Disney Vacation Club

Terry and I made the decision last summer to buy into the Disney Vacation Club. I love Disney. And while I thought I could go down there every year, I’m starting to think that the attractions don’t change often enough to be able to do that. Fortunately, there are a lot of other options open through this timeshare, including staying at non-Disney properties all over the world. Plus, there’s the cruise line. We did a 4 night cruise as part of our honeymoon (then 10 days in the parks) and we weren’t terribly enamored, frankly. We didn’t realize that room service is free, which would have made a pretty significant difference, we’re not keen on the group dining concept and we’re not into night life, which pretty much kills a good bit of the activities for adults. We’re starting to come back around to it, though. They have added a lot of different destinations since our honeymoon more than a decade ago, including Mediterranean cruises, multiple island regions, longer cruises, etc. I assumed, though, that they would require a lot more points than we have bought into and would pretty much not be feasible without begging, borrowing and stealing points (otherwise known as banking one year’s points into the next year and then borrowing the points from the year after that to accumulate three year’s worth of points into 1 year; it’s a handy concept). We were wrong.

We signed up to attend a webcast last night which showed the latest offerings at the parks and elsewhere. Of course, it was one big sales pitch to get members to buy additional points, but we actually found it informative. They will be doing a significant add-on to Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom down at WDW in Orlando, which is slated for completion in 2012. In addition, they are launching a new cruise ship soon, which will put a 3rd ship into their fleet and allow them to increase their destination options. So, we started looking at the cruises running in 2011. They have northern European cruises, Alaskan cruises, a cruise that passes through the Panama canal (Terry really wants to go through the canal someday) and two transatlantic cruises. LONG transatlantic cruises. 14 nights. At first, Terry and I blew off that idea as having way too many days at sea, but then we actually looked at the ports of call and additional information. I was floored. The westbound cruise goes from Barcelona to Gibraltar, then to Madeira in Portugal. Don’t underestimate the number of days at sea for the actual trip across the Atlantic. There’s a whopping 5 concurrent days at sea. There are a total of 8 days at sea, so if you’re in it for the ports of call, you need to do one of the cruises through the Caribbean, along the Mexican Riveria, or something else. There are a couple of island ports after the crossing, but you need to be seriously into looking out at vast expanses of water for several days to do this cruise. I have to admit to being more into the cruising part than the beaches, since I’m not exactly a lay around on the beach kind of girl.

Terry and I are actually seriously considering booking for 2012 when we’re able. We’ll have to gather up 3 years worth of points, so no vacations for us in 2011 or 2013, but we were wondering how we were going to spend all of those points anyway. I think we may have found our answer. I’ll have to put some serious thought into what to do during those days at sea, but there’s always stitching. 🙂 They only run two cruises per year – one eastbound and one westbound. It’s a good way for them to make money on the fact that they need to get one of the ships over to Europe for the several different European cruises they offer, so it only makes sense. I’m wondering how quickly they book up and how far in advance we’ll be able to book.

Who knows, we have plenty of time to abandon this crazy plan of ours. Maybe we’ll do the 15-night cruise that heads through the Panama Canal? Or we’ll skip cruising altogether and decide to go somewhere else? Only time will tell.