Orlando/Disneyworld Thread (Part 3)

laurieshrimp

Hi
Sorry to be a pain.
Off to Florida on a tight budget.did not realise the Disney etc tickets were so much.Still being new to it still trying to understand the workings
anyway looking around we are there for a week want to do a few days at Disney and a day at universal.Seems a combo ticket is best?
About £365 each for 4 of us.
If anyone knows better or has been there and knows the drill would be very grateful
thks in advance for your help
laurie

rabbit_burrow

You would be better off buying them separately if you only want a day at universal (this is what I do, I buy my seaworld tickets on th US site)

Unfortunately, UK sites seem set to selling the multi-day tickets.

I would strongly recommend getting the UK visitors tickets for Disney though if you plan on hopping between parks on the same day. But if you are happy to stay in one park on each day, and you don't want to use the water parks (blizzard beach & typhoon lagoon), then a Magic Your Way ticket might be the best bet.

If you DO go for the Disney tickets for UK visitors, you can get the 7-day hopper for £248 Adults (age 10+) £228 Child (3-9). It is £7 per person to get the 14 day access but you won't need that if you're only doing a few days.

The Universal tickets, on universalorlando.com are Adult: $128+tax of $10.47(about £95), Child: $122+tax of $10.08(about £91)

The universal tickets I have quoted are 1-day 2-park tickets (entry to universal studios and islands if adventure on one day only), and are standard (don't include express line access). You can opt for the 'print at home' delivery, which is what I choose to do as delivery to the UK is ridiculous. You just print off the tickets (seaworld send a PDF attachment) and take them to the gate with you.

Depending on what tickets you need to buy (you haven't given the ages of travellers), even if you had 4 adults, you would be paying a total of approx. £1372 instead of £1460.

If you are looking at 2 adults and 2 children (aged 3-9) then it would be around £1324. 3 adults (if you have a child aged 10 plus) and 1 child then you are looking at around £1348.

I buy my disney tickets from disney, I always look around, but never find it cheaper and I will only buy from authorised dealers.

rabbit_burrow

Forgot to mention that the Magic Your Way tickets (base tickets, not including the park hopper premiums, water park premium etc) are around $300 for Adult 4 day pass (1 park per day, around £210) and around $280 for Child 4 day pass as above (age 3-9, around £195). I have included the tax rate in those prices to help.

rabbit_burrow

KarenG wrote: »

In brief, my example is OKW in a studio for two adults and two children (though they are Disney adults, now). Last trip (usually August, always school holidays) we paid £119/night. That then carried free DDP for the four of us. We then stayed for a further two weeks in two other DVC resorts with no DDP and used our TIW card (though we also used it with free DDP for drinks etc). By that point though, we were fully happy to go offsite for a lot of meals. We would already have bough cereal, milk, fruit for the room.


Agree in the tips, but we'd pay those whether DDP was free or if we were paying OOP (though I agree the tips are greater with DDP, but it still doesn't come close to eroding the free DDP value for us).

What I meant when mentioning the tips, is with DDP you have to pay tips on top. With the TiW card, the discount more than covers the tip so you end up paying a little less than the original bill and your tip is covered.

For example, say your bill comes to $100 (not including tax):

On DDP, the bill is covered (around $107 incl. tax), but you pay $18 tip.
Using TiW, the bill is reduced to $80 plus $18 tip (around $103 incl. tax).

Doesn't look like a huge saving, but when you factor in the fact that my kids sometimes share an adult meal to get some variety, and we share an appetizer and dessert for more flexibility, it just doesn't work out worth it for us. ON DDP, the kids have to choose from kids menu where there is one (so they end up with a choice of pizza/nuggets/burger in general for both lunch and dinner), and as one adult doesn't eat dessert it is another waste so our bill is never truly covered by the plan.

If you always want to eat the more expensive choice on the menu (steak, steak, steak) and you eat desserts and are happy for the kids to eat pretty much the same stuff for 2 meals a day for 2 weeks, then yes, I totally agree that the DDP might be worth it.

We are not one those groups.

Incidentally, where did you manage to get OKW for that price? I have looked high and low (a studio is no good for us, but I assume they have 1br/2br to book too?)

laurieshrimp

thanks for the help
really good stuff

rabbit_burrow

You're welcome

polythenegirl

HI Guys

We're off to Orlando at the end of August. We are doing 4 days in Orlando then a Royal Caribbean cruise and then 4 days in Orlando again.

We're trying to arrange transfers from the hotel to the cruise ship and we've been recommended Orlando Carriers by the hotel...

Anyone used them? Any feedback?

KarenG

Disney UK, but there were a number of places offering that price. Charter Travel and Ocean Florida also did it. If I remember well, we only paid £104 in August '11 and £96 in August '10. That included food for all four of us - With free DDP. I couldn't get close to that saving even with my DVC points. Alas the days of DDP which included app and tip being just a distant memory

KarenG

rabbit_burrow wrote: »

What I meant when mentioning the tips, is with DDP you have to pay tips on top. With the TiW card, the discount more than covers the tip so you end up paying a little less than the original bill and your tip is covered.

For example, say your bill comes to $100 (not including tax):

On DDP, the bill is covered (around $107 incl. tax), but you pay $18 tip.
Using TiW, the bill is reduced to $80 plus $18 tip (around $103 incl. tax).

Doesn't look like a huge saving, but when you factor in the fact that my kids sometimes share an adult meal to get some variety, and we share an appetizer and dessert for more flexibility, it just doesn't work out worth it for us. ON DDP, the kids have to choose from kids menu where there is one (so they end up with a choice of pizza/nuggets/burger in general for both lunch and dinner), and as one adult doesn't eat dessert it is another waste so our bill is never truly covered by the plan.

If you always want to eat the more expensive choice on the menu (steak, steak, steak) and you eat desserts and are happy for the kids to eat pretty much the same stuff for 2 meals a day for 2 weeks, then yes, I totally agree that the DDP might be worth it.

We are not one those groups.

Incidentally, where did you manage to get OKW for that price? I have looked high and low (a studio is no good for us, but I assume they have 1br/2br to book too?)

I did totally understand what you said, but I don't agree with your viewpoint at all. But, clearly each family should do its own sums and work out if Free DDP works for them or not. I think it probably does for many (based on the annual hysteria on Disney forums as to whether it will still be offered or not!)

As an aside, I am not a fan at all of DDP if its paid for. Again, some people feel they get value in doing this - it definitely wouldn't work for us.

rabbit_burrow

KarenG wrote: »

Disney UK, but there were a number of places offering that price. Charter Travel and Ocean Florida also did it. If I remember well, we only paid £104 in August '11 and £96 in August '10. That included food for all four of us - With free DDP. I couldn't get close to that saving even with my DVC points. Alas the days of DDP which included app and tip being just a distant memory

Oh yes, when it first started and included the appetiser and tips, and adult cost was around $35 per day. Now THAT was worth paying for.

Obviously if you can get the room for about £1400 including DDP, ten it might be a bargain. If our hols are in a studio (which we just don't do anymore) then we can get away with using just 1 years points meaning that 2 weeks with DDP would be around £2000, definitely worth doing with that kind of saving. I'll have to check again for my next hol. Going to BLT (TPV) and AKL (SV) this time, I don't think I could've done it cheaper.