Why did we make the jump?

After years of casually exploring the Disney Vacation Club program, we stayed as a family at the Polynesian Resort and Bungalows last year over the July 4th weekend. We booked a deluxe studio room in the new Polynesian Island Tower. We typically stayed in moderate resorts at Walt Disney World and we were happy with those accommodations, but when we checked into this room, we immediately fell in love. We had a large bathroom, access to laundry, a kitchenette with plates, silverware, a small refrigerator, a coffee maker, a sink, a dishwasher and a spacious breakfast nook. The room itself was designed beautifully and had plenty of room for our family of four. During that stay, we began to seriously consider a Disney Vacation Club purchase and crunch the numbers. At the end of the summer we connected with a DVC guide and officially became members on September 1st at the Riviera. We purchased a 325 point direct contract.

Is it saving us money?

Our biggest question when we were contemplating membership was – will this actually save us any money?

The short answer – not exactly. This program is not necessarily designed to save members money, but to make a Disney vacation accessible for years to come. That said, if vacationing regularly at Disney World is not for you, it’s likely that DVC membership won’t be either. Instead, our membership is creating opportunities for us to have elevated experiences traveling to Walt Disney World for the same amount of money we are currently paying, and likely protecting us from inflating travel costs in the future. Let’s break down why.

Comparing DVC to Cash Bookings

There isn’t an easy way to compare Disney Vacation Club pricing to standard Disney pricing because it is not an apples to apples comparison. A standard traveler booking a Disney vacation is booking based on the current cash prices offered by Disney including any promotions or discounts that are applicable. Prices fluctuate based on the resort, the room category/size, the time of year, special events taking place at Disney and more. A Disney Vacation Club member is booking a vacation based on resort-specific points charts that also take into account the resort demand, the room categories and the time of year. The difference is, once a DVC resort is designed with a specific total number of points that can be used for booking in a year, that number can never change. So for simplicity sake, let’s say when Disney built the Riviera Resort, they allocated 100,000 points to that resort for member bookings. The resort and the allocated points do not expire until 2070, so in 2069 the Riviera can still only “charge” 100,000 points in a calendar year. Points can be shifted around – they may remove 10 points from one night and add them to another to compensate for a holiday or a a special event, but they cannot increase them.

The Biggest Benefit of Disney Vacation Club

The fact that these points allocations cannot change once the resort is established is the biggest benefit of Disney Vacation Club, because it protects members from cost inflation. This means the 325 points that I purchased in 2025 will have the exact same value when it comes to booking in 2069 as it does now. Chances are, by 2069 the cash prices will have increased significantly.

The Actual Cost of Points

Once I understood this, I understood the potential benefit of becoming a member, but still felt like I didn’t fully understand the actual cost of the points I was purchasing in comparison to a cash booking. So, here’s how we broke it down and ultimately made our decision.

When we purchased in 2025, the price per point at the Riviera resort was $225. Once we factored in taxes and closing costs, that number jumped up to $239. This is a one-time purchase price and it is based on the resort you select as your home resort. There are some nuances to know about home resorts, but for now the most important thing to understand is that members have a priority booking window at their home resort. We chose the Riviera Resort for this reason. If we lived on the west coast, we may have chosen the Disneyland Hotel instead which is $245 per point.

Regardless of the resort you choose, once you make that purchase it is a one-time purchase, so that price point is fixed at the time of your purchase. Because of that, let’s use the $239 I paid for our Riviera contract as our baseline. To do this math, it really doesn’t matter how many total points you purchase or plan to purchase, but it does matter where you plan to purchase. Since the Riviera does not expire until 2070 and we made our purchase at the end of 2025, we have 44 years of use with our contract. That means our points will replenish yearly 44 times after our one-time purchase. So we paid in full on September 1st 2025, and we will not pay anything additional for our points for the next 44 years, but we will receive our points every single year. We do have other recurring costs, but for now let’s focus just on the points.

Since we paid $239 per point and those points will now multiply for us 44 times, let’s divide $239 by 44 to get a yearly price for our points. $239 divided by 44 = $5.43. So we can assume that each year, each point we use to book a vacation cost us $5.43.

Now that we have a number to work with, let’s run some scenarios. All of the DVC points charts are publicly available online, so we ran several scenarios before purchasing to see where the math landed. Let’s use the Riviera as an example because this is our home resort and we have priority booking at this resort.

If we want to stay in a standard deluxe studio at the Riviera Resort in the summer for a week, we need a total of 125 points.

At $5.43 per point, 125 points “cost” us $678.75 for a week long stay in a standard deluxe studio at this resort, which is a deluxe resort. This is significantly cheaper than a cash booking for the same room category and resort. Even if we chose to upgrade to a one bedroom villa, which has a full kitchen, access to laundry and a separate master bedroom, we would be looking at 276 points for a week in the summer, or a “cost” of $1498.68.

Two of the most expensive weeks of the year to visit Walt Disney World are Easter Week and Christmas Week. These weeks are priced at a premium when paying with cash, therefore they are also priced at a premium with points. These two weeks are listed at the bottom of the points chart.

Due to the demand of these weeks, a week in a deluxe studio during either of these time periods is 209 points in comparison to the 125 points required during the non-peak summer season. Still, at 209 points the “cost” of a deluxe studio is $1,134.87. Remember – points charts may shift around to accommodate for holidays and events, but the total number of points listed on this chart cannot and will not change for the life of the Riviera Resort contracts. So, in 2069 that week in a deluxe studio is still going to only cost around $1150. When you consider what the cash prices at Disney World may be in 40 years, membership feels like a no brainer.

So, What’s the Catch?

Once I did this math and priced out several hypothetical trips for my family, I was very curious about what the catch is. This seemed like an instant no-brainer. While it was still a smart purchase for us, it is important to know that the cost of points are only half of the equation.

Once you pay for your points, you truly will not pay anything for them again – they really are good for the life of your contract and they really are inflation proof in a sense.

However, the other cost that you have to factor in if you are considering membership is maintenance dues. Think of these as a pesky HOA-style fee for your new real-estate interest in Disney World and these are subject to inflation unlike your points. We will get into annual dues, what they actually cost and how they can be paid for in the next post. That said, know that the dues did not scare us away from our purchase and we still feel like we are getting significantly more bang for our buck as members than we were booking Disney trips with cash.

If you’re interested in hearing me break this down in relation to two of the trips we have booked for 2026, check out the video below and be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so that you know when future episodes in this series release!

Check out our complete cost breakdown of Disney Vacation Club and membership benefits in the YouTube videos linked below!