Random I know - is Disney worth it ?

[Pisssssedofff]

We went when the kids were 8,6,4 and I remember it being horribly expensive, a bit stressful but yes fun with the Ariel photos etc and we loved discovery bay with the Dolphins.
I have an additional child now that never been aged 6, he loved Lego land and they all really enjoyed Disney Paris at Halloween last year.
I'm trying to talk myself into booking but god it's a lot of money isn't it? I'm looking at £6000 for a fortnight I think being conservative and not eating in Disney ever

We used to stay in a private villa in Kissemmee (sp)

It was lovely having a private pool. We stayed there 3 times. The 4th time we went we stayed in a Disney hotel. The novelty quickly wore off. Too many people, no privacy, fatty food all the time. Only bonus was the magic hours when the parks closed to everyone apart from hotel guests

wow nick, is suppose that makes sense. We were there 2 days before the shooting at the nightclub happened so I suppose they have increased security even more.

I suspect they would allow the tiny little cool bag I had though - it only held a couple bottles of water and a few snacks!!

I have stayed in The Animal Kingdom lodge hotel twice now and whilst I loved it we actually found staying in a villa a much better experience.

Flights are coming up as £3074 for four people (2 adults 2 children) for October half term so I think you'll need to budget bit more for the flights

Watching with interest. We are just starting to plan ours.

I'm not going in half term red, we'll go the week before .... But where are you finding the flights please ?

I suspect that is still half term though isn't it? We are going w/c 13th since we break up the week before state school half term.

First choice flights are available already.

Nope. Universal Studios and Busch Gardens are far superior imho. It was crazy busy and definitely overpriced.
Euro Disney yes, Disneyland no.

Try Netflights and Skyscanner.

October flights are usually £500 mark if you will go indirect. Direct inc half term dates are dear £700/£800. Book 11 months from return date. Virgin charge for seats and Thomson for luggage and seats. We are flying American Airlines via Philadelphia in October again just over £400 each.

American airlines are shite. OH was messed around very badly by them last time he went to the US. They cancelled his flight then flew him back 24 hours later in economy when he had paid for business class, then wouldn't refund the difference.

They offered vouchers to fly with them again. As if he would.

There is probably a good reason why they are so cheap.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but forewarned is forearmed.

We flew with Virgin Atlantic this time and it was worth every penny.

We flew same route in May with American and have done several times before. We flew direct out with virgin last October and were distinctly underwhelmed. Virgin charging for seats £25 each way on top of sky high prices isn't going to get my business. The Saturday October half term prices direct with virgin are double indirect price, I'd rather go to Florida twice. They do sell though as virgin are popular with first timers.

We had a big holiday 2 years ago. Spending a chunk of a redundancy package. 2 weeks, staying in NYC. Then Orlando, then Clearwater. It was v expensive, and it total, including everything, came to £14-15k.

We had a great time, but found Disney a bit much. It's not our sort of holiday as a rule.

Anyway, 2 years on I asked DS2 now 9 for a review. He said it was a great holiday but not his favourite (we have a friend in Dubai and he likes that better). He loved NYC and Clearwater. Disney was 3rd on his list. He says (and I agree) the food was rubbish.

We are off to france again this year, self catering, and I'm v happy about that. Next year we are contemplating SE Asia. Disney isn't on our repeat list, but seems like we are in a minority.

Sarasota and the gulf coast is fabulous, beautiful, laid back, wonderful food.....and I would go back there in a heartbeat but would never holiday on Orlando again. I said to the children that if we go back to Florida we can drive up to Orlando, stay over night and do a day in universal, a day in a waterpark and get out of there as quickly as possible. DH was less complimentary, he told me that he would stay in wherever we are are in Florida we should have a nice time and he'd see us when we got back

If you must go in the UK school holidays it is worth remembering the US schools go back early August onwards so late August right before our schools go back is less crowded rather than July when you have all the Americans on school holiday too making it very crowded. My favourite time to go is May or October tagging onto half term if possible.

We use Virgin flights because we like to fly direct in relative comfort. For a few hundred pounds we find it is worth it to us, as we wouldn't want to make the journey any longer than it already is. Maybe when DD is older it might be more acceptable to us, but at the moment we just want to get there and get some sleep.

No

We own their equivalent of timeshare so we've been quite a few times. We now end up only spending a few hours a day at the parks and spend the rest of the time by the pool or doing something like horse riding at Fort Wilderness.

We're flying Thomson this time, purely because they were the cheapest and the IL's are coming too and they weren't keen to pay any more than absolutely necessary. We usually fly to/from Tampa- not keen on Sanford Airport where we'll be flying into this time.

We love it, but I fully understand why others wouldn't!

We had a decent experience flying with AA when we went to Orlando last summer - no problems at all. The one error they made was that they hadn't booked our children's meal request correctly but they sorted it out. Having flown easyjet and Ryanair in recent years I just revelled in the free drinks on board 🍷🍷

We went when DCs were 6 and 9 tagged onto a family gathering we were attending. I'm glad we went for the experience but even if I won the lottery we won't be going again - there are so many nicer places to go, with better food! The kids enjoyed it but found the park days busy and tiring and preferred to be in the pool mucking about. The most telling thing is that they don't really rate it as their favourite or dream holiday and prefer chilled out beach holidays in Europe more.

Random ?

It's my idea of hell family holidays were spent doing a combination of beach and sightseeing not a theme park in sight, ever

I can't find Florida on first choice ... Do you have a link please ?
Gee I'm meant to be in s night out this is taking over my life !

"We use Virgin flights because we like to fly direct in relative comfort. For a few hundred pounds we find it is worth it to us, as we wouldn't want to make the journey any longer than it already is"

This ^^. Also, it only cost us £10 more than the seat reservation fee for (much needed) extra legroom seats. Orlando International airport was only 17 miles from our hotel so it wasn't an arduous drive for me.

Now I've read it a few times on here, I am reminded that the standard Disney food was pretty shoddy, esp for vegetarians. The high end restaurants were fantastic but we couldn't do them every night. Once we discovered a whole foods in Orlando we were sorted though.

Logic aside, because there probably are more sensible uses of such a large amount of money, I have two abiding memories of our holiday that will never leave me. 1. Our daughters goes when they saw Cinderellas castle at Magic Kingdom. 2. My Harry-Potter obsessed 9 year olds fave when we stepped into Diagon-alley at Universal. We fluked it and took a photo at just the right time and it gives me goose bumps when I look at it. Really magical.

You are so right about the lack of vegetarian food. Luckily we discovered Pei Wei near our hotel and it was brilliant.