florida holiday - advice please

[Pootrouble]

Hello,

I am considering booking a florida holiday for next year for me and dh and DD1 11yrs and dd2 5 yrs. We are not overly keen on too much driving abroad and would like to avoid it where possible however realise may well have to.

Places we would like to visit are
magic kingdom
universal
kennedy space centre
discovery cove
any others will be extras.

So any advice on who is best to book this with and which resort/hotel should I stay at that is fairly central to everything with minimum driving?? Not looking for a flashy hotel just a bog standard cheap hotel with a pool.

thanks

so you can get around without a car if you stay in a hotel as there are buses and day trip out things. however, you will undoubtedly spend more on a hotel than a house that you book yourself through something like ownersdirect website. these give you the space and flexibility. 2 weeks in a small single hotel room with 2 kids is not going to be anyones idea of fun by the end of the holiday you will be sick of it especially with a 5 yr old and early bed times. have a look at the dibb website for ideas on how to get around with out a car or consider a small family car and do it yourself cheaper. driving in florida really isn't that bad with a decent satnav. plus you need to see how far kennedy is away from the main parks. unless you have been the sheer scale of the parks is mind boggling in terms of distances across and from each other. also buy the books WDW with kids and beyond WDW with kids. great suggestions in there to help you make the most of your trip. what is your budget?

We went last year and stayed at the Doubletree by Hilton on International Drive and I would never recommend that to anyone. The hotel was fine but the public transport and even the hotel shuttles are very poor and infrequent. I can't tell you how much time we wasted waiting for buses only for them to be late or full.
If you really don't want to drive I would stay on property at Disney as the in house transport is great. Or I would bite the bullet and rent a villa and a car. You will save so much time and hassle. The roads really don't look bad. There is one central road that takes you mostly everywhere touristy. You don't have to hire a car straight away, you could give yourself a couple of days to get over jet lag first.

We stayed in a basic hotel just off Idrive really near to the parks.
It had a shuttle service to all the parks-not the space centre though, a pool and breakfast included and was in a great location for eating out at night. We didn't have to drive at all.

We stayed at the Best Western Plus Universal Inn on Vineland Avenur. It cost around £43 a night for a room with 2 double beds, free breakfast and free shuttles to Universal and Wet NWild (and one other I think?). But it a was only a 15 minute walk to Universal so we didn't use the shuttle at all.
If you stayed on I-Drive I think the hotels there also do Disney shuttles.

If you don't mind driving a bit it will make it a lot easier to get to restaurants, supermarkets, outlet malls etc.

IMO the best way to do this is as follows:

Wait until the free disney dining comes on.

Book ten nights at disney deluxe hotel to get decent dining package and cheap park tickets plus free disney dollars.
Transfer to a universal hotel for the remaining four nights so that you get the free express tickets plus early entrance to Harry Potter World. Its cheaper to do this than to buy the express passes and travel in to and then park at universal.
Book flights separately and fly into sanford rather than Orlando. Orlando is a dreadful airport and you'll whizz through sanford in half the time.
Get a town car transfer to disney from the airport making a supermarket stop along the way for breakfast provisions and alcohol.

Think careful about discovery cove. Its nice but expensive for what it is.
Book a car only for the days when you're going to the space centre since you don't need a car at disney or universal if you stay on site.

Will cost you about £6k all in including food (because of the free dining), another £500 if you add in discovery cove.

I haven't stayed at a Disney hotel but we did stay 1 night at the Royal Pacific (one of the Universal on-site hotels). This gets you 2 days early entry to the park and unlimited express passes for both days (we arrived at the hotel at 6am in the morning on the day we checked in, then stomped back out for park opening!). If you are going in school holidays, it would definitely be worth looking at this for at least part of your stay. It cost £160 for the night, but with the express passes, for family, it would definitely be worth it. Your hotel room key also enables you to use the pools at the Hard Rock and Portofino Bay too, accessible by the water taxis.

Excellent advice thanks so much