New and Confused

Hello everyone;

I've been a lurking member for many years, but have never posted (that I can remember) to the site. My family and I are trying to plan a trip to Disney World in December and are completely confused and can use some advice and guidance. And perhaps a bit more understanding of how to use the boards.

Info about the family and our plans

Okay, so there are two "families" going on this trip; my mom, step-father and I as well as my brother, his girlfriend and her 4 year old daughter.

Step-father: 65 year old man with disabilities - driving
Mom: 59 year old woman with disabilities- driving
Me: 34 year old woman - driving
Brother: 26 year old male - flying
Brother's girlfriend: 30 year old female - flying
Girlfriend's Daughter: 4 year old female - flying

We're looking at going in the beginning of December for the 4 year old's birthday. So I guess that would make her 3 now, wouldn't it? LOL. Anyways, the girlfriend and her daughter have never been to Disney World and have all these expectations - like they need to do the sit down meal with characters for at least one meal a day and that every meal should be a sit-down meal. The rest of us have been to Disney, though it's been some time since we were there - pre-Internet planning stages, and so we're trying to balance everyone's wishes.

Questions

1) Is the free dining plan the cheapest way of saving money there, or are there other ways?
2) Should we look at renting electric wheelchairs through the park or outside?
3) Since it's early December, is there a possibility of Disney offering Discounted room rates and/or tickets?
4) Is it better to go through a Disney "agent" or planning it ourselves with Disney?
5) What are the best ways to find discounts and ways to save money?

Aside from that, any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, etc would be greatly appreciated.

Jenn

You probably need to split up these questions to the appropriate Forums here.
We have an entire board dedicated to those with disAbilities with lots of information about wheelchair and scooter rentals.
We have a Discount Codes and Rates forum in our Resorts section where they discuss all the different discount options.
There is a lot of discussion on the Dining Plans and what they involve on our Restaurants board and subforums.
Take some time to check those boards out and you will find a lot of the answers to your questions. The "experts" on these topics have amazing insight on the boards they post on.

Welcome! Your family has such an exciting trip ahead of you! A agree with PP that you can gather more information by using the different sections of the boards, but I will give some input to the points you have made!

1. With the expectations of your brother's girlfriend in regards to TS meals, free dining would most likely save your family the most money as long as you get the DDP and not the QSDP (obviously) because there are so many of you. You'll need to see if it's cheaper to stay in a value room and upgrade from QS to regular dining plan or to stay at a moderate or deluxe resort and get the regular dining plan for free. There also may not be lot of availability left for your dates with free dining- I'm not sure if you plan to stay in 2 separate rooms or one room that accommodates 6. Really the biggest way to save in the food department, aside from free dining, would be to simply eat less meals. Not trying to overstep here, but I don't think any 3/4 year old is going to want to sit down for more than 1 meal a day, and even that could be pushing it. I think maybe in an effort to save to money you should focus on staying at a value resort with the free QS dining plan and pay out of pocket for one special sit down meal for the girl's birthday.

2. I cannot comment about the wheelchair since I have never rented one before!

3. Yes! There is definitely a possibility for a room discount. Last year the discount for rooms during that time period came out in late July. I would't recommend that you 100% rely on a room discount, but one is extremely extremely likely. However, I have never booked more than a standard 4-person room and therefore I know nothing about rooms that would fit 6 people and how good the discount/availability is with those, should you chose to go that route.

4. I think this is totally personal preference. If you do end up scheduling a lot of sit down meal reservations and end up going with the 2 separate rooms/reservations, I think that it might really take some of the stress off of everyone if you have a travel agent or other planner involved to help you. Even if you do just book one room with no sit down meals, you might feel better having a travel agent especially if you have not planned a Disney vacation online before. If you do chose to do it yourself, you always have the boards here to help

5. Aside from room discounts and free dining, not much more will be offered through Disney. If you want to only book a room through Disney and no tickets (so you wouldn't quality for free dining), you can definitely save some money buy getting your tickets from Undercover Tourist or a similar site. Also, because of a family your size, you might benefit from looking into renting DVC points from someone either here on the boards or through a 3rd party website that specializes in this and that way you could stay in a villa. A DVC villa could also help save some money in the food department as you would have a kitchen and could get food delivered from Garden Grocer (or go to the store since you'll have a car) in order to cook some meals. If you are interested in renting points, that is definitely a great thing to start a separate thread on.

As for general advice/tips/thoughts etc, I think the biggest thing is to decide what accommodations you would like and how many meals you are truly going to eat. If everyone wants to be together in one room, then a family suite or DVC rental points are the way you will need to go. The meals will help decide a lot of things like if free dining is worth it for your family, if you need a travel agent to help balance multiple dining reservations, if a DVC kitchen would be helpful, etc etc. I think since it's still very early, now is the time to sit down and really ask everyone what they want. Try to explain that so many sit down and/or character meals will probably be too much for the little girl and they definitely are not needed to enhance the Disney magic that your brother's girlfriend wants to feel- heck, it will probably be too much for the adults too! The more I think about this, the more I believe you really should look into DVC rental and tickets from Undercover Tourist and then compare that to free dining or even rack rate and crunch some numbers because of the size of your party- especially if everyone wants to stay in one room. If you prefer to stay in 2 adjoining rooms then free dining or a room discount might be better. There are so many factors to take into consideration but I hope that this at least helped you think about things/get the ball rolling! I'm sorry if it got a little ramble-ish. I just got so excited for you and then the wheels started turning and I got into planning mode and started to think about the possible combinations of rooms/tickets you could do- ha!