Accumulating points for long retirement stays?

We have a similar dream and are just starting the research phase for it. Another thought is having enough points for my husband and I to stay for an extended period each year, AND having additional points to also travel with our children (and their future families). Those trips may not happen annually, but we look forward to spending time at Disney with our future extended family since our trips to Disney with our kids have meant so much to us through the years.

My wife and I are 2-3 years away from giving this a try.

We will have 525 total SSR points in 3 contracts and 462 OKW points in 2 contracts....so, 987 total.

Some of the contracts we co-own with my in-laws, but all will be available for us at some point.

We are unsure how long we can stay in a studio with no kitchen/laundry/couch. I am thinking this will likely be a multiple split stays situation, possibly moving 3-4 times, some studios, some 1-bedrooms.

At some point the dues may be more than we want to pay for...at that point I guess we rent some out to offset some of the dues.

We may sell some off at some point as well, depending on what our adult kids want to do. One possibility would then be buying 2 direct contracts...one contract with kid #1 and one contract with kid #2. This would get them both "blue card" status and a far-off expiration date, but would be quite expensive so not sure if this is a good idea or not?

All fun stuff to plan and consider :)

I'll be sure to post if I have any breakthroughs in my thought process. 🙃 We are fortunate to sometimes have some extra money come our way in summer. If that happens, we may pull the direct trigger this year. With the restrictions and expiration of a lot of our favorite resorts getting closer, I feel the need to lock in the flexibility of direct points sooner rather than later. We need to do work on our house, and we enjoy traveling to places outside of Disney, so it's always difficult for us to be decisive about priorities.

So I can speak to this directly as my parents have been doing long retirement stays for awhile with their last one being in 2025. They are now 90 and not in great health so they cannot go anymore. Of course that means my wife and I just took possession of a fat amount of points split evently between BRV and OKW to go along with the SSR and RIV points we already own. And as luck would have it, we retired last year.

My parents would stay for up close to two months at WDW in studios in order to maximize their points. They settled on SSR several years ago because they liked parking near their private entrance and being able to walk around the big resort, especially since they went into the parks less and less as the years went by.

There was definitely an art to it. They took an electric skillet and an electric kettle to boil water and they cooked a lot of meals in their room because they did not eat out much due to my mom's digestive issues.

They definitely filled every inch of that studio with their stuff and they went to the grocery store a lot but they did it and they were happy doing it.

Now my wife has made it clear that she wants nothing to do with extended stays in studios so when we start doing longer stays (so far longest is two weeks) we will be in one bedrooms so that will limit how long we can do it.

Well we are there! We have enough points for extended stays. We now take 2 trips a year. One to WDW and one to DLR. We have always stayed in a 1 bedroom, but in the old days had to bank and borrow to make it happen every other year

. After we added on, we can just book annually. We take our grown kids and grandkids, but only every other year. Those trips we book 2 bedroom villas. We also have 3 home resorts at WDW and 2 at DLR, so split stays are the norm.

I cannt see us ever staying in a studio. A 1 bedroom just feels more like a vacation home. It is great to be able to spread out and not be crowded.

Only thing to keep in mind is that it involves more than just accumulating enough points to pull extremely long stays off. Those points come with dues, which have a knack for always going up. This can get tough to manage in retirement when annual incomes often reduce significantly. Its probably more cost effective to just buy a small condo nearby and an annual pass.

Your home resorts are my (almost) exact set up!!

I usually stay AKV for a couple noghts, then the majority at BWV, then finish it off at BLT. Im only a couple of years in, so i need to start trying other resorts, also planning on adding CCV.

And currently only VGC at DLR.

Or having enough points to rent out to help keep it going, possibly shorter each few years, kinda like a reverse mortgage. lol

This is the big question for us. If we knew we wanted to retire to Florida full time, that would be one thing. We are open to it but not set on it at this juncture. Adding on another contract at this time is something more than manageable for us financially and feels less risky at our current stage of life than waiting to see if we may retire nearer WDW. We are definitely not going to buy 500 points at once. We'd ease into it as we continue to figure out our plans. We may be twenty years from knowing the retirement destination if our kids land elsewhere, etc.

We cannot take the heat, so florida and most of the south is out. The climate here in seattle is about perfect for us. We tend to take our trips during the "gloomy" winter days when the weather down south is more hospitable.

We could sit here all day and argue about what is more economical but I will take paying DVC dues every time over paying property taxes, home owner's insurance, and condo fees along with having to deal with actually taking care of and maintain the place.

A big part of the reason we've invested heavily in DVC is so we have enough points that it can be something a vacation home so we don't have to deal with everything that comes with actual home ownership (the one we own is more than enough).

I agree totally!

Can dues cost a boatload of money if you own a lot points??? YESS!!!!!

However, far fewer headaches with DVC ownership as opposed to buying a near-by condo...and if I were to buy one of comparable quality to my DVC accomodations, I could not afford to own that type of luxury.

For 304 points (double check my math), you and your spouse can get a tower studio at Riviera for 4 weeks in September. Sounds like a nice retirement spot to me.

***This is not retirement advice. Comments above are made from a purely entertainment standpoint. Be sure to consult your financial advisor before making major purchases.