Return to Question of the Week Highlights Give us 5 tips (or however many you can think of) to get the most out of your DVC membership. Think of tips you have learned since you have been a DVC owner that work well for you. Answers posted to the list: We rotate early/mid December vacations to get the most out of our annual passes. By purchasing a pass on 12/10 one year, we can return to Disney again between 12/1 and 12/10 the following year .. We visit every December, so this works out very well for us to maximize the number of days we can use our AP's. We have rented points a few times to people we know ... If you have extra points it's a great way to offset the annual dues! We've only rented to people we know and we now have more inquiries than we can handle. We used our points once for an II exchange in Hawaii. Although it was a great vacation, we don't believe it was the best use of our points .. For those years when our Disney time will be reduced due to vacations elsewhere we will rent points to pay for vacations outside of disney rather than doing the exchanges. We will never use points for a cruise ...for us, not a good use of points. This one will be different for everyone .. depends upon the amount of points you own and how you personally wish to spend them! After all, they are YOUR points!! We use the 11 month home resort window for booking most of our travel to Disney. If we're booking during a busy season, or at one of the smaller resorts, we call and book day-by-day to ensure we get the room we would like. If we would like to try another resort, we still book at 11 months to secure our room and at the 7 month window we call day-by-day to see if we can secure the reservation elsewhere. If we're successful in getting the entire stay, we cancel our home resort reservation when booking the final dayat the 7-month mark. It usually works out that we have enough points to maintain both reservations until the 7 month window ressie has been completed. We pay attention to use year when making reservations. One thing we wish we could have changed was our use year ... we purchased in may 97 and at that time they were selling december use years. We don't typically vacation in May ... we like October - December .... which can be tricky when a canceled reservation ends up in a use year that is about to expire ...... You can sepecify to member services which use year you wish your points to be taken from. We monitor this very closely!! Peggy ----- After 13 years here's how we get the most: 1) SHARE! We have taken over 35 different family members, family friends and kid's friends with us over the years. It makes the Magic that much more special! Share your points (if you can) it makes memories for a life time. 2) RELAX! Don't be park commando's... you are going to be there again. Enjoy some down time. Pool parties, Community hall activities, water sprites, a boat on the canal. It's another side of WDW most people don't get to experience. 3) GOT A KITCHEN... COOK With the Kids (grand kids, nieces nephews, (see hint #1)). One of the great things about DVC is having a kitchen (1 bed and up) so bake some cookies, let the kids cook spaghetti... as a working mom this is something we don't get to do at home. 4) MAKE AN "ARRIAL CUSTOM" - It seems from the board most folks like to have a year-to-year resort... Do something special, AND TAKE A PICTURE. After a few years you will have a history of your family at WDW. Since we have been going to OKW (yes we love our home resort) we always take a picture of the group at check-in... After so many years and so many trips it is great to see the family "grow-up" at WDW. 5) GET TO KNOW SOME OTHER DVC families... We tend to always hit OKW in Aug and there are some other families that do the same... after so many years it is fun to catch-up by the pool on what is happening. You can't do that with many other "vacations". Sue ----- My Five Tips: 1. Plan ahead for each trip- not obsessively, but do chart out what you are going to do before you arrive and make ressies for dining and recreation in advance. EMH and late park nights permit DVC guests lots of time to do the rides at a more leisurely pace. Spend the mid-day at the resort, or DTD with the family. 2. Travel lightly- packing only what you need. Tops and bottoms that coordinate with one another for the stay and use the washer and dryer. Always remember your poncho, sun block and bug spray! If you can't fit it into a medium sized piece of luggage, one per person, you probably don't need it. Your body will say thank you after the trip. Remember they call it luggage, because you end up lugging it around at some point. 3. Shop- the night you check in, after dinner before you hit the parks. Always better to food shop when you are not hungry. I used to have a DVC shopping list, but over the years (and too many trips) I have come to learn the floor plan of most of the local grocery stores. Also try to Disney outlet shop on the way into property (before the parks), you just might find some souvenirs at a discount and save yourself some money. The kids like starting a trip with a new Disney thing and you can save big. 4. Housekeeping- check the room over reasonably well upon arrival. If it meets with your satisfaction, track down the maid that does your room and tip her up front. It makes their day and makes for a better trip for you and yours. If it is not up to par, notify them or the desk. Then then tip when you are satisfied. 5. Cast members- during your stay, take the time to chat with a cast member, preferably someone from the DVC resort you are staying at. Not a complaint session, just a genuine exchange of pleasantries and get to know them a little. Let them know you appreciate what they do. Especially if you stay at DVC several times a year. I have come to know what some cast members do in their "other" lives, how many children they have, spouse, or significant others' names, etc. As a result some CM's have gone way, way out of their way for me just because we remember them. I have also been invited to weddings, parties, nights out, etc. as a result! Bill ----- 1. Pack lighter and use the laundry in room or resort. 2. Shop on arrival for a few items to keep packing light or to get items you won’t pack (kid’s snacks, drinks, breakfast items, plus that one thing you forgot to pack!). 3. Don’t go to the park with AM EMH it will be crowded! But to take advantage of PM EMH. That is a fun time to go! 4. Use your DVC membership to stay at different resorts (DVC and non-DVC). It’s a great way to see WDW from different perspectives as each resort has it’s own theme and great restaurants. 5. (Use this in conjunction with #4) – Don’t overanalyze your points usage. It is okay to not make the most of your points with one or two stays out of the life of your contract. We had some great trips in other resorts and no out of pocket $$. 6. Go different times of the year (spring – baseball spring training at WWS Complex, Halloween – MNSSHP, Christmas decorations, new years eve (although crowded looks like fun and the week after isn’t as bad, and other WDW events). This can also help take advantage of AP’s by planning trips before your AP’s expire (same with DDE if you have that also). Then, take some time off from WDW. A little time between trips make the kids (and us) even more excited to go back. 7. Make the characters and Disney part of your life. You made the DVC commitment. We had the lithographs from purchasing DVD’s at Disney Store and the poster you get when you complete the Epcot Kidcot mask framed and hung them in our house. There is a shelf with hooks that we hang our pin trader lanyards on. A picture of our last trip is in a Disney frame on the shelf. The kids also look at the autograph scrapbook albums I made and our trip albums. We have the Disney autograph books they sell and use them to play “autograph” at home. This helps bring the magic home and not just leave it at WDW. It is fun to hear DD (2 ½) to wake up and say “Hey Wonnie, Hey Or, Hey Pigget, Hey Teegger! There’s t-bell, Woody, Jessie, and horse!” practically every morning. 8. Do plan out our trips to make the most of them and use all the wonderful suggestions from the other dvctalk members and the great websites like Deb’s to find out new tricks and new things at WDW. As you return, ask your kids, they may not be wanting to do the same things as they did last trip, even if it wasn’t that long ago. We found out DS (6) didn’t want to do as many character meals as we had been doing (which can help save $$ too), so we let him help plan out a few things around the parks with our guidance and added in a few character meals DD would enjoy. It turned into a great way to let him share with his sister by planning things for everyone to do not just him as most previous trips had focused only on him. By the way, he did enjoy the character meals just as much as the 2 yr old! 9. Drive if possible! We have a 9 hour drive including stops and thought friends were nuts for driving, but it was so much better having our own car to use whenever we wanted. This worked well on nights we didn’t want to deal with WDW transportation to get to dinner or to get to other Orlando area attractions. I was also much less stressed out than I thought I would be. The drive was fairly easy and I didn’t have to deal with airports, security, and transportation or rental cars with kids, strollers, etc. It was also cheaper to valet at WDW with tips than to pay the airport parking rates not even considering cost of tickets, etc. (DVC resorts have free parking for DVC members). I know this isn’t possible for everyone, but if you are close enough, try it. It just might not be as bad as you think it will be. Bonnie ----- 1. If you don't want to use Magical Express (DME) consider renting a car from Alamo or National for just your arrival and departure day. There are rental / return desks at the Dolphin resort and Disney's Car Care Center. We often fly into Orlando Sanford airport, which means we can't use DME. Unless we get a great weekly rate, you can get a car for one day for about $45-60 depending on the class. That gives us time to hit a grocery store on the way into town, and we try to hit the Belz Outlet stores on the way out. It's not as luxurious as a limo service, but you get more flexibility. 2. Which brings me to...don't miss the WDW outlet stores in Orlando. There is one at the Premier Outlets (about 5 min from DTD, right near a Publix supermarket) and there are at least two stores in the Belz Outlets. All of these stores carry legitimate Walt Disney World merchandise, but most of it is marked down at least 50%. You'll typically find stuff that is out of season, stuff for promotions that have ended (I bet you can still find some of the "100 Years" trinkets) and production overruns. LOTS of t-shirts, sweatshirts, golf shirts and so on. 3. If you're arriving in the evening or late at night, consider staying at a cash resort or off-site. We covered some of this ground here recently on the list, but I'll quickly recap. Checking-in late at a DVC resort dramatically decreases the chances of having any of your requests met. Instead, consider staying elsewhere for the one night and moving to the DVC resort first thing in the morning. If your transportation allows it, you can pack all of your overnight necessities (change of clothes, toiletries) in one bag, and leave the rest of your stuff in the trunk overnight. 4. As others have mentioned, start some sort of family routine or tradition. We have a frame at home that holds 4 photographs. It currently has photos of our family posing in front of the four Disney park icons. Every trip we replace ONE of the photos. In a glance, you can see a 4-year (or at least 4-trip) history of our family's adventures at WDW. 5. Assuming you're the Disney planning geek in the family, schedule something as a surprise for everyone in your family. A couple years ago I booked one of the holiday "Sleigh Rides" at the WL after our dinner at Whispering Canyon. The next trip I set aside a couple of hours reportedly to just ride the monorail and visit the CR. We ended up taking out Water Mice (or whatever they're called) for an hour or so. Next trip our son is booked on a Pirate Cruise. Everyone knows about Space Mountain and It's a Small World. From my experiences, it's finding these little under-the-radar fun activities that really make our trips special. 6. Just remember that your next Disney trip is not that far away. If you miss something--don't sweat it. Enjoy the trip and don't feel compelled to do the commando thing. Tim  Return to Question of the Week Highlights   Larison Travel LLP - www.familytravelgurus.com is independently owned and operated. This site is a private enterprise and is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company, the Walt Disney land® Resort, or any of its affiliates.