Disney resort villas question

[mrscardigan]

Hi,

Anyone any experience of Old Key West and Saratoga Springs?

We are travelling to Florida end of July next year. Flights booked and now the planning begins. I am looking at accommodation (me, DH, mother and DD 7 and DS10).

I have looked at the Old Key West and Saratoga Springs and both look good. Is there free transportation to the parks? Not sure about a private villa because of the driving involved to and from the parks and want it to be special for the children.

A week at one of those, booking though Disney, is coming up as £2499 for villa for 7 days plus park tickets £1370 (doing 21 days tickets as plan to return at end of the holiday for a few nights) - also get a free dining plan with that. So grand total of £3,869. And that's meant to be with a 35% discount!

I realize I would have to buy park tickets wherever I stay so I might as well get them and get the free dining plan.

There are no other hotels available to book yet with Disney apart from OKW and SSR. So my question is will other hotels (moderate) offer free dining plans when they do become available if I wait a few months?

I did look at DVC but that was the same price as Disney but without the free dining plan so am totally confused! Was expecting it to be less. Has anybody and experience with DVC? I have worked out the points I would need and multiplied it by $14 (Dave's website) and it worked out the same as Disney! Can that be right?

So confused!

I agree with cerealandtoast, the Dibb is great. The DIS Boards are good too though can be a bit overwhelming and they have a UK section.

The other site I'd recommend is www.allears.net for menus! Deb has a collection of all of the menus for every restaurant on site. You'll be able to quickly see whether DW is for you. There's TONS of counter service food that isn't pizza, hamburgers etc. You just need to know where to go!

I wouldn't worry about the choice on the DDP. I'd suggest that MOSagain's friends didn't understand how to use it- all WDW restaurants accept it and you end up with an enormous amount of food. We sometimes use it and sometimes don't depending on how many non-WDW days we're having and how much I think I'll be eating. We often do end up with leftover credits but that's because we've ended up sharing meals not because we've had to supplement by paying cash.

My personal opinion is that if you can get it for free and are eating on site a lot it is worth it. If you have to pay for it, you can use the menus on allears to number crunch to see if it's good value for you. We're not using it on our upcoming trip because DS is now considered to be an adult and there's no way he'd eat anywhere near the amount of food we'd be paying for him. There are endless conversations about the pros and cons on the Dibb and DIS Boards.

Urgh, DDP not DW!

Orlando Villas I used this site to read up on all the communities and have a nebe at the area. Dh had found it as an ipad app, kept me amused during my insomnia. The dibb has a good map. But that is a site that I despise posting about villa's on as certain villa owners have to tell you that you should only ever book a dibb villa.

If you have facebook account It's Orlando Time is a great group. My friend lives in Florida and added me to it.

Cerealandtoast, you are coming across as quite rude. MOS spends a lot of time in Florida, why can't she give advice?

cereal and toast for your information, I have never 'made money' out of advertising on mumsnet.
Yes, I do own a villa there and in fact, on several occasions have donated it free of charge to mumsnetters. Last year a mumsnetter who lost her baby son was organising a charity auction to raise money for SANDS in his memory. I donated a week in my villa free of charge and £425 or £450 (I can't remember which and am not at home so can't check) was bid on my villa which all went to SANDS.

Another occasion a mumsnetter had a young daughter who was sadly suffering from cancer. She was having treatment in America, not far from Disney and I offered her a free stay in my villa so she could take her daughter to Disney for a long weekend when she was allowed out of hospital for a few days. She took me up on that offer and had a free weekend to enable her to give her extremely sick daughter a weekend that she might otherwise not have been able to have.

I have only every 'made money' once from advertising on MN. However, on that occasion I made a very bad decision by allowing a mumsnetter a huge discount on my rental rates. However she treated my house appallingly and caused hundreds of dollars of damage so I was out of pocket.

I will no longer be advertising my villa or the company that I normally recommend even though as I've state before, I have no financial interest in them, I just know they are a very good company as I met the owners about 14 years ago and have recommended to a number of friends who have made bookings through them when my villa is not available. I get numerous bookings from my villa from my own adverts and website, I don't need any other bookings but on occasion I have offered discounted rates to mumsnetters you can't afford the ridiculous rates that Disney charge. I won't bother any more, I don't need nasty comments from the likes of you.

Oh, and by the way, I don't believe my friends 'got it wrong' about their dining plan. They DID have a number of restrictions, they are both highly educated and are not stupid enough to pay for meals when they did not have to. Perhaps the deal they had was different to the one you may have experience of but they certainly were not able to use them at all parks and all locations..

MOSagain (and anyone else!), there are three dining plans on offer at WDW: standard, quick service and delux. The standard DDP offers a table service (I.e. sit down) meal each day as well as a counter service (I.e. quick non-waiter restaurants) and snack. The quick service DDP does NOT offer any table service meals. It only includes quick service meals plus snacks. The delux plan offers a crazy amount of food either table or quick service.

It's possible that your friends only purchased (assuming they didn't get free dining) the quick service plan which would limit where they could eat. It's obviously less expensive than the standard plan, but the WDW Dining plan brochure clearly lists all of the quick service vs table service restaurants so anyone who is looking at DDP, you should read through the brochure before booking a plan! 2013 is here:
disneyworld.disney.go.com/media/wdw_nextgen/CoreCatalog/WaltDisneyWorld/en_us/PDF/2013Dining.pdf

Deluxe not delux!

Have to agree with Cereal&Toast. A LOT of misinformation about staying onsite and the dining plans.

In a nutshell:

• If you stay onsite you get free transport to the parks. Yes, you have to wait for the bus (max I have ever waited was 15 minutes) but it drops you at the gate. If you drive yourself you get dropped a long way from the gate. Especially at Magic Kingdom, where you park near some of the resort hotels, walk or get one of the little road trains to the Ticket and Transportation Centre and then get from there to the gate.

• We are already booked onsite for October next year, as the offers came out some time ago for free dining. If you can't book a moderate hotel for the dates you are looking for I would imagine they are already full.

• If the free dining is available, it will be dependent on the level of hotel you book.

• There are three levels of dining plan

1. Quick Service (counter meals) - 2 meals with drinks, a snack and a refillable mug to use in resort
2. Disney Dining Plan - 1 table service meal with drink, I counter service meal with drink, one snack. Not sure about the refillable mug.
3. Deluxe Dining Plan - three meals with drinks (can be table service or counter service), two snacks and a refillable mug.

• There are many many restaurants available and it is not all burgers. Not by any stretch. In two weeks on the Quick Service dining plan last year I had two burgers. People who tell you it is all burgers are not telling you the truth.

• If you are on the dining plan you would have no need to buy food. We found a snack was sufficient for breakfast or lunch. The only time you would have a problem is if you tried to use a counter service credit for a table service meal. You would only do that if you had not read and understood your booking documents.

• The dining plans can be used in all parks, all hotels, & Downtown Disney. To say you can't is not true.

• Disney will go out of their way to make you happy. They will make substitutions and will guide you through the process.

Go to the Dibb website and forum. They will tell you all you need to know.

MOS if your friends stayed at Caribbean Beach and got free dining it would have been Quick Service.