The End of Disney Vacation Club Timeshare and Why it May Be a Good Thing

Okay, that was a bit of a headline tease… Disney Vacation Club is not “going” anywhere; they plan to be around for a long, long time. But if you own membership in Disney Vacation Club, you understand that the clock is always ticking on your term of ownership and in many ways, this might be a very good thing. Before we get into the whys of that, let’s look at the bigger picture of how Disney Vacation Club timeshare works.

Disney Vacation Development, Inc. established Disney Vacation Club (DVC) in 1991, as a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company. While DVC doesn’t call itself timeshare, you recognize that it is shared vacation property ownership, also known as timeshare. Disney Vacation Club owners purchase points that they use as currency to ‘pay’ for their accommodations at a Disney property. The number of points purchased is established at the time the buyer became a DVC member/owner and from then on, his or her points are reissued annually. Currently the minimum number of Disney timeshare points you must purchase in order to become a member is 160 and the maximum number you are permitted to own is 2000.

The time of year you originally purchase your Disney Vacation Club timeshare becomes your personal timeshare calendar. In other words, if you buy Disney timeshare points from the Disney Vacation Club in September, your usage year runs from September to September annually. If you buy Disney timeshare points as a timeshare resale, you inherit the usage year schedule of the original purchaser.

Now let’s get back to the real topic of this timeshare blog post… “the end of Disney Vacation Club timeshare.”

Disney Timeshare Ownership is not Forever … And that’s Fine

It’s no secret that one of the biggest challenges facing the timeshare industry and timeshare developers today is the fact that no process was initially put in place for the resale of timeshare on the secondary market. Timeshare owners have often been confounded by what to do with timeshare they no longer wish to own.

This conundrum is less of a problem however, for members of the Disney Vacation Club. Even though your membership entitles you to a real estate interest in the Disney timeshare properties and your ownership is by deeded rights, that ownership has a clearly defined expiration date. Most Disney Vacation Club memberships end on January 31, 2042. Membership for Disney Vacation Club timeshare owners at Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa ends on January 31, 2054; Animal Kingdom Villas end on January 31, 2057; and for the new Bay Lake Tower, membership/ownership ends in the year 2060.

Depending upon your age when you buy Disney timeshare, and which resort you select, you could easily enjoy a lifetime of family vacations there, and by the time you reach an age where you may wish to travel less, your timeshare ownership will be nearing its expiration, leaving you with no concerns about how to resell your timeshare.

Disney Vacation Club didn’t originate the idea of ownership that “expires,” some Mexico timeshares and Hawaii timeshares, for example, have always sold deeded vacation ownership in this way. And although expiring ownership doesn’t help a DVC member/owner who needs to sell timeshare today, it does add a positive component to a process badly in need of greater flexibility.