Great "Cheap Holidays & Excursions" Hunt: Orlando

bigwedgie

Just back from Orlando at the end of May and had a great time, cheap villa rental from ebay, we have used various people and the viilas have all been excellent, this year we had a 4 bed, 3 bath, 2 lounge villa with big pool and hot tub for £400 per week inc pool heat !! dont base your holiday around public transport, America is built for car use and you will need a rental ... they are cheap but book before you get there, again use ebay and get a satnav with USA mapping they come pre loaded with everything you will need (parks, food , shops, fuel etc etc )
Don't hire anything from the parks ....some villa's have cooler sprays and pushchairs available for your use but if not then Walmart is the answer ...they sell lightweight strollers for around $27 brand new, yes, about 16 quid !! even if you buy one and hang all the bags off it and put the coolbox on it, it's worth that when your in the parks.

Phantom2000

Im wondering how people are getting on with booking flights to Orlando for next year ..?

Ive booked for 6 adults on a fly drive to Orlando via Travelcity Direct (Using Virgin Flights) on the 4th Oct for 14 nights .... Includes Full Platenium Car insurance which allows any driver and is for 2 cars.:j

Cost worked out at £515 each......



Glen

jobee27

If you only want flights (not incl car hire) then the schedule ones (Virgin/BA etc) don't go on sale until a year/11 months before. You can look at this years prices for an idea (remembering when school hols are). Virgin quite often have deals on for October for about £350.

Car hire - don't get conned by the car hire places in Florida - they will try and get you to buy extra insurance that you do not need - we've had them trying to get us to buy tyre insurance!!!!!!!!!!!! My rule of thumb is to ensure that I have CDW/LDW as that's the most important.

If you book flydrives, the cars work out expensive. We got a full size SUV for £400 for 17 nights!!!!

Best tip is make the internet work for you - a few pounds saved when booking is more spending money when there!!!!!!!!

Phantom2000

mmmmm now im unsure what to do ....... as im still in my 14 day cancellation period...

goldbyron

I am off to Orlando again in September. I have booked flights with BA this year as they were almost £100 cheaper than Virgin per adult who we flew with last year. The flight times are almost identical as well. Got my car hire with Budget - and pay for the additional insurance through 'daily excess' (think this is the name- more info on MSE) which starts from £3 per day and covers you saving you taking out the companies insurance. Make my lunch every day to save buying in the theme parks which is both expensive and unhealthy. Made the mistake of not looking for bargains for entry fees - for instance if I had gone to the dolphin park first I would have got free entry to Sea world.

MotherofTom

My husband works for a large retail company and one of their perks is "supposedly" cheap Florida park tickets from a major supplier. However, when we checked their prices, even with the "discount" it was cheaper to go direct to Disney and buy from them (saving us up to £40 per person). So just a note of caution - sometimes it may be cheaper to go direct to the source of tickets rather than through another agency.
Hope this helps someone.

MrsGreen_3

If you are looking to go to disney they have a 14 fr the price of 7 tickets on at the moment we bought ours in November for our may holiday on thi same deal and saved about £300.00 for 4 to everything disney for all of the 14 days!! in the terms that were printed off they last for 12months and are valid for 14 days from first use!!! worth every penny as we went to disney lots. The price on the door at a water park was $36.00 ish per adult!!!! we did 3 days at the waterparks and that would have been more than we pad for the 14 day (7free) ticket!!!

and keep all receipts for all card transactions, i got a credit acrd just for this holiday and we listed everything we spent at the end of every day and kept all receipts together. Just got my statement and IHOP (international house of Pancakes had charged an extra $10.00 on top of the tip I wanted to give. Luckily I kept all copies of the credit acrd receipt a meal receipt and notice of how much tip I wished to leave!!! awaiting credit back from credit card as we speak. I bet they do this to a lot of Holiday Makers!!!

ghawn

We are going to orlando again this year for the fifth time, and always book on a budget. We booked through Expedia and for the two of us for flights, hotel and car it was £931. OK the flights are not direct, but the flights alone with Virgin or BA were more than this. We also catch the bus from I-drive to go to the Florida Mall. Yes it takes about 45 mins, but costs $1.25, and you see a bit more of Orlando than you would in a cab, and so much cheaper. There are so many cheap eateries too. Ponderosa, with their all you can eat breakfasts for $3.99, and Cici's for all you can eat Pasta and Pizza for $3.99. If you can manage a 'doggy bag from any of these eateries into your rucksack for the day, it save big time on the parks prices for snacks.
Hope this helps someone!!!

Fiona_T

Hi

I'm getting married in May next year and we are going to Orlando for our honeymoon.

It seems to be cheaper to hire a villa than a hotel.

BA were doing the cheapest flights but seem to have gone up since i last looked! Just over £400 isn't too bad still.

There is just the 2 of us but we would like a good size pool near as possible to restaurants and the parks etc.

Thanks

Fiona

:rotfl:

ad_luton

Best Value tickets only available in the UK.

Disney 14 day Ultimate Ticket gives you 7 days (valid for 14) unlimited entry into Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios.
PLUS 14 days unlimited entry into Downtown Disney (Disney Quest), Blizzard Beach & Typhoon Lagoon.

We spoke with some locals and Disney staff and they all are so jealous of the great value these tickets are and wish they were available in the USA.
we saved £400 by buying ahead - a keen money saver always loves the satisfaction of making a smart choice!!!

BE CAREFUL OF PARKING CHARGES! Disney/Universal/Seaworld etc all charge $12 dollars per car per day (more if you have those huge people carrier bus thingys) although you can park in more than one Disney car park per day and pay the one fee. Better options are to use courtesy buses for free!

Lockers at disney - hire one (around $5) and you get free lockers in any other parks you visit on same day eg Blizzard Beach daytime and then Magic Kingdom in evening for light show and fireworks - both excellent btw!

We planned what we wanted to see before we went and then searched the web for the most cost effective way to buy the tickets.

ORLANDO Flexticket - 14 days unlimited entry to Universal Studios / Seaworld / Aquatica / Island of Adventures plus a dinner & horse show Arabian Nights.

Wallmart rocks! Defo a must stop! Bulk buy 24 bottles of water for $2.96 cheaper than the $4 dollars per bottle in the parks. Fruit & Snacks and gifts are all hugely cheaper than in parks. All parks except Aquatica allow food & drink to be brought in. Acquatica offer a eat & drink deal all day for $20 per adult and $14 per child which if you eat lunch and again before you leave works out very nicely and you get a good choice of food.

Taxis are really good value if there are 4 of you rather than paying busses.
We save $30 dollars by getting a cab both ways to Arabian nights(beer included :beer:) rather than use a tour bus (4 x return fare)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS GUYS - wish i was still there!