How much do I need to save to do Florida?

[onadietcokebreak]

I want to go to Florida. Its a distant dream but hoping in 4-5 years I we have saved.

How much am I likely to need to save for actual holiday and all the days out.

I HAVE to do Kennedy space centre and Disney. These are a must do!

Probably be 2 adults and 4 children

Know it may sound crazy but if I have an idea at least I can save!

We went last year, didn't do Kennedy, just a two week ticket to Disney. Villa, car hire, spends etc- £5000. Ate out at least once every day, bought drinks in parks, some small souvenirs.

That was for 3 adults (well ds1 was 13 but counts as an adult for Disney and, I think, the flight) and one under-two.

Thank you Shodan.

I just did a search on Virgin and it was £5500 for hotel and flights....eekkkk

This will be a huge thing to save for....was it worth it??

We-e-ell, yes and no.

Ds2 was too young for most stuff, obviously.

And we went in the first two weeks of August and it was so hot I started sweating going from the (air-conditioned) villa to the (air-conditioned) car.

But ds1 loved it (second time for him, me and DH) and I do love DisneyWorld. ANd ds2 loved the bits he was able to do.

I want to take my son when hes old enough to enjoy disney.

My boyfriend has two children so they may want to come.

Lots to think about but its nice to have ambitions and dreams!

Flights will be the biggest outlay but will very much depend on the time of year - ditto with Disney tickets, there are various deals at non-peak times. The cheapest way to stay is hire a villa - there are squillions online and will only cost a few hundred dollars per week. Car is a must (or a minivan if there are lots of you plus luggage) and that will be a few hundred dollars. Spends - budget for about £500 a week, but depends on how extravagantly you eat etc

It is NOT a cheap holiday.

Why not drive or train to Disney in France??

Don't only look at virgin.. lots of other agents use virgin for flights, but packages come out much cheaper.

in the fairly recent past we have used: www.jetlife.co.uk
www.holidaygenieflorida.co.uk
www.travelcitydirect.com
Travel City Direct are actually owned by Virgin now, but can often come out much cheaper for exactly the same thing, on the same flights & everything.

trailfinders are also good can't remember their website, but just google them, they built a package up for us.

Can you see I do this kind of thing quite a lot?! Should have been a travel agent I think as I always get the job of researching/booking everyone's holidays in my family!!

hope this helps.. start saving now & you WILL get there

almost forgot, take a look at www.wdisneyw.com (especially the message boards) there's some fab hints/tips on there & if you can't find EXACTLY what you want to know, post the question & someone will be along very soon with the answer - it's full of total disney-addicts!

I think Florida is one of the places its easier to book yourself online and it will be cheaper.

I am going in August ( yes ready for the heat and 4pm shower) and its costing us under 6k for 2A 2K staying at the Saratoga Springs in Disney for 13 nights on their dining package and park tickets deal. We hired a car too.

We have to spend 1 night and 12hrs in NY which the boys are excited about as the flights worked out cheaper to go that way and get Jet Blue to Florida.( have booked BA so hope dispute is sorted).

I asked Thomas cook to try and beat the price and also looked at Virgin and it was 3or 4k more with them for the same thing and I was flexible on the whole of the summer holidays.

Use skyscanner to get an idea of flight prices and then go to the airline directly, use expedia to look at hotels you like and then see if you can get it cheaper direct, and then look at various car hire comapnies eg holiday autos and decide what your requirements are just be careful on the additions on car hire as you dont want to be over insured.

mousesavers is a useful website with the latest info too.

I was coming on to ask exactly the same thing after pouring over the mailer that arrived from Virgin. I will definitely do a bit of research from the links provided - thanks flippy. It is certainly going to cost a lot more than I imagined.

Can anyone tell me how the park tickets work? Is it worth buying a two week unlimited pass (if we go for that long) or should we be more specific for the parks that we want to go to. Also, is it likely to be cheaper buying in UK before heading over or will we make a saving buying in US?

Flights will really depend on whether you fly scheduled (ie Virgin/BA) into Orlando international airport (non-stop) or whether you go chartered (numerous cheaper airlines) which fly into Sanford airport which is only a few miles further out from the International one. Most of these flights will have a brief stopover but are often much cheaper.

ref accommodation, I'd recommend booking a private villa. Look at www.loyaltyusa.com this is a company run by an english lady who only deals with villas within 4 miles of disney. They are luxury villas, most with a private pool and many with gamesrooms and they can work out cheaper than 2 motel rooms. Rates can be as little as $100 per night for a 4 bedroom house with a private pool.

Other costs will depend on how many days you want to do at the different park. Lots of different ticket packages on offer.

A quick tip......to do the universal theme parks, stay 2 nights at one of the universal hotels. Hard Rock/Portofino and you get taken by boat to the park which is lovely then your room key doubles as a fast pass for ALL the rides.

Stay at a Villa definitely to cut costs but a night or 2 in these hotels makes it a great experience.

I found our Aquatica/Seaworld ticket was the best buy as we went almost every day.

that sounds worth looking into Alouiseg. We are going in October for 3 weeks and might look into that as DC1 and 2 want to go to Universal. Any idea on costs?

Not off the top of my head but they do have a website, there is another Universal Hotel called the Polynesian I think.

I prefer Universal to Disney tbh but I have 2 ds' and it's more of a boy place than Disney I think.

3 weeks, lovely! We did that a couple of years ago. We had a week at Universal doing Universal, discovery Cove and Seaworld then a week down on Marco Island then back to Orlando for a week doing the Disney parks.

How old are your ds'? The fast pass is a fantastic system and far more efficient than the Disney one.

Aquatica is great too but you need to either get there very early or rent a cabana for the day $100 you get a lovely cabana with your own loungers, a fridge stocked with soft drinks and a server who will collect your meals from the restaurants.

The dollar was 2 to the pound when we went for the first time, last year it was 1.70 and this year it's likely to under 1.50! Grrrr.

We turned up at Aquatica almost every day (in October) at various times of the day and never had a problem. You don't need a cabana if you have legs.

As for tickets, look at ALL the options and see which one fits your family best. We are the sort of family who cannot do a full day in a park, nor did we want to go more than once. Find the ticket that matches your personal set-up

If you are there in October, go to the Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom (note: on Oct 31 the tickets are twice as much, so go the other days!). Fabulous

My little one also loved the Disney Dollars which you can buy on ebay here and give them their own spending money

No one 'needs' a cabana but we liked having a base. It was very new when we went and parking was a problem if you didn't get there early enough.

Parking: we often turned up at 2 or 3 and parked for free

I am going to Florida this summer, with DD and a group of our friends (6 adults 5 kids in total)

We found that booking it all seperately rather than a package worked out far cheaper.

As others have said, the flights are the biggest outlay, but if you shop around you could get a good deal. My flights from Scotlan during school holidays were just over £1k for both of us.

We decided to go for a villa, as the prices were much much cheaper than a hotel etc, our 5 bedroom villa with a private pool cos a total of £700 for 14 days (which between 4 families worked out at £175 per family for 2 weeks accommodation)

We also then hired a 15 seater mini bus (£675 for the fortnight £170 per family)

And finally go our tickets from here which worked out to be the cheapest we found.

Alouiseg we have a bit of an age gap, DS17, DD14, DD2 3.8 and DS2 who will be 18 months. The plan is that DC1 and 2 can go off and do their own thing (scary rides) whilst I run around like a loony chasing down princesses and gap year students in fluffy animal costumes to get photos/autographs whilst DH rolls his eyes

Aquatica sounds great but I think DC3 and 4 might be a bit young.

EW 700 for 2 weeks That is very cheap. How close to Disney is that?

Mumoverseas, it isn't overly close, but we were ok with that.

Owner says it is 15 mins drive to disney, 20 to seaworld, 30 to Universal and 35 to airport so that's fine with us, as we have a car (well huge big bus thing )

Driving in Florida is such a pleasure anyway. Gorgeous roads, huge parking spaces, fantastic signage. Sensible driving rules i.e being able to turn right even when the traffic lights are red. No fecking cameras everywhere tracking your every move.

I heart America

that is a fantastic price, you'll have to let me know when you get back what it was like.
Just about to check out the ticket website you recommended. I dread to think how much it will cost for 6 of us

It was through the owners direct website, it did seem to be loads cheaper than lots of others, so I am hoping that it will be ok [econfused] I will report back and let you know!

I agree ref the driving, I love driving there. Where I live now I'm not allowed to drive as I'm a mere female

We're going in May, but are flying into New York (me, DH and DTs (3.10)), having three days in NY, then flying to Orlando, staying there a week, then back to NY for three days before flying home. We've booked with Trailfinders. The whole lot, including flights, hotel in NY, self catering accommodation in Orlando, 5-day Disney passes and car hire (I think that's all) is costing us just under £4000.

I am stupidly excited

I promised dd a trip to Disney, and dreaded it. However I loved it so much we are going again this year - especially as we got it for a grand cheaper this year.

The driving is pi$$ easy too