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.

Hemel we are going in March 2019, our school holidays are ahead of Easter next year so thathelped. I did what you are doing ringing around and getting all the quotes for packages and it was so expensiv. We decided to wait it out for flights. I was checking all the time and it ended up being worth it. We got 4 gatwick to Orlando returns for £1400 with BA. I still can't believe that. Then i booked accommodation direct with Disney for 5 nights and universal for 2 nights and then a villa through HomeAway for a week. Couldn't decide what was best so we are doing all options!!

Well unfortunately Port Orleans availability has disappeared off the Disney site now too so it may be worth calling them direct to enquire (the difficulties of being a family of 5 as I know!) I assume this is why the deal was no longer available to you as well! If you're not booking flights yet then at least you are flexible in terms of dates so they could possibly find you 10-14 nights somewhere in August.

So instead of that you could do a suite at the All Stars, which would give you more room anyway, with free breakfast only for £4275 or with quick service dining for £5375 for 10 nights. That can be found here if you want to play with dates www.disneypackages.co.uk/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=disneyworld.com&utm_campaign=WDW_UK-IE_Free%20Dine&utm_content=free-dine-offer-block

You could then book your Universal hotel separately through Expedia or a similar search engine. You could wait until flights were released to decide whether to tack this part on to the start or end or your holiday. Flights tend to be cheaper midweek.

Flightwise, TUI ones are out here for between £900 and £1000 per person for next summer www.tui.co.uk/flight/ for an idea of indirect prices and schedules then try searching August 2018 on Skyscanner. You should be able to get them for around £700 per person, saving around £1000.

Because I've been a fair few times I don't mind shopping around and booking separately but I know some people prefer to book with a travel agent and have it all sorted. In my experience travel agents charge £500 plus for this reassurance (with the exception of Virgin who charge about £3k extra...). Travel agents do often have great deals however as Disney offer them discounts on block booked rooms so it is worth going into a proper shop one to see what they can offer.

You are going to find that being a family of 5 is a struggle unfortunately as there was fewer offerings of hotel rooms. You have Art of Animation, All Stars and Port Orleans really. Anything else will be a huge leap in price!

PS. A spreadsheet is invaluable at this stage if it's your kind of thing. I like to list different websites and their prices for various packages so it's all clear for me! Haisuli's plan above sounds fab.

It does sound fab! I might gatecrash. I think I probably need to take a breath and leave it a bit. I don't really know how I feel about Lake Buena Vista so probably shouldn't rush into it. The flights are expensive aren't they? And yes, damn that third child

Op - I saw this and thought of you https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/heres-how-weeks-holiday-orlando-14824098

We’re going in May 2019. Booked through Virgin. We’re staying at Disney Pop Century. Family of 4. Flying direct from Gatwick inc free use of the V lounge. £6k and includes Disney and Universal unlimited tickets. DD not included as it’s classed as a budget resort. To include DD quick service it would be another £2k so I’m in a quandary as to add it on or not!?

I thought we had decided what to do next Easter and now I'm not sure again! So many choices, so much money!

Does anyone know anything about Kenwood Travel? They are coming up with a similar deal to our original one, but I am pretty sure the accommodation advertised is sold out. Its not on the Disney website anymore. Are they just not up to date with what's going on or worth a try?

Lalaland44 when did you book? This is similar to what we want to do (and budget!) impressed you got universal with that.

Kenwood may still have their rooms available, they're a legitimate agency so you'll be safe with them if it is still available. Fingers crossed for you!

Kit10 we booked in January this year. Virgin were offering 10% off at the time and free use of the V Lounge at the airport. I addrd the park tickets to the booking only recently after Virgin price matched a quote I got from one of the online Disney ticket distributors that Money Saver.com recommended. I saved nearly £500 by asking for that price match! Disney and Universal unlimited tickets for four (2 weeks) came to £2400. Virgin originally quoted nearly £2900! I wanted to keep all together with Virgin so we’re covered with through ABTA incase anything appens.

Awesome thanks lalaland, we're not going until 2020 ha but I'm researching when is the best time to book (obviously can't yet!) so will start keeping an eye out from January! It's great that they price matched!

Very confused re Kenwood. Offer was 14 nights at Port Orleans Resort with quick dining for £10,600, I called Ocean Florida as that was the (although more expensive) deal they offered initially. Anyway, she called me back having spoken to Disney who categorically stated that all Port Orleans rooms were gone, and apparently are allocated from a central base so would know if there was any left? Anyway, I don't know but all sounded a bit dodgy. Not sure what that's all about! So best offer now is 10,900 with Ocean Florida for 14 nights at All Star Animation (I think?) with quick dining. Its clearly more than we would ideally like to pay but I'm tired of looking now and impatient to get it sorted

Looking on Disney website just now. Can book All star music with quick dining for 6,735. But can't book the flights yet. Is that really risky? What if we cant find flights for the right dates? How does that work?!

You can use this summer's flight schedules as an idea but indirect flights will be every day. Flights do tend to be cheaper on Tuesday or Wednesday and more expensive at the weekend though. TUI operate on Wednesdays and Saturdays I think but Virgin, Norwegian, BA etc. will all operate daily. Check the 2018 low fare calendars for the whole of August for a vague idea of cheapest routes.

www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1032653
Also Disney are very flexible about date and resort changes. This gives you more info!

I've booked . £10.335 for 14 nights at All Stars Music, with quick dining plan. I have no doubt that I could have got a better deal somewhere if I just had an ounce of patience, but I just couldn't wait. We've booked through Ocean Florida, please, please don't anyone tell me they are dodgy!

I'm a bit scared now . Its such a massive amount of money...

We went August 2016 (5 of us, then 3, 8 and 10) and booked it independently, 2 weeks in Disney Caribbean beach and 1 week at hard rock.
Last August we booked via virgin same holiday for August 2018. We have changed hotels, free of charge via virgin due to work at carribean beach. If was almost rhe same price to book through virgin than independently and virgin were good at moving hotels for us. The price is more than last time which is partly because the kids are getting older.
I think we booked Uber’s for short journeys and hired a car to go to Kennedy space centre for the day.

We booked in the August bank holiday sale and got discounts but also said we could be completely flexible on dates in summthe r hols. We also bought virgin bee uork flights the year before in January sales so worth looking for virgin offers.
I think if you book independently, and can’t book the flights you want at a later date. they allow you to move the booking by 3 days subject to availability.

We go 4 weeks on Tuesday! 😊