Great "Cheap Holidays & Excursions" Hunt: Orlando

hatcheth

Regarding Car Hire, whoever we seem to book through we always end up with Dollar!

Some tricks we have learn't:
1. The queue at the dollar desk in MCO is sometimes 2 hours long. If you join their club, I think its dollar express then you can queue jump. I believe its free.
2. Prepaid vouchers with Dollar always state that you must buy a tank of fuel and return empty. The cost of the fule is about 30% higher than the average price and no one ever returns empty - so you lose out twice. However, if you read the terms and conditions, it says "if you accepted to pre pay for fuel" so you have the right to say no thanks. Dollar staff will try to sting you for this, so be prepared to argue. It took me 3 different people to take it off, finally they relented. Saved us about $ 30...
3. When booking your villa, ask if its south facing. It really makes a huge difference having a south facing one vs north..

Stephen

jockosjungle

Think whether you actually need a car!

I stay on the N end of International Drive, within walking distance of Universal (or a free shuttle), a cheap trolley car to SeaWorld (about a $1) and free shuttles to Disney from the hotel. If your hotel doesn't have a free shuttle to Disney, walk to a hotel that does and get on theirs.

Also don't waste money on water bottles from Disney, Walmart or anywhere. All parks have ample drinking fountains all round which you can either drink out of or fill up a bottle for free. Also saves carrying around a bottle of water.

Plenty of decent hotels for less than £20 a night on Expedia when we were looking. going in December this year

Try and avoid school holidays, get good deals in September I've found and queues in the parks are non-existent

R

dizzybee

anyone know best way to get to wall mart from international drive please we wont be hiring a car so was wondering if there was a trolley bus or best to get a cab?thanks

babymoneyblagger

If you have a birthday whilst there then get a birthday badge from one of the customer service windows and the cast members (and other members of the public) will usually say happy birthday - we went to Florida last year and had 2 birthdays, I went to beaches & cream (they do the kitchen sink) in epcot for a birthday treat and everyone sang happy birthday to me, never gone as red as that before

ScittyPopBicks

bigwedgie wrote: »

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.

Wow, what villa was it you stayed at? Would like more info on that, as were a family of 9 we need a good size villa with pool heating! (whitch adds up a chunk of money after many weeks)
:beer:

ber25

We went to florida last year, staying 1 week in Orlando and 1 week in Miami. We booked through Dialaflight- The flight, car hire and first week accomodation were cheapest through them (including virgin flights!)- the 2nd week accommodation was cheaper directly from Virgin holidays website. My friend also booked her Virgin Flight to Orlando via Thomas Cook the year before, again it was cheaper than going direct to Virgin!

Our favourite money saver was the Go Miami Card- we bought this before we went and it gives free entry to lots of attractions. There is also a Go Orlando version, and it includes places like Kennedy Space Centre, Ridleys World of Weird things (or whatever it's called!), Go Cars, museums, crazy golf, discount on eating out, all sorts (not disney!). Look at the website (im new so can't post but google "Go Orlando"), work out how many of the attractions you would do anyway, look at how much you'd spend with and without the card, and buy if it works for you! We especially liked it on the day it rained in Miami, and randomly went to a few attractions to pass the time before we could hit the beach again!

I'll try to find the websites we booked our theme park tickets through- they were great value!

boardwitless

If you have kids under 11 (especially boys with big appetites) you MUST get one of these cards as they are worth their weight in gold

Go to

americanattractions dot co dot uk forward slash kidseatfree.php



(couldn't post link)



We had one a couple of years ago and it had paid for itself in the first couple of days at places like Ponderosa, CC's Pizza, Sizzlers etc. I see McDonalds is on there now - this is a more recent addition.
They also were not dated so couldbe used again or with someone else visiting........

For drinking water in the parks - take an empty 500ml botle and refill from water fountains :-)
Have fun!

sue2

Fiona_T wrote: »

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:

Hi there,

We found this fab villa by dm villa rentals florida its gorg. and does good prices too its worth a look. 2 mins in the car to restuarants and shops also Disney was only 10 minutes drive. They have a south facing pool and jacuzzi. I want to go back now it was amazingly relaxing.
Thanks Sue

jules_out_of_debt

Hi. I'm going to Orlando this summer with my hubby and 4 kids. We found this year that Disney tickets had become much more expensive since our last visit 2 years a go when we paid £180 for 21 day ultimate ticket (adult). This year the cheapest 21 day ultimate ticket I could find online was £240! As we booked through a travel agent I went to them and asked if they could do any better than this price. They came back at £199 (yey!)

For Universal tickets, I have found that Universal (online) seems to be the cheapest. Search for Universal Orlando and you'll get their website. Click on the park tickets link and take a look. They are currently doing a 7 day 2 park unlimited ticket for $99.99. Beware - don't click on the UK residents link as the price goes up to $119.95 for adults, though it is for 14 days rather than 7, but you really won't need 14 days at Universal.

Seaworld tickets from Seaworld online seems to be the cheapest too, with their current offer of adults go at kids prices (and I think this includes a 2nd day free).

As we're staying in a villa we will have most breakfasts there, and will take a picnic lunch with us most days (tho' beware some parks don't allow cool bags - we will each take an individual bag with our own lunch instead). This will save us a lot of money on eating out. As someone has already said, take your own bottled water in to the park with you as it is much cheaper (and if you have a freezer, freeze a bottle of water and put it with your packed lunch for the parks where you can't take cool bags, it will keep your lunch cool and will slowly melt so that you have a nice ice cold drink!)

Can't wait to get out there again! :T
Ju

Fiona_T

sue2 wrote: »

Hi there,

We found this fab villa by dm villa rentals florida its gorg. and does good prices too its worth a look. 2 mins in the car to restuarants and shops also Disney was only 10 minutes drive. They have a south facing pool and jacuzzi. I want to go back now it was amazingly relaxing.
Thanks Sue

can you send me some more details?