When The Walt Disney Company dramatically debuted the finished product of their Florida Project, one of their most impressive engineering feats wasn’t a theme park attraction. Instead, it was an accompanying hotel adjoining the Magic Kingdom, the East Coast’s answer to Disneyland. This majestic facility bore the thematic name of The Contemporary Resort Hotel, and it embodied Walt Disney’s vision for his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. From the conception of the project, he’d intended for a resplendent hotel to host guests from around the world as they visited E.P.C.O.T.

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"They keep taking away our perks.  Disney doesn't care about DVC members!"

It's a familiar refrain among members whenever adjustments to the Disney Vacation Club owner perks are brought to light.  But are the perks really getting worse or merely evolving over time?

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Now that we’ve covered the earliest days and the growth phase of the Disney Vacation Club, it’s time to bring the story to the present day. That covers the past ten years of changes, improvements, and additions to the DVC catalog. The focus of the final discussion will involve exotic Hawaii and then the prioritization of locality to the world’s most popular theme park. Before we begin that analysis, however, we need to look at Disney’s first attempt to push back the deadline on its artificially constrained time limit for DVC membership. It’s…messy.

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Villas at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa

In part one of the discussions regarding the Disney Vacation Club timeline, I focused on the genesis of the initiative as well as the original strategy Disney held for their new endeavor. Of particular note were the stronger ties to the early days of timeshares, the idea that DVC members might not care whether a participating resort was near a theme park. The other aspect that bleeds into today’s topic is the struggle Disney faced when they didn’t have an empowered relationship with local and state governments.

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Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa

Do the Disney Vacation Club member perks justify the high cost of buying points directly from Disney? 

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