84 - The Disney Vacation Club
For our main topic, we take you back to the late 80s and early 90s and get into the history of the Disney Vacation Club. We all know what the vacation club is nowadays, but how did it start, and why? In this era of Walt Disney World, things were much different, and the concept of a timeshare at Disney World seemed impossible. Disney decided to change this and tackled the concept of taking ownership in their properties. The Disney Vacation Club Resort was the original, changing names to Old Key West as it is called now. To kick this one off, we get into some personal stories about timeshares, how people get picked to purchase, some of the trickery that has occurred over the years, and more. As we move along, the episode discusses what Old Key West was upon opening. How actually spent some time there in the early years, describing how different it was compared to now. Take a look at this video from May of 1992. If you look at Old Key West on an aerial view, you can really take in what they were going for back then. The resort is basically built around the golf course and it sits on the Sassagoula River, which makes the entire feel of the resort unique at the time of the build. We discuss how this one feels when you compare it to the newer properties, where Old Key West is very much more like a community and less of a resort type of thing. Finally, we get into what went wrong for them at the start, running into development problems and where they went from there as a company. DVC is still going strong but it has changed to what it is now. The perks back then were much better and they slowly have chipped away at what made DVC an interesting proposition back in 1992. Either way, this portion of Disney history and how this adds to the WDW property is an interesting one. We all have stayed at DVC properties but none of us are members. What is it like being an official Disney Vacation Club member? Have you found it to be a good value? Do you regret the purchase? We would love to hear from you and what this has done for you and your family. Thanks so much for listening and we hope you have enjoyed this look at the early years of DVC.