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[tammyandtommy]

can someone tell me how adventures by Disney works? We are DVC members and I just cant understand the points towards vacation and stuff, it looks mughty expensive!

[sayhello]

Originally Posted by tammyandtommy

can someone tell me how adventures by Disney works? We are DVC members and I just cant understand the points towards vacation and stuff, it looks mughty expensive!

I can't help you too much with the DVC point thing, since I'm not a DVC member, but I've seen several folks here mention they've used their points for trips. There's a specific amount of points that you need to "pay" per trip. It varies by tour. And you have to pay for a person's entire tour with points (you can't pay part of it as points, and part as cash.) If, say, two people are travelling together, one person can use points and the other can pay cash, but the cash trip needs to be paid for in full in advance (I think... I may have that part wrong).

And yes, it is expensive. It may not be the most efficient or cost effective use of your points. But SO VERY, VERY worth it!!!

Sayhello

[WeLoveABD]

We are not DVC members, but on the Disney cruise trips we ran into members everywhere--so we looked into it one morning on a trip to WDW, with an eye toward ABD. It didn't seem to work out very well, given the huge number of points that would be necessary, plus the yearly fees etc. But if you want a good overview of the DVC, check out Mousesavers.com.

[rkdahl]

Originally Posted by tammyandtommy

can someone tell me how adventures by Disney works? We are DVC members and I just cant understand the points towards vacation and stuff, it looks mughty expensive!

It's easy! You calculate how many DVC points you have during the time you want to go on your ABD trip. So for example, if you have 230 DVC points annually in your 2009 Use Year and you haven't used any of those, you have 230 points to allocate towards a DVC Adventurerer Collection, ie Adventures By Disney trip.

Look up the DVC ABD Point Chart on the DVC Member Web Site for the Adventure you want. So say you want to go on Backstage Magic, the cheapest Early Booking for that trip requires 310 points. So you would need all your 2009 DVC points (230) plus then you would maybe borrow 80 points from your 2010 allocation to get 310 points. That would pay for one Adult for that trip. You would need more points or cash to pay for more people.

So it takes a lot of DVC points per ABD trip. You can do this same thing for cruises, exchanges, etc I personally don't think it's a good use of your DVC points but others do. What we do is rent some of our DVC points to family members from time to time and then use the cash to pay for our non-DVC adventures (cruises, ABD, etc).

Did that help?

[eva]

You can get the point chart for ABD on the member website. It is pretty expensive. The points are per person based on double occupancy. I have no idea what they do for single travelers. When you pay with points it is the same as if you paid in cash. The trip is nearly all inclusive. But you are normally responsible for a couple of lunches and dinners, depending on the trip you choose. Flights are not included. You can book your flights on your own or through ABD. To book a trip using points you contact Member Services, not ABD. Hope that helps.