My family and I have an opportunity to stay in a house for free in Palm Coast, Florida, for two weeks at the end of March/beginning of April.
We are trying to figure out the logistics of spending some days at Disney World, EPCOT and Kennedy Space Center, as well as some days at the beach and some days at the Palm Coast house.
We have never been to a Disney park, nor to Florida, and this will likely be our only chance.
It looks like Palm Coast is at least 90 minutes away from Disney World, if not more. Is it feasable to make a few different day trips to Disney, or would it make more sense to get a hotel closer to Disney for 3 nights or so and do Disney in one big lump of three days? Our budget is not big.
I know absolutely nothing about park hopper passes or anything Disney. My 9 and 11 year old kids are very, very excited though!
Not really knowing how this all works, I was kinda thinking that 3 days in a row at Disney World might be too much. It would be cool to do a day of activity, then a day at the pool, then a day of activity, a day at the beach and so on, but like I said, I don’t know if that’s a reasonable plan, given the distance from the house to Disney.
So, knowledgable Dopers, how would you organize the days of this vacation?
Thanks in advance - I will be on and off the computer all day…
There’s really no way to “overdue” Disneyworld, especially with kids in tow! I recommend you try to do three days at WDW, if not more.
You say your budget is not big, but that means different things to different people. Generally the cheapest rooms on WDW property will run you about $89-109 per night off-season. For some that’s prophibitive, for others that’s reasonable. If you can afford it, I wholeheartedly recommend staying on WDW property. You can get a package that includes you tickets, your room, AND your meals (pre-paid!) for a decent savings vs. buying everything separately.
If you decide to stay off-site, you’ll want to stay in a town called Kissimmee. It’s basically a suburb of Disneyworld, with scores of cheap (and not so cheap) hotels/motels. If you use priceline.com you may be able to find a room in Kissimmee for around $49 per night. In 2003 Mrs. Homie and I scored a room at a very nice La Quinta Inn for $23 per night :eek: using priceline.
If you decide to buy a package, call 407-WDISNEY and tell them you want a “Magic Your Way plus Dining” package. For a small fee, you can add what’s called the “Park Hopper” option to your tickets. Basically this allows you to go from one park to another on the same day; so for example, you can start your day at Epcot, then finish out in the Magic Kingdom. You can also buy the park hopper add-on if you buy tickets off the rack.
If you need any more help, PM me and I’ll tell you more. You can also PM a Doper named len; he has contributed to a Disney guidebook and is a contributor on a Disney podcast.
ETA: The best resource for all things Disneyworld is http://allears.net. You’ll find everything you want to know, and it’s (mostly) easy to navigate.
It’s a bit of a drive but definately do-able. When I lived in Ormond Beach (just south of Palm Coast) any trips to Disney were done by driving back and forth on the same day. My neighbor worked at the Orlando airport and drove back-and-forth daily. It’s traffic free till you hit the Orlando area on I-4.
Going to the Space Center down I-95 is even easier.
Granted, a cheap motel in Kissimmee would be nice but cost you $80. Which may be worth it if you go 2 day in a row.
If you know anyone who owns a timeshare and belongs to Interval International, they can book a 1 and 2 bdrm villa for you for around $600 per week most weeks of the year at Marriott or Sheraton timeshares. These are really nice places, with great pools, and close to WDW. They also have laundry facilities in the villas so that you can pack lighter and save on the extra baggage fees. Since they also have full kitchens, you can eat in some meals and save $$ by stocking up on snacks, lunch and breakfast items at grocery stores.
Alternatively, you can rent houses in Orlando for far cheaper than you can find a hotel room. Most have pools. Of course, you miss out on the energy that you’ll find at the resorts. VRBO.com has lots to choose from.
Because of the sheer volume of people, it’s usually cheaper to fly in and out of Orlando than neighboring cities. Ditto for rental cars. So I’d make Orlando my home base, and make day trips to Palm Beach, Daytona Beach, etc. Daytona Beach is about an hour away.
I wouldn’t recommend staying in West Palm and trying to hit WDW as a day trip. Amusement parks are very fatiguing!
You must have missed the part where the OP said the place in Palm Coast (not West Palm) was free.
If you can stay overnight in Kissimmee for $29 I’d definately do that. Drive down from Palm Coast to Disney in the a.m., do Disney, spend the night in Kissimmee, do Epcot, drive back to Palm Coast that night.
Whatever you decide, you should learn about the Fast Passes that are available at the more popular rides in the parks. These allow you to do a quick “walk-by” of the ride and pick up a pass that allows you to essentially zoom to the front of the line during a (I believe, it has been a while for us) 1.5-hour window of time.
On the not quite as popular rides, you could conceivably get in the shorter Fast Pass line right away if you liked, but on the more popular ones, the Fast Passes run out more quickly, and you might pick up a pass a noon and be not be able to do the ride until 4 or 5 p.m. Once all the fast passes are gone (I assume they decide how many fast pass riders they can squeeze in in a day), they are gone. When we went, “Soaring” in WDW was very popular, and we saw that they had run out of fast passes for the day before 4:00…
I’d respectfully disagree. I think it’s extremely possible to over do Disney. We live about 70 miles away and my kids aren’t even that enthusiastic about WDW except for in small doses. I think they’d possibly pick a day at the beach, or at the very least want it broken up.
I’m sure Arjee’s kids will be psyched for Disney. That’s a great time of year to be down, and the beach and amusement parks should both enjoy wonderful weather about then.
If you do drive out in the morning and don’t spend 16 hours at the park then I think it’s reasonable to drive in and out on the same day, especially if you take days off in between. But I wouldn’t want to do that for two or three days running. The traffic through that part of Orlando can be a bitch during the commute times, so 90 minutes may be greater than 2 hours. You’ll have to decide whether that’s worth skipping the price of a hotel room or two.
If the OP is driving down vs flying then I’d also suggest maybe a stop in St. Augustine, the oldest city in the US, on the way down or back.
Also, even with passes, you’re looking at $300-400 per day at the park already for a family of four, if I’m correctly remembering the current cost scheme plus potentially food and incidentals.
Thank you all so much for all this food for thought! I knew I could get advice here that my travel agent might not know about.
HeyHomie, I really appreciate all your suggestions and the offer to PM you! I will digest everything I get from here, check out allears, then I might PM you and/or len.
We will be flying down from Canada, likely from Toronto. However, we will be renting a car, and St. Augustine sounds wonderful! I’ve never heard of it, and I’m off now to look it up.
ETA: MapQuest says Palm Coast to Disney World is 1 hour, 53 minutes.
If you are going on the cheap and have a car - Disney does not care if you carry food in. This can save you a lot of money at WDW. You’ll be carrying it all day, so keep in reasonable, but people bring in their own water/pop, sandwiches and snacks. (I’d budget something for snacks).
WDW is four parks - each park really needs well over a day to cover it completely - but you can get a flavor of the parks over three days.
I’d recommend this site as well: www.mousesavers.com. If you subscribe to her newsletter, she sends you a link to ticket discounts. There is no such thing as a great deal on Disney tickets - but there are better deals than paying gate prices.
Here’s something they never tell you before visiting Florida: Most of the main freeways in and around Orlando are toll roads. I’ve always made the joke that, whether you’re going to Disney or not, when you drive around Central Florida, you still have to pay The Mouse, just for the priviledge of using his roads.
You’ll either want a couple rolls of quarters (although you can get change at the toll booths), but there is a device you can put in your rental car that enables you to pre-pay your tolls and breeze through the special lanes. You can order this little guy ahead of time, or you can pick 'em up (and activate with your cell phone) at a toll plaza and at some of the more full-service rest stops. I-95 is not a toll road, but parts of I-4 are, and any connectors around Orlando.
So yeah. Get a SunPass. It’ll make things just pinches fingers together that much easier.
Also, about WDW being 4 parks. Goes to show how little I really know about this! I knew there was the Disney part with the castle and characters, and I knew EPCOT was another Disney park, but I just now looked up Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. Since I didn’t know about them and my kids don’t either, if we skipped them would I regret it forever?
Walt Disney World is one entity, with several other entities within it. There are four theme parks: Magic Kingdom (with the castle and characters), Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios.
I think you should plan on four days and take your kids to each of the four parks, but if you’re really truly only going to do three days I would skip Epcot (if you have kids). I wouldn’t say that you’d regret it forever if you only do Magic Kingdom and Epcot, but the single best attraction at Walt Disney World (Twilight Zone Tower of Terror) is at Hollywood Studios, and kids eat up Animal Kingdom.
Depending on the ages of your kids, if the fireworks and parade (or whatever the show is at each of the parks) at the end of the day is important to you to see, you want to watch that you don’t go on the day of the week that it closes early…
There are no tolls on Interstate 4 (yet). There are tolls on State Road 417, which you’ll want to take from Daytona Beach to Disney. You can take 417 partway and I-4 the rest of the day, but unless it’s Saturday or Sunday this is a very bad idea, at least in the morning; I-4 is the main commuter artery into downtown Orlando, and while Orlando traffic is relatively light compared to really big cities, I-4 will swallow an hour of your time if you try to cut through downtown during rush hour.
417 will cost you $4 each way between Disney and Palm Coast but it’s absolutely worth it (and $2 of that is unavoidable anyway, unless you want to add 45 miles to your trip).
Incidentally, you can pick up a SunPass (or E-pass, which is compatible with the same toll booths and gives you a discount) at most gas stations and pharmacies so don’t bother ordering one online or anything.
Mapquest is a bit optimistic there. At night, you can do it in under 2 hours, but not in 8-11 am or 4-6 pm traffic.
St. Augustine is lovely, but the kids probably won’t like much of it other than the Ghost Tours and Fort Matanzas.
However, you’ll be very conveniently placed to visit Marineland, Florida’s oldest theme park. You’ll be within about 20 minutes of it, in fact.
Walt Disney World also includes the Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon water parks, and the DisneyQuest indoor theme park. Blizzard Beach is especially nice, as these things go, and your kids will love it. Personally, I think DisneyQuest is the best thing since sliced bread, but it’s not for everyone. Basically it’s a bunch of neat simulators, and you get the theme park experience without the 90-degree temperatures and the lines are (slightly) shorter.
Given that you have two weeks, you really have to do Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure, too. Islands of Adventure has the best rollercoasters in town by a pretty wide margin, and to be honest it’s my favorite of all the Orlando attractions. It’s also home to the single best attraction in Central Florida - the Spiderman ride.
-RNATB, former Disney and Universal employee and Daytona-to-Orlando daily commuter
