To DVC or not to DVC?

This week on Brits in the Magic, we're diving into one of the biggest Disney decisions we've ever made — joining Disney Vacation Club (DVC)!

We share how we first discovered DVC during our honeymoon back in 2017, why we loved the idea but weren't quite ready to take the plunge, and what changed in 2024 that finally made us become members. From the financial side of the decision to travelling as a family with little B, we discuss the factors that made DVC the right choice for us.

We'll also talk about the benefits we've already experienced as DVC members, how it's changed the way we holiday at Disney, and our plans for making the most of our membership in the years ahead.

Plus, we wrap things up with a fun DVC-themed quick-fire round, including our favourite resorts, dream stays and whether our honeymoon selves would believe we'd become members one day!

Whether you're a current DVC member, considering joining, or simply curious about what it's all about, we hope our experience helps you decide whether DVC might be right for your family.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure to subscribe to Brits in the Magic so you never miss a trip into the magic.

We’d love to hear from you! Send us your Disney stories, questions, tips or episode ideas via email at britsinthemagic@outlook.com

And come say hello on Instagram at @britsinthemagic for park photos, family adventures, behind-the-scenes fun and plenty more Disney magic.

*Disclaimer*

Intro/outro narration and audio elements for this podcast may include AI-generated content created using licensed production tools.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Family Disney podcast. Disney parks, family adventures, and fresh British insight.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hello!

SPEAKER_02 0:27

And welcome home to Brits in Magic episode two. Woo! We I mean this is a bit sooner than we thought it was going to be, but we decided that we loved it so much last time and that people actually listened.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

In multiple countries.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Yeah, that was very strange when that first.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Really odd, really odd.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Um that we thought, you know what, let's do every couple of weeks rather than every month.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

So thank you very much for tuning back in if you are doing so.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

And if this is excuse me, if this is the first time you're tuning in, go have a look at episode one.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Yeah, so I'm Mrs. B.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

And I'm Mr. B.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

And you can find out all about our journeys to Disney and the way that we became the Disney fans that we are today and who we are and all about Little B. Although, Mr B, I missed I missed a Disney trip.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

You missed a Disney trip? Yeah. On our recollections of how many times we've been. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Go on. So when I was about eleven we went to Disneyland, Paris. It was my mum and me and my mum's friend and her son, and we stayed at Hotel Cheyenne, which I did mention.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I was I think I thought you'd mentioned Cheyenne itself, but just not the trip.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Yeah, um, and it was before it really had a Toy Story theme.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Oh, so a while back.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Yeah, but it was so much fun. We had the best time, and that was my first experience of staying on property as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Well, it is formally logged now, so it is it's part of the trip.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Um so yes, so obviously last episode we did talk about kind of like our journeys, didn't we? Um and we had a lot of fun doing that. And today's episode, uh what's the today's episode gonna be about?

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Well, before we get into today's episode, I think we just need to take a minute to mention the sad passing of Tom Kane. Yeah. Who I mean I have shed many a tear, a happy tear, oh yes, to his voice, and I think the monorail voice is probably the thing that we quote the most between us. Mr.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Monorail, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Um so I mean his voice will be immortalised in Happily Ever After and The Monorail and so many other things as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Well that's the thing, 'cause I often say, uh when I heard about his death and you look into kind of what he did other than uh Happily Ever After and Monorail, um he was Darwin in um The Wild Thornbury. The Wild Thornbury's which I mean we were kids of the 90s and 2000s, we watched the Wild Thornbury's all the time on C B B C Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

And Nickelodeon, I think, as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Oh, if you had Sky, yeah, on Nickelodeon, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um but the Wild Thornbury's that that was a staple of uh daytime television for children, and also of course he was in the Clone Wars, yeah. Um and many, many other things that you you just don't realise, like you do not realise.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

The thing with voice actors, you never like I had never linked Happily Ever After and the Monorail together ever. But they are two absolutely iconic um moments in a Disney day, and you know, t-shirts made out of the monorail sayings, mugs with the monorail saying on it, yeah, yeah. You know, his voice will be immortalised in Disney history forever.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

But very, very sad news, uh sad passing indeed. Um, but like I said, he will live on forevermore. Uh so today's topic then DVC.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

DVC Disney Vacation Club. Um I think we mentioned last week we are Disney Vacation Club members, but we are very new to Disney Vacation Club.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

We are, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

So everything we talk about is just our experience.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Um so far.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, exactly. Um we know that this is not for everybody by any stretch of the imagination, but we'll give you a brief insight into why we did it, what we feel the benefits are for us, but also some of the reasons that we didn't do it straight away when we first looked into it.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Um so just for those people that may not know much or anything about DVC, um Disney Vac Disney Vacation Club, uh we'll just kind of give you a bit of a brief overview. So what effectively is it?

SPEAKER_02 4:58

So Disney Vacation Club is Disney's version of a timeshare. Effectively, you buy into one of the DVC properties, um and they are usually in fact I think they are all classed as deluxe hotels.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

All of the DVC rooms can be bought for cash or using DVC points. Um and so you are effectively an owner in a resort.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Yeah. Um a shareholder.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Yeah, exactly. It is a timeshare, but it doesn't feel like a timeshare that you might get in Spain or Greece or somewhere where I was just thinking Spain. Yeah, there's someone on the street that stops you, tell so you can get free tickets to a theme park or something, and they will uh and you know you're gonna have to sit through an hour, two hours of being sold something.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

And that does happen at Disney, you do have to sit through a conversation with them, but being Disney, it's still a very magical experience.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

And and it's like I said before, you talked about being a point system. Yeah. Um, and depending on how much money uh you're willing to put into DVC depends on how many points you're going to get per year. Yeah. Um and obviously there are uh uh hotels available um at a certain point in time, but there are also resales available for other hotels. So for example, what what I mean, what is a hotel at the moment, or what was it most recently I I can't remember now, that was available that they were selling?

SPEAKER_02 6:39

So the first time we looked, you could either purchase um Riviera this year. Or they had some Polynesian points before the new Polynesian tower had been built. Yeah. But each room type, each um sort of time, so for example, spring break will have a higher point uh basis than um I don't know, is there a quiet time at Disney these days?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

That's quickly uh evaporating, yeah. That's that's not the case anymore.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

But in the same way that a hotel room would have a different cost, there are different costs um in number of points, and you need to work out what's best for you. So um we had we when we were looking into it, we had to decide how often are we gonna go, what type of room would we want, and then we had to buy the correct number of points to allow for that.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, otherwise it wouldn't work. It wouldn't work for us.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Now, unlike a normal timeshare, um you are not stuck in one hotel. So they have two booking windows. They have the 11-month booking window in which you can book your home resort, and some which is what you bought into. Yes, absolutely. Um, and some home resorts book up quicker than others. The newer the resort, the more likely it is to book up. And then they have the seven-month window in which you can book any resort. And by any resort, that includes Alani in Hawaii, it includes Vero Beach, down in the south of Florida, I believe. Uh Hilton Head, which is also down in the south of Florida, Florida, I believe. I could be wrong with those two, um, and the Grand Californian in California, and the Disney Hotel in California. You can also buy other types of holidays. So your points can be exchanged for cruises, they can be exchanged for hotels in Disneyland Paris, they can be exchanged for hotels across the world, but they are not always the best value. So that's definitely something worth looking into if that's something that you're looking to do with it as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah. Uh, and in kind of respect to of room size and what the rooms are like, it all depends on how much you want to again pay into it, doesn't it? And so it's not just kind of like the views that you might get, but it's the size of the room that you want to have as well. So your basic room is a a basic studio, um, which looks almost exactly like a studio room that you'd stay in anyway. Uh, except the only difference is rather than being two double beds, there'll be one double bed and one uh kind of like pull-out sofa bed.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Yeah, and that also depends where you're staying as well. They're slightly different. So the Riviera has smaller sort of corner rooms, which is literally just a bed.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Um you're also, it is far more like a traditional villa than normal, so housekeeping. No. Doesn't happen. I think it's I don't know for sure, but I think it's once a week rather than anything else. Yeah. Um there'll be a microwave, there'll be um cuttlery and plates, all of that sort of stuff, because it is a lot more of a home away from home than perhaps a traditional hotel room would be.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

And then if you go to the one-bedroom villa, that's when things start to really look different because then you have a proper kitchen rather than just little kitchenette uh as you come into the hotel room. Um, you'll have two rooms, yeah. Um, and you'll have a washer and a dryer as well. Plus for that one, particularly with a family. And a vacuum cleaner in there, because like I said, it's a it's a more of a villa room. And then you go to a two-bedroom villa, even bigger, and then you go up to kind of like the really, really big rooms.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

And there are some huge rooms.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Stunning rooms. Yes. Um and they're all different in each hotel. They're all they're all set out in different ways in each hotel.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

I think I saw a vlog of the Beach Club three-bedroom villa, and I why would anybody leave to even go to the parks? It was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, it was it was. And apologies if it is confusing to you because I think it was confusing to us as well, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Oh, absolutely. We I know I personally went through a phase of, but why would anybody want to do this when there's no housekeeping and all of that sort of stuff?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Um and I'm gonna have to buy my tickets separately. I can't buy a package anymore, and there was lots and lots that we had to take into account when we were thinking about going for it in the first place. Yeah. Um and why it took us As long as it did. Seven years to make the decision.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah. Um so I think that leads us nicely into kind of like our first interaction with DVC when we when we first properly looked at it, uh, which it was well, I say our honeymoon, you already knew a little bit about DVC, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

I'd heard people talking about it, and before our honeymoon, we'd been once together, I'd been a couple of times, you'd been a couple of times, and we knew we loved Disney, but I don't think we realised to what extent we loved Disney. We'd never stayed on property, it wasn't something that had ever really crossed our mind. We were doing it on our honeymoon because we wanted to make it special.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Well, I've just I realised in the last episode that I was a Disney brat, so I'm learning a whole whole load of things there.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Um We were at Animal Kingdom Lodge, and Animal Kingdom Lodge has like four bits that go off to the different rooms. And we were in the back left-hand corner as you walked in, and that was where the DVC stand was. So every single time we went to our room, we walked past the DVC stand, and they had a poster or a board or whatever that said, come and talk to us and get a $200 gift card. Now we've already talked about our honeymoon and how we were very lucky to have input from parents into paying for it.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

We thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip that we that we go that we go to Animal Kingdom Lodge this time and this time only.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Absolutely, and we had scrimped for all our spending money.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

So we thought, right, $200 gift card, great, that gives us um a little bit more money for merch, it gives us the opportunity to go down to the bar, have a couple of cocktails, excellent, let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

We had already put aside a morning um to go shopping to the Florida mall.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

And a bit more required today, so we thought, right, let's book a talk um and do it early in the morning. We'll be finished by sort of half ten, eleven o'clock, Florida Mall for the shops, done, $200 gift card, excellent, sorted.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

We were genuinely qu curious as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah, we wanted to know about it, we wanted to know is it something that might be worth it for us in the future? But we weren't seriously considering it as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Because like like I said, you you knew a little bit about it and you talked to me about it. I had actually never ever heard of DVC. Um I realised I'd seen like DVC stalls around the parks, but I'd never paid them any attention because I didn't know what they were.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

If I'm honest, I thought they were like guest services.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

That that no, but when I I'd been to speak to them to ask them where things were.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

When when I was when I was younger, that's exactly kind of what I thought they were. Yeah. I never really paid them much mind whatsoever. And then obviously when you talked to me about them and and and you and you were telling me about kind of this timeshare thing, um, and it piqued my interest. And then, of course, like you said, we went on honeymoon, it was there, and the 200 gift uh 200 gift card and uh fast passes were very, very alluring as well. Yeah. And I said, well, let's just find out a little bit more information. At the very least, we're gonna come out, like you said, w with some with a a bit of cherry on top of the honeymoon. Absolutely. But actually, is this something worth our while? So we we went into it kind of like with several motors, really. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, so we we we booked onto it, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 15:12

We did. So we went to Saratoga Springs because that was the main place to do the talks and stuff. Now there's a picked up we were picked up in a DVC van, which felt very important. Um there's a couple of other places you can have the talks now, but at the time that's where it was.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah, the new Polynesian has definitely got somewhere, and I think the Disney Springs um DVC lounge.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Where we went last year, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Um but Saratoga, beautiful, one of the first DVC resorts, along with Old Key West. Um, we were very impressed. We had the talk, we sat there, we thought, yes, this is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

It was a video first.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah, that that video saying how they'd done it years ago.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

That was an eye-opener. Yeah. At the end of that video, I thought, oh my goodness, this is this is something I need to kind of I need to learn more about this. Yeah. Um, and I was very, very jealous of the because you had some of the people that had first, like I said, signed up to it. And the money that they'd spent back then and actually how much their points were worth now, um, was just it's eye watering, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Because one of the things they say is a resort has a certain number of points. Now, those points can be spread out over different weeks, different room types, but they can never add or remove points from the overall total for that resort. So even if you bought points in say Old Key West when it was first um being sold, and you got your 50 years from that point, because the 50 years starts when the resort first opened. Yes. So for example, we've bought into Animal Kingdom Lodge, we've got 35 years left on Animal Kingdom Lodge because it's already been open for 15 years. Yeah. Um but if you'd bought in right at the beginning before inflation, the price per point was so much lower. And those people have had 25, 30 years of holidays already, so they have now more than paid that off for the price that you would currently pay rat rate for that room.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had so we had the presentation, the the video presentation.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

We did.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Uh, and then you were called in uh to go and speak with a rep.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Um and we had a lovely gentleman, he was British. He was British. Uh he was he was British.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Which was really useful because he understood where we were coming from in terms of um how often we'd be able to go. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Um how it would be from uh from an English point of view, from a British point of view.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Yeah, how we'd fund it financially with the loans and all of that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yeah, and then we had a we had a sit-down with him, we talked about what our budget was, and bearing in mind, I mean, you were you were starting out in your career, weren't you? Yeah. Uh and I was actually still uh in university. Yeah. Um I was in I'd just done my first year of university, so I had two more years left before I even started to properly get into the world of work.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah. And I think that was our wake-up call moment, wasn't it? When we priced up, okay, so to go when we need to go, for how long we need to go for, how often we want to go. And at that point we were looking at every two years, um, because one of the things that you can do is you get a certain number of points a year, but you can bank points, so you can use two years worth of points every two years effectively, which is what we were gonna do. Yeah, but it was still way above anything that we could afford at the time, even if we'd financed it. And being from the UK, DVD themselves cannot finance it for you. So if you live in America, they can do all the credit checks, they can do all of that stuff, and they can finance a loan for you.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

If you are from the UK, that can't happen, so you have to have a loan in place already, yeah. If that is how you're doing it, um or pay it in full. Or pay it in full, yeah. So effectively you are paying it in full to Disney, yeah. But you're paying off a loan separately if that's how you need to do it.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Um I forgot to mention as well though, you did get to walk around some mock villas, didn't you? Yes, we did. Which we actually got to see uh if you remember the first time. No, it was a larnie the first time. Oh it was a language. It was a larnie, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

And that was another reason that we were a bit um iffy about it at that point, because it was a Larney or it was Polynesian, and there were only very few Polynesian that they could get hold of for us.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

But he did talk to us about because I remember coming out of it going, this is a possibility, and it made it a little bit more of a possibility, but it's it still was a no-goer, really. But he did say that we could get Animal Kingdom, um, and of course we'd stayed there for the honeymoon, and we said, Oh, that would be brilliant. That brought it down a little bit for us, yeah. But like I said, at the end of the day, he left us to it for about good 15 minutes or so, and we crunched the numbers, and we knew at that point in time it was a little bit of a pipe dream, wasn't it? It just it we we just couldn't fund it, we just couldn't fund it at all.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Um so we came home and we thought about it a little bit and we did a lot more research into it, and a few of the things that we found were there are multiple ways of buying DVC contracts, so you can buy direct through Disney, which is what we ended up doing, or you can buy resale contracts, and Disney is unique, or DVC is unique in the fact that as a timeshare, when you sell on your contract, you are more than likely going to make a profit from it. It's impossible to say you absolutely will, obviously, because economies change and all of that sort of thing, but um most of the timeshare DVC timeshares go up in value. Now, what Disney then does when you try and sell a contract or you try and buy a resale contract is they have what's called right of first refusal. So if Disney think that a contract is going for too low a price, or if, like we would have been, interested in Animal Kingdom Lodge, they have a few points that they have um bought back on the resale contract through right of first refusal, which is how they can still sell some of those resorts that are technically not being sold currently. They have a certain resort that they go for more often than not. So at the time for us, it was Polynesian. He that was the one that you could absolutely guarantee we could get.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Um, and when we actually Came to buy it, Riviera was the one being sold. It was, yes. But our new Disney vacation rep, because it had been seven years, said that they had got some Animal Kingdom Lodge points available. Um to which point we were like, ooh, exciting. Okay, let us think about this a little bit more. Um, because on top of that, this is gonna be a lot of information this episode. Um, there are two so the resale, they've changed the rules around resale now. So it used to be that if you bought resale, you've got exactly the same benefits as anybody buying from Disney. However, those rules have now changed. So resale contracts now do not have any of the extra benefits that a um bought through Disney contract has. So by those benefits, we're talking about 20% off merchandise. Yeah. Um, the Moonlight Magic um tickets that they do every so often for the different parks, um, 20% off loads of stuff, I believe, dining plan currently, but I could be wrong on that one.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

But there's loads and loads of member benefits. The 20% off merch is the one that we've used most often. Um there's loads of benefits that are forever changing on the website, but if you buy resale, you don't have access to those.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

On top of that, you can rent out your Disney vacation club points.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

And this is something that has recently kind of the rules have changed a little bit, haven't they? Recently.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Yes. So there are websites out there, and we have done it ourselves, where you can rent out your vacation club points um and get a little bit of money for them.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yeah, a bit of money back.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah. So that they're not just going to waste. Now, unfortunately, this is why we can't have nice things. People have been buying contracts and using it for commercial gain. So people have been massively upselling, um, and Disney has started to crack down that on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Which is understandable.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

You know, we're absolutely able to rent out points. So we rented out our points last year because when we bought into DVC, we had already booked the Port Orleans holiday. So we decided we're not going to change that, we're going to rent out the points, and then this year we're using our points to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge for our um summer holiday. Um that works really well. You just have to be able to book a room for somebody, which is easy. We've never had it.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

It was scary the first time.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Oh, it was terrifying.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah, booking a room for somebody else. It was scary the first time. But once once we've done it once, it's fine, it's easy.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

And getting used to like typing in an American address and knowing all of that stuff was just weird.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

But um and the first time anybody went on our points, I was like, oh my goodness. Yeah, have we done it wrong? Is this gonna be okay?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Are they gonna be able to get into the hotel?

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Yeah, but we've never had any comeback. And similarly, you can rent vacation club points and vacation club rooms yourself. Yeah. Um, so if it's it is a cheaper way than buying a deluxe resort room. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

So before we move on to 2017, um, when we not 2017, I do apologise, uh 2024, when we actually bought our bought our points. I'm gonna ask one question. Do you wish we'd bought back in 2017 that first time?

SPEAKER_02 25:47

Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

I'm gonna say yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

See, I'm gonna say no because it's a controversy. It it wasn't right, it wasn't Animal Kingdom Lodge. We weren't in a position we've since been able to buy enough points so that we can go every year for two weeks.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

We weren't in a position to be able to do that. We didn't know enough about renting out points about annual dues, for example. So because you are part of a timeshare, because you are part of keeping up the property, you have to pay annual dues every year, and it works out at approximately £1,500 currently, but that can change.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

And that's because of the amount we've paid, and but no, but I'm talking about the amount that we've paid if we'd have paid more into DVC, yeah, our dues go uh the annual dues go up, so that's just how much obviously we are paying now. See, I so the reason why I'm saying yes is that I get that, and I know in reality it was definitely not the right thing to do, and it was not even possible to do, really. But the reason I say yes is because I look at how much the points were back in 2017, then how much the points were in 2024, and it had gone up, and we and I'm not talking about a couple of hundred pounds, I'm talking about a couple of thousand pounds. Yeah, definitely and we would have definitely been able to get it cheaper back then, like for like, it would have been cheaper back then, but as you said, really w we're we're we're talking semantics here because we didn't have the money anyway, or at least at least not enough to be able to um properly do it um the way we're doing it right now.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

And even if we had had the money to cover the points, cover the dues, we didn't have the money to pay for the flights, pay for the tickets and everything else that we wanted to do every holiday.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah, so yeah, I say yes for that reason just because I know how much change has been since 2017 up to 2024, but yeah, in reality it wasn't going to work, was it? So we come to 2024 then, um, and well, we'd been we'd had the conversation over and over again since that 2017 holiday, hadn't we, about BBC. Um, and of course, we got further on in our careers, you got further on in your career, I'd started my career, we were bringing more money in, we became homeowners. So many things happened between those years. We did, we became parents, yeah. We became parents in uh well 2022. Um, so uh so many things happened, and the conversation never quite went away, did it? Never quite went away. No, um, and then of course we went to Paris uh with my mum and dad in 2024. We were supposed to go to Orlando, like we said last episode, um, but it didn't happen. And we went to Paris, we all again had a wonderful time. Um for those of you that didn't listen to the last episode, what are you doing? My parents are also massive Disney fans as well. Uh so we all had a wonderful time, and we came back home uh and I started looking into it again. Like I like a it was kind of like once a year I properly delve into it. Yeah, definitely. And for the first time in forever, uh the for the first time I came to you and said the numbers work.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yeah, it started to make sense.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

And and you were and you were like, Yeah, surely do, you keep telling and I was like, no, seriously, the numbers are starting to work, and also looking at the prices of how the holidays have changed just since 2017, and I I don't mean holidays in terms of DVC, I mean the prices of Brits going away to Orlando.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

So for a little bit of context, our Port Orleans Riverside holiday we priced up just for the two of us, so not including Little B. Not that we would ever go without him, but just so we could do the comparison, and it was the same price as our honeymoon at Animal Kingdom Lodge in 2017, yeah. Like that was the price increase we were talking about over the seven years, that was only gonna get worse.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

And when we went to DVC in 2017, that was something they actually talked about that the holidays will always go up in price, yeah. But with DVC, there's that lock-in there, or at least a partial lock-in that's gonna make it a lot more affordable for you. And uh and I just said it's now or never. I said realistically, I said there's gonna come a point when we can't afford to go to Disney anymore, um, or we're only gonna go maybe once every three or four years. Um, and if we want to do this, if we want to go at the very least every other year, if not every year, we need to properly sit down and have a look at this now. And we did. Uh we started doing our due diligence, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 30:51

And I needed a lot of convincing. You had to do a lot of research.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Yeah, I did, I had to do a lot of research. But when I said to you when when when we crunched the numbers and you finally said this is now starting to make sense, um we got in contact with DVC, didn't we? Um and we met a really, really lovely rep.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Um, I can't remember her name now. Neither was really bad. I know, I know, but she was she was lovely. Um and we had Skype calls.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

And she was really patient with us.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Oh, very, very patient, yeah. Because we had a lot more questions, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yes, and we knew what we were talking about a lot more, so she wasn't having to sell it to us as much. It was more she was having to answer our questions, yeah, give us the information that we needed at that time, let us go away and think about it, and then come back to her.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

At one point she said, Would you like to work for DVC? Because you know more information uh than some of our colleagues do.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

And it was because I needed so much convincing that this was the right thing to do. I knew that I wanted to go to Disney a lot.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

I think I knew in my heart that really the only place I really want to go is Disney. I would much rather spend an absolute fortune going to Disney than most other places in the world. Really sorry that that sounds awful, but I really would.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Well, I mean, I I I've I say I've travelled the world, I have travelled the world. You've travelled quite a few places as well yourself. Um but to be fair, we both just love Disney so much. Um, and if it came down to going somewhere, Disney would always be our number one choice.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Absolutely. If it was this or Disney, but again, if we could do both, I'd do both. But if it's this or Disney, I'm choosing Disney.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

But again, with DVC, you're not locked into Disney, not 100%. Don't get me wrong, it it's not the best, it's not the easiest to kind of go, oh we'll go somewhere else, but you're not locked in.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

But what I've got to rentals, yeah. What a lot of people do, so people talk about Disney cruises, um, and that's something you want to do in the future, or at least I do. Um he needs to convince him for that one. Um, but you can buy a Disney cruise on points, but people don't. They rent out their points and use that money to go on a cruise. And that was the I think that was the tipping point for me when I was like, you know what, actually, yes, we're buying into DVC, but that doesn't mean that I am stuck going to Florida stuck. She says it would not be stuck. Um trapped. Trapped in Disney World, going to Florida all the time. That like there is a little bit of fluidity in this and there are ways that we can make it work for us.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Yeah. Um, but once we decided that this is something we want to do, we then spoke to my mum and dad, didn't we? Because they'd always said so. When we came back from the honeymoon, we told them all about DBC, and again, they never heard of it. And they said, This sounds fantastic. We wish we'd known about it years ago when it was when it was a lot cheaper. Yeah. Uh, because we'd have bought into it, but we had no idea. Um, and they said, Look, if you ever go for it one day, we want to come into it with you because we like going to Disney with you, and it makes sense for us, and also it's something that can be passed down um through generations.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

And we always agreed that it wouldn't mean we had to go together. So this year, for example, we're not going together, yeah. But that it would mean that if we wanted to go together, yeah, then we would both be in the same boat and we'd have the same options.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Yeah, yes. And same place to go, same home destination. And so we said, look, we want to do this. Um, do you want to do this? And they said, Look, if you're in, we are in. So we all came in, we sat down, um, and it was the with the big meeting then with the with the lovely rep. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Um and I've never been more nervous in my entire life as that meeting.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Apologies if you can hear some barking in the background. That is our golden labrador. Funnily enough, we've never said his name.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

We haven't.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

It's Pluto. I wonder why we named him Pluto. If you know, please email in. Um so apologies if you can hear him barking, he's probably seen a squirrel somewhere. Or a chipmunk.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

Or someone's walked past the door, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Oh, you didn't get my chipmunk thing. I did. Chip and Chippendale. Um so apologies for that. Um, he will be quiet in uh a few moments. Um, but yeah, so we had we we had the uh the big meeting on Skype and we were all in, and then it was payment time. And I don't know about you, but I've never had such a squeaky bum moment of paying that amount of money because like we said earlier transfer over to America. Yeah, because like we said earlier, you've got to pay for it all in one go. Whether you get a loan from a bank or something, which which we didn't, um we were able to pay for it all in one go, um, and our parents were able to pay for it all in one go. That was proper squeaky bum time.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Oh, it was terrible.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Because that's a that was a lot of money. A lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

A number of times we checked with the bank, with DVC, we emailed the rep to say we've sent it over, can you let us know as soon as they've got it? Which she was great and did.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Yes, she was, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Um, but yeah, she was brilliant from start to finish.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

She was absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yeah, we had to have a notary because technically you're buying property.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Yep, yep. There was there was there was a lot involved in it, and then all of a sudden, that's it, you've you've got your points.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Done and your points appear on um the my DVC.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

And then it's do with them what you wish, effectively.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

And like we said, because we'd already booked the holiday at that point, we decided to rent out those first lot of points. Yeah. Um, which brought us a nice little bit of cash back in.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Because you get the year that you do it. So they have what's called use years, um, which kind of effectively dictates the month that you get your points, when your 11-month window is and when your seven-month window is, and she worked out for us based on when we would need to go on holiday. Um she worked out for us when would be the best use year. So when we bought into DVC, our use year was actually a couple of months earlier, so we got all of the points for that year as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Yeah, we did, we did, which was really good for us. So moving on, we're like we've we talked about 2017, the first interaction, we talked about when we bought it in 2024. Uh our first usage was last year.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Well, our first usage of the points is actually this year, but our first experience DVC members was last year.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

And using the benefits was our benefits. So yeah, our first kind of like DVC experience uh uh of of the benefits of the points were la was last year. Um and some of the things, well, straight off the bat, come on, let's go for the really, really shallow stuff. First of all, coming into the hotel room at Port O'Leand and it see it saying DVC family.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Uh which we didn't expect. No. But we were like, Yeah, we are.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Scanning your magic band, and instead of it going green, it goes purple and says welcome home.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

I knew you'd say that one. I knew you'd say that one.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

I love that so much.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Um and it didn't work for mum and dad, did it, because they weren't on the app correctly, and so so their bands didn't sync up, uh, which really annoyed them. Because they they were they wanted the purple thing and they wanted it to say welcome home. No, no, it's not gonna work for him. He's out, he's never gonna get that. That's tough look for him. Um he needs to stump up some uh put uh some money for some points and then they can get it. Um but yeah, I I knew you'd say that because you you were you were o the moon. I didn't so much I didn't even notice it the first time. I was just like, oh, it says welcome, that's a nice touch, isn't it? And you were like, that's good.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

And then looking to see who else was DVC is like people going into the parks and like.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

Yeah, it's a bit of a if you know you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Uh that's terribly shallow, but um but then practically 20% discount on all merch.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

And when you have a little B, that came in really useful.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

We took a certain amount of dollars with us, um, and we tried to take about $500 each with us, don't we, each year? Effectively, we got six hundred dollars worth of merchandise with that 20% discount. So that was really great.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Um we had the dining plan, so we didn't use that, but there are discounts at restaurants as well. It's not as good as 20%, I think it's more between 10 and 15, but we didn't use that because we didn't need to, but that is available. Yeah. And then the DVC lounges, which were brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Yeah. Well, uh we used some, we didn't use them all, did we?

SPEAKER_02 40:01

So we used there were three. Um we used the Disney Springs. Yes, we did, yeah. Which was lovely.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Oh, it was gorgeous, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

We used um the Epcot one, which was really interesting to go up. So it's in the Imagination Pavilion, it's just as you're coming out of Figmann and into the triangle.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Um, and then we tried to get in the Magic Kingdom one, but it was still very new and still very busy.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

That was a bit disappointing, I'm not going to lie.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Yeah, I think it was it had only been open a few months. I think now Beacon Barrel is open, that will have a lot less people in it.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

It'd be interesting to see uh that'll be on the report, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Yeah, we're definitely gonna try and get in. But the DVC lounges have uh free drinks, free snacks, um, they have uh special meet and greets sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

We didn't see any of them, but they do have the we were told about one, but we couldn't get back in time for it, could we? Um which was a real shame.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Um but and to go, I said the Epcot one, because that was kind of like our main like wow, we're in DVC. That was the first one as well. And obviously, again, I've grown up going to Disney World so many times, uh, and I've walked past the big triangular pavilion, the pyramid pavilion, and obviously being in for like Figment um and uh um what was uh Honey I shrunk the audience. Yeah, um and so to go into the pyramid and to be inside the pyramid that was like this is so weird. Like I've seen this from the outside so many times. I didn't even again, I never knew that's where it was.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

But it's quite new. I mean, I say new, it's it's not been there ages and ages.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Yeah, yeah. Um but it was lovely, wasn't it? There was the the seating was lovely, it was bright, uh plenty of drinks to true uh choose from, snacks, little bee obviously enjoyed himself.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Yeah, um but things like DVC specific merch as well that again because we'd not looked for it, we'd not noticed it. Um but I mean we both got some water bottles, yeah, beautiful, yeah, beautiful metal water bottles. Um a Christmas tree decoration.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Which we're still yet to find.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

It's somewhere. It is somewhere in the house. Um but there was loads and loads of stuff. Yeah. Um and we went to a member update and got a free bag.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yes. Yeah. That w that was at um Disney Springs. That was that was the last day because we were kind of waiting, waiting to go to the airport really, weren't we? Um we we'd been invited to a member update and we said, well, we're gonna be in Springs anyway, getting some lunch, we'll come to the member update, and yeah, we got a free bag there. Yeah um and nearly bought some more DVC points. They tried the best, didn't they? Um but yes, that that was really, really good. Um so yeah, I said we we we we made use of what we could last year. We definitely made use of what the only thing that we didn't make any use of was, like you said, the the discount on some of the um food items in the restaurants. We didn't get a chance to do that, but everything else we made uh really really good use of. And one of the things I thought we do we could do this year is actually properly keep a tab on everything that we buy with a 20% discount just to see how much money we're actually saving. Yeah. And then we'll find out that actually we didn't need DVC at all, uh, and we've completely messed up. Or that uh do you know it's a really really good thing. So I think that's something we'll definitely do um on the holiday.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

I think one thing it's done for us is just solidify our ability to continue going to Disney. The price of the holiday will continue to go up.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

But we've dramatically reduced it. Yeah, we've we've nearly we've nearly halved it.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

But the nature of life in the UK. At the moment, our wages are not going to increase at the same rate as the price of the holiday does. And we have made it so that we are able to continue to go.

SPEAKER_03 44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Because ultimately, all we will need to buy each year are flights and tickets. And don't get me wrong, they're not cheap.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

No.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

But it has dramatically reduced what we need to pay for.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

We we researched what we've paid for for this holiday and what we would have paid for if we booked it through a travel company for the same hotel, i.e., same flight. Yeah, yeah, Animal Kingdom. And Dia Plan. Yeah, we are effectively paying half.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

It's about £10,000 less.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Yeah. We are we're we're paying effective effectively effectively paying half. Um and that means we can go Animal Kingdom Lodge every year.

SPEAKER_03 44:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Barring obviously some reason why we have to spend the money on something else. Yeah. Uh but every other year, 100% certain.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

And it's not for everyone. You've got to want to go as often as we want to go. It's got to I mean we wouldn't be doing a Disney podcast if it wasn't our lives in the way that it is.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

And it's it's got to be financially viable for you.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Because the thing that gets us, and even though we can afford it, the thing that gets us every year so far is uh the annual dues. Uh because they they are due just after Christmas. Yeah. And Christmas, of course, is a punishing time for the older bank balance anyway, uh, for Christmas presents and uh things like that.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

That is it's hard. And if you don't have the money available and you're paying for it at cars like that, it can quickly spiral. And so you've got to you've got to be financial you've got to know financially that you are secure.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

And we factor that into the price of our holiday as well. When we're when we're thinking about how much we've saved or whatever, we take the annual dues into account as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Ultimately, we've had to pay those and we wouldn't have paid those if we hadn't got DVC and we're doing it as a package deal. Yeah. But for us, it absolutely made sense. It doesn't make sense for everybody by any stretch, but we thought we'd share once we had little b it became even more important to us to go for it. Um, I needed a lot less convincing once we'd got little b than I needed before because I could genuinely see a time when we could no longer afford to go to Disney if we weren't careful, and for most people that would be, oh that's fine, we just won't go. For me, that was a massive deal.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

Well, in my big presentation to you, that was one of the things I pushed, wasn't it? Yeah, uh, I was like, just think in ten years' time you'll be sat here, you'll have not seen Disney for years, it'll be another ten years before you see it again, and you were like, No! Um, but no, it it's true, there was that we could genuinely see a point where we it would be a cut off for us. Um and and we we don't we we we have good jobs, we have good paying jobs. Yeah, uh and uh to say that you can't afford to go to Disney World once every two years, like let's forget once every year, we were saying uh we might not be going to Disney World maybe once every four years or something like that, or five years, it it was ridiculous compared to like when I was a kid and when you were kids, once every two years was yeah, not a problem whatsoever. Um so and and again, just finishing that little bit off now, and finishing the main bit of DVC off. The reason why we have talked about this in our second episode is because it's important to us now because it is part of us and it's part of our story, and it's gonna be part of things going on when we go on holidays. We will experience things as DVC members, and we want to be completely open and honest when we're when we're talking about these things.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

Wanted to explain to you why we can go as often as we can, because coming from the UK that's not easy. No, it's not, and we don't want to sit here and profess oh, we're going again, oh we're going again, and make it look like you know how are they managing that? Because we we get it, and we have tried to put in place fail-safes for us so that we can get it.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

And we've now lived both sides, haven't we? We've been to Disney plenty of times as just normal people going to D uh to um Disney, yeah, and now we're gonna do it from a DVC point of view.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Um so we so we And we are absolutely not selling it. We are it has to be right for you.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

There are there there there are absolute pitfalls to it.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

It's too expensive for it to not be right for you.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Yeah, you can't you can't be flippant about it, you can't just go, oh, it'll be fine, um, because it it it really won't. So we're gonna come to our quick fire questions again. All DVC themed. Yeah, all DVC themed this week. Uh I I I did my homework. I did I I thought I thought about this one. Uh I think we'll go with you again, Mrs. B, if you don't mind. You you can uh you can go first. Um so one resort you're desperate to stay at other than Animal Kingdom Lodge.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

Oh, Grand Floridian, just for the experience, it is beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

I wouldn't I wouldn't pay for it, it's over and above how much we could ever afford. But yeah, Grand Fluridian, even if just for a couple of nights.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Yeah. Um, in my uh ignorance of how much the points cost, I said to us, I said to you, insider, we're gonna go for a Grand Floridian. That's gonna be the one we're gonna get.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

Grand Foridian theme part view, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yeah, yeah. And then uh they told us of points, I went, we'll go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

And then we looked and we were like, well, Grand Floridian, when we bought our current points, we're like, oh let's just have a look and see Grand Floridian theme part view every other year. Oh no. So there are definitely different levels of DVC.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Absolutely. Uh second question then. Best thing about having a villa with a child?

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Ooh, the washing machine and tumble dryer, absolutely, if you've got the one-bed villa.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

For what we're going in this year, so the studio, um, I would say just having like plates and bowls and not having to ring down for them so we can do breakfast in the room. One thing we haven't mentioned actually, the deluxe resorts all have in their shop milk, pizzas, cereal, um, tater tots, things like stuck in the room. We're getting the dining plan this year, but you don't have to because you can do it all on the room. You can get Amazon delivered, you can get um DoorDash delivered, all of that sort of stuff. So if needed, you can absolutely save money as well.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

What do you think is the most overrated DVC perk?

SPEAKER_02 50:44

Ooh, I'm probably gonna say the DVC lounges. I really like them, but as we said, we had real issue getting into Magic Kingdom.

SPEAKER_03 50:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Um the Epcot one, they gave you like a time slot that you had to be in and out of. It was it's not like a cafe at home, for example, where you can just go in and out as you please. Yeah. It's definitely not as fluid as perhaps I'd want it to be.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

If money was no object, what's your dream Disney resort stay?

SPEAKER_02 51:19

Ooh, this is really hard. Okay, it would be a split stay. It would be five days Landfredian, three or four-day Disney cruise on one of the newer ships in the funnel suite. And then however many days I decided, probably Beach Club. I really want to stay a beach club.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Interesting. Uh and would 2017 honeymoon you believe uh you became a DBC owner in 2024?

SPEAKER_02 51:55

Not a chance. Not a chance.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

You you definitely came out of that uh 2017 one going, it was a great dream, but it's it's over now, it's never gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

We didn't have a home, we didn't have a dog, we had one car between us, we didn't like no, we were not financially in a place that I ever foresaw as being in the world.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

No, definitely not to be not for it. Definitely not.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

Okay. Disney resort you're desperate to do next. DVC resort.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Uh yeah, I would say Grand Floridian. Um like just because it's Grand Floridian. Yeah, it would be nice to be able to say you've done it. Polynesian close second.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

Alani as well, though.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Yes, but I think Polynesian for me close second.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

Um best thing about having a villa with a child?

SPEAKER_01 52:46

Uh I'm gonna go Animal Kingdom Lodge specific uh Savannah View Room.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Because he will he loves animals. And he will yeah, he he will love because obviously we have a Savannah View Room. Uh he will love seeing that. So yeah, I think that'll be a really special thing for him every day.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Very excited. Uh most overrated DVC perk.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

I'm immediately gonna say the uh DVC lounges.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Um look, I enjoyed the sit-down, a little bit of the air con, uh the drinks were lovely, the snacks were fine, but realistically, that's all it is. Yeah. A drink, a snack, and a seat, and like you said, the time and the time, the time slot. Yeah, it's not quite small enough. And I have to say, if you are a DVC member and you're part of the DVC club and you've paid a heck of a lot of money, and w uh we're we we're not that high up in DVC, really, and everybody gets treated the same, but it's still a heck of a lot of money we've put in. There's not a lot there to go, wow, look at this, this is premium stuff. So I'm gonna say DVC lounges.

SPEAKER_02 53:51

It's more the flexibility of it as well. Having a toddler, I got very excited about the fact that we'd just be able to pop in, have a drink, come back out again, bit of aircon. We got there and it was like, no, you can't get in for another three hours. I was like, well, I don't I'm not gonna be in the park in another three hours. Yeah, yeah. I need to get in now with my toddler. Yeah. And we had to go elsewhere and go into a quick service and get a drink, which is fine. Yeah, don't get me wrong. But that perk that you're sold was not everything we thought it would be.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

It wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

Um If money were no objects, what would be your dream Disney resort stay?

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Uh I'm gonna say Polynesian bungalow.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Ooh! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I have heard though, that they're very loud because all you hear is the fairy hooting its horn going back and forward.

SPEAKER_01 54:40

I don't mind a fairy hooting its horn. Uh that'll be it would be atmospheric. Uh so yeah, no, I that would be my uh my dream if no money was an ob uh if money was no object. DVC um uh Polynesian bungalow. Yeah. Go on then last one.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Would 2017 honeymoon you believe that you became a DVC owner?

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Yes, because I always had faith.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

Once you get an idea in your head as well, you I uh you run with it.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

The re but the reason why I say yes is because I clicked very, very quickly, and I think you'll you'll agree with it because it's the thing I pushed. Yeah. I clicked very, very quickly that we would one day not be able to afford to go to Disney. And that was and I clicked that almost instantly, uh, and I think everybody kind of poo-pooed it a little bit and said a bit over dramatic.

SPEAKER_03 55:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

Um, but then when you looked at 2017 to 2024, I went, ha ha, look how much it's changed. I was right then and I'm right now. Um, so I think for me, yes, I always believed it. Um so that brings us to the end of episode two.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

Yeah, I just want to say as well, things change all the time with DVC. So it might be that something that we've said today, if you're listening to this six months down the line, a year down the line, is slightly different. So please make sure if you are considering it, you get up-to-date information. Yeah, so we we've tried to be as up-to-date as possible, but obviously And again, we we don't know everything, we're not DVC reps. No, no, no. We are still very, very new to DVC.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Do your due diligence right with you.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

Absolutely. But we have rented out points, we are doing a stay, um we have bought points. Yeah. You know, so we just wanted to give you a background as to how we were able to go as often as we can go.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

And if you are thinking about becoming DVC members um or you're totally against the idea, or you've got questions, email us.

SPEAKER_02 56:42

Or you're a current DVC member and we've missed something, and you're like, how do they not know about the email us? We want to know, we want to know it all.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

Yes. Uh so we are uh uh Britsinthemagic at outlook.com. Um it will be on uh the bottom of our description feed as well. Uh find us on Instagram. We are now on Instagram, aren't we? We are uh so find us on again that's at the bottom of our feed as well. So find us on Instagram. We've already got a few people following us, and that's wonderful. Absolutely. Um and uh well we've not actually got the next topic sorted yet, have we? Now that we decide to do it every two weeks. Yeah, we had like a we were gonna do um third episode was gonna be um uh packing and plumbing and stuff. That's that can't be that yet.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

I mean what we could talk about next episode is the restaurant choices that we've made because we've now booked all of our restaurants for our next trip.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Well, there you are then. I think that's what we're gonna be talking about restaurant choices, especially restaurant choices with a four-year-old. Yeah, because that's influenced, yeah, because a fussy four-year-old. Uh because that has definitely influenced us this year. Absolutely. So there we are, look at that, live on air. We've uh we've um teased out uh the next episode. So join us next time uh at Brits in the Magic where we talk about the restaurants that we've chosen.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Um why we haven't chosen.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

And why yeah, and why we haven't chosen. So uh I've been Mr. B.

SPEAKER_02 58:06

And I've been Mrs. B.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

And we'll see you real soon. Thank you very much, everyone. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Disney parks, family adventures, and fresh British inside.