So I think I’m going to Disneyworld. My sister talked me into going with her family over spring break this coming April.
There will be 8 of us in all, three adults and five children. We don’t want to stay in a dump, but we’ll obviously looking at keeping costs from getting insane.
Can anyone give any tips from experience? Stay at a hotel off the park and pay entrance separately or get a package? Book through Disney? None of us has been so we’re somewhat clueless.
We went to disneyworld in April, and rented a villa just outside the park. It had four bedrooms and three bathrooms, it’s own pool and hot tub, and a fully equipped kitchen. It cost a fraction of what staying at the park would, but we did have to rent a car. I would strongly recommend looking for accommodations outside the park.
How much was the villa? I was just looking at hotels through expedia.com and some of them (chains) seem absurdly inexpensive.
(What was the name of this place? It sounds like a place I stayed at with my cousins back in 1997 and when I planned a return trip, I couldn’t figure out the name of the complex.)
My advice. Take a good look at a map when you think you want to book a place. Follow the roads that get you to the parks. See how many miles it is and multiply by 2 or 3 to figure your time to get to the parks and back.
My last trip out there, I thought we were staying close and it turned out to be an hour away.
I went a couple of years ago with my mother and my brother and his family. We did the whole Disney experience (Disney resort hotel, dining plan, Disney shuttle bus to and from the airport and Disney shuttle buses to and from the parks to the hotel). One advantage of staying at one of their resorts is that frequently one of the parks will be open early or stay open late, but only for those staying in one of their properties.
But for your size family, it may be cheaper to stay elsewhere. And instead of staying at a hotel, you might look into a short-term apartment or house rental. You can try to prepare some of the meals yourself, or eat elsewhere.
There’s an infrequent poster here named len who is one of the authors of “The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World”, which is well-regarded. They also have a website.
You can sometimes find a “diamond pass” on line for sale. Although it does not give your free parking, it allows parking right up front, next to the handicapped area. Good idea if you have lots of kids.
We went to Disney World last May and rented a 3 bedroom home. The house was within a couple miles of Disney properties with several grocery stores nearby. The home had its own pool and grill, fully equipped kitchen, cable tv/wireless internet, etc. It was extremely nice to be outside of the parks because we have two younger children and I don’t think we could have handled 24/7 Disney magic. The cost was comparable, and slightly less expensive than staying on Disney properties. The company we rented from has homes available as large as 10 bedrooms. When you take several families and share the cost, I imagine the cost to be comparable. We ordered our tickets online through undercover tourist (highly recommend). We also purchased a tourist guide to Disney book (I can’t recall the name offhand) and it was well worth the $20 investment. We waited in line no more than 10 minutes, regardless of the ride! Overall we were highly pleased with our decision to plan our vacation outside of Disney resorts and would definitely do it again.
Get one of the guide books…the unofficial guide referred to above comes highly recommended.
I have been two different times. First time stayed off park, the second time stayed on park. I definitley preferred staying on park. I would also recommend booking everything through Disney, which I did the second time. You can still find discounts and book through Disney. The advantage of booking through Disney, is they handle everything about the logistics end. They get your bags at the airport. You take a shuttle to the resort, check-in, they issue you the room keys, which are also your tickets inside the parks. You can head onto one of the parks, and your bags, will magically arrive and be placed in your rooms. No fuss, no worry.
We did call Disney and they quoted us 15k…so no, I guess we’ll stay outside the park. I like the idea of renting a house for the week. The prices and locations are all over the place and I’m not really trusting craigslist for this, so I’m going to research that some more.
Thanks for the advice everyone. I’m ordering the unofficial guide.
We rented a house when we went in 2003 and it was a TERRIFIC option.
IIRC, we got a 5 BR house for about 160 a night. The house included all linens and most necessary cooking supplies, there was a washer/dryer RIGHT THERE, there was a pool in the back yard… We were in the area for 9ish days and tended to alternate park days and stay-at-home days. I think we ate 2 dinners out the entire time, and one breakfast, plus pretty much every lunch. We were able to enjoy our vacation and relax, vs the frantic “HAVE FUN WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT” we felt when we stayed onsite on our next visit.
Now, we did then have to drive (and pay for parking) to the parks. So there was slightly more hassle than if we’d stayed onsite. When we did stay onsite, I think we used our car perhaps twice.
Oh, and we rented through these guys: http://www.closesttodisney.com/
The site doesn’t seem to list detached-house communities but if you call them, they can tell you what they have. Obviously they also have condos - depending on the family dynamics, a couple of condos near each other might work.
We shared the 5 BR house with 2 other families when we went, and had a blast.
AAA can provide these, as I recall, if you get your park tickets through them. They’re slightly discounted from list prices for the tickets.
We rented a villa at Windsor Palms, and it was $1100.00 for the week. Here’s the link.
You deal directly with the owners of the individual units. I wouldn’t hesitate to stay there again - we had all the amenities of home close to the park.
I’ve been to Disney about twenty times. My first and most important piece of advice. Take your first trip sometime other than Spring Break (or Christmas). The parks will be crowded, you’ll spend hours in line, you won’t get to do nearly as much, and the rates will be exorbitant. There will be so many people that if you were veterans it would be a confusing press of humanity. As first timers, odds are you will waste your money and have a lousy time.
Other advice, no matter if you take the first advice or not:
Plan, understand before you go:
If you need to go over Spring Break, invest $20 in Tour Guide Mike (you’ll find him via a Google search) to tell you which park to go to when and get a touring plan.
Check out VRBO.com (vacation rental by owner) for central florida.
It home and condos for rental by the owners. Anything in the Kissimee or Lake Buena Vista area is right near Disney.
I’ve stayed both in a Disney Resort and off site. Both have their pros and cons. If any of your kids are small, you may want to consider staying in the park. The ability to go back to the hotel quickly or for nap time is a huge benefit.
You were quoted 15 THOUSAND dollars from Disney? WTF? Your ticket prices will be similar no matter where you stay so what was so expensive?
I think one of the reasons that hotels seem to be so inexpensive is that they have a ton of competition. Renting a house or multi-bedroom condo for a week sounds like a great idea to me but I’ve never done it.
One thing you should know - if your Spring Break is falling over Easter. The weeks surrounding Easter can be so busy that often several of the parks will reach capacity. The first thing they do is close the parking lots - but guests arriving on onsite buses can still get in - so most people say that they close to offsite guests first. Then they’ll stop running buses to the parks. Finally, they close at the turnstyle. Onsite guests are guaranteed they will be able to get into “a” park - not necessarily the ones they want. Offsite guests may find that they cannot get into any park (although the risk of that is REALLY low). The first park to close is usually the Magic Kingdom.
Where where you staying that you got that quote? Disney has a dozen or so resorts - from “value” to Villas. Villas to sleep eight over Spring Break are going to be very expensive. But two rooms at a Value may be reasonable. I’d stay offsite if we didn’t own a timeshare on property - its less expensive - except during crowded times when I’d stay onsite. Also, did it include the Dining Plan. The Dining Plan can be great if you want to take time to eat onsite, but I really prefer paying cash for my meals at Disney.
Whatever you think things will cost at a Disney park, like the most unreasonable expectations you can come up with? Double it. Just get yourself in the mindset that everything there will be outrageously overpriced, so that it doesn’t completely ruin your trip once you get there. Everything, everything, everything… that Disney can dream up to reach into your wallet has been dreamed up.
My main piece of advice (other than don’t be too shocked at the outrageous prices and plan accordingly) would be to not forget the non-Disney parks in Orlando. Especially Universal’s Islands of Adventure. If you stay “on property” with Disney, it becomes rather inconvenient to hit the other parks - Gee I wonder why! - but IoA is undoubtedly superior to several of the Disney parks and shouldn’t be missed.
When I was a kid, my parents would rent a condo over on Crescent Beach near St. Augustine and we’d just do the long drive from there when we wanted to hit a theme park. You can stay for a month there for what it would cost for a week “on property” with Disney. Of course, we drove our own car there and mostly cooked our own meals (no airfare, car rentals, and a modest food budget) and that helped considerably. It was also within range of Cape Canaveral and practically adjacent to Marineland, a major selling point for us.
15K sounds ridiculously high. What exactly was included in that quote?
They will, of course, try to sell you on all available park passes, dining options, etc. These may or may not be a good deal for you. For instance, it’s probably cheaper to buy your park tickets a-la-carte if you don’t plan to go to a park every day of your trip. Research the different multi-day, park hopper, and “plus” options, and customize to your needs and budget. The more days you buy, the cheaper it is per day. Unused days do not expire; you can bank some for a future trip if you think you’ll be back. But if you package park admission with your hotel stay, it’s gone the day you leave.
If you want to have three hearty meals a day, the dining plan might be a good idea; otherwise, it might be a waste of money. Also remember that there are different pricing tiers for on-property lodging. And you can find Disney hotels on Travelocity, Expedia, etc., and you might stumble into a bargain, especially off-season. You don’t have to book directly through Disney.
It’s your vacation, so it’s up to you to decide what you want out of it. But do your homework first. DO NOT go to Disney World without a plan!
I’m going to third the recommendation for the Unofficial Guide. Here’s a link. It’ll be 15 bucks well spent. Trust me.
15K sounds pretty high to me as well. When we stayed on-site, for 5 nights for 4 people, I think we spent 3K (maybe it was 4) and that was a splurge. We did the Disney Dining Plan, stayed at a mid-tier hotel (Port Orleans Riverside), and had park-hopper tickets. This was in 2007, in July (not the cheapest of times). We could have spent quite a bit more and gone with one of the premium resorts such as Animal Kingdom but that wasn’t in the budget.
We booked through AAA and got everything included; the hotel was slightly discounted from “rack” rates (Disney hotels did not at the time have much in the way of discounts available at all). Ditto the tickets. The dining plan turned out to be a good deal for us; while I think they’ve tightened it down somewhat, back then drinks and tip were included, we got one sit-down meal, one counter-service meal, and 1 snack a day (with breakfast food from a grocery store in the in-room fridge, we were never hungry). The sit-down meals alone can equal or exceed the dining plan price, so we definitely came out ahead and had some much nicer meals than we would otherwise have done.
I have to correct the “do not expire” - as I recall, currently you can buy tickets that are good for a certain period from when they’re first used, or you can spend more for non-expiring tickets. We still have tickets from 2003 that have 1 day left on them (the interesting question is, would they let my kids use theirs, since the tickets were kids’ tickets and my two now rate adult-price tickets).