Disney Florida

[Sassymcsasserson]

We're thinking about booking a big family holiday to Disney Florida next year. Has anyone got any recommendations on who to book through please?

I book direct with Disney online and then flights with BA. It depends on what you want really. You need to decide a few things and then plan from there.

Onsite or off site. Basically hotel or villa. Car hire or not? Dining plan (if they do it next year).

Are you doing Disney only or adding in Universal?

What time of year? Next year is likely to be early busy all year with the volume of re-bookings from last year and this year rolling forward.

Planning a Disney holiday is quite unlike planning other holidays. I'd recommend heading to dibb.co.uk - it's a specialist Disney holiday forum.

Like @stevematekatemate we have booked direct with Disney for onsite accommodation and with BA for flights and car hire. I think if I was booking a villa I'd be tempted to use an independent travel agent.

Virgin Holidays are often expensive, but do sometimes have a good sale, we booked a universal trip with them in 2019 and it was great value.

I also agree with wonderstuff above. Disney takes much planning. You plan and plan and plan and then need to plan some more. I also recommend looking at some of the Facebook groups for help and tips too.

We're thinking 3 weeks in a villa, Disney and universal, we know it's going to be costly especially with needing to go in the summer holidays. It's definitely going to be a once in a lifetime trip. We've looked at ocean Florida, has anyone got any experience with them?

We've booked with Kenwood Travel a few times - never had any issues and really good pricing and customer service.

Ocean Florida, I believe, can be a little difficult. I'm on a few Orlando Facebook groups and they appear to have been unhelpful once they've secured your booking. Having said that, I've never booked with them so only reporting what I've heard. Some people may have had great experiences but, based on what I've read, I'd never book with them.

What I would do is price it on BA and Virgin. That’s likely to give you a starting price. Then shop around with other agents and booking yourself. There are plenty of villas so that shouldn’t be difficult to find. Also consider some of the Disney hotels that are suites/villas such as Saratoga Springs and Ole Key West particularly if free dining is on.

Car hire. Make sure you are fully covered and factor in $25 a day just to park at the parks. Not needed staying onsite as you then get free transport.

Flights go on sale 11 months in advance, I wouldn't book before then because the costs can fluctuate so much.

We’ve booked accommodation, flights, car hire and park tickets separately. Made sure travel insurance was in place first and it covered separately booked items as a ‘trip’.

We used Virgin Holidays just for the car hire. They were competitive on price, you pay in the UK and depending on which airport you arrive, the car hire firm had a dedicated desk for Virgin customers. Never got the upsell at the airport when booking with Virgin.
We booked flights with Thomas Cook - sadly no longer possible - as they were the cheapest and had a new fleet of planes.
Booked condos or resorts directly with them over internet.
Park tickets from uk site attraction tickets direct ( they’ve changed name slightly these days I think )

Going for three weeks , trip of a lifetime you say... look to have a day at NASA Cape Canaveral. Book the Lunch with an astronaut lunch.

Make a round trip? Fly back to NY or Washington DC in the last week and spend a few days there?

Remember you’ll all need ETSA , careful you use the official US Govt site and not a scammer site.

Second thedibb.co.uk website. There used to be someone selling their own laminated fold out map of the park area, get one if that’s still going