12 of us going to Disney World!!!! WOW!!!

[momof2kids]

Hi there, Well like I said in my title there is 12 of us going. 3 families of 4. Each family has 2 kids 2 adults. The oldest child will be 14 the youngest will be 9. We all want to do everything in the Orlando area. (this may be all of our big trip for a couple of years.) So here I am, needing all the help I can get, since I have been appointed the cheif planner and MONEY saver.
We are planning on 4 days at DW
2 days at Universal
1 day at Kennedy Space Center.
1 day at Sea World
Every family needs there own space. But do we stay off site or on? How much should we budget for everything. So far what I can figure it is 10 days. (2 days travel). What kinda discounts can we look for. We are planning on going in January of 2004, I know that I am way early on planning but this is alot of people to get going on a vacation. Is January a good time to go? We are looking for the lowest time of year to go. Thank you all ahead of time!!!!! Happy Planning to all!
Mom of 2 kids

 

[chris1gill]

Have you decided to stay off site or on? To stay on-site you'd need three rooms, you could do one of the moderates with a discount for around 100.00 a night each room...

You could get regular hotel rooms off site for next to nothing, say 60.00/nt at a Days Inn or something similar....

Or, you could rent a house off site for around 100-150/nt. You could go to www.vrbo.com & take a look around on that for the types of houses available....

If you decide among those three options we can help further!

 

[MiniMissMinnie]

Hi !!

Great idea about going together!!!

January is a GREAT time a year to spend in Orlando. The weather is great, the crowds are small - we waited a maximum of 15 minutes at the big attractions. One day we took Animal Kingdom and Epcot - and we actually saw it all!

About hotels, I would deffinitely recommend a all-suite hotel. We stayed at Vistana Villages - and we are going again in August. It's such a nice place with a great big pool and hottubs. The suites are a 1 or 2 bedroom suite with full kitchen - very beautiful decorated. We booked through www.hotelkingdom.com and got the suite to 100 dollars a night ( a 2-bedroom ) - and that's a great rate ! You can't book now - but keep an eye out for great rates on the site!
You can make your own breakfast and dinner, and then you only have to pay for lunch - and that's a big moneysaver!!!

Vistana offer a 90-minute time-share tour - we took it, and that sawed us 100's of dollars on disney and universal tickets, so that's a possibility. You get free breakfast on the tour.
We would do it again, if we were going to Disney for 4 days. By the way - we didn't buy - and the lady was a bit pushy!!

Remember to take some time off shopping; go to Premium Outlets, Florida Mall and Pointe Orlando.

Well , if you have any questions - just ask!

Have a great trip!!


Marie

 

[horseshowmom]

You can get A LOT of house (6, 7, 8 BRs with 4, 5, or 6 BAs) for what 3 hotel rooms will cost. I've seen houses with 3 Master Bedrooms with each having it's own private bath. Usually the kids rooms are really cute too. That would also include a private pool and washer/dryer.

The kitchen saves a TON of money. Just having pizza delivered instead of eating in the restaurant can save a lot due to the cost of drinks (cans and 2 liters are much cheaper). Many houses have grills by the pool for cooking out. Breakfast can be prepared very cheaply. We used to divide the meals up and each pair (including the kids) would take turns preparing and cleaning up meals (kids can pop corndogs in the oven and serve chips to go with them).

Just check on the actual size of the pool. As many as you have, it needs to be 15'x30' anyway. I know of one site that has pool slides in some of their pools. I've also seen several houses that have gamerooms (pool table, ping pong, arcade games, etc.).

If you really want a hotel, IMHO Embassy Suites is great due to the incredible free breakfasts and the privacy of having a separate room.

 

[dgaston]

Another option might be booking rooms from Priceline--On the www.biddingfortravel.com site it seems I read about a mom also designated planner who was able to book four rooms for their large party. I would probably suggest off-site and either condos or a vacation home for the size of your group. I'm thinking along those lines for a future family reunion trip.

 

[doubletrouble_vb]

Good Golly...for that amount of time and that amount of people I'd go with a house or condo. Or even two condos. You might try either Westgate Lakes or Westgate Vacation Villas & Town Center.

Lakes is nice because its right across from Sea World and would be in between both Disney & Universal. They have a really nice spa, multiple pools & hot tubs, poolside bars, surreys, tennis courts, a good restaurant and what I thought was a good deli. They are also on a lake so they have lake oriented stuff as well. The entertainment book used to have discounts for them or even better you can go to www.tug2.net and rent from owners. Don't sacrifice the time for the timeshare presentation...this is the one aspect of Westgate that really sucks. And if you like it enough to buy don't buy from them. You can get whatever unit you want for 50% of the price through the tug website or almost any timeshare broker.

The Villas offer similar benefits except that they don't have as nice a deli, aren't as efficient at check-in. Also...the lake was small so they have things like paddleboats, fishing, bicycles, sand volleyball as well as multiple pools and hottubs.

If you want to stay on site I would look into getting a Grand Villa or two or three 2 bedroom condo's from DVC, cabins & tents out in Fort Wilderness or rent a treehouse. For the length of time you don't want to stay in hotel rooms.

One other comment...the beginning of February is just as cheap as January but a touch warmer. I suggest weeks 5 or 6 which would be Feb 2nd or 9th in 2004 (that being the Monday of those weeks). Feb 9th is nice because that week abuts President's Day. You could stay through Saturday and use Sunday and Monday to travel.

 

[jmminarik]

For the days you're visiting WDW, staying onsite would not be a bad thing, then changing locations for your days outside of the World.

Being a Vacation Club owner, I can't help but be prejudiced toward staying someplace with a kitchen, but this being the budget board, as people have mentioned, staying outside at condos or rental homes can be alot more affordable.

Since money seems to be an issue, having the ability to cook your own meals once in a while is a big budget saver. If nothing else, doing breakfast in the 'room' would save probably $25.00 per day.

In terms of when to go....early December is the lowest time for the parks...between Thanksgiving and Christmas. You may find better deals outside of the parks for rentals at this time since people tend to be very loath to take kids out of school since they're out for T-Day and Christmas break. Of course, this last statement doesn't apply to DVCers as much.

Lastly, why is going shopping on vacation so danged important?

-Joe