To think 7-7.5k for Florida (Disney etc) is good?

[shabbalabba]

Posting for traffic...I'm trying to do it DIY Style and I'm thinking so far looking at flight and hotel deals and then buying the tickets and adding in 1k for food, maybe 500 more.

That 7 to 7.5k for a family of 4 for 10 days in Florida to go to Disney world etc is quite a good deal? Or could you do it for less? Anyone else who know the score with these holidays as I have never done it before ?? Thank you.

Florida is too hot April-October, or at least hotter than much of the UK. It’s dirty, and miserably expensive. Everything is infested with reptiles and huge insects. It’s like Hell, but without interesting people. Bring lots of sunscreen, as pale people burn fast. Restaurants are much more expensive than before COVID. Rental cars are very expensive, as new car production is short worldwide due to a Chinese chip shortage.

Go to Boston, a few days in NYC then Upstate New York, Atlanta, Denver, or Northern California for better value and more fun if willing to drive.

We went October half-term 2019 and the weather was perfectly hot and sunny (but not unbearable) with no signs of reptiles or huge insects.
Booked flights and hotel separately. No Disney hotel or hire car and our hotel was within walking distance (15mins) of a couple of nice restaurants (well hotel staff surprised we walked as everyone drives over there!)
Happy to get the hotel shuttle bus to Disney in the morning - it was early 8.30am but we were jet-lagged (waking up at 5am) so it suited us and if we wanted to come home early we got an Uber.

If you wanted it the hotel offered non-Disney trips e.g. the space centre, kayaking in some Florida wetlands (if you need a Disney escape)

Obv sounds like everything has gone up now but I wouldn't change the way we did things

[quote Agrudge]@FarmerKat

for us waiting for a bus from a disney hotel to the parks is wasted time with a car you can come and go as you please[/quote]
Although very often - by the time you've got to your car we've probably got on the monorail/boat/bud/skyliner.

Especially for MK. As you'd still need to get monorail/ferry and car park tram.

@Ericaequites

Florida is too hot April-October, or at least hotter than much of the UK. It’s dirty, and miserably expensive. Everything is infested with reptiles and huge insects. It’s like Hell, but without interesting people. Bring lots of sunscreen, as pale people burn fast. Restaurants are much more expensive than before COVID. Rental cars are very expensive, as new car production is short worldwide due to a Chinese chip shortage. Go to Boston, a few days in NYC then Upstate New York, Atlanta, Denver, or Northern California for better value and more fun if willing to drive.

Dirty????

Every where we went was clean

Buy reptiles do you mean the little lizards running around or the alligators? Either way not sure what the issue is

Not sure what huge insects you came across. Shock, horror!!!! a country on another continent has different bugs and wildlife to us.
Embrace it .

Bald eagles,pelicans,snapping turtles, raccoons, bears,cougars,coyotes, alligators and much more

If it wasnt for the backwards workers rights I'd happily live there

@FarmerKat

We usually stay at port Orleans riverside . So the bus is the only option without a car

You haven't said which hotel you're staying at but whether you stay on-site at a Disney hotel or off-site, you'll have to pay parking fees. I think it's $25 per day at the park - pay once, it covers you at any Disney park that day. If you go to the park every day that will be a sizable chunk of your £500 extras budget.

Look at Discount Florida Car Hire for your car rental. Their website prices are high like everyone else's atm, but if you email them for a quote they tend to give you a much lower price. I saved £300 doing this for my June car hire this year. They have a very good reputation on The Dibb website, a British Disney forum which is an absolute god send for planning your first Disney holiday, esp if DIY.

Also use cashback sites TopCashBack and Quidco. I will be getting money back on my park tickets (bought at AttractionTickets.com for cheaper than Disney sell them), car hire and villa hire (we're doing 5 days onsite, 8 nights in villa).

Your price could be reasonable but it's hard to know when you haven't said which hotel it includes, where you're flying from and whether indirect or not. It might be worth getting a quote from a really experienced Disney travel agent like ForeverAfter (I think that's their name - Google MyMagicHolidays as that used to be them) just for comparison purposes. We booked quite recently and are paying £9k for onsite at Caribbean Beach Resort for 5 nights, v nice villa for 8 and car hire for days. Including WDW park tickets and genie plus with direct flights. Before the pandemic we'd booked to stay for 14 nights at CBR in May 2020, no car hire, direct flights and that included the Disney Dining plan (all our meals basically) for total of £6,500 - so s lot cheaper than the rebooked and tweaked holiday is costing. I would say that prices for everything have really shot up. You should download the My Disney Experience app and you can view onsite park food prices on there. Extortionate doesn't begin to cover it, and tbh that was before the pandemic. I think your spending money expectations are optimistic but I guess it depends just how strict you can be with yourselves.

Happy planning - it's expensive but hopefully worth it. Crowd levels are currently v busy, to the point I'm not sure I'll be disappointed if Covid stops us from going and we have to defer a year!

Just as a point - Discovery Cove is owned by Seaworld. By going you are supporting keeping incredibly intelligent mammals in cramped, inhumane conditions. See them in the wild instead of funding seaworld

Last week of June? How old are kids? Factored in if you get fined for taking them out of school?

@cjpark

Just as a point - Discovery Cove is owned by Seaworld. By going you are supporting keeping incredibly intelligent mammals in cramped, inhumane conditions. See them in the wild instead of funding seaworld

Busch gardens is also owned by sea world, but I'd still go to busch gardens.

I doubt they will ever get released back into the wild , we just hope they wont be replaced

Not a bad cost at all. We are going in august - booked flights years ago (rescheduled trip) but haven’t booked Villa yet. Car hire has gone through the roof, it’s definitely a lot more expensive than when we last went in 2014. DS is 18 just before we go, A level results 2 days before and he (results permitting) flies off to Uni in St Andrews the day we get back! So I’m happy to pay (doing lots of overtime, applied for a promotion!) as it could be the last big family holiday (hoping not)

Jeez, I was planning to go again this October but car hire is nearly as much as the flights (we need a 12 seater). So that’s just ruled that out. Think we’ll wait until it comes back down a bit. We paid £800 in 2019…it’s coming back at £3k

Seems a v good price to me! We are family of five going in July and everything, and I mean everything (flights, villa, car, spends, park tickets, fuel costs, parking at airport, Estas etc) is coming to around £14k.

Been saving for a loooong time.

We did it all ourselves in the olden days when to book online you had to wait for the little green squares to open a new page...

Anyhow, we found it much, much cheaper to rent a villa (with a pool) and car, then book tickets to Disneyland and Universal. We also did NASA and Busch Gardens. This was in the days when you could get a Disney pass for everywhere, and there were two waterparks. We'd go to a park in the morning, stay till about three, then go to the water park for the last couple of hours to cool off, before we went home. We ate out quite a lot, but sometimes it was nice to just go home and eat bits and pieces.

We went for three weeks, it was a once in a lifetime holiday for our family, so we didn't skimp. They all still talk about it, and it was about 15 years ago. Enjoy your holiday.

I'd be wary of booking things separately at the moment op. I work in the travel industry and have booked separately several times for my own holidays but I wouldn't recommend it given the situation with covid. I know things are definitely looking up but you just need 1 part of your holiday to be affected and you're stuck with the others.

[quote Pbbananabagel]@Sisisimone really?! That’s interesting, did you just stay in Orlando though? There’s so much awesome stuff to do in Florida that’s further out from the city. the space centre is over an hour’s drive from Orlando so I could see that getting pricey and tricky with kids in car seats etc. but it’s so so worth it.[/quote]
No we didn't. We went out to stay with friends in Tampa and then stayed in Clearwater & St Petes. Ubers were so cheap. Also, if you get Seaworld tickets, that includes Busch Gardens and free bus travel from Orlando to Tampa so well worth it

We’ve done it DIY next month. There’s 6 of us (2a, 4c age 17, 14, 11, 7) and it’s cost 11k.
We’re doing 24 nights in total - direct flights to Miami, car hire, 1 week on the gulf coast followed by 17n at Universal’s Cabana Bay hotel. We have Universal tickets and Discovery Cove/Seaworld tickets too. We don’t like Disney although my two teenagers are going to Hollywood Studios for the day to do Star Wars stuff.

@LampLighter414 we're in Ireland where school ends on 22nd of June but they also don't get fined here
@cjpark thanks for that I didn't know that!
@Agrudge thanks but we have been up that way before as I have family in New York, New Jersey and Vermont but we really wanna go to Disney and the space centre.

I’m an American from the North. Don’t go to Clearwater. It’s a world center for Scientology. Why spend so much to go so far when you have a lovely climate full of interesting historical things close to home? Disney is anti feminist, very expensive, and has a poor ecological record. The whole princess nonsense is sickening.

17 nights at Cabana Bay?! 17?!!! I’m not trying to be rude but that’s honestly blown my mind!

I'd at the very least double that food budget tbh, it really adds up!

At the current exchange rate that is $1270 so divided by 10 days that's $127 per day for 4 of you.

$30 dollars a day per person will go nowhere when you factor in 15-20% tips.

We have been going for over 30 years, twice a year for 3 weeks at a time and our first trip since the pandemic is in June so are pretty savvy when it comes to finding cheaper eats etc but we have really ramped up our food budget this time.

We stay in a villa and don't do Disney etc, as PP's have said there is soooo much more to FL than the parks. DS has SLD and ASD so we have had to be very creative over the years as to what we can and cannot do, but having said that, it's the many, many times we have gone "off grid" that we have had the best times and experiences.

I think if it's your first trip you might be a bit miserable having to be SO careful with regards to eating and snacking, you want to try everything!

You must be mad, me and my friend are going later this year for 10 nights and including park tickets it will cost around 3 k for both of us

We don't HAVE to stick to the budget but I'll ramp it up if needed thank you for that!
@Ericaequites we're not the princess type...we just love Disney movies. My dd would die if I put a princess dress on her, but she loves the lion king and a lot of the movies! The space centre is our main draw for my DS and we will look into other things too!!

@movingsoon13 care to share how you got it so cheap??

@shabbalabba How old is your DS OP? KSC is one of the few things DS will tolerate as he loves anything space.

Funnily enough I bought him these today as the cost of the Merch at all the parks is bordering on criminal and would be at the very least double.

www.marksandspencer.com/cotton-rich-nasa-shorts-6-16-yrs-/p/clp60540858?color=NAVY&prevPage=srp#intid=prodColourId-60540858

@AChocolateOrangeaday he's 6! Ah they look fab! Thank you!