Since it's the holiday season and you just made me a bunch of
cookies, I thought I'd go around the room real quick and say,
Jeff, what's your favorite holiday cookie?
Oh, I. Don't know if this qualifies,
but it has cinnamon in it, so I'm going to say snickerdoodle,
yeah. That's a good count.
That's a good count, yeah. Anything.
Honestly, I got some snickerdoodles in the in the
cupboard right now. So, Derek.
I don't really like cookies. What I'm not I'm not a big bug,
but we we were talking about it on the last show that we taped
kind of that like morning tradition.
So when I think of Christmas, I always think of I have to get
those cinnamon rolls. But they're not cinnamon.
It's the ones with the orange icing on them that you buy.
It like, yeah, those are gross. You went from.
Terrible not liking cookies to
even worse with orange iced cinnamon rolls.
So if you don't like. Orange sticks too, don't you?
I don't. Even know what those are.
The chocolate covered orange Jelly things.
Oh, no, no. So if you don't like cinnamon,
I'm sorry. If you don't like cookies, what
is like your like holiday dessert of choice, just not a.
Cinnamon rolls. That's not.
That's like a breakfast. Can eat that breakfast, lunch
and dinner. Yeah, he probably asked
fruitcakes too. There's no good can eat the
whole tin like on Christmas morning and a big giant glass of
milk and it's that vanilla orangey icing and it's super
sticky and I'm hungry. I'm hungry.
Glad this ain't a food show. Hey everybody, and welcome to
this episode of the DVC Show. I'm your host, Paul Krieger,
joined as always by my lovely wife Amy Krieger.
I didn't ask you what was your What's your favorite Christmas
cookie? Well, I'm always a chocolate
chip girl, but I around Christmas my mom makes spritz
and the thing I love about them is that they have almond extract
and I love that flavour. So that's what I'm gonna go.
With that is yours. Oh man, there's too many to
name. I I love so the like 7 layer
cookies that your mom makes. Those are really good.
I love my mom's chocolate chip cookies smeared with peanut
butter. Just you can just slather peanut
butter all over those. Lemon pie bars.
Just there's too many to name,
really. If it's a cookie, I'll eat it.
Speaking of cookies, a man that won't eat any Derek de Boer.
I didn't know. Hey, I just happened to remember
them. Now.
I do love the ones that you buy in the grocery store that are
like like $2.00 and you could get them like they make them for
Halloween. You know, it's kind of those
prepackaged. Like.
Elves, they have them super processed, but something about
cookies, I love it. I love those things.
Jeff, just say anything and save us, please.
I like everything about Christmas except orange rolls.
Oh man, and you know what's weird about this is normally
Derek's food choices are really spot on.
Like I've I've enjoyed a lot of his recommendations over the
years. I definitely love his beer
recommendations. His the the sliders that he
talks about all the time at the at.
I wanted to say Lamplight Lounge but that was really not correct.
Not Crew Cup. Lounge.
I don't know why I want the lamplight now.
I want lamplight though. They've got some good nachos.
They're nachos, so. Gonna have to go out in the West
Coast. Well, hey, happy Monday,
everybody. There's been a decent amount of
news that has happened in the Disney Vacation Club space over
the course of the past few weeks, and hopefully this show
ages well. And there's not any more news
tomorrow because we're filming this the day before the condo
association meetings. So terrible timing, probably on
our filming schedule part, but it's really hard to get a bunch
of people in the same room around the holiday season.
So we do as we can here. But we are filming this episode
on December 8th. And over the past few weeks
we've gotten a lot of Disney Vacation Club news, a lot of the
stuff that we normally expect for this time of year, end of
the year, all that kind of fun stuff.
So we thought let's do a little bit of a news recap and bring it
all to you along with some terrible cookie recommendations.
And before we go any further, this and all of our content is
brought to you by Key Holder Vacations in the world of DVCDVC
resale market where you can buy or sell that Disney Vacation
Club contract. We'll get to this a little bit
further in the news, but remember that $500 resale
contract admin fees going to go on beginning January 1st.
So if you are looking to, you know, not have to worry about
that $500 fee that's going to start to be charged, you know,
make sure to get that fully signed contract locked in before
the end of the year. Monera Financial can also assist
in financing that DVC resale contract.
Purchase the DVC rental store where you can try before you
buy. Rent some points or rent out
your own points for cash and unlocked Magic, unlocked
magic.com/DVC fan discounted Walt Disney World, Disneyland
and Universal Orlando park tickets.
I know I always feel like I come up for air after after I go
through all of that because I don't know if I breathe when I
actually say it all. Does anyone check whether or not
I do? Does my face progressively get
more red? I zone out honestly.
That's that's nice. I just feel for you because
every time I do a vlog I have to do that too and it's we got some
bloopers down the road hopefully because the last time I did it
to eat to the beat it took me 14 tries.
Oh my goodness, Sunday's over. Amy was dying.
She was laughing. So.
Hard. I'll put him on Patreon.
Oh man. Yes, yes, please do.
Well, let's see, we've got quite a little laundry list of news
that we need to get through here today.
So I'm going to kick it right off and talk about the 2026
Disney Vacation Club annual dues, which were announced
several weeks ago. Biggest takeaways coming out of
the annual dues this year? This was probably the largest
dues increase that we have seen in recent, you know, memory when
it comes to the dues. You can find these over on
dvcfan.com. You can also find a full
breakdown an analysis of the increase over on the DVC Resale
market website, but blended increase across all of the
resorts 6.38%, which is pretty incredible considering that the
normal average here for dues is around 3:00 to.
Five and actually I, someone had asked that question on our live
stream. It was one of the questions that
we didn't get to and they were asking, you know, what is, what
is usually the average of what annual dues goes up by and when
we have. So, so when contracts are being
sold, you know, maybe after like September or so, that's when we
start seeing, you know, the buyers being responsible for
2026 annual dues usually like in what October, November or so,
Derek. And by that time, we don't know
what those numbers are yet because Disney hasn't projected
them. But because the buyers are
getting those points and the the contract is going to close at a
time where Disney requires a 2026 dues to be paid at the time
of closing, we have to account for those dues.
And so as a role, we used to always do, you know, we used to
add 5% to the previous year's dues just to have a number to
put on a loan estimate that would make sense.
And most of the time we would be close or over, you know, when we
did 5%, we'd made it 6% this year.
And I'm starting to see now, you know, our loan estimates
compared to what the actual closing costs are, are being.
And, and I can see in some of these we've been off, you know,
I mean, and, and we underestimated which which, you
know, unfortunately that's just part of not knowing what
Disney's going to do. But.
And, and that's, you know, understandable when it comes to
annual dues. But yeah, yeah, I so normally we
go 5 to 6%, you know, more and and like you said, the one of
them was as high as nine, you know, 9.06 for Bay Lake Tower,
8.225 or yeah, 8.22 for percent for Grand Cal.
So across the board being more than 6% was, was interesting,
you know, average. Yeah.
And I I think it just throws for a loop anyone that ever has been
a number cruncher or spreadsheet, you know warrior of
putting together that projected, you know, annual depreciation of
that that upfront cost and and also factoring in those annual
dues creases year over year. Like you said, you know,
averaging that 3 to 5% or whatever that historical
increase is going to be to now jump to six, it really changes
those numbers across. Yeah, 6% was like our safe
number. So now I might, you know, I
might up it to 8%. When we do those estimates, you
know, we're not over. That's not what we're charging.
That's just us estimating for you and then you pay the actual
amount because by that time Disney puts out the information.
Yeah. Derek, what kind of response
have you been hearing from members based off of the annual
dues this year? Well, I think so too.
It's also important that for maybe folks that aren't, you
know, 100% familiar with how the dues work, always remember that
it's, you know, based on the resort itself and then it's per
point. So sometimes when we talk about
like, oh, they went up 6%, they went up 7, Bay Lake Tower went
up 9. Just to put it in perspective.
So that, you know, dues for Bay Lake Tower in 2025 were $8.01
per point, right? So that means if I had 100
points at Bay Lake, I paid 800 bucks a year for 2026, they went
up 9.06%, so they went up to $8.74 per point.
So at the end of the day, it's nothing, you know, not that
massive. You're still coming out way, way
better than you were if you were not a Disney Vacation Club
member because you're always going to have to pay whatever
that hotel room is. You're going to have to pay 12
1/2% tax every single night. Plus the hotel rates go up, you
know, 10/15/20 percent. So the end of the day, I'd
rather be an owner and own something that maybe, you know,
increased 5% or 6% versus being a non member, having to pay that
12 1/2% tax, being at the mercy of the hotel rooms, you know,
going up each and every single year.
Because at the end of the day, that's it.
It's that famous story. You know, when Disney World
opened, it was, you know, 29 bucks a night to stay at the
Contemporary, $29.00 a night. You could go to the Contemporary
right now, rent that room and you're talking 67800 dollars a
night plus 12 1/2% tax. So yeah, I mean, the dues went
up a little bit more, you know, than normally.
Maybe they have in the past, but still, I still think you're way
better ahead being a member than not being a member.
I'd. Like to jump in really quick and
just echo that because we talk about percentages, percentage of
percentages. That sounds like a lot of money.
My personal old Key West went up to $0.70 you.
Know per point. Over the course of the year for
the contracts, it was less than 100 bucks, you know what I mean?
So perspective is important is all I'll say.
I mean, we don't like prices to go up, but like Derek was
saying, way less than than hotel rooms have tracked.
So you're still way ahead of inflation I feel like.
Yeah, I, I think it's always fun to like find the outliers
related to these numbers. Amy already mentioned once Bay
Lake Tower was a big one. Grand Californian was a big 19
point O six, 8.22% increases. The big commonality that those
two resorts have around each other are the fact that they
recently went through a refurbishment.
Wondering if that has any. Yeah, exactly.
You know, as Jeff puts air quotes up, you know, it's I
think it makes sense for Bay Lake Tower.
That was a home run of a refurbishment.
They definitely gutted that place and then put it back
together and amazing artwork by Joey Chu all over the place.
Like they they invested a lot of time and money into that.
And you know, Bay Lake Tower, at least you know, Derek would stay
there and not completely hate it now.
But you know, Grand Cow to have such a significant increase.
You know, we just wrapped a future show that'll go up.
That is our year in review. But we talked about the Grand
Cow refurbishment again, and we talked about how when you
actually crunched the numbers when it relates to the budget,
they spent, you know, well over $100,000 per room essentially.
And I think a lot of members are asking the questions, where did
that money go? Now hopefully by the time this
goes up again, this is the day before the condo association
meetings, I can guarantee you those questions are going to be
asked. Where did the money go?
How is it spent? Because truly that is why these
condo association meetings happen is mainly to ask those
budgetary questions more than anything.
And I think members want to know the answer to that this year
more than any other year, but also then have the justification
of why did then the dues increase so exponentially.
If you are looking for this information, you can always head
over to your Disney Vacation Club account on the DVC website.
Go to condo, condo window notices, I believe is the
section under my dashboard and then under the condo notices
section, you will actually be able to find the full projected
dues for the next year. And that also breaks it down in
much more detail than we are currently today, which it
factors in. You know, this much is going
towards administration, this much is going towards
maintenance, this much is going towards housekeeping, All those
kind of fun breakdowns. Animal Kingdom, as we always
laugh about, has its animal line item for the care and feeding of
the animals that are at Animal Kingdom Lodge.
So yeah, other notable resorts of Vero Beach only saw a very
small increase, but that's because it also always falls
into what I call the Big 3 when it comes to the annual dues.
So first we've got at the top of the list is Derek's beloved Vero
Beach Resort at a whopping $14.89 per point.
So yeah, that's, that's a Stinger of a of an annual.
That's the first one to break 14, right?
Yeah, Yep. Next up, thank you, Thank you to
all the Vero Beach owners that take hits for the team by every
single year, paying those dues so I can enjoy and all of us can
enjoy Vero beat. That is true.
Followed closely behind in another beloved resort if you've
ever had the chance to get there is Hilton Head Island, $12.86
per point. And then the newcomer to the
list, which is a reason if you, if you have track, you know,
direct point sales, there's not a lot that occur at the cabins
at Fort Wilderness. And I think the dues are one of
those things that scare a lot of people away $12.27 per point
over there. But also seeing a significantly
low increase, which I think is a relative of the fact that they
are actively selling this property.
It would, it only saw three .36% increase year over year.
And we'll want to keep a close eye on that one as we head
forward into 2027. Because again, all eyes are on
Lakeshore Lodge to see if it gets pulled into the Palmetto
Trust and becomes a part of the cabins of Fort Wilderness, which
could maybe bring this number down, which I think owners of
that resort would desperately love.
Go ahead, Derek. No, I was just curious that if
you can find out why my boardwalk dues went up like
almost 7% when half the resort is closed, I would really love
to know why they went up. They're closing art galleries,
they're closing restaurants, they're closing Jelly rolls,
everything is closed. Why are my dues?
And it's not just from power washing the boardwalk like they
do every two months? I don't know.
Well. Dues are future budget, right?
So that's they're going to put a bowling alley down there where
Citywalk used to be or whatever. You're going to be so excited
when it's done. When it comes to these
increases, do you think that there's any singular driver
that's really been been the reason why we've seen this big
of an increase year of year? Like I know we talk like
globally, we talk inflation and stuff like that.
Like, you know, do we think that that's one of the largest
contributing factors? Like a large part of this also
has to do with wage, which, you know, we are all for, you know,
paying the cast members, you know, a very fair and livable
wage. I, I think, you know, members
have never balked at that. So if that becomes a large part
of this increase, think people are all for it because they they
work their butts over there to, to keep these, keep these
properties looking really good. But anything really.
Yeah, it's, it's important to know too, that if people think
that Disney just, you know, jacks up the dues just to make
money off of whatnot, always remember that the largest point
holder in Disney Vacation Club is Disney Vacation Club
themselves, right? So they've got a tremendous
amount. I believe it's like 2%, right?
So they own of every single DVC resort.
So they have to pay dues on those points too.
So just keep, keep that in mind when you're like, oh, it's
another Disney cash grab. They jacked up my dues, but
Disney's got to pay those dues too.
So for all the points that they own, Yep.
Yeah, that's a good point. And I'm a little bit surprised
and maybe I shouldn't be, but I'm fairly new at this, you
know, how do I word this? We had a pretty quiet year this
year from a Florida standpoint as far as hurricanes go.
And I kind of thought especially the coastal, you know, Hilton
Head, Vero, but even Disney World, it has that impact kind
of baked into their budget, I feel like, or they should be.
And I kind of thought maybe that would help keep them a little
lower cuz we don't have insurance claims and damage and
some of those things. So I don't know.
That was just something that I was surprised at personally,
but. When it comes to these annual
dues bills, everything will be finalized probably within the
next few weeks. That'll be when you see things
load into your account. So if you're looking for these
annual dues in the annual due section of the Disney Vacation
Club website, those should then come online then.
Then dues are officially due on January 15th of 2020 sixth and
they are considered past due on February 15th.
What happens in that month Gray area?
Your guess is as good as mine. Nothing has ever happened I
think between January and February.
But for some reason that's that's the the deadlines that
they have in place after February 15th.
Yeah, there's going to be some penalties if you've not if
you've not paid your annual dues.
Those include basically, you know, locking you out of your
account, canceling any active reservations that you might
have. So you'd want to avoid that at
all costs and get those dues paid or at least set up for that
monthly auto pay that you can do.
We've got some great articles over on DVC Fan.
We'll be publishing them again here at the beginning of the
year that just review the different options related to
paying your annual dues. But we always like to highlight
here during the holiday season, if you find good deals on Disney
gift cards, you want to take advantage of those.
Recently, giftcards.com around Black Friday had a 10% off deal.
They do charge a shipping fee, but Amy and I basically bought
bought them out of as many gift cards as we could to help offset
the cost. Of our annual dues next year and
I mean, I know, I think we bought like, you know a couple
$1000 because we own way too many points, but it's going to,
it's going to 10% off, it's going to save us like $3 or so.
So that's awesome, a considerable savings when it
comes to all these. I do have one quick question,
why are we going for decimal places past when it's coming to
currency? It's like why do gas stations do
it? I never understand it.
That's. True, I never really thought of
that but like they're making the penny but I've never had .0003
pennies in my pocket. Right.
And like, you know, you have to, they round, have to round up
when they charge you. And I just don't.
It's anyone who knows more about money.
Tell us why. Why does Disney and gas stations
insist on the four decimal boys? Can you imagine if everything
was like that? Like a gallon of milk was like.
Yeah. 3.987. 6 Which one of us is getting ripped off?
It's always us. We're we're the consumer always
gets ripped off, I'm pretty sure.
But yeah, moving forward. So again, I've mentioned before
kicking off the show, this is filmed right before the condo
association. So ignore anything that's
outdated. You know, I apologize in advance
if anything significant came up. I might add in a little blurb
here in this section, but overall, any big expectations
coming into the condo association meetings from us
like any like huge like you're expecting this this bombshell?
No, I'm not expecting any bombshells.
I I've It would definitely depend on the resort, you know,
I would hope that Polynesian members get an answer about what
happened with the point charts over there.
I'm interested to see what Grand Californian, you know, members
get because I'm sure someone's going to bring up the
refurbishment and, you know, ask, you know, why.
And then Animal Kingdom. I hope that that we get some
kind of like just maybe a sneak peek of what the, the
renovations going to look like. And then also just a, a timeline
for any other resorts that that need refurbished.
So like Old Key West, you know, hopefully they'll learn when
their soft goods is going to start and all that.
I almost want to take this question before you guys answer
a slightly different direction. If you had the opportunity to
ask like Bill Dierkson or one of the executives of DVC, like one
question, like just open forum to ask them one question kind of
in this setting, what would what would that question be?
I know what Derek's is, but for me, I, I, I would say kind of
Amy already touched on it. I would ask for a little harder
timelines, not only because old Key West is my main home resort.
I would like to know when that soft goods is going to start
happening. But also let's get a timeline
for Lakeshore. Let's start getting some artwork
coming out of that. Let's start getting some, some,
you know, details about what that's going to look like when
it's going to go on sale, because as a a member and I know
why they're not doing it, but as as a member that maybe wants to
add on there, I'm not doing anything points wise until till
that happens. So which is why they're not
doing that. Derek, if they gave you a mic
for 5 minutes at one of these meetings, what would you ask?
I think I'd be curious and if they would ever admit that
putting resale restrictions did not go like they had planned.
And I don't know if they'll ever admit that.
But I think, and I see it every day when I have people reach out
to me to sell their, you know, Riviera contract, let's say, and
they realize that they're 100% underwater.
You know, they bought it for over $200 a point.
You're lucky if you could sell it for 1:30.
And then they say, well, why? You know what?
Well, because remember when he bought it, Disney put
restrictions. So the person that buys this
Riviera contract, they can't go anywhere else.
You know, they can't use it to go to Vera.
They can so for someone looking into joining DVC for the very
first time to have this contract to where you're stuck at only
one resort because we all know best part about the club is
staying at all of them. I mean, with the exception of
Bay Lake Tower, but you're able to go stay at all these amazing
resorts. And the fact that that I just
feel like they did such a huge disservice.
And I know what they were trying to do was of course plus up
sales, you know, trying to plus up their direct sales.
But I feel like they could have gone about it a different way,
meaning adding more of those direct benefits, more specialty
perks, all of those things verse basically shooting your buyers
that are giving you 10s of thousands of dollars to purchase
these contracts that when they have to sell for whatever
reason, it sucks for them. I mean, there's just no way
around it versus someone that say maybe bought, you know, with
us and I'm going to buy a Saratoga for, you know, $100 a
point. And if I need to go sell it down
the road, guess what? I'm going to sell it for maybe
$100 a point or maybe a little bit more.
I just would love to know. Again, they would never be 100%
honest with me. They take my microphone and say
you sit down. You're not allowed to love
anyone. But I really like, I just don't
see that, that I, I feel like they envisioned it going one way
and and I feel like it backfired.
I think we're going to see this kind of play out a little bit
more too over the course of the next year to year and a half
because we are at that, at that point where Riviera sells out.
So Riviera direct sales, you know, I would expect that to be
coming here in 2026 at some point if, if sales continue on
the current path that they are. And at that point, that's when
this really becomes the question, because this is when
Riviera mainly becomes a resale game and you're going to see
more of the population of the resort slowly become those
restricted resale owners. I will.
I'll answer your question just from my mindset, Derek, is that
based off of the direction we've seen them go in?
I don't think that they think it's a mistake only because I
believe that that the current direction of DVC is looking at
it as very short sighted, not caring about the long term, you
know, longevity of the product, not caring about the damage that
today's decisions might do to this product down the road.
Because we've been saying it way too often recently, which is
that here are all of these things that differentiate Disney
Vacation Club from other timeshares.
And yes, it will always have the IT factor.
It will always have the fact that it is Disney, you're buying
it, Walt Disney World, It will always be special for those
reasons. But we used to just have this
list of reasons to say what made it not a timeshare when it was a
timeshare. And now every time that
something comes up, we're going to talk about another one here
in just a little bit. But every time one of these
things come up, it's we go to oh, other timeshares have been
doing this for years. And so it I am, at least from my
perspective, it's just like you're you're almost like
kicking yourself down the road where it's just like someone's
going to pay for these decisions down the road.
Do they care about them now? Probably not.
Do they do they think that they're doing wrong now?
Probably not. Go ahead, Jeff.
Well, I wanted to change my answer because I didn't realize
that we were doing pie in the sky questions that they're
actually not going to answer that we would like answers to.
And you're talking longevity and, and down the road.
Nobody cares. I want to know what's going to
happen to old Key West in 2042. You know what's going to happen
to the rest of them, But because Old Key West has the two
expiration dates, that's what I want my answer to be.
That's. What?
That's a good one. I want to.
Know how they're going to deal with that fiasco that they've
done to themselves. Each room you're only going to
be, you can only occupy half of the room.
Now they'll, they're going to put like a, a duct tape line
right down the middle of it. It's like you can't cross this
section because this section's already expired.
So and that they'll they'll put random people in with you in
that other half. Does that mean that the gurgling
suitcase gets even smaller? Is that possible?
Yes, the cut in half. That is that I, I, my biggest
concern about old Key West is that that is that like that
prime real estate where it's like it's it, it's, it spans so
much property on that side of of Disney.
It's very, very close to Epcot. You don't realize how close it's
it is until you've stayed there and you can see Epcot fireworks
from your balcony depending on where your room is.
But if you can't, say, someone's not chomping at the bit to throw
a giant tower up on that property somewhere that I don't
know, I don't know. No, no.
I don't know. What's your question that you
all right? I already asked it, Yeah.
I'm not. I'm not.
I'm not here to cause chaos like Jeff.
We're chaos makers. What are you trying to say here?
I'm just kidding. I don't know.
I'm not even going to the condo association.
You're going all by yourself. Oh, bye.
Bye. Lucky man.
Moving on in our news, the thing that has kept Derek and I up at
night and Amy up, you know, some a little bit.
I slept pretty good that night. You did, yeah.
I woke up going. I wonder why that bother me last
night. Actually, what happened?
Was it the the news dropped late in the evening and we weren't
100% ready to publish it yet. And.
I woke up, was getting out of the shower to Amy rushing into
the bathroom asking why I didn't publish that blog yet, and I was
like, I was just, I was just waiting.
And then I think I published it in a towel, if anyone really.
Wanted to know that is when I woke up.
Content we need. I was like, I slept so good.
I don't know why I didn't pressure you to publish that
blog last the night before. And I was like, I didn't like
for some reason, didn't care. We don't really say what we're
talking about yet, which is the, the $500 new DVC resale admin
fee. For full details again, go to
dvcfan.com DVC resale market. Both have very detailed blogs up
about this. Now, Derek, just take it, run us
through the gambit of what we know at this point and, and what
this means. I think for, you know, potential
buyers, potential sellers here on the resale market.
And then Jeff and I'll be chaos makers and, you know, comment
and Amy, I'll just smile. Yeah, in in a nutshell, Disney
is slowly like Paul said, implementing things that other
time shares always have. So you know, whether whatever it
is that they want to call it like an administration fee or a
secretarial fee or a transfer fee, whatever it is starting on
January 1st. So for new purchases after
January 1st at closing, you will pay a $500 fee to get your
contract basically finalized, you know, and to have DVC then
create your website and to be able to load your points and all
of that. Again, this is something that
other timeshares have always done.
Disney's always had the ability to do it.
Why out of nowhere, you know, they again went from like zero
to 60, you know, and said, hey, let's charge, I don't know, 500
bucks. Not quite sure why.
But again, you're, you know, savings still, you know, if I'm
going to save $20,000 because I purchased a resale contract with
Derek, OK, because of this new admin fee, maybe I've saved
$19,500. It's still a lot.
So I'm hoping, hoping that the reason that they're doing this
is so that they can, you know, maybe hire more people on that
back end with Disney Vacation Club.
So maybe it speeds up the roefer process.
Maybe it speeds up. Everybody knows the hardest part
when you buy is after your contracts closed and it takes
Disney, you know, 3-4 weeks to, you know, create your account
and you're checking your website every day.
Can I log in? Are my points there?
So I'm hoping that they're going to take this $500 and put it
towards what it hopefully should be, which is to make things
smoother, to make things faster. That's what we want is I'm
hoping that it just makes the whole entire process faster.
So again, up until then, if you're on the fence about that
contract, do it before January 1st because after January 1st is
when the $500 fee will come into play.
And we have seen things speed up a little bit I think in the past
month in terms of the turn around time and the close time
on a lot of these resale purchases.
So Derek, to your point, I hope that they, you know, hired
additional staffing, but a lot of people, yeah, I've, I've
crunched the numbers on this and when you kind of look at the
number of resale contracts that close every single year times it
by 500, we're in the multi millions of dollars.
So either I'm in the wrong profession and I need to just do
contact contract Closings over at DVC, but I can't imagine that
they've hired that many representatives.
So I, you know, is the, I think a part of this is also them just
trying to get some skin in the game of the resale market.
They hired 3 people and they're making a million each.
I I'm. Applying tomorrow.
Yeah. I'm just kidding, I.
Never, never saw that job posting, I can promise you.
But yeah, I, I mean, a lot of people are wondering what is
this going to do to the resale market?
What is this going to do with pricing and everything like
that? I think it's very early to kind
of predict some of those things. We did, Amy and I did a live
stream last week which discussed a little bit kind of about how
small contracts. Yes, this does now change the
numbers a little bit. You know, a 50 point contract
with an additional $500 fee that's an extra $10 per point
that you're, you're considering as part of that value of that
contract. It's, it's going to be
interesting to see kind of how the market as a whole reacts.
And we'll probably see that kind of settle in more as you know,
2026 emerges and this becomes, you know, a full part of the pro
process. But Jeff, any thoughts on, on
this new fee? Does it does it make you think
any differently about buying or selling or?
Not really. I mean, it's like like you guys
have already said, and you guys did a great job on the live
show. I watched it from the taxi in
Saint Thomas and. We should have gone live.
On his way to a Bushwell. Honestly thought about calling
in but I couldn't think of anything to say so I just.
He knows. He knows the links.
Always. Open.
All you had to do was show us some scenery.
That's all you had to do. We live in Happy.
Next time listen, it's not just timeshares that do this.
Like you guys said, every HOA when you buy and sell a home has
some kind of transfer fee baked into the contract.
It's always way too much money. I mean I understand why they do
it because it's an easy fee to charge.
Again, transparency what's it paying for would be nice.
I just wish if it really is making things faster.
It's too bad they couldn't have made this optional, you know,
and said, listen, we're doing our regular 90 day thing, but if
you want to pay 500 bucks, you can have your points day of
closing just like they do when they.
Sell. Oh my goodness, right?
And people would do. It and people would do it.
I would do it yeah and that's my and you guys have heard me say
this before. That is my biggest hang up with
resale is it just takes a long time it's still worth it because
it's way cheaper. But if I could have a $500 fee
and have my points tomorrow done deal.
Yeah, yeah. So let's back up a step to
Derek's question that when he had his microphone before, they
plucked it from his hands earlier when he when he asked a
question about the resale restrictions.
Because something that some in the community have alluded to is
if we start to look at what other timeshare developers do,
one thing that they do offer is the ability to basically as part
of this fee upgrade your restricted points or your resale
points and obtain those benefits that a direct member would have.
So essentially for a fee, don't know what that dollar amount
would be in this case. I imagine it would be a lot
larger, but also maybe not on the level of a direct contract.
But do we think that maybe this is testing the waters for that
in the future? Because again, they're I, I, I
think the, the name of the game for DVC ever since we emerged
from the pandemic is make money where we can make money.
And so again, what other time shares have done historically?
Next logical step maybe for where this goes.
I. Don't thinking about nothing.
I was looking at what was coming up and, and in my head I was
like, oh, rotating characters at Epcot Lounge, Ski Mickey and
Minnie. I was like, I now have less ski
experience than Mickey and Minnie and that's why I'm
staying in my head when you just ask me what?
If this is, if this is what someone that's on the show right
now is thinking, I can only imagine that we had -17 viewers
right now listening to the remainder of our show.
So I apologize if we're boring you as much as we're boring Amy
right now. Jeff, you were going to say
something or maybe not. Or just I'll talk about skiing
Mickey and Minnie. No, Derek was talking, I think.
I don't know. I.
Don't know. Oh no, yes, I was going to jump
in with what you said Paul. I don't see them, you know,
offering. Oh, you bought a resale
contract. Do you want to be a quote UN
quote card carrying member? Yeah, here's you can pay $1000
and then we're going to what like unrestrict your points or
we're going to do this. They make way more off because
again, so many people go well, how many points do I need to buy
direct to get those quote UN quote perks 150 done.
Everybody says that all I'm going to buy a big bulk of mine
on the resale market and then I got to buy 150.
So I think Disney knowing that they got somebody in for 30
grand verse, maybe charging someone, you know, 500 bucks or
$1000 so they can get a little, you know, temporary discount on
a on a pretzel. Yeah, that's I don't see them
doing that. So I think they know where their
bread and butter is always those members that aren't card
carrying, quote UN quote members.
And they know that golden ticket is 150.
And eventually, I'm sure my prediction, I think I said it a
couple weeks ago, I think in 2026, I think that we'll hear it
going up to like 175 or 200. I do.
That's. I like, I like Dee weigh in.
Oh. Not on many.
I agree with what Derek said, OK?
Jeff well, and you know, we we talk about the oh, I hate even
quoting Derek, the quote UN quote perks that direct members
get if they offered a way for for resale members to upgrade.
Listen, I know we're in a constant battle and there's this
weird line in the sand between direct and resale, but Can you
imagine what Moonlight Magic and the lounges would look like if
they open that up to people that wanted to upgrade like?
It's. True.
It's kind of a necessary evil in some ways.
Like you can't have your cake and eat it too for everybody.
So if you want those, you gotta, you gotta spend the money and
you got to want it because it's a lot more money.
So we've got some friends that have been trying to buy for
about 6 months now and they just, they only care about the
lounges. And I'm just like, man, a
$20,000 lounge is that's just a really nice.
Lounge I Club 33 instead, yeah. I mean, yeah, exactly.
At least you get something out of it then.
More than just a lounge, so. Yeah.
I don't know, Yeah, yeah. I'm just curious as to their
overall mindset with, you know, the whole tiered system these
days because now, you know, it used to be we had resale and
direct and now we have resale direct member Magic beyond.
And so it's, you know, next we have, you know, restricted
resale, resale direct member magic beyond So like this just
seems to just continue to evolve and it's really only taken on
most of this evolution in the past few years.
So I just wonder if it's just. Like you were saying earlier
about being like other timeshares, RCI has the same
thing. They have platinum, they have
gold, they have silver and you get to bank your points for
three years at one level and only one year at another level.
Like it just, it comes, it gets to the point that it's too
confusing, which is maybe what they're going for because RCI
loves it when I don't use my points and I haven't used my
points in 10 years. And so maybe that's that's their
goal is just to make it throw so much information.
They're just like, I don't care, I just want to stay at my home.
But it's always been the largest goal is, is to not educate
people on what what they've actually spent all this money
on. Because you know, we receive
emails and we receive comments on a on a daily or weekly basis
of people saying I've learned the most about this product that
I bought thanks to DVC fan, thanks to this show, thanks to
your parent companies. You know, that is where people
go to actually learn about this product because there's very
little formal education being provided.
Yes, if you're a new member, they invite you to like an intro
webinar, but like you're talking, you can't absorb
everything you need to know about this purchase in the
course of a 30 minute pre recorded webinar, whatever that
might be. And you know, here's a community
that's answering live questions for you, like if you need
walkthrough, you know, the the you know, the website, you know,
we've we've done that before and you know, we've we're we're
even, we've talked about, you know, even expanding our
education even more like in what we do here, But I don't think
that aligns with what they want. You know, if, if, if points
expire and and they go away, it's cha ching, you know, it's
it's a win for them to a certain degree.
So moving on to a topic that I hope you listeners are really
excited about, more so than our previous topics because they
know this one right here is really exciting to talk about.
It is that there are new characters at the Epcot Member
Lounge. So if you've paid that $20,000
premium and upgraded and then also done the Member Magic
Beyond $99 a year fee, you can go after hours and experience
some new rare characters. And if you go back to when we
talked about this product multiple times in the past, I
have said on prior shows that when this rolled out, when the
Member Magic Beyond benefit rolled out, it was you could go
to the Epcot Lounge after hours once a year and experience the
special characters, which was the characters from Zootopia.
And there was no further information.
And I said, why would you limit this option?
Why would you limit the opportunity for you've got, you
know, AS as working up in the lounge that are kind of telling
people about, hey, this is the newest deal that we've got going
on. These are the incentives that
are rolling out right now. Why would you limit that
opportunity? Just rotate the characters, you
know, monthly, quarterly, whatever it might be, just
something new and exciting. And here we are at the end of
2025 and they've rotated 2 sets of characters in and out of that
lounge in the course of a matter of months.
So we had some special characters, special Mickey and
Minnie that were there, I think throughout the fall season.
And then now we have Mickey and Minnie skiing, which is more
than Amys ever done on skis so never never got.
Dressed up. They're meeting for the holiday
season, which makes me think that hopefully next spring, Ski
Mickey and Minnie are still not there.
You know? If they are, something went
wrong, but you know, maybe, maybe they're in their
springtime suits or something. So this is so I'm a member and
I've been a member for obviously a long time.
I'm going to Epcot tomorrow with Annie, which will be December
the 9th. I'm not able to see these
characters correct because it's not an extra magic and I didn't
pay the 100 on top of it, correct?
Yep, correct. You will be kicked out of the
lounge at 6 I believe it is. Before the characters come out.
Before the characters come out and then from 6:00 to 9:00, if
you've paid the extra $100 in in addition, you will now get to
meet Ski Mickey and Minnie. They do have a cool festive
backdrop that they did change up again for the for the I I, I, I,
I call this a win. You know I'm I'm putting.
I like that it's open late, you know what I mean, even if I mean
you have to pay the extra if you're buying the membership
magic beyond, you're probably not buying it for this purpose.
Maybe you are, but most people are buying it for like the
extra, you know, one time use points and the memory maker
benefit or you know, the discounts on on things.
But. We're going to this next.
Week I OK, I I do I do like you know, because I hated that it
closed so early. So I do like that if you have
that perk that you can use, utilize the lounge longer even
if you care about the characters or not.
Yeah. Yeah, I, I agree.
I think it's a win. I think it's cool.
It's not something that, you know, the Derek's into.
I, I, we heard him talk about Partysaurus Rex at Jollywood.
He he he's not a character guy. He had some fierce opinions on
that, yeah. Question when and I should know
this, but OK, you guys are members member magic beyond
members remember magic that's a lot in.
MBB. Do you can you bring guests with
you or is it just the two of you?
Yep. Yeah, so technically Paul's not
a member, which it's it's weird. I wish that when you purchase
it, you purchase it for your membership, but instead you
purchase it for a member. So technically I am the only
member. So if he was in the, if he was
in the park without me, he can't go.
He is not a member of Magic Beyond.
Yeah. How many can you take with you?
I think is it. Normally the same way that's
like normally. Or yeah like 5 total with you.
Yeah, or if you have a existing park reservation, I imagine they
would. It's like how many are in your
on your reservation. Like similar to the normal like
new light rules and everything. Yeah, So Yep.
But yeah, when we did the I think we did this when we were
all at Disneyland together. Amy actually used there was no
one in line. There was no one in line at
Starview Station, but she did show her card because she had
the benefit, which would have allowed us to jump anyone that
was and skip the line. But I think we did, when we
actually did use it there, I think there was a hard cap of
like a 5 total in the party. Yeah, and we had 6 and it didn't
matter it. Really didn't matter, but you
know, ultimately at the end of the day, but a win for
membership Magic Beyond. Does it save that product?
I'm not quite sure about that one, but yeah.
Last but not least on our news list from things that have
recently happened, just some fun stuff coming up for 2026 that I
wanted to quickly run down. Disney put out basically some
time frames and some more information about everything
that's going to be happening here coming up in 2026.
And I think there are a lot of cool things to get excited about
in February, you know, on on the Frozen ride at Epcot, Anna, Elsa
and Christophe will have real faces finally.
So they're going to look like humans rather than looking like
just weird screen characters and everything.
We've got Festival the Arts is coming back, arguably my
favorite festival of the year. January 16th through February
23rd. We in the spring have Buzz
Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. We'll be reopening with new ride
vehicles, improved blasters and enhanced interactive targets.
And they're going to clean all the stickiness off it, too.
I think that was actually not in in the description that they
wrote up. So I think.
They kept the stickiness. I am speculating.
Big Thunder in return for the. Lion too.
Big Thunders returning in the spring.
Yeah, super excited about that. We've got Flower and Garden
returning March 4th through June 1st this year.
A lot of good food. That's my favorite.
Derek loves a good, good brew at these festivals.
So Derek's Derek's gearing up for festival the holidays right
now. He's going tomorrow, right?
I'm going tomorrow. I already went through my my
list. I went on the the Disney food
blog and I saw all the menus and then I looked up each of the
beers that they had and I wanted to see what the alcohol level
was for. Eating.
That's what he cares about. Yeah, why?
Why am I going to buy like a 3% grapefruit beer when, oh, look
at this one. It's got 10%.
So yeah, I'm all set. I'm all set.
Paul, don't forget, don't forget about things to look forward to.
I don't know if we can touch on it, but how about our key
holder? We do.
Yeah. We've got our key holder cruise
coming up. Look, I always have this handy
dandy graphic just ready. To He whipped that up July. 20th
through the 24th, 2026. If you've been procrastinating,
want to join us for this thing? We will be talking a lot about
it on a future episode coming up in a week.
So just talking about a lot of people have questions about
Royal Caribbean in general. A lot of you are cruisers of
Disney Cruise Line or not familiar with Royal Caribbean
and what they have to offer. So we're doing a show coming up
next week, I believe it is, which is going to talk all about
Royal Caribbean and what you can have to look forward to if
you're sailing for Royal for the first time or you're joining us
for the Key Holder Vacations Group cruise.
But we'll be on Utopia the Seas. Derek's going to be there,
Jeff's going to be there, Amy's going to be there, I'm going to
be there. We're going to have a lot of
other friends with us and we're going to be doing a lot of fun
stuff. So head to
keyholdervacations.com and look for the tab that says Group
Cruise. If you are interested,
interested in, you know, looking at what pricing might be so that
you can join us for that fun adventure.
But that'll be coming up in the spring.
We've also got, let's see, summertime.
We've got cool kids summer coming back.
Mandy and Josh and their girls were here this past summer and
they said if anything has has been super exciting that has
happened at Walt Disney World in a long time.
It is what they did for cool kids summer and have like random
characters, like just walking around the parks, almost like
you would experience at Disneyland.
They sent they sent over so many fit pictures that they had just
from like early morning interactions with characters and
you know, just some fun, some good family fun during during
cool kids summer. So that's coming back.
We've got H2O glow coming back. I have not received notice yet
if I have won not one, but you know, if I was selected as part
of the lottery for this. But if anyone follows the
Savannah bananas they are I I can only equate them as like the
Harlem Globetrotters of baseball and they are coming to ESPN wild
world wide World of sports May 29th and 30th tickets are
incredibly hard to get. Oh, really?
Because. You had to get to a.
Lottery actually you had to you had to submit and into the
lottery and then they've not yet since this is happening a little
bit later in 2026, they've not select the winners yet for the
lottery for those people, but it's also.
Buy. The winners to buy, but the the
thing that the Savannah Bananas really pride themselves on is
having obtainable ticket prices. So all of their ticket prices
are extremely reasonable. Yes, you can buy them on the
secondary market for ridiculous, ridiculous prices, but they do
not mark up their ticket tickets in that manner.
Bluey and Bingo are coming to Disney's Conservation Station at
Animal Kingdom. So Bluey is coming for the first
time. To Walt Disney World, that is.
Awesome. There are going to be so many
people trying to get on that train.
Get over there. My grandkids are already
excited. Conservation Station doesn't
know what's about to hit them. Like not a clue.
So what is it going to be? So do you still take the train?
But then you're gonna go meet Bluey and then you can go to
like the goat hospital there too?
Like will they still like? Yeah.
That's where you know what I mean?
Like so like, but like, that Land's not changing.
It's just you can meet. Bluey.
Just a meet and greet for Bluey and bingo.
Yep. I I imagine if I'm guessing
because the the new animation, have we talked about that one
yet? The new animation pavilion is
going to open at Hollywood Studios.
Yep, right now that's the only place you can go to draw Disney
characters. I imagine they're going to take
over that space. Maybe.
Probably in somewhere in. That area.
It says it's going to bring music, games and animal themed
fun so I I don't know what all that involves but.
I'm excited, Louie's awesome and I don't know, kids are so
excited. Yeah, and, and, and apparently
adults love it also because both of our moms now are watching
Bluey. Now.
Amy's mom has an Australian Cattle Dog, which is what Bluey
is so. I'm a little tainted on my view
of Bluey's. He's crazy.
Yeah, the dog is crazy. But she she loves him.
He's he loves her. But yeah, a lot of we talked
about it on our cold opening on our ladies show.
I think it was the kids, the kids DVC with kids.
So apparently a lot of people watch it.
Have you ever seen it? Yes, my mom.
I've caught my mom watching it at our house several times and
I've tried to sit and watch it, but I.
Go watch it. Each episode's only like 8
minutes long. Go watch it.
Go watch a couple episodes. Really.
I've never seen it. I've never seen it.
I don't think he's going to go watch it either.
Pretty pretty confident in that one.
I'm going to go watch Booey while I eat my orange cinnamon
rolls. That's what I'm going to do.
Rock and roller coasters reopening with its Muppets
transformation next year. We've got that to look forward
to in the fall. Normal stuff coming back, you
know, very merry, very Merry Christmas party, Jollywood
nights festival, the holidays food and wine festival not so
scary. All of those kind of fun things.
One that is like kind of buried in the article that we wrote
over on BBC rental stores blog is level 99 is expected to open
at Disney Springs, which is a brand new entertainment game
venue, all kinds of stuff. And you can guarantee that we
will not do a video review there without Derek in tow, because I
think that will be just an absolute hoot.
Where is that? Is that going to be at the old
NBA experience? Nexus City works OK, yeah.
So yeah, lot of lot of exciting things that were announced for
for the horizon here, but I think that about does it for the
recent news. This happened before tomorrow,
which is our, you know, condo association meeting.
So if there was more groundbreaking stuff, I'm sure
we did a live stream or something like we did last year
when they gave us a preview. So really still hoping for that
hard hat preview of Lakeshore Lodge tomorrow, but I know that
there's not enough liability waivers in the world for us to
be invited on that. So yeah, until there's more
breaking news that's going to do it for this episode of the DVC
show. We hope you enjoyed it and we
will see you next Monday. I'm.
Going to go watch Blue. Like how Jeff just mean mugging
the camera now.