Orlando/Disneyworld Thread (Part 3)

maemaesmummy

How old are the kids?

We have stayed at the Lowes at Miami Beach and the Seminole Hard Rock in hollywood, Ft Lauderdale.

Miami is quite limited for younger kids I find and very expensive compared to Orlando for hotels and food.

maemaesmummy

Not a lot to do in the Keys either imo..it's great to say you have been but not a lot of anything to do.

How about Clearwater/St Petes, they have a bit more to do for kiddies

meer53

salmakent25 wrote: »

Hi I'm going for 2 weeks with my 2 kids - 1 week to Disney World Resort Orlando and then on a road trip to Miami. Can anyone recommend any kid friendly places to stay in Miami or should we steer clear? The keys maybe? Thanks

Depends on how old your kids are. If they're old enough to appreciate Disney/Universal you'll have a hard job dragging them away after a week.

We've not been to Miami or The Keys but have been to St Petes/Clearwater. My niece lives in Miami but there is no way i can convince my 12 year old to spend any time there when we go to Orlando ! She will tolerate a day or 2 in Tampa though with my friend as it's not such a long drive.

We find the beaches fantastic but last time we went, it was way too hot to spend any length of time at the beach, bear it in mind, depending on when, and if, you go of course.

fergee

Hi Guys, Please forgive my ignorance but I'm looking to book for either next Easter or Summer and was hoping perhaps that someone may help me filter out a good deal. We are a family of 4, 2 kids aged 14 and 12 and would like to go for 2 weeks, would prefer flydrive and a villa but I'm not against staying in resort. i have looked at the disneygo website and have been trying to price up flights but cant really get anything for under £800 each. The cost of flights alone makes the disney package look good by comparison. Any suggestions?:)

meer53

fergee wrote: »

Hi Guys, Please forgive my ignorance but I'm looking to book for either next Easter or Summer and was hoping perhaps that someone may help me filter out a good deal. We are a family of 4, 2 kids aged 14 and 12 and would like to go for 2 weeks, would prefer flydrive and a villa but I'm not against staying in resort. i have looked at the disneygo website and have been trying to price up flights but cant really get anything for under £800 each. The cost of flights alone makes the disney package look good by comparison. Any suggestions?:)

Hi, i'm sure you've realised that your kids will be classed as adults now ? If you're looking for Easter or school holidays you'll struggle to get anything "cheap" we're going in July 2013 and are paying £900 each for flights with Virgin. We haven't really searched much for flights as we've booked with Charter Travel (been with them before) and always seem to get a good deal. Flights, villa and car for 2 weeks is £4820 in the 6 week holidays. Thats 2 adults and 2 kids aged 13 and 15.

Have you looked on TheDibb site ? Lots of advice available on there.

123budget

fergee wrote: »

Hi Guys, Please forgive my ignorance but I'm looking to book for either next Easter or Summer and was hoping perhaps that someone may help me filter out a good deal. We are a family of 4, 2 kids aged 14 and 12 and would like to go for 2 weeks, would prefer flydrive and a villa but I'm not against staying in resort. i have looked at the disneygo website and have been trying to price up flights but cant really get anything for under £800 each. The cost of flights alone makes the disney package look good by comparison. Any suggestions?:)

Hi
We are a family of five (kids aged 19,17 and 11) and have just come back. obviously school holidays are more expensive and all the theme parks will be busy but with school/college aged children it is the only time you can go. We have been twice before and gone for fly drive with Virgin this time we booked with Florida4Less an online group affiliated to coop travel. We found they were cheaper but you end up on a charter flight not scheduled. That meant our plane was smaller, the flight longer and we flew into Sandford rather than Orlando International (we prefer Sandford as it's much smaller). We had a 4 bed villa, with pool and games room(which was just a pool table in the garage which was too hot to go in) and it was at Southern Dunes in Haines City. Although the brochure said 20-25 mins from park, with heavy traffic it was a good 1/2 hour so another time we would prob go for a villa in Kissimmee area. Flight, Villa and hire car came to about £6000 - bear in mind all had to pay adult prices and we also upgraded the car. On top of that you will have park prices and food (the exchange rate wasn't great for us so eating out wasn't cheap)

dmurray0

We are not long back. Booked via Ocean Florida and stayed in Calabay Parc. We are a family of 5, 2 adults and 3 kids 8,6,6. The holiday went really well and we have booked already for next year. This time however we booked it all ourselves. Flying from Dublin next June we got the flights from Delta via Opodo for £2000 all in for the 5 of us. The car hire is free as we converted our Clubcard points to Avios and already have 135,00 points thanks to Tesco and the points we got via British Airways when they flew us to Orlando. The villa is working out at just over £1000 for 16 nights,staying at West Haven this time.Its 2 minutes form Champion's Gate, so all in all just over £3000 for a party of 5 for 16 nights. Massive saving doing it ourselves from what we paid a few weeks back via an agent.:j:beer:

Nan63

fergee wrote: »

Hi Guys, Please forgive my ignorance but I'm looking to book for either next Easter or Summer and was hoping perhaps that someone may help me filter out a good deal. We are a family of 4, 2 kids aged 14 and 12 and would like to go for 2 weeks, would prefer flydrive and a villa but I'm not against staying in resort. i have looked at the disneygo website and have been trying to price up flights but cant really get anything for under £800 each. The cost of flights alone makes the disney package look good by comparison. Any suggestions?:)

http://wdtc.disneyinternational.com/

Have you tried this website? For a One bed villa in Disney's Old Key West for 2 weeks, it's coming in at about £4k for the summer hols which sounds expensive but it does include your Disney park tickets and free dining (1 x counter meal, 1 x table meal, 1 x snack per day).

Still be working out about £6k though when you add flights but I love the convenience of being on-site and the free dining offer is a godsend.

tonymc

fergee wrote: »

Hi Guys, Please forgive my ignorance but I'm looking to book for either next Easter or Summer and was hoping perhaps that someone may help me filter out a good deal. We are a family of 4, 2 kids aged 14 and 12 and would like to go for 2 weeks, would prefer flydrive and a villa but I'm not against staying in resort. i have looked at the disneygo website and have been trying to price up flights but cant really get anything for under £800 each. The cost of flights alone makes the disney package look good by comparison. Any suggestions?:)

Have you considered indirect flights, and the option of flying into/out of Tampa (around an hours drive to Orlando)? For the Easter holidays, dep Sat 23rd March returning Sat 6th April, cheapest direct appears to be around £860 from this site. Just checked on Expedia and same dates from Heathrow to Tampa, out via Detroit and return via Atlanta with Delta is £544, saving you around £1,200 for four (should cover the cost of Disney tickets plus some left over!!!).

Also from Expedia, LHR to Orlando for roughly the same price and same dates, and you can add on accommodation - a family suite at Blue Heron Resort added to the flights comes in at a total of £3,550 for the four of you.



For the same dates, accommodation at a Disney Value resort is around £1,400, moderates from £2,000 for the fortnight. You should be able to get a villa for less. Add on car rental around £250 and good to go.

Prices for August flights will generally be available around 330 days (11 months) from your return flight date although BA are available now - around £850-£900 for direct flights from Gatwick.

HTH.

meer53

dmurray0 wrote: »

We are not long back. Booked via Ocean Florida and stayed in Calabay Parc. We are a family of 5, 2 adults and 3 kids 8,6,6. The holiday went really well and we have booked already for next year. This time however we booked it all ourselves. Flying from Dublin next June we got the flights from Delta via Opodo for £2000 all in for the 5 of us. The car hire is free as we converted our Clubcard points to Avios and already have 135,00 points thanks to Tesco and the points we got via British Airways when they flew us to Orlando. The villa is working out at just over £1000 for 16 nights,staying at West Haven this time.Its 2 minutes form Champion's Gate, so all in all just over £3000 for a party of 5 for 16 nights. Massive saving doing it ourselves from what we paid a few weeks back via an agent.:j:beer:

We've been to WestHaven before and are going again next year. We stayed on The Shire, next year we're staying on The Hamlet. It's a nice development.