Florida

[hemel07]

Planning a holiday to Disney next year. Trying to weigh up pros and cons for either a Disney hotel (meals included, free shuttles etc), or a villa or condo type accommodation. Neither of us particularly want to drive so somewhere with some kind of bus/shuttle to the parks would be ideal. All advice much appreciated.

Can upgrade to the full dining plan. It would take a lot of pressure off regarding being near a supermarket etc. I think I would rather have a villa but seems that it will be much easier to stay on site. DH now having a nervous breakdown as I keep presenting him with different options (grin)

even

We went to floridatix and got Disney/universal combination multi-entry tickets for just under £500 each (bought at Christmas when there was a discount).

We flew with BA for £600 each (including hire car) - bought as a holiday in the BA September sale.

We had a villa but they vary hugely in price.

Don't know if that helps, but it gives you a ballpark of what we spent (minus food and fuel).

All helpful, thankyou.

I think you can do it cheaper than that! Look on the Dibb forum for all of the bargain ways to do Florida. In my opinion, this is the one holiday that takes a lot of planning to get right re; weather, queues, dining reservations, shows etc as you want to get the most out of the trip for the outlay. I drove my dh mad and even had a spreadsheet! It paid off though as we did loads and had a great time (even dh was converted and he couldn't have been grumpier about going beforehand!). You can get a one day Universal pass - we stayed at the hard rock hotel the night before to get the early guest opening.

Where did you end up staying MrsPatmore? I'm driving myself slightly mad!

That's another thing to consider. Disney fast passes are free, but you can book (I think) 12 weeks in advance if you stay in Disney accommodation and 6 weeks if you stay elsewhere. We couldn't get fast passes to some of the more popular rides (avatar etc) and the queues were 3+ hours.

It's also worth considering a night at a Universal hotel as these can come with queue jumper tickets for the two days either side - often cheaper than buying queue jumper tickets alone.

But agree with others - the dibb is a good place to start.

£7600 for All Stars and that's not including flights?! I definitely think you can get cheaper than that.

Join the 'it's Orlando time' page - great tips for driving costs down on there and people will tell you what is an acceptable price to pay.

We're paying £5k for a deluxe with full dining plan, Disney & universal tickets and $200 gift card. Although I appreciate there is just 2 adults + infant and we're going in November.

Fast passes can be booked at 60 days on site, 30 days off site. The tip for booking one of the 3 universal hotels that include express passes is definitely worth it too - we paid out of pocket for them last time as we didn't know this trick, but they were a god send even in October.

I've been pricing it up and I think I found All stars with quick dining plan (not free), flights, tickets and Disney car hire for £7500 I say think as I can't remember! 2 weeks over October half term.

I'm so clueless. Is it better to book everything separately or do a package? Will someone please just do it for us and let me know what I owe ?

I've priced it up 3 ways- on site package, off site package, doing it separately, and it all keeps coming out about £7500 (for 4 people).

If money was no object, I'd fly direct with someone like virgin so you only have to deal with one/two airports.

I'd stay at both Disney and Universal hotels to take advantage of early entry, queue jumper privileges and have a dining plan to save the hassle of shopping/cooking. And also being nearby to dip in and out of the parks at the busy/hottest parts of the day.

So take that into account too

We're fairly antisocial so having a villa was a must for us. Own pool and chillout space after the craziness of the parks. We loved it although we did have a car and had no trouble driving to the parks, the $17 a day parking charge is pretty steep so an Uber / Bus might be better? Also recommend the wormhole that is the Dibb, so much information.

I will happily plan a Disney trip for you, it's a hobby of mine what are your dates and who's going?

I've done Pop Century, Carribbean Beach, Saratoga Springs, Old Key West, Yacht Club and Polynesian, all with regular dining plans, but never stayed offsite so I'm very biased. We normally do a night at Universal too to take advantage of Express Passes.

Never mind, I missed the ages of the children previously!

Thomas Cook and Norwegian are the cheapest direct airlines. However you can save around £300 per person flying indirect if you're not adverse to changing. We've gone via Charlotte and Miami in previous years, both with about 2-3 hour stopovers so not a massive loss of time off the trip. We use Skyscanner to do a whole month search to find the cheapest flights then book accommodation separately as the prices of that won't really vary. The last two weeks of August are cheapest (and quietest in the parks) because it's peak hurricane season if you're sticking to school holidays.

Disney hotels are generally cheapest booked directly with Disney. We've used Magical Vacations Travel for packages before though as they have crazy deals on sometimes that allowed us to stay in deluxe hotels, but that was pre-children and also excludes dining plan in most cases.

I would never go without the dining plan. The Disney Food Blog is excellent for choosing different places to eat if you end up going counter service only. Contrary to very popular belief there is far more than just burgers and chips available. Every park has at least 2 or 3 places offering more "worldly" food offerings, especially Epcot obviously.

Get quotes from Charter Travel and Ocean Florida.

Charter Travel came out cheaper with flights and universal tickets for us than what Disney were asking for direct for accommodation and tickets only for us this time, although I'm sure that's not often the case.

Please feel free to take over as chief travel planner Unihorn! Going 2 weeks in August, probably the middle 2. 5 of us, but only 1 child according to Disney tickets . How about we do a week in a Disney hotel with meal plan, then have a villa/condo/apartment of some description for a week and have a few days going to Universal? How about a big, fat lottery win also!

You may find it cheaper towards the end of August rather than middle as the Americans go back to school around then.

How much would I need to worry about hurricanes?

Re hurricanes

I've been a few times in hurricane season.

Once, the first time we went in fact, we encountered our only hurricane. It was Hurricane Charley in 2004. It was our first full day. We knew it was heading towards us and followed advice. We still went to the parks, but left when they closed due to the hurricane, at around 2pm. On our drive back to the villa we did encounter some heavy rains and winds. Ideally we should have left the park a little early as the roads were busy.

However, once back at the Villa, we closed in for the night. The villas and hotels near there are very sturdy and designed to take the hurricanes. Inside it felt like nothing more than a strong storm. It did knock the power out for an hour or two, but we managed.

The next day we had increased ants in the villa, apparently this is fairly common after a bad storm. The villa owners were great and sorted it that day whilst we went out.

Re the parks... well, they opened an hour later than usually and you could barely tell a hurricane had hit them.

The drive to the parks was an eye opener with metal signs pulled down, stuff strewn about, etc. We'd have had no idea if we'd been staying onsite really though, as there was hardly a leaf out of place!

Oh I don't know...I don't worry about that stuff tbh, I lived in the States during tornado season, they are well prepared for it. Maybe look at some stats to see statistically how often big disruptive ones happen that time of year, I know last year was a bad one but I feel it's been a while since it's been on that scale?

I'm on to Ocean Florida now, have had a bit of an itinerary and I'm going to call them tomorrow. I shall let you know how I progress! Thanks for all the tips and advice thus far.

Ooo exciting

Hope you bag a good deal!!

Right, how does this sound? Flying indirect, short stop in Atlanta, 10 nights at Disney, with the self service meal plan and park tickets, then 4 nights at Universal (no tickets included), £9,199??? We were expecting it to be about £10,000 so feel quite pleased. What do you think?