Yes the current Disney hotel pricing are mind blowing. I recall somewhere in the early 2000's while staying at a good neighborhood hotel near
Disneyland how lovely the Grand Cali looked. I mentioned it to my wife that we should check in to the cost of staying there. I think it was something like $400 or $500 a night versus around the $120 or so we were spending at one of the cheap and cheerful local hotels. I thought no way were going to spend that kind of money.
Then we discovered and bought into DVC in 2016. Purchased 190 Poly points for just a little of $30k (still is a lot of money). I remember wondering if we were making the right choice. And on that note I have two stays since then (with banking and borrowing) that almost recoups our initial expense:
Prior BLT 3 bedroom stay for 6 nights costing about $15k if paying rack rates.
Upcoming Aulani 2 bedroom ocean view stay that would cost about $12k.
Those two trips alone (not counting other trips) gets us to almost the initial DVC purchase price. So, feeling pretty good about what we did many years on.
But there are always caveats:
- What if you'd invested the money and used the returns to fund your vacations?
- What about the total cost of ownership and the larger bucket of dues expenses?
- What if you'd stayed at a local yet less expensive hotel?
Lots of different ways to bottom out this discussion, but for us we feel fortunate and happy to have went the DVC route. Wished we'd have done it sooner. And worst case scenario, we could sell those points today and probably get 80-85% of our initial cost back (notice I didn't say investment).
So with the Disney hotel prices today, I'm glad to have my DVC points and avoid that cost when checking out. I do wonder in 5 to 10 years time what those prices will be and how folks will afford it. WDW studios for $600/nt? Disneyland studios for $1000/nt? Seems crazy but I think we'll see it in that time frame.