disneyland Florida

[JaxTellersOldLady]

Children are 11 and almost 8, and are desperate to go here. Having avoided it for my 36 years and not really fussed about going think it would be nice if we went and had a fun time... but having looked into prices I really dont want to spend £5K for a couple of weeks there.

A friend has a villa near there and would give us a good rate (dont know how much yet) but can anyone recommend hiring a house/villa or staying in the resort?

We would want to do lots of things, not just disneyworld.

Please convince me that it will be a one off and the kids will love it and DH and I will get a relaxing holiday too.

the official Disney site has 14 day tickets f rthe price of 7, if that helps at all?

there has been another site mentioned on a few of the Disney threads recently, but can't remember what it is - sorry (had already bought our tickets y then, so wasn't necessary info!)

The Everglades is well worth a visit, but you'd be bitten to pieces in the summer. If you do go, I can recommend Everglades City - not a city at all, but an 'old Florida' small town with painted houses on stilts surrounded by water. There are several outdoor adventure companies based there and Chokoloskee Island. Stay at The Ivey House or The Rod and Gun. I'd also recommend Sanibel Island - beautiful beaches, fabulous shells (really unbelievable), bike trails, canoeing through mangrove tunnels, great restaurants, relaxed atmosphere...stay on the Gulf side of the island for wonderful sunsets.

Thanks silverfrog. Will have a look. Haven't bought park tickets yet.

We are staying here for a week. Recommended by another MNer. We fly into Miami and will stay at the airport for the first night, find another hotel for the second night somewhere and then head to there for a week of doing nothing.

agree summer must be horrendous
teh americans laugh at the stupid brits holidaying in swamps in the hottest weather
imagine how annoying qing is at teh best of times.. then add humidity and irritabel kids

do things REALLY early

the busy and quiet days on the brit guidebook were spot on

have a plan

water parks a must

we disliked islands of adventure the most
overcrowded and naff

yes please silverfrog that would be lovely.

thing is, we cant go any other time of year - unless we wait until next year and book to go in April 2012.

We are off there two weeks today too!

We have four nights at The Yacht/Beach Club (can't remember which one but next door to each other). Then off to my parents house near Sarasota.

The benefit of staying in a Disney resort is the transport is all provided free and you can get into the parks early one day a week (a different day for each park). This means that you can rush to the characters/rides that you want to go on first and beat the queues.

For the poster mentioning food allergies - they are great. Last time we went ds had egg and nut allergy (only nut now) and each restaurant we visited at Disney, sent the chef out to talk to us about what was safe and what to avoid. They often offered to cook off-menu stuff e.g. Egg free waffles. All the food concessions, for example selling ice-creams, had a folder listing the ingredients in each product sold on that stand. It is so well organised!

The benefit of being self-catering is that when he dcs wake up a 3am because of jet lag, they can have a snack and play without worrying to much about the noise!

Try to go to the Kennedy Space Centre, it's brilliant looking at the space shuttles and rockets, really interesting. Busch Gardens is also a great day out.

thank you so much. I spoke to DH last night about going in August and it being hot and humid... if we do things early then it shouldnt be too bad and then chill by the pool.

A friend also said that there are lots of AC things and fans blowing around so you arent stuck in queues dying of heat.

There is air conditioning in every shop and restruant BUT every one heads for them and we couldnt get into some shops they were so packed!

The fans in the queues are spaced out so you ARE stood for ages in the heat, it is mainly shaded though, its just awful to be stood in it for upwards of an hour and a half to 2 hours while waiting to get onto rides.

Also all of the "fast passes" had run out by about 9am as the queues to actually get into the parks were HUGE by 8.30 in the morning.

I would not recommend summer and the reason i am going on (i know im annoying) is because it completely ruined what should have been a fantastic amazing holiday that we had saved up for for 3 years.

So just consider it.

thanks cherry we all like the sun, but none of us like heat that we cant get out of, will keep having a think about this... and go google florida temperatures for August.

or even temperature in August for Florida USA. DOH!

so, high is 90 degrees, low 73 degrees, I can handle that if we had a pool and villa and if we didnt do the parks every day.

But will keep in mind what everyone has said.

I would hate for our holiday to be miserable because it was too hot.

We just have to go in August, but we know it will be hot and sticky. We've had a few nasty humid days in November before. We are staying v. close to Disney, and plan to go in early do a bit, go home and swim and relax then back for late. We also need lots of insect repellant.

I am normally v. v. laid back, but going to Disney needs to be planned like a battle to be enjoyable. Eg. the early part of the summer holidays will involve long walks to get us prepared. I have started preparing the kids already, telling them we will need to get up early, what our plans are, and to think about what they most want to do.

I am really hoping the end of August s a bit quieter than the beginning, as I can only imagine what it must be like then.

Been watching this thread as we're hoping to take DD easter 2012, but looking at it, it would be a couple of hundred £s more to stay at Disney than staying in a villa, since there's only me, DD and DP.

Where could we get Disney/Universal tickets in the UK? We were thinking of booking through Virgin, but was wondering if it was cheaper to book the tickets elsewhere than through them?

www.onlineflorida.co.uk/productview.aspx?piv=1&mkid=61814062&aid=1&gclid=CP7uiuSIjagCFcOHDgodxnBuCw
Here Tammy Bear

Could any of you recommend a villa? We're going next February and I'm going round in circles. We want a really nice/modern 3 bed villa with private heated pool/spa on a gated community were we can walk to a bar/restaurant/communal kids pool etc. There seems to be soooo much choice but am a bit nervous just booking direct without a recommendation am now starting to think might go for a package with Thomson just because their flights/leg room seems so much better than the other airlines for the money esp. with dh being 6' 5". Help please

we went with htomson
was awesome
good flight and good service

all villas the same pretty much

oh in florida you drive everywhere all the time

we went to one with thomson on legacy park
bit of a drive to universal but fine for disney

Thanks Mike (). Was there anywhere to walk to on Legacy Park? Was the villa nice? Dh would be doing all the driving over there and just thinking it would be nice if we could walk somewhere to eat and then he could have a drink.

Have a look at thedibb.co.uk or disboards.com (UK trip planning section)

Lots of people with helpful advice

Last 2 weeks August would be better than July as US schools tend to go back mid August.

We go down to Florida on a regular basis. I think the best time to go is March-May. I would not go to Disney in July/August with a child under the age of 5. The humidity is terrible and you will spend your whole time worrying about dehydration.

DH likes Miami, I prefer Tampa/Naples (gulf coast) as the beaches are a little calmer. If you have time and children who can do car journeys I would also suggest a trip down to Key West. The drive down and back is better than Kew West itself. Lots of cool little communities on the way down and up too.

no, no where to walk - big estate in middle of nowhere. tbh everything so so car based you dirve wvereywhere

agree re august
we were in gloves in december though in freak conditions!

its a wearing holiday and you get back to villa late - you will be wantint to flop and order pizza

another one who reccomend the dibb for help and advice .From there i learnt all i need to know we fly next september (2012) all booked and can not wait

Contrary to what many are saying, Florida isn't totally horrendous in the summer. If anything, the hot weather forces you to slow down and do other stuff - water parks, lazy days by the pool, trips to the beach - rather than just hit Disney every day. I would second end of August, though. The later in the summer the better, as Americans are all back at school and tourists starting to thin out.

My tips would be:

It can get very hot in the afternoons, so I would say rise early and get into the theme parks at the start of the day.

Avoid doing Disney at the weekend when Floridians and other Southern state-ers will be there on top of all the tourists.

Pace yourself. Plan a day at a park, then a day doing something more low-key and so on.

Buy one of these fans as they help cool you down. Don't pay stupid park prices for them - go to Walmart and get one from there (it won't have a logo but who cares!). We used to part fill ours with water, freeze overnight and then top up in the morning - this way the frozen bit would defrost and it would stay cool for longer.

Be aware that as the American kids will "officially" be back at school the parks will close earlier and there may be only one parade (eg electric at the Magic Kingdom) rather than two. What we found is that the schools "go back" but this is actually just the teachers for the first week.