. By doing so, you should be able to choose the Room Type you want at your Home Resort. 

Should you prefer to stay at a different resort, please be ready to book the instant your seven-month window opens. Also, you should study the rules on how Waitlists work just in case your first choice is already sold out on your travel dates. 

Don’t Spend All Your Points Immediately

This is a mistake I mentioned recently in a different article, but it applies here as well. When you join the DVC program, you gain access to this year’s and next year’s DVC Points. Disney allows you Borrow points from a future year. 

Please resist the temptation to do that. While you’ll love it this year, you’ll regret it in 12 months. That’s when you’re ready to plan your next DVC vacation. Sadly, you won’t have the necessary DVC Points to book it. 

Sure, you can Borrow points once again, but that’s a vicious cycle. Even if you do, you’ll only have half the DVC Points of what you used the first time, making your trip feel like less. 

Instead, you should train yourself to maximize your annual allotment of DVC Points. By doing so, you’ll learn how the DVC Points Chart works and also whether your contract is enough to suit your family’s long-term needs. If not, you can always buy more points later, as the DVC program is scalable. 

Use ‘Em or Bank ‘Em 

This is the corollary to what I just said. You never want to waste your DVC Points. That’s like throwing away your money. So, you should always know how many DVC Points you have in your account. 

Use as many of them as you see fit during your current Use Year. However, you should always check to make sure you don’t have any extra DVC Points. When you do, please Bank those points so that you can use them during your next Use Year.