Disney Hotel Lady

What makes a DVC room different than a regular room? Let me show you!

For reference, check out this post where I show a Standard View room at the Disneyland Hotel. https://stepsfromthecrosswalk.com/2024/05/16/disneyland-hotel/

Disney Vacation Club (DVC) rooms are closer to apartments than hotel rooms. One-bedroom rooms and above all come with fully equipped kitchens and laundry facilities inside your room. Studios usually come with a wet bar, mini fridge, and microwave, along with a small selection of dishes and utensils (no laundry facilities inside the room).

You do NOT have to be a member of DVC to rent out these rooms. You can reserve them directly from Disney, or you can find a “points rental” site to rent direct from owners. All based on availability of course.

At the Discovery Tower, there are laundry facilities and gym right inside the tower. DVC members staying on points do not pay for laundry.

Guests at the Discovery Tower have access to all other amenities of the Disneyland Hotel, such as the pool.

Now let me show you the video of our most recent stay in a Deluxe Studio.

If you’re here, you may be wondering what exactly is DVC? Let me try to explain it for you.

What is DVC?

DVC stand for Disney Vacation Club, Disney’s version of a timeshare. If you are familiar with timeshares, let me start off by telling you – forget what you know about timeshares. Just forget it. Why? Because people who are already familiar with another timeshare program or guidelines seem to get more confused when DVC is being explained to them. So, again, forget what you know. Gone? Good.

Home Resort

With DVC, first you choose a “home” property which will be where your membership is based. The different properties have different buy-in prices and different “annual dues,” or maintenance costs. All of this information is available online.

At your Home resort, you will have an 11-month booking window. For example, if you want to plan a trip to Disney in June 2019, you will be allowed to start making room reservations at your Home resort as early as July 2018.

All other resorts that are part of DVC will open to you at the 7-month mark. So continuing with out June 2019 example, you will be allowed to start making room reservations at any non-Home resort in November 2018.

Now let’s move on to choosing what type of accommodation you want for your trip. Let’s say you are a family of 4 and you want to take Grandma and Grandpa along this trip. That makes a total of 6 occupants in your room. You can choose a 2-bedroom or the 3-bedroom Grand Villa.

How long do you want to stay? Probably a week. Summing up, we have 6 people staying in a 2-bedroom villa in June for a week. Now we need to see how many points you need.

Point System

Points? What are points? Points is the system Disney has devised as your “payment” method for your accommodation. The larger the room, the more points per day needed to book it. The busier the season you visit, the more points per day needed to book a room.

So, to book a 2-bedroom villa for a week in June 2019 at the Grand Californian (Discovery Tower did not exist then), you will need 390 points (based on archived points chart).

Now what does that mean? When you buy into DVC, every year you are allotted a certain number of points. You choose how many points you receive each year. Your price to buy in will be based on the number of points you choose.

You are allowed to bank and borrow points to make a reservation.

Continuing with our June trip example then, one option is that you purchased 400 points. This covers you. You can book your trip without any further adieu.

Another option is you bought 175 points. You already took a short trip in 2018, leaving 75 points for you to bank for 2019. 75 points from 2018 plus 175 points from 2019 gives you 250 points. Not enough for your June trip, oh no! Not to worry though. You can borrow the remaining points you need from 2020.

75 points banked from 2018 + 175 points from your current year 2019 + 140 points borrowed from 2020 = 390 points

As you might imagine, there are many other options and ways to work it out. If you are considering buying in to DVC, what you need to consider is your budget, your family size, what type of room you will generally want, and what season you travel during.

For more information, I recommend perusing the DVC site itself. https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/ Or better yet, chat with one of DVC Counselors you see at the kiosks in the park.

Personal Experience

For us, DVC has truly been a magical addition to our family. It’s enabled us to stay at properties we would not have otherwise been able to stay at. It’s enabled us to take the whole family — multiple generations — to both Disneyland and Disney World. Seeing both my father and nephew view the Millennium Falcon for the first time and pretend to be spies together as we try to evade capture by the First Order cannot be described as anything other than magical. DVC has helped us make these memories.

As I say in my Bio, it’s not for everyone. But if you are considering DVC, our opinion is it is 1000% worth it!

For the final touch, here are some pictures of the DVC tower at the Disneyland Hotel.

Don’t have a travel agent? Book here with mine! Self-serve on their website or contact them to get your personal agent.

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