Inconsistent policies and complicated procedures at launch.

Disney Vacation Club is GREAT! If you are curious about the pros and cons, we’ve got that covered and to be sure the pros far outweigh the cons. However, DVC recently eliminated the physical membership card and replaced it with a digital one. Be prepared for some bumps in the road until they can work through the faults.

For one, to download your new membership card, you have to use the WDW My Disney Experience app NOT the Disneyland My Disney Experience app. I must have spent 20 minutes trying to follow the directions to download and wondered what I was doing wrong. It makes no sense why its on one app and not the other since DVC is not exclusive to WDW. Why not just develop their own app? Who knows.

After jumping through even more hoops to download the image that links to your account information, you’re ready to go! Or are you? Not quite. Because at least at Disneyland, they were completely unfamiliar with the new procedures. Different cast members asked for different ways to verify if you’re a DVC member, even though we followed the directions on the video. It was very frustrating. One cast member even gave me that “you don’t know what you’re talking about” look before capitulating (and hear me give the 5 minute explanation on the new digital membership card).

If having a digital card is supposed to be about convenience they really missed the mark. Instead of just pulling out my ID and card to show the cast member, I now have to show them my ID anyway AND go through a number of steps to show them my digital ID (open up my phone, go to my digital wallet, click on the DVC card, click on the three dots at the top, scroll down to myaffiliation and ID and present it to them). There’s no way the process got any easier. Instead it got slower and more cumbersome. Plus, I miss having that little card. For the amount of money we paid to be part of the club, surely they can afford to give us a cool card to carry in our wallets.

I’m sure in the end they will eventually smooth things out. And already when purchasing items through mobile order it automatically applies your DVC discount (on both the Disneyland and WDW app – so again, why doesn’t it show up in the Disneyland app?). But for now, in these early days, the procedure is inconsistent and complicated. Still is it worth it? Most definitely! But as with many new products, this one still has some bugs to be ironed out.