Staying Offsite, What am I Missing? (Liki Tiki Feedback welcome)

[Wendie]

We currently have a split stay booked - getting into Disney at about 6:30 pm on a Monday, spending one night at CBR, then starting the next day, have a package deal also staying at CBR through Friday including dining plan. We will then be in Florida until Tuesday, but not on Disney property, although if the weather is cooperative, we might spend some time at one of the Disney waterparks "after" our Disney days. We will have a car the entire time.

So today, i was offered a free week stay at Liki Tiki from my boss, who is a timeshare owner. This would mean that we'd only have to pay for 3 nights of hotel out of pocket instead of six and also reduce our overall bill significantly. We'd lose our Disney Dining Plan but even buying food out of pocket, we should be coming out ahead money wise, even after paying for parking.

What other things should I be considering here? We were already planning on driving to the parks. I know it will add about 5-10 minutes onto my park commute time. I should still be able to get Memory Maker with my tickets, right? I have Magic Bands that I can use already - can you charge to those without hotel reservations? Can we still use Kids Club childcare and such?

We're pinching pennies big time, so it seems like the right thing to but I'm worried I'm making a bad decision. Thoughts??

 

[nursejackie]

We couldn't do without EMH, especially the morning ones as we are early risers and love entering the parks early, you can get so much done in that hour. We don't use Disney transport as we always have a car so if they ever got rid of EMH we would stay off site again. We go in December (9th to 26th December)so there is an abundance of magic hours.

 

[momof2gr8kids]

Can you do the 3 nights that you have to pay for onsite? Then you can take advantage of booking fp at 60 days and any EMH on those days.
Looks like you're going late January? Maybe the emh isn't such a big deal then - not sure if there's a holiday around when you're going but typically it's not as busy then.

 

[dlavender]

We currently have a split stay booked - getting into Disney at about 6:30 pm on a Monday, spending one night at CBR, then starting the next day, have a package deal also staying at CBR through Friday including dining plan. We will then be in Florida until Tuesday, but not on Disney property, although if the weather is cooperative, we might spend some time at one of the Disney waterparks "after" our Disney days. We will have a car the entire time.

So today, i was offered a free week stay at Liki Tiki from my boss, who is a timeshare owner. This would mean that we'd only have to pay for 3 nights of hotel out of pocket instead of six and also reduce our overall bill significantly. We'd lose our Disney Dining Plan but even buying food out of pocket, we should be coming out ahead money wise, even after paying for parking.

What other things should I be considering here? We were already planning on driving to the parks. I know it will add about 5-10 minutes onto my park commute time. I should still be able to get Memory Maker with my tickets, right? I have Magic Bands that I can use already - can you charge to those without hotel reservations? Can we still use Kids Club childcare and such?

We're pinching pennies big time, so it seems like the right thing to but I'm worried I'm making a bad decision. Thoughts??

Yes, you can still get Memory Maker.

No you cannot charge to them without a reservation.

I think you can use the child care without a hotel stay, but call to reserve it and see what they say. 407-WDW-DINE

You will save a lot staying off site, especially since its free. You will also save by not doing the dining plan.

In my opinion, the savings in this case would be well worth it to give up charging to your magic band and maybe not being able to use the child care.

 

[greenclan67]

I will add we did a stay at Liki tiki and liked it......your not too far off driving to the parks. We enjoyed our stay at Liki Tiki. Nice big rooms.

 

[KristinU]

To me it comes down to the amount of space I get for my dollar. We just simply don't like vacationing in regular hotel rooms anymore since we've been spoiled by villas and traveling in our RV, my big thing is having a sofa to sit on during down time and not having to lounge on a bed. That, and access to sitting outside on a patio or balcony for my morning coffee and evening glass of wine...makes me sound pretty bratty, but I promise I'm not!

Anyway, I assume you'll be able to spread out a little more for chilling out at Liki Tiki. Our family enjoys having most meals at the villa, we just find it more relaxing and less stressful since we have some high maintenance food needs. We do restaurants maybe a couple of evenings during a week stay and several lunches via snacking or quick service.

EMH isn't a big deal to us, since our method is to avoid morning EMH, even when we're on property. We are big on rope-dropping at a non-EMH park. Evening EMH we sometimes miss when off property, but not enough to make us always choose on property.

I do wish we could tie Magicbands to a credit card! We just buy gift cards at Sam's Club before we travel and everyone gets one. Big tip: register them on the disneygiftcard.com website - it is super easy to transfer a balance when one gets lost (I travel with my 13 year old DS and his bestie...so I am deliberate when I say "when" and not "if", LOL!)

 

[Princess Disney Mom]

It sounds great and you won’t miss anything.

 

[Wendie]

Thanks so much for the feedback everyone!

 

[kathy884]

For your days at Disney you will still be able to make FP+ reservations for popular rides 30 days in advance, but not 60 days in advance (onsite perk is to do this earlier). All this means is that for the newest headliner rides 7DMT at the Magic Kingdom and the big new simulator Pandora ride at Animal Kingdom, you probably won't be able to get a fastpass. I compensate for that by getting a $15 subscription to touringplans.com which lets me create a custom touring plan, putting in any fastpasses and dining reservations and giving me the best way to hit the attractions that will overall save line waiting time. I start with one of their touring plans and then customize it. They have descriptions of all the attractions, ratings by age group, and ratings by the author to help you decide what to do and what you might want to skip too.

Some people prefer onsite for something that they call "Disney Magic". Having stayed both on and off, I didn't get the "Disney Magic" thing and think of it as good marketing. That's just me though. I usually stay offsite, as I think it's a better value, plus I do more than just Disney -- beach day, SeaWorld, Kennedy Space Center outing, visit relatives in the area, so it never makes IMHO much sense to be onsite and pay the premium for that. I also am not a huge fan of Disney food options and think the offerings are overpriced. That's another good reason for me to be offsite. I can still make Disney dining reservations if I want, but don't have to go that far out of the way for a grocery, store, more economical food choices, and for special dining experiences there are plenty of those in Orlando off of Disney Property. Café Tu Tu Tango is a recent one we did that comes to mind.

I really like the nice offsite timeshares in the area and often rent those from owners. Make sure though if you go that route not do signup for a resort tour / breakfast - presentation about the resort. I recommend skipping freebies etc. they offer (just say no), as what this is, is a high pressure timeshare presentation. I'm one who would rather have a root canal than attend a presentation. I like staying at the resorts, but have no interest in buying one when they are so easy to rent and if I were to buy one I'd do it on the resale market. And sitting though a high pressure sales presentation is by far the last thing I'd want to do, let alone spend precious vacation time (they usually keep people captive for about three hours - some people as long as four hours).

If your travel dates are at less busy times too, that IMHO make offsite a no brainer. At insane busy times the Extra Magic Hours and earlier FP+ might be a really nice thing to have.

 

[BostonEd]

When I first saw the Tiki Liki resort online, I was impressed with the theming. But for the price, I have to ask: are the rooms nice? Or are they very basic? And, pictures can be deceiving: is even the resort generally a nice place?

 

[Monykalyn]

Some people prefer onsite for something that they call "Disney Magic". Having stayed both on and off, I didn't get the "Disney Magic" thing and think of it as good marketing. That's just me though.

Not just you-for us having our own beds, space, kitchen etc makes more "magic" than all in one room for stays longer than a few days.

if I were to buy one I'd do it on the resale market

Or free except yearly maintenance fees. Our TS has maintenance fees of <$400/yr, 3 bed/3bath in red week so high trade power. STaying at Marriott Cypress Harbour over Thanksgiving for a week in a 1300SQ 2bed/2bath. We love the Marriotts!

Liki Tiki is rated as a Silver Crown resort in Interval Internationals resort directory, so pretty good.

And if the 60 day FP reservation is a sticking point-do your out of pocket hotel onsite at start of your vacation-you will then have a rolling 60 day reservation window, and no parking fee for those days. Did that for our Thanksgiving stay and had zero issues getting anything I wanted-including SDMT. FoP got very lucky on as it was the day a whole bunch more FP opened up.

For the savings I'd definitely take the free offer!!