Derek, is that Roosevelt's 'cause I love that shirt and
I've never seen it. No, it is probably the shirt I
wear the least, as a matter of fact, and I just happened to
find it. It was kind of shoved all the
way in the back of the closet and I was like picking out my
shirts for tonight. And I haven't had this in a long
time. What?
What's the name of the store on the West side, like right by
Planet Hollywood? It's the Disney Store.
It used to be the old Harley-Davidson, that Disney
style. Is it Target?
What's it called? Huh, think it's Disney style,
isn't it? Right there by the balloon.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right there.
That's. One of my favorite shirts.
It's great. Did.
You see the new Oogie Boogie Bash exclusive Roosevelt's
that's going to be in California?
Yeah, it looks cool. They had.
California people, Yeah, yeah. Five grown people talking about
shirts. That's what you get when.
You I want an Oogie Boogie shirt.
Call me. Message me please. 3X Come on,
give it to me. Those villains are sold out
like. Crazy.
Hey everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of The DVC
Show. I am your host, Paul Krieger,
joined as always by my lovely wife Amy.
Hello, we've got John's Kerry Big Fat Panda with us.
Welcome home everyone. Senior Sales Associate for the
DVC resale market, Derek de Boer.
Hey now, happy Monday everybody. The Honorable Jeff Haslam.
Hey everybody. I hope you know when I say your
name Jeff, I go the Honorable Jeff Haslam and I bow like as
I'm saying it. You don't get to see it because
I'm not on camera for it, but it happens.
Absolutely not do that. That's.
What I do? Nope.
I, I want you to guys to know
that you fully derailed that cold opening that I had planned
for that show. I had, I had something written
up. It was going to be great.
But you know what? We just skipped over it.
We moved on and we talked about shirts for, you know, a minute
and a half and that's what the people are here for.
I guess so. My shirt's orange.
That's a nice orange shirt. Where'd you get that?
You're a pumpkin. I'm.
A pumpkin. We have fully decorated for fall
here at the Krieger House. So we did that actually right
around August 15th, which. Happy Fall, It's August 18th.
Most of our friends think are crazy.
And you can't see them when there's a pumpkin over there.
No, but it's way. Right above your head.
Oh, over here, it's like right there, but you can't see it.
There's a lot of pumpkins and. Well, welcome to our chaos,
friends. This week we are here talking
about why you should do what we did and move down to Florida
because it's where everyone's moving.
I'm pretty sure that the the state's going to sink into the
ocean one of these days because it just gets heavier every
single year with more and more people.
And I can hear construction in our neighborhood as we speak.
They are still building houses. It's about 7:00 at night on a
Monday, but they are still building, which means people are
coming. OK, after that.
So this is actually a topic that has been requested many, many
times from people in our DVC fan community.
They're obviously if you love Disney, you have a vested
interest in Disney. A lot of people want to know
what it's like to move to Florida or, you know, is it
reasonable for a DVC member to think about moving to Florida
and just just general information regarding that.
So Lauren De La Cruz, one of our moderators and contributors on
dvcfan.com, she did an excellent article that we would like to
kind of use as a reference point for for this show.
And I believe what was that article called something about
is DVC the gateway to living in Florida?
Yeah. Yep, that was exactly what it
was called. So I got can you tell this was
Amy's topic? Because she got all serious
real, real quick. She was like.
Tell people stop your nonsense doomsday like sinking into the
ocean. I wasn't saying that, I'm just
saying that. Eventually I just.
Feel like I don't know how we keep building houses.
Every time I drive down the Interstate, I'm just like whole
new development yet again. Derek, you just, you just drove
to Lakeland, which I have multiple comments about because
I lived in Lakeland basically for two years and you never
drove to see me. But I'm sure you drove by a lot
of developments on your way, on your way to Lakeland too.
Because I feel like Lakeland is almost Orlando at this point
because it's expanding so much. I said that on the way home
because we went out to the Lakeland Antique Mall for the
very first time. I had never been there before.
People that maybe are savvy and watch like YouTube and vloggers
and stuff know that it's a really cool antique mall.
Probably it's like 45 minutes from our house and we're like 20
minutes away from Disney. But they have like Disney, you
know, Merchant and Disney props and Universal props and just
some very unique stuff. And I said on the way back, I
was like, think we're on 429 the Expressway.
And I was like, my God, on both sides.
It's just, it's a never ending sea of where it used to be like
Orange Fields that it's just these houses and these suburbs
after complex after complex and apartments and neighborhoods.
And it's just, I can't. And there's just no end insight.
It's crazy. It's crazy.
Guys are really making this sound great.
Yeah, we're going to really let you leave this show.
Before we go any further into this episode though, I do want
to give a quick shout out. As always, if you love our
content, please, please show some love for our friends at Key
Holder Vacations, which is our broader brand here at the world
of DVC. And I want to emphasize Key
Holder Vacations because we just launched the Key Holder Club
loyalty program recently and this is kind of a industry first
when it comes to basically Disney Vacation Club or Disney
Vacation Club resale. This is a multi branded loyalty
program in which you're going to earn keys for your transactions
across our family of brands from Be Our Guest Vacations, DVC
resale market, Monera Financial, DVC Rental Store.
These keys never expire, and you're essentially going to add
keys to your collection every single year to move up the
ladder in the Key Holder Club and unlock some amazing
discounts and some spectacular deals.
For a quick little kind of demo and discussion of it, we have a
great video from our friends at Key Holder Vacations that we're
going to insert here just so that you can learn a little bit
more about this program and how you can sign up.
At Key Holder Vacations, we're beyond thrilled to launch the
Key Holder Club loyalty program, a one-of-a-kind to loyalty club.
You won't find any where else. This is a lifetime rewards
program, meaning the keys you earn never expire.
You can continue doing business with us for years to come,
collecting your keys and unlocking decades of rewards as
you travel. Whether you're a DVC member who
bought on the resale market, a guest who rents DVC points, or
an avid traveler with Be Our Guest Vacations, you'll be
rewarded for the travel you already love across the entire
Key Holder Vacations family. It's free to join.
Just grab the Key Holder Vacations app on the App Store
or Google Play. Create your account with the
e-mail you've already used, or, if you're brand new here, create
a new account and start earning keys across all of our brands.
Here's how it works. Every booking and every
transaction earns you keys, your path to exclusive benefits and
experiences. You'll earn one key for every
dollar in transactions with BR Guest Vacations, DVC Resale
Market, Monera Financial, and DVC Rental Store, including when
you rent out your DVC points or sell your DVC contract.
Keys accumulate over time, your tier upgrades automatically at
milestones, and keys never expire, so you keep climbing
trip after trip. And great news, your keys are
grandfathered back to January 1st, 2024.
If you've travelled or transacted with us since then,
you're already on your way. Your club level reflects your
loyalty status, each new level unlocks new perks, and you keep
all of the benefits from earlier tiers as you climb.
Joining is free and easy. Download the Key Holder
Vacations app in the App Store or Google Play and start today.
Create your account, be sure to use an e-mail that you've used
with us in the past, and start earning keys on every booking
and transaction across all of our brands.
Ready to unlock more from every vacation?
Join the Key Holder Club today and let the memories and the
keys keep adding up. Have questions?
Please don't hesitate to reach out to our team at Loyalty at
keyholdervacations.com. So there you have it.
Several of us have actually been able to play around with the Key
Holder Club app. If you are looking on the Apple
App Store or on the Android store, you're going to want to
look for the Key Holder Vacations app.
That is where the Key Holder Club is going to live inside.
Download the app, It is completely free to do so.
It is free to sign, sign up. Once you sign up, it's going to
link your account across all of our different organizations.
It's actually going to pull in, I believe any sales activity,
any transactions that you've done with us back to the
beginning of 2024. So it's going to have all of, if
you've done it, some, some recent transactions with us,
those are going to be pulled in to get you your qualifying tier
status. Any additional questions you
might have, you can direct those to loyalty at key holder
vacations dot dot com. But wanted to go around the room
real quick. Jeff, Derek, I know you guys
have had some opportunities to play around with the app.
Pretty easy to use, user friendly, very simple.
To use, it's like, I wish whoever designed this app
designed all of the apps because it is so simple.
Like, I look at my Royal Caribbean app, for example, and
just to get my loyalty status, I have to go like through six
different screens. This is it's right at your
fingertips. It's awesome.
And it's kind of something that I think I said on a show back
in, I don't remember when, that I wish Disney would do is some.
Yeah. So the fact that we are so
Disney adjacent, I think this is a huge win for the company for
sure. Yeah, and you, you asked me,
Paul. You summed it up perfectly.
Here's the ad. It's so easy, even Derek can do
it. That's how simple it is to get
the. App.
I want the app. It's so good, it's so good
because what I'm thinking about program is it's it's stuff
you're doing anyway. So you're not even going in like
outside of your comfort zone. You might be renting points with
us already. You might be financing a
contract with us already buying a contract.
So many, you know, booking a vacation through be our guest
vacations. It's all under the same
umbrella. So now you just get rewarded for
doing stuff that you were going to do anyway.
So it's a slam dunk. The app is so so easy to use and
I think it shows if it started back in 2024.
I think it shows Jeff's 37 old Key West add-ons, so I.
Think he should. So Panda, I love that you're a
little bit in the dark on this because some of these things
that I'm about to say are going to be new to you.
I think we talked about them while you were getting your
royalty program with your dentist set up over the past
few. Weeks what's what's the name of
the? I'm going to get it right now.
Vacations. So Panda, I want to just tell
you a quick, quick little nugget about some of the things you're
going to get as a member of the key holder club depending on
your teal. So bronze, bronze level tier,
that's the entry level tier. You don't have to spend a dollar
with us to actually qualify for the bronze level tier.
But you guys were so fixated on shirts that I feel like I need
to highlight a couple of the discounts that you get with that
tier with our friends over at the Loss Bros, who we do a lot
of collaborations with and also Park Candy, which makes a lot of
similar I. Love to our to.
Our Roosevelt's here. You've got like two or three
different. Just one, I need more.
You need more, but yeah, there's some discount codes that are
going to be eligible for our bronze tier key holders.
Panda, if you move up to the silver tier, you're actually
going to get some on board credit with our friends over at
Be Our Guest Vacations. If you book a Disney cruise with
them. Then we get into some of my most
exciting things that I'm that I'm, you know, I just want to
tell Panda about right now. The gold tier is going to be
where you get a key holder club luggage tag.
That was great reaction from Panda for the key holder club
luggage tag. He was super excited about other
luggage. Tag though it's not these cheap
ones from Shutterfly. This is This is quality stuff.
Yeah, yeah. Don't.
Don't act so excited, Panda. I mean, go luggage tag ain't
doing it. It's not not moving me.
Give me something else. Come on.
OK, OK, how about this. If you become a diamond level
with the key holder club, you are going to get to be on this
show. No.
Yes, Sir. Right there, right here, right
there, sitting right next to Jeff Haslam.
Jeff, we need another chair. Just expensive.
That's actually pretty. That is pretty.
If they're going to do it from my house, I think that's a
Diamond Plus thing. OK, Yeah, or they bring beer.
Fine, we could move it up to the enchanted tier.
Is it? Supposed to be live in the App
Store already because I searched key holder vacations and I don't
find it. I don't think it's lot and shit.
Oh. It's launched as of right now
Panda. Oh look, there it is.
There it is if you were in the future.
Panda, if you're an Enchanted tier level, not only are you
going to get to be on this show, but also how about we just give
you a VIP tour? Oh, that's cool.
That pretty cool, yeah. So obviously over time you'll
work your way up these tiers as part of the Key Holder Club.
Super excited to get this launched.
It has been a conversation behind the scenes for the past
two to three years. I think I've been in meetings
for it. So very, very excited.
Head to the App Store or the Android store Key Holder
Vacations app. Download the app today for free.
Join the Key Holder Club, it is free and you can get some of
these rewards that we've mentioned along with some
others. Panda luggage tag.
How exciting. You know, I really do want the
luggage tag, actually, after Jeff said it's not like a little
plastic when I'm like, OK, let me see.
All right, now that I've fully sabotaged and hijacked your
show, Amy, take us on a journey to being a Floridian.
Can pull up. Floridians are a grand.
Floridian, if you will. Oh yes, Lauren did write a great
article about this. It's called the gateway to
living in Florida. It's over on DVC fan.
We'll put it in the link link below in the show notes here.
But I think first is being a Disney Vacation Club member.
It is kind of the first gateway. I think we can answer that
question because you actually own something you actually own.
You know, I I always like to say I owned the zebra tile in Animal
Kingdom Lodge when I first bought.
Yeah, or doorknob. I think that I think that's a
big thing for people. So you're already kind of
invested from a financial standpoint, from a real estate
standpoint. You know, you own this vacation
club. Now that doesn't make you a
Florida resident. We get asked that a lot.
And and so we'll get asked, you know, if I buy DVC, does that
make me Florida resident that I can get the Florida resident
rate for annual passes and pay the monthly payment?
Unfortunately, it does not. You do have to be a Florida
resident, but if you own DVC, you're kind of already, you
know, you're partially there, you're probably here a lot.
You know, I know that when we became DVC members, before we
did, we were coming to Disney, oh gosh, like once every couple
of years. And then once we became a
member, it became, you know, a couple times a year to four
times a year to I think we did 5 * 1 year.
It just became so much more accessible knowing that not only
do we have the points, but we had a direct flight from
Pittsburgh at the time, which made it very easy to jump down
here, and you just wanted an excuse to do it.
Like I remember that the one time that we did it, you know,
we, we were super excited. We got down here, then we got
stuck for like two or three extra days because of a
hurricane. And that was also like a lot of
Disney vacation clubs, like their first hurricane experience
is related to a Disney Vacation Club stay because they happen to
be here during hurricane season and they either get stuck or a
trip gets affected. It happens to, it actually
impacts more Disney Vacation Club members than we actually
probably think about when it comes to it because it is a
constant question during this time of the year and especially
right now because Hurricane Aaron has I think Jeff.
I think Jeff wrote out a hurricane at Riviera, didn't he
before you lived here? Yep.
Yeah, but you know, in in general, I just think if you're
coming down here a lot, you own DVC.
A lot of people get to the point where they don't, they don't
want to leave, you know what I mean?
Or they don't want to go back to granted, you know, you still got
to go back to reality, you still have to work where you live.
But you know, going back to sometimes cold weather, that's a
big one for a lot of people. So just being being a DVC member
I think is like kind of like a first step for a lot of people.
Derek took that first step. He then took the second step of
moving here, and he took a third step of deciding to dedicate his
life to it as well. So Derek, tell us a little bit
about your journey down to Florida.
I don't feel like I ever knew the story of what actually
brought you here, other than probably Disney.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it definitely was Disney.
I was a a Disney Vacation Club guide direct in right outside
Chicago for many, many years. I was eventually given an
opportunity to join the Disney Cruise Line, Disney Vacation
Club team. So that was about in 2013, 2014,
I think somewhere around then. So that's when our family, we,
we packed up and moved from Northwest Indiana, came down
here to Florida. It definitely is an adjustment.
So I can tell you that it takes and I've talked to other people
too that have made the change, whether it's from the Midwest or
whether it's from the East Coast.
It just takes a little bit of an adjustment time.
I think for us there's probably maybe a couple years.
You know, ours was a little bit different because when I first
moved here, then I was on the cruise team, so I was kind of
traveling a whole bunch. So I was gone, you know, maybe
half the year, you know, gone a week home a week, blah, blah,
blah. So my wife was here with two
little kids at the time after 20 and 16.
And I'm sure she had many moments back in 2014 as I'm off,
you know, sailing around the world selling Disney Vacation
Club and she's got the little kids there.
She's saying, what did I do? Why did we do this?
But in the end, it's the best decision we ever made.
Like I cannot ever go back to to the Midwest.
You know, since then, my brother and his family and my niece and
nephew, they all moved down here to Florida.
So a lot of times, and I know Jeff has been in that situation
too, where, you know, once you move down here, you might have
friends that want to come down there with you as well.
But for us way I never look back.
I mean, every day I, I count my my blessings.
I don't know how deep we want to kind of get into it.
We, we rented at first. So when we first moved down
here, we didn't weren't quite sure of like the neighborhoods.
We weren't quite sure of this. So we wanted to get a feel.
So we rented for two years. And during those two years is
when we visited different neighborhoods.
And then we happen to stumble on where we are, which is in a part
of Florida called downtown Windermere.
So it's right near a bunch of lakes and.
It's just idyllic for us. We absolutely love it.
Like I couldn't be happier. And I don't know if I'd want to
live in Florida if I didn't live where I live.
So we took our time and we did our research and explore
neighborhoods because again, there's a lot to be able to pick
from. You know, how close do you want
to be right behind Cinderella Castle?
You can't like literally you can have places, there's houses
right there. Do you want to be more towards
like middle of the road? Do you want to be like 30
minutes away, 45 minutes away? Do you want, you know, lots of
other houses around you? Do you want space?
There's a lot to look at when you come.
So definitely like when you buy DVC, research is very important.
But again, our main thing that that made us so happy is doing
the research and figuring out where, figuring out location
wise, like I wanted to be close enough to Disney.
So we're about 2025 minutes away.
We're maybe 15 minutes from Universal.
We're, you know, two hours from Vero Beach.
So our location was, was key for us.
Whereas maybe for you, you might want to be near, you know, a
bigger city, you might want to be near Tampa, or you don't
drive the, you know, you don't want the 45 minutes to an hour
commute to get to Disney every single time.
So that's where taking your time and doing research.
But every winter, as much as I dread the hurricane season, I'll
take hurricane season any day over having to go through a
Chicago winter again. I'm too old for that.
Yeah. Panda, I know it wasn't DVC that
maybe drove you here, but it was Disney to a certain degree.
What what kind of what would be some of those takeaways or some
of those things you would you would tell someone that's
thinking about making this leap? So it's just very weird to me
that my moving to Florida started at five years old when I
was on the ferry boat and I saw the Magic Kingdom.
I hadn't even gone yet. I just saw it.
And I said to my father, this exists, and you never showed it
to me. People can live, like, close to
this. I said, dad, I'm going to move
there one day. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that was my focus since that visit.
But yeah, I did it the opposite where I moved here first because
I wanted to be near Disney, and then what?
DVC and the amount of people that tell me I don't need DVC, I
live local. I'm flabbergasted because it
works so good. If you're local, because you
have more, you know, you can look at the availability and say
I need a night here or two nights here.
And it's so much easier to be flexible.
Tomorrow I'm going to, you know, the resorts, the DVC and being
local just makes it better. I'm 1/2 hour away from Disney,
but I'm still going on that little mini vacation that makes
me, you know, remember when I was in New York and that I, you
know how you lose that planning excitement.
You still get it if you have DVC.
So yeah, I think mine was a little different.
But being a local does not mean you can't.
You don't have to get DVC. It's great as a local.
It's actually funny because we've we've heard the statistic
before multiple times that actually the makeup of Disney
Vacation Club members. There is more ownership that are
Florida residents that are Florida based than any other
state. So it is it is the case in which
those people that live here are some of the people that either
bought and then moved or like us, bought and then moved and
then bought more. Yeah, or like Panda or like, and
then later bought and realized, you know, I want, I want some
like little getaways at, you know, at Disney Panda.
When did you move to Orlando area?
Gosh, it's was 23 years ago. 22 years ago, yeah.
And it was a dirt Rd. like the Gilded Age outside my house.
I mean, it really was a dirt road.
And now the traffic is, you know, it reminds me of New York
sometimes on 27, you guys know. But I'm shocked at how it
changed from 22 years ago. Yeah, And Panda, you, you picked
kind of the same general area that Amy and I have now settled
in, which is kind of the Claremont area.
It's a little bit norther than the parks, but also takes out
the I4 equation. Would you change the location?
We could do a whole other show on location of like where you
move. But I feel like the fact that
you picked this area that many years ago, my mind is blown.
I'm just like you, pick the perfect a friend.
A friend who worked at the Animal Kingdom Lodge is the one
that told me when I said I'm thinking of moving there he
goes. There's this little town called
Claremont. He goes, It's like a sleepy
little town. It's far enough away where you
don't get the tourists. It was affordable.
And he said that, you know, it's up and coming because right now
there's only orange Groves there, but a lot of them died
and they're making houses there. They were like no houses.
Windermere is my favorite where Derek is at the time.
I don't even think I could afford it or look, But Claremont
was really a, you know, 200 grand.
You got a house that was 700 grand on Long Island, so it was
a no brainer for me to be there. But now, I mean, it's built up
now. It's crazy.
I love that you don't have to get on I-4.
You can just take the back roads 20 minutes and you're in, you
know, Magic Kingdom. Yeah, So I do like that.
So many people ask us the question all the time, like
where should I move, what area? And I think we've hit on it
already, like you've got to experience places you've got to.
And as I was going to say, Lauren mentions in her article
that, you know, the ability to have DVC points allows you to
explore a little bit outside of the Disney bubble.
So if this is something serious that you're considering about
that, that full move to Florida, use some of those DVC trips,
take those points, rent a car and explore some of these areas.
Because it's definitely not an answer that I feel like any of
us on this call can really give someone because it's so
individually based. Like Derek said, he rented for a
few years. Jeff, you, you rented for the
first year when you when you actually moved to your right.
Tell us a little bit of your story.
Yeah, we did. And so, and we did exactly what
you said, Paul. We we came down for spring break
on a Disney Vacation Club trip. We were at Boardwalk for a week.
We sent the kids to the park and Amy and I got in the rental car
and made some trips to some neighborhoods.
We walked through some model homes, some new construction.
But I know again, you just said we could do a whole show on
location. But as somebody that's in real
estate professionally, I can't stress enough that you should
get yourself a professional, somebody that you trust.
Not me. I'm not an agent.
I'm. I'm an appraiser but.
I don't want my message. You're blowing up saying, hey,
help me buy a house. But you know, I, I hear people
all the time. Well, we want to be within an
hour of the parks. Well, that's the entire Central
Florida from coast to coast. You know what I mean?
Like Disney World is so open and so massive that it really you
need to narrow down what you were wanting and what you're
used to. So for example, we came from
Utah. We live on the Wasatch Front in
Utah, which is, you know, suburban Salt Lake City.
Everything was very, very close to us.
You know, Target was 5 minutes, Home Depot was 5 minutes.
I, I made a joke when I went back a couple months ago to
visit family that I was able to pick up my rent a car, hit the
burger joint, hit the swig, drop off my dry cleaning and be at my
dad's house and all that took an hour.
And where I live, that's four different days worth of errands.
You can't do that on the same day.
You just can't, right? And so it really depends on what
you're used to. If you kind of like a rural
atmosphere, you know, there's a lot of options for that.
If you want that hustle and bustle, there's a lot of options
for that. And there really is a budget,
you know, something for every budget in Florida.
You know, Polk County tends to be a little lighter on on the
pocketbook as opposed to Claremont and Lake County and
you know, Lake Nona and some of those places.
So really dial in what you're used to so that you can kind of
find what you want. Because our biggest shock was we
almost bought a house sight unseen in Auburndale, which is a
beautiful town. It was a brand new construction
subdivision. We went down on that trip.
Like I have money in hand ready to put down the down payment.
And as we're driving to it, I'm like, where are we?
Like there's a water tower. And like we just drove through a
mobile Home Park to get into the subdivision.
And the first question I asked the model home agent was how far
am I to Target? And they said, oh, well, you got
to go to Lakeland, which is like 1/2 hour drive rather than
around the corner to my house. That wasn't immediately a no.
Like we're like, that is not for us.
It's it's a great area, but it's not for us.
So, right, I just can't stress enough that you spend the time
before you move to learn about where you want to be.
And I would just add to it too. Disney is a reason why a lot of
people move here, but as much as you move here for Disney,
realize that your local community is what is most
important. Like like Jeff said, we
originally had signed on a house in Lake Alfred, FL, similar area
in Polk County. We actually ended up changing it
because they got behind on construction.
But we were very happy about that because it was that same
scenario, Jeff, where it was like where's the nearest Walmart
or Target or grocery store like big box store.
It was you were headed all the way to Winter Haven or headed
out to Lakeland, which again, was 20 or 30 minutes further
South at the time when we were buying, the market was so crazy
here. I mean, it was a seller's
market. You could ask any price for a
house and get over asking price for it.
And we needed a house to have some land with the dogs, and
that's what kind of drove us a little bit further away.
So we actually compensated. And for two years, if we had to
be on Disney property for something, three years it was,
yeah, three years if we had to be on Disney property for
something, it was a 2 hour drive that we would like.
We would basically carve out two hours.
Some days we would be there in an hour and 15 minutes and some
days we would be there in 3 1/2 because something happened on
I-4. So that is how unknown it was.
I also say that the area that we lived in, we did like we loved
how close Lakeland was. Bartow was just South of us.
So that's what made it livable for us for three years is that
we did have those things about it around us, right, because.
You know when you move, when you move to Florida, and especially
if you're a DVC member, you're probably used to come to Disney.
You're at Disney for a week or so.
You're spending all your time at Disney.
Well, your relationship with Disney World is going to change
and that is something you you have to consider when you're
thinking about moving. For us, it went from that, you
know, it's very exciting getting on the airplane, driving to the
resort, and then we're there for, you know, a week or, you
know, something. We did trips as long as, you
know, 12 days or whatever. And you know, you're always
buying the lightning lane. And so your relationship going
to change when you become a local.
You're not going to be there for several, several days at a time.
You, you have to work. You've got grasp to mow, grasp
to mow, laundry to fold. You know, more often now we're
there for one night, we're there for maybe an afternoon or even
if we do stay a few nights, it's because there's something like a
race going on or we're going to an after party, you know,
Halloween party or Christmas party.
You know, it just your relationship changes a little
bit and it goes from spending a whole day in a park make buying
and getting, you know, taking advantage of every little thing
you can to maximize your time to ride as many rides as you can.
And that changes to I'm not, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sleep a little
longer. We're gonna head over, you know,
maybe in the afternoon we're gonna get something to eat,
we're gonna ride maybe like one or two things and then, you
know, we're satisfied. So it does kind of change that
relationship. I used to be worried that I
always said like it. I'm afraid that moving to Disney
will will eliminate that like magic for me, you know, that I
feel, but it actually it hasn't. You know, if anything, I'm still
happy. I'm so excited when we go.
I'm a little spoiled though, because we get to you know, we
get to see the resorts and see the parks a lot, but also it's
helped us to branch out. Like it gives you the time to
branch out and kind of do other travel as well.
You know what I mean? And even if that's, you know, we
finally got to spend go to Vero Beach and we finally got to go
to Hilton Head and hopefully Alani soon, but also other
things, you know, like cruises and stuff like that.
Well, and that's. What I was just going to chime
in and say too, is, you know, you, you go from going to Disney
for a week hard to going once a week or once a month or
whatever. Like Derek's once a month, I'm
once a week. Paul, Amy, Panda, you're kind of
in between us, I think, but it's for two or three hours.
It's not all day. Yeah, but that was a big factor
for us is moving here. We didn't move here for Disney.
Our family and friends asked that all the time.
Did you guys move there to be closer to Disney?
That was a part of it. But we also got tired of the
snow and we got tired of some of the other Utah goings on and,
and things like that. And we were just kind of in a in
a place where we wanted something fresh and new.
But what that a byproduct of that, if you will, is, you know,
there's a joke that we always say is people that move to
Disney go through three phases. You go annual pass at Disney and
then you go into your cruise phase because there's five
cruise ports within two hours of Disney.
And then after that you expand to Caribbean and Europe and
things like that. We're on a cruise phase right
now. We've got three booked in the
next year or something. So it does give you the option
to use that vacation money that you were spending on Disney for
other things, but it changes your relationship with Disney.
Chances are you bought DVC or are thinking about DVC for one
or two reasons. Either you're coming a lot and
you want to save money or you want to come more.
And so it definitely changes. And, and there's, there's a flip
side to this coin that I know Amy wants to talk to about.
You know, there are some negatives that we'll, that we'll
get into, but Disney is familiar.
Disney is comforting to all of us is it's a love that we have.
And so it makes it seem really, really awesome.
And it is, it's great, but it's going to change your whole world
in a way that you never thought of.
You know, as far as how frequently you do the parks and
whether you're not you ride Figment 7 or 8 times every trip
and, and those things. So so I wanted.
To I want to talk about two things.
First, I want, I do want to touch on the drawbacks because
if you're if you're doing your research and you're this is if
you're watching the show, but because you or you've asked us
to do a show where we talk about moving in Florida, there are
things I do think you need to be aware of and know and just to
have on your radar. But before we get to I agree,
Amy. Bagels and pizza.
Before. Before we get to the bagels and
pizza we do, we do want to talk about, you know, why move to
Florida besides the fact that you love Disney, If that's your
only reason, I think you're going to have a tough time in
Florida. But if you if you are moving for
for multiple different reasons, I think there's a lot of great
reasons why you might want to live in Florida.
So Paul, what is what is one thing that you love about living
here that does not related to the parks?
So I'll give you 2 because as you were talking, there were two
that came to mind first for me, and this is going to sound like
blasphemous for a lot of people, but it's the weather.
You moved to Florida for the weather.
And I'm not talking necessarily about the heat.
I'm talking about what we're headed into right about now,
which is we're heading into end of August, 1st of September
where the insane highs start to calm down.
And it is is beautiful in the evenings.
And you get that weather starting now through about the
first or second week of April or even longer, depending on what
the weather systems are doing this year compared to last year.
Does it get hot? Yes.
Yeah, it's Florida. Yeah.
I'm not gonna lie. It does get hot and as people in
the northeast maybe hibernate during the winter months, we
kind of hibernate a little bit more in that July time frame
where it just gets absolutely but can still go out.
Like my wife still drags. Me out after a long day work to
run a 5K. For some reason, we almost.
Died on Yeah Sunday, yeah? I asked Alexa.
What the notification was before we started running on Saturday
and it was that there was a heat advisory in the Claremont area
and I said great time to run 7 1/2 miles, but we just off of
the OK. On the way the Circle K saved us
if. They.
Didn't take Apple Pay then. I'm not sure we would be here
doing this show right now, but with that said, you're.
Getting like almost like spring, like fall, like weather almost 8
months out of the year. You know what I mean?
Really I would say mid-october all the way until even mid-May.
The weather is amazing. It is the times of year that
you. Remember from other places, if
you're from the Northeast like we are from places that have
more climate fluctuations, it's those times of year, early fall,
early spring, those feels are with you for a lot of the time.
Yes, it does get hotter, but man, oh man, like I, I still
even I even suffering through the 7 1/2 miles the other day,
still very happy that that we are here and weather is one of
those main reasons. The other one I'll hit on just
goes both ways a little bit. I think for us it went the
opposite direction, which is probably more common, but I've
seen a lot of people wear this pans out very positively.
And that is I've heard of a lot of people moving from either
California or New York metropolitan areas that are
incredibly pricey that then you know, Panda, you mentioned this,
what you'd pay $700,000 in New York, you can get down here for
less. So I, I think I don't know that
that price differential is as great as it used to be, but I
still do believe if you're moving from like a big
metropolitan hub or if you're moving from the California area
where I know home prices are just bonkers, you are going to
save money in terms of your home down here.
Now that being said, for two people that moved from West
Virginia, it is a lot more expensive here in Florida,
everything is expensive. And you know, some of you will
come in the comments and say, well, you don't have, you know,
state income taxes. And it's like, no, they make up
for that by tolling every single Rd. that we drive on all day
long. So, you know, I'd, I would hate
to see Jeff's toll bill because I know he drives that, you know,
for part of his job for a living.
And so it's true. You're absolutely.
Right. And for people that use Magic
Express or mirrors or even a rent a car that probably just
charges you as part of trip, you know what I mean?
You cannot get to the airport from Disney without a toll road.
Yep. I mean, you could.
You could take a back Rd. It would take you 2 1/2 hours.
If you're on the freeway, you're getting charged a toll.
My toll bill is about $250 a month.
Oh my goodness. Oh my God.
That's a crazy amount. Derek's shocked, but that's.
Only because he never leaves his house.
He's. Not right.
Who's the winner here? But yeah, I mean, I mean I, I.
The only reason that came in my head when you asked the question
though, was because I know that there are a lot of people that
do move from more expensive areas that move here and real
estate is a lot cheaper. And I've heard more of that
chatter more recently, I think from from people.
And I know that happened. That was definitely the case
during the pandemic when people were moving out of those areas
like crazy down here. I mean, real estate was cheap in
Florida, even though for us it was, it was kind of bonkers and
expensive and still is, but OK. But I just want to touch back on
the weather thing. So one of Lauren's points in her
article was that more stays, you know, as ABC member helps to get
you acclimated in the winter or sorry, in the summer.
I mean, so basically I, I felt like that because we were coming
down, you know, I was a teacher. So we were coming in the summer
a lot. So you did kind of get a feel
for it already. So it's not like you don't know
what you're getting into. If you're, you know, a member
that goes to the goes to the parks and resorts and you come
down in the summer, you, you know, you know what you're
getting into there. Jeff, tell me one of the things
that's outside of the parks and weather that you love about
living in Florida. Yeah.
And and. I think.
And this is probably just because, you know, I, I was a
Utah boy my whole life. So we did everything that Utah
had to offer, right? Coming to Florida, there's a lot
of things outside of the Disney parks that you can do.
Some are expensive, some are not.
But like beaches, both coasts, Gulf of Mexico and and the
Atlantic or Gulf of America, whatever we're talk talk calling
it these days. You know, we just went to the
beach last night and, and Amy and I both said to us, we were
sitting there, it was sunset. We had a drink in our hand and
we were like, we'd say it every time we go out there.
Why don't we do this more? Because it's very easy to get
there from here. It's an hour, hour and a half
depending on traffic. You know, there's there's trails
and there's preserves and there's kayaking areas.
There's a lot of outdoor activity that would shut down in
Utah and in the, you know, in the mountain states that you
couldn't do in the winter time, you know, so that that's a big
part of it. There's a lot to do when you
have had enough of Disney crowds.
Having said that, there's a lot of other theme parks too,
Universal, SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Legoland there.
There's all kinds of things in Florida, discounts and Groupons
and escape rooms and restaurants.
And I mean, yeah, pandas, right? There's no bagels, there's no
pizza and there is there's not good ones.
But I think that was the biggest thing for us is we're like, all
right, we get to explore this whole new world, whole new set
of restaurants, a whole new set of, of adventures that we're,
we're new to us that we get to embrace and, and do things that
are outside of the parks. Because you will get bored of
the parks. Maybe bored's not the right
word, but you're, you're not crushing it.
You know, you're, you're going to go ride your favorite, you're
going to have dinner, you're going to go home.
Amy and I only go to the parks after, after 5, after we're done
working. So we're only there for a
limited amount of time. Weekends are for all these new
things that we're just discovering constantly.
Derek. Derek was the one the pick me
thing earlier. No, no, no.
I thought that's when you. Asked Jeff what was his favorite
thing about. Oh, I want to know your favorite
thing. No, I thought he was going to
say. Me oh, oh, you thought he.
Was going to say you were his favorite thing.
That's not OK. I do think that's.
Adorable. Just just.
To touch on the weather thing, I can tell you again I'm 52 years
old. I would rather be here when it's
hot, humid, and walk into a building with AC than to be
outside in -600° weather, scraping my car off of ice and
bundled up in winter clothes. So I will Amen the heat.
I will. Take the humidity over winter
any day because we all know if you're from the Midwest or
you're used to any kind of winters, it's real pretty when
that first snow comes down and it's all magical and light and
fluffy. And then you look at the stuff
that's sitting out there in like March and April and it's Gray
and it's black and it's heavy and it's slushy and awful snow.
The weather that we're about to come into is why people move to
Florida. And like Jeff said, don't do it.
If I just love Disney and I just want to go to the parks all the
time, don't do it. That's not reason enough to move
here. I did it because of my job and
because of Disney Vacation Club. That's who I work for.
That's still who I work for is selling Disney Vacation Club.
So we came here for that reason. But we're so blessed that we did
because the memories that we've been able to make here since,
you know, over the last, you know, 10/11/12 years of us being
here, I, I can't imagine a better place.
You know, knowing that going to the actual Florida Keys, right,
has been a part of so many big memories of my life and my kids,
You know, again, going to of course, Vero Beach.
And like, like Jeff said too, what I love most about it is the
fact that you have, if you want it, a world at your fingertips
of the most amazing, yet maybe some of the cheesiest touristy
theme parky things that you want to do.
But you don't have to do that. You can get in a car and drive,
you know, two hours And I'm on, you know, the Gulf, which the
water is completely different than if you drive two hours and
go towards the Atlantic and these cute little quaint beach
towns and these overnight little hotels that you're able to
decide and you know, then if you want to venture outside the
state. But there's so much in this
state that we haven't really explored.
And a big reason why for anybody out there with kids was a big
thing for us that kind of solidified it with us are a lot
of the Florida schools and specifically, you know, Florida
colleges. I mean, my son goes to Florida
State, which is a fantastic school, University of Florida,
not as good as Florida State, but we've got great, great
schools here in Florida too. So that's where you got to do
your research and realize that, you know, you're not just doing
it for Disney. Do I love, I love going to
church every single Sunday and after church my wife will just
spring on me and say, you know what, why don't we go have lunch
at Disney Springs? So we drive 20 minutes down the
road. We get there, we walk around
Disney Springs, we get a little Disney fix and we love it.
So being able to have all of that here on top of amazing
nature and everything else and fantastic weather for basically
8 months of the whole entire year.
Come, come join us. Before panic, I just want to
touch. On one more thing about the
weather because we get this asked a question a lot
especially given the last week hurricanes, right?
Yeah, yeah. Do hurricanes happen here?
They absolutely do. Can they be devastating?
They absolutely can. But it's the only natural
disaster in the world where you get 2 weeks notice pretty much
right. Thank you and.
I say that. Jokingly, but it's true.
Like, we've been watching Aaron for 10 days.
And, you know, as it starts to move forward, we keep an eye on
it. We listen to Dennis Phillips.
He tells us when to panic. But realistically, you have a
week where they're going to say, OK, either it's going to hit or
not. Well, it's coming.
All right. I'm going to go stock up on some
water, grab my canned goods, maybe make sure the propane
tank's full just in case. Then it gets a little bit
closer. It moves.
You move on with your life. Maybe it still keeps coming.
We got hit with two big ones last year.
I think everybody in this room got pretty lucky.
I think Derek maybe lost a tree into his garage or something
like that. I forgot about that but.
Overall. You're lucky.
That it's. Rarely, rarely a huge problem,
right? So don't not come because
hurricanes happens. Natural disasters can happen
anywhere. Yeah.
This is the only one that you had start.
I was gonna say exactly what Jeff said.
People who would be like, yeah, here in California, we got
earthquakes, you got hurricanes, same thing.
I'm like, no, no, not same thing.
We get an advance warning, you don't.
So, yeah, and we're not talking about an.
Area of the state in which you are prone to, you know, coastal
flooding. Or any of those.
Major things that you see when it comes to a hurricane, like
you are seeing the impact that a hurricane typically has right
when it makes landfall, which is right against the ocean.
That is where the worst devastation normally is.
We're talking about Orlando is basically middle of the state.
And so by the time the storm even gets here, it downgrades a
little bit and you know, you're, you're at at worst in most
situations just going to be worried about wind, a lot of
rain, maybe just some localized flooding that we've seen.
But this area is where a lot of those coastal towns actually
evacuate too. And we covered that on, you
know, a prior hurricane show where we talked about, you know,
a lot of places, you know, Disney World is the evacuation
zone for some of these coastal towns to move into that area.
So that's why we always say that if you are, you know, looking
for a place to go, go there during a hurricane because it's,
it's fairly safe. Yeah.
Before, so that was probably one of our one of our drawbacks.
But I do agree you get a lot of advance notice, you know, you
know, when hurricane season is every year, so you can be
prepared. And I feel like we we really
we're very prepared. Last year we've been boarding
our house up and it it probably didn't need it.
But before, before we talk about the rest of those those
drawbacks, I do just want to touch on, you know, some of the
the things that we really love about Florida.
I know I asked Paul, but you know, we we went to a Mexican
restaurant. It was like a new, it was a new
place on was it Saturday? So I just love that we're going
to a. Mexican restaurant, I love it.
So basically our date night on on Saturday was Hobby Lobby at
home. So basically looking for fall
Decor. And then we went, we went to a
restaurant in Winter Garden that Paul found on Yelp.
And then we went over and walked through like the Winter Park
downtown and it's just winter Garden, Winter Garden.
I'm sorry, not Winter Park, Winter Garden.
It's just that there's so many little places like that that I
find so charming. You know, Winter Garden,
downtown Claremont, downtown Claremont, downtown.
We love downtown Lakeland. If you've ever been to the
Baldwin Park area, it's really cool.
There's a there's a whole little Cafe that's all themed to
friends and it's got the couch and everything.
There's just so many cool little downtown areas and little
shopping areas and little restaurants and breweries and
things like that, that I feel like we haven't.
We've been here for almost 4 years now and we haven't even
scratched the surface of all the, the options, all the dining
and the different cuisines and just so much, you know,
international cuisine and just, it's just really very diverse as
an area. And there's just a lot, a lot
there that we, we haven't even, I feel like tapped the surface
of. And I think part of that's.
Where we came from, too, because we were very, it's funny, like
we came from. You can look it up on a map.
Wheeling, WV. It's a state.
I like to emphasize that, but it was about an hour.
It was about an hour southeast of Pittsburgh, PA.
So a lot of people always ask, we say we're from Pittsburgh.
It took every power of our being back then to go to Pittsburgh
for a date night or for an event.
It was only an hour away. And you say that now coming to
Florida and you're like, I'm an hour from everything on a good
day. And so an hour is nothing.
So I think it's a perspective shift.
But also you're talking about two people that did not come
from a big city. We go back home now we go, how
did how did we do it here for as long as we did?
Because you ask yourself on a Tuesday night, where do you want
to go for dinner? And there's about four things
that come to mind back in Wheeling that would be like
those go TOS that I would probably go to.
And down here it's, you know, you just you could just do Yelp
shuffle and yeah, it's infinite. And.
Pick one. Yeah.
And Jeff mentioned cruise ports being driving distance to what,
4-5 cruise ports? I mean, just the opportunities
are just they're so like abundant.
You know, you want to get away for a weekend or you want to
take a trip, but you don't want to have to fly.
You know, you can still leave the country, go on a cruise.
So just really being down here just opens up your yeah, Panda
earlier. You didn't get to give us kind
of your what is what is that thing that keeps you here and
that you love? Just strangely, going back to
when I was five years old, that it was Disney and it always was.
You know, when you grow up, you're going to move to Florida
Disney. But I also fell in love with the
palm trees that I couldn't get in New York.
And I longed to be around palm trees.
As weird as it sounds, I have Sicilian heritage.
I don't know if there's a DNA component that made me obsessed
with palm trees, but I am. So for me, it was also the
memory of going into like a Main Street store and getting hit
with the air conditioner after the 95° outside.
That was part of the charm of being in Florida, as rare as I
was. So I couldn't wait to be, you
know, moved here. But my thing really was the
focus was Disney. There's no doubt about it.
And I still adapted to everything else.
Disney trees and air. Conditioning, Disney trees and
air conditioning. Things that we have.
Abundantly here. Before we end, I do just want to
just touch on some of the drawbacks, things that you just
need to remember. Keep in mind if you're planning
on moving to Florida, do your research, look up, you know,
insurance prices. Like that's a big thing for some
people. Like Paul said, depending on
where you're coming from, you know, your car insurance might
be less, your property insurance might be less, but it's
important to to look into those things.
Budget for toll roads. If that's not something we we
had 0 tolls basically where we come came from.
I have lots of tools. Tools I it's that it's.
That yeah Rd. it's the double O pool, pool, swimming pool, light
pool. I can't hear the difference
anyway, just just for the audio listers out.
There that are now going what are we talking about?
I'm. Trying put that into your thing
wildlife is is a little different here we we've.
Been here for. Four years I've never seen a
live Gator crawling around. We have seen a couple roadkill
ones out on the the Polk County Expressway.
But you know things that we had to get used to lizards.
Paul has been in a battle with these lizards on our back.
Yeah. On.
Our backland eye, I think we. Finally figured it out.
They've taken up residence. Yeah.
But we they were getting. Under a little flappy thing
under the door. I replaced the flappy.
Thing with my twins noticed. We talk about how big the bugs
are in Florida, but I think I had more bugs in my house every
now and then in New York than I do in Florida, 'cause they're
happy outside in this weather. They are as big as right,
They're as big as your hand, but they're outside at least well
and see Utah is. Very different in that way
because Utah when it starts to get cold they they come inside
but you don't see them where here like the number of things
that we have to get off of our front porch of various size
color shape it it it freaks the girls out now Amy and Tatum are
are champs now but for the first year it was hit and miss whether
they were going back just because of the bugs and that is
not an exaggeration they. All right.
So hey, wait here. Here I.
Have to share this because your story about the Florida animals
is so perfect. I remember it was almost
probably within the first six months that we moved here.
So my kids were little at at the time and where we live, we have
a well. And it turned out that something
happened with the well. So we didn't for a short period
of time that, you know, didn't have water, but the kids had to
wash their hair and go to school.
So we're like, OK, so we don't have running water because
they're coming over later today. But the kids, so Owen, just go
to the swimming pool and just, you know, wash your hair in like
the swimming pool. So he's in there washing his
hair and then all of a sudden he shouts out.
He goes help, help. And we look outside the screen
door and we're like, what? And floating on the other end of
the swimming pool happened to be a tiny Gator jumped into the
swimming pool. And Annie, I remember God bless
her, she looked at me as our cud was, you know, son was covered
with shampoo and he's in a swimming pool with the Gator and
gave me this look like what are we doing there are what is
going. On it is you will.
Find. Critters.
Do not underestimate the critters.
They're everywhere. Everywhere.
Oh, turtles, yes, I think. No, that that wasn't a turtle.
Do you know how big this was? I could have sat on it and got a
ride. That thing was humongous.
That's that's the half of my driveway that you're seeing.
And that thing was walking around my.
Driveway I walked. Into the house.
And I went, it was like from Disney, from the from Animal
Kingdom. Oh my goodness.
So. Before we get too off the roads,
our our weirdest wildlife story is that I I had to come over to
Paul and I said, Paul, I need you to get something out of the
yard. It's a giant fish.
And so like a hawk had. Dropped a like.
Really big. It was like it was like this
big. Yeah, Yep, our dog is barking.
But yeah, it had dropped a fish from the.
Nearby lake that it had gotten and it had dropped it right in
our backyard so our dogs obviously were back there
barking at it. Cinders are what dog hooked it
up and carried it. Around the yard.
But it's also we have like we have like, great, Jeff was a
cop, so he knows. Paul, Amy, that was an Italian
message. You.
You pissed somebody off. Can you piss the neighbor?
Off behind us. Can I say one up you?
Sleep. With the fish, I think some
people. Don't think of when they first
moved down here. Maybe negative isn't the right
word, but it's something that you absolutely need to be aware
of. If you have a big family, if you
have a lot of friends that maybe want to come visit you, yes.
My house since we. Moved here two years ago, has
been a never ending hotel of friends and family that want to
come stay, which is great. We love that.
But they also expect you to be on vacation when they're on
vacation. And that is something, yes.
It actually took me longer than it should have to.
Yep. Shut that off because I was
like, yeah, I want to go with them.
I want to have, I want to show them a good time.
I want to show them you can't. Like you got to say, you know
what? I'll see you after work.
I'll see you after the parks because it will happen.
I will 100%. And it's, and it's also the the
perception that I think a lot of things give off.
You know, I know it's the perception that this show gives
off to many people that watch it, which is that we are always
talking, we are all always sitting on this call talking
Disney Vacation Club or we are all always doing a vlog in the
parks. And that is actually just such a
low percentage of what we do. And yet it is all that we
project because we want to generate excitement about Disney
Vacation Club and Walt Disney World.
But the reality of it is, you know, we have all of those basic
things that you would be doing when you're not on vacation that
are a part of your daily life we are doing, like cooking dinner
or laundry. We mentioned it earlier, cutting
the grass, you know, got to take the car to get an oil change,
got to go get a haircut, you know, definitely need one.
But those are all of those things that for us, those fill
our days and fill our weeks and it's not parks all the time.
Is it wonderful and convenient that they are right there?
Yes. But I mean, yeah, Jeff, yeah.
You kind of got to just eventually just sort of say,
great, can I meet you for dinner on Thursday?
Like, because otherwise there is that expectation of like you're
always going to be in the parks and always be in the resorts
and. And I would just add to kind of,
you know, just round out our, our, our discussion here is, is
to make sure that you for all of these reasons, make sure that
you have a solid plan. Like if you're retiring to
Florida, great, you've worked very hard all your life.
You hopefully have the funds set up where this is going to be a
great retirement destination. But if you're trying to make
this make sense for your family, make sure that those those key
things line up. You know, make sure that you,
you know that financially it's gonna work 'cause, you know, God
forbid you travel halfway across the country and get here and
realize that you either can't afford it or, you know, you
didn't set up the right job. You know, who knows what those
situations are? You know, I know for Amy and I,
we discussed moving to Florida probably about three years
before we ever even began to think it could be a reality
because there were just so many check boxes that we knew in our
heads we had to be comfortable with.
And so you've got to have those. I always say you've got to have
those hard conversations early on in that discussion.
And I think that's a negative only because it is hard to have
those conversations sometimes with.
Everyone thinks of the Disney bubble, and I think that's very
important that you said that, that when you're moving here,
you're not living in the Disney bubble.
You're not in the bubble. So you're moving to quote UN
quote, the whole state of Florida.
So that's where things you have to look at.
Not everything is 100% perfect when you're in that Disney
bubble because it's life. So if you're coming here
especially, and I touched on it earlier too, if you're coming
here with kids or with a family, do research into schools,
schools and schools. Tremendous difference in schools
literally within 30 minutes from each other, one might be a top
rated school and 30 minutes away it might not be so top rated.
So you've got to look at things like that.
Another thing. Worth mentioning that we
haven't. If you notice, most of us live
1/2 hour 20 minutes from Disney. You could live 5 minutes from
the back of the Magic Kingdom. It could be true transient
though, because it could be very touristy.
Not that that's bad, but if you have kids, take that into
consideration. You want to be a nice amount of
time away where you can get to when you want to, but not be in
vacation mode with tourists all the time.
Yeah, I wouldn't want a number of Airbnb communities down here
is. Astonishing.
As somebody that works in real estation, it is astonishing.
I think we have more Airbnb's per capita than anywhere else in
the country, you know? Oh, wow.
And the other thing too, just to add to that is before you make
the move, I can't stress this enough.
Find your people. OK, so like whatever community
you're in, if you play Dungeons and Dragons or if you crochet or
if you there, there's a Facebook group out there for you.
And Amy and I have joked about this.
Amy Kriger and I have joked about this.
There's a Facebook group for everything.
Join some of them, ask questions, meet some people.
I kid you not. I don't know that we would have
lasted if we didn't have Paul, Amy, Jeff and Dan in our friend
group and then Derek and Panda later, obviously.
But Paul, Amy, Jeff and Dan were lifesavers for us because we
didn't know anybody. And I don't know that my girls
would have stayed if we hadn't found our people.
And we've expanded that and it's been great.
We've met other people through various things.
You know, we went to Boxy Park on Sunday like Amy was talking
about, which was just a phenomenal place to meet people.
But no joke, if you're an introvert, or if if you're
somebody that tends to get lonely or depressed, being away
from the family, being away that from the things, because moving
across the country is huge. I cannot stress enough what a
culture shock that can be. If you don't have some kind of
support group, it can get really lonely here.
Jeff is right. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think we could probably. You know, talk about this topic
for days. There's they're literally as
literally there's so. Much to.
Discuss and unpack that a even a one hour show does not do
justice to how important it is to make the right decisions.
Jeff made this comment earlier. I will just echo it at this
point in time. If it is something serious that
you're looking to do, get involved in a Facebook group
dedicated to this and make sure you get yourself a good realtor.
We don't have any personal recommendations on that front.
We've used some amazing Realtors and our time down here and there
are plenty of them around the area.
So look on YouTube. I definitely, I know that there
are some people that do a lot of videos on YouTube that cover all
community videos. Topics as well.
Yeah, so there's there's a whole other community just dedicated
to this there. I mean, there's a there's
someone locally in our community in Claremont that runs a
Facebook group and has an Instagram page and they just
talk about what's going on in Claremont.
I think it's called only in Claremont.
And it's cool just to hear about what's happening in Claremont.
So that's why, you know, it is a very big and growing, ever
growing community. And so it's important to just
make the right decisions, but also like aiming it like we
didn't make the wrong decision. It's just that three years
later, our decisions changed and, and we knew more about the
area. Jeff's rode the same roller
coaster and I and I don't think he's done yet, but still still
plans to move, move yet again to kind of get in that perfect area
that he wants to be in. And who knows, we could be doing
the same thing down the road, you know, who knows?
It's just we're moving again. We've painted walls.
I'm with you. I hate it.
I'm with you. It's a serious commitment for us
to. Actually paint walls in the
house. So I think we're gonna be we're
gonna be in this house for quite some time.
Put your questions that you might have in the comments of
this video. We also answer a lot of
questions in the DVC fan Facebook group.
But if we get enough, like maybe follow up questions related to
living down here or just certain areas, maybe we can do a follow
up show and answer some of those questions that you have because
this is a question that does come up.
I apologize for those of you hoping for Disney Vacation Club
content, but there's enough of us Disney Vacation Club members
that have made this leap that we thought it was an important
topic to consider. Panda, I'm getting you.
I'm going to put that key holder Club luggage tag in the mail to
you here just momentarily. I really want it.
I'm not kidding. Yeah, don't, don't do, do that
to me and joke and then not send it because I'll be waiting at
the mail. Key holder club.
Key Holder Vacations app on the iOS store or Android store that
is going to do it for this week's episode of the DVC Show.
We will see you next Monday.