Orlando/Disneyworld Thread (Part 3)

judygarland

Well, I just thought I would pass on this information as it seems quite a good deal.

Attraction Tickets Direct are doing a deal in 2010 for £114.00 per person which gives you 1 day at Discovery Cove and then unlimited visits for 14 days at Busch Gardens, Aquatica and Sea World. One person in your party has to do a dolphin swim though which is £174.00 (plus they get BG, A and SW as per the £114 ticket.

The day at Discovery Cove includes breakfast and a buffet lunch too. Seems quite a bargain to me. They reckon this offer has only just been released.

toddy2226

FloFlo wrote: »

The last thing I want to do on holiday with a young child is lots of travelling every day, we tend to travel to where we want to visit for a few days and then move on. Our next trip will be our 6th visit to the USA and I am more than happy with our arrangements.

Like I said people enjoy different ways of holidaying it would be a boring world if we were all the same.

I have been to orlando 6 times ,been without a car for the full 2 weeks, had 1 week with and 1 week without a car ,2weeks with a car
No one holiday was better than the other.
My advice would be plan your holiday best you can wether with or without a car.
And have a great time.:beer:

slowdog

i went earlier in the year to florida with my wife and a couple of friends, the first time for all of us. we had always intended to get a car and changes in circumstances meant we decided against it very shortly before departing. we made use of public transport whilst we were there, so i can offer forth a few pros and cons

pros:
cheap. i mean really cheap. $14 per adult for unlimited 7 day use.
everywhere you could want to go in the area can be got to with little or no problem

cons:
not easy to find places that actually sell the tickets.
routes can be a pain to work out
times of buses, especially late at night, can be limiting
travel time is longer

now, in terms of the cons, these can be worked around to a degree. tickets arent sold everywhere, but that is not to say that they are not sold at all. the routes are a pain, but really, as long as you can get right into the TTC, you won't have a problem. the times are a pain. we would have loved to have gone to a bar in disney boardwalk that had been recommended, but couldnt because of busses. but, looking at it another way, if we had drove, one of us wouldnt have been drinking, so swings and roundabouts on that one.

and with regards to travel time, it depends where your villa is. we were in kissimmee, so getting to universal was a bit of a trek. disney was half an hour away. of course, this is all assuming that you are i na villa. if you are staying in a motel /hotel nearer to everything, then the shuttles and i-ride will do you just fine for the most part, especially if you are a bit clever with the shuttles.

the only real reason you would need a car is if you do plan to go to places further afield. busch includes transport anyway, so thats not a problem. trips to kennedy have the same. so, its just if you want to get to other places. but if you dont, then no-one can say a car is cheaper than public transport. for the two of us, $56 for two weeks transport cannot be beat

FloFlo

judygarland wrote: »

Well, I just thought I would pass on this information as it seems quite a good deal.

Attraction Tickets Direct are doing a deal in 2010 for £114.00 per person which gives you 1 day at Discovery Cove and then unlimited visits for 14 days at Busch Gardens, Aquatica and Sea World. One person in your party has to do a dolphin swim though which is £174.00 (plus they get BG, A and SW as per the £114 ticket.

The day at Discovery Cove includes breakfast and a buffet lunch too. Seems quite a bargain to me. They reckon this offer has only just been released.

I can't find the £114 ticket, do you have a link? Thanks

leew

Alrite guys,

I've just booked to go end of November, just wondering if anyone knows what the weathers like then? Where's the best place for attraction tickets as we've yet to get them or can we just get them when we get there, maybe cheaper that way?

Finally, i'm after a North Face jacket for the winter, do you think i could pick one up on the cheap in Florida? i was going to buy one of the net but thought maybe they are cheaper stateside.


Thanks in advance for anyone who bothers to reply!

ailuro2

Don't know about the North face jacket, but we're going in December and expect the weather to be pretty dry and around 25 celcius.

current temps are available on weather.com and bbc.co.uk/weather and so on... it won't cool that much in a few weeks.

moggitymog

I got a north face jacket in florida in march, can't remember which shopping outlet its either prime outlets or premium outlets, one at each end of i-drive, there was a north face shop and I paid about £60

disney_cjd

Kenny_Powers wrote: »

Having been to the USA about 30 times i have always driven and always made the most of my holidays. This January will be our 8th trip to Florida and im still finding things to do - All of which would be impossible without a car.
I fully agree that everyone is different but i wouldn't even dream of going to Florida without a car.

The czar or no car thing has been done on Part 1, part 2 and now part 3. At the end of the day you can do either and no its not better with or without it all depends on the person travelling and what they are after.

The worst thing is to put someone one who does not want to drive because they are told they have to drive. They simply do not. There are so many places you cna stay and visit and to be honest these are quite as quick without a car as with if you know what you are doing and get the right advice.

However if someone asked me for my view then I would say if you feel comfortable with a car then please get one even if you are staying on Disney property.

So car or no car, do not let it affect your chance of a holiday in teh nest place on earth!

Cheers

disney_cjd

leew wrote: »

Alrite guys,

I've just booked to go end of November, just wondering if anyone knows what the weathers like then? Where's the best place for attraction tickets as we've yet to get them or can we just get them when we get there, maybe cheaper that way?

Finally, i'm after a North Face jacket for the winter, do you think i could pick one up on the cheap in Florida? i was going to buy one of the net but thought maybe they are cheaper stateside.

Thanks in advance for anyone who bothers to reply!

The weather in November is fine. If will go to 45 degrees at night. be careful though as this year we had terrible frosts and killed lots of plants etc so it can get cold. I woudl just take a jumper to be honest - i have never worm jeans of long trousers even in Jan.

Even though they sponsor theshow I woudl still reconmend attraction tickets direct, they price match and you get real tickets but have a look at the front of this thread for the links.

With the current exchange rate around the 1.65's I would think you may not get such a great deal on teh NF jacket, by all means take a look. Also be careful coming home with customs!

Cheers

disney_cjd

judygarland wrote: »

I've been so busy looking at all the theme parks to take the kids to, and my little girl said, are we going to spend any time at the beach? I have no doubt that she will enjoy a day at the beach just as much as a theme park. I know I will.

So, with this in mind, can anywhere recommend a good family beach? The last time I went to Florida and visited a beach there was 1991. I spent some time on Daytona beach but this seemed to be full of cars riding up and down. I've been to Clearwater and Cocoa Beach but cannot remember what they are like.

We are going to be there into the New Year which is the same time of year we went last time and the beaches (from memory) were deserted.

Cheers

If youa re in Orlando then I woudl go for Clearwater as well. Its about 1hr 40 drive and what I woudl suggest is that you head for the Hilton Hotel on the beach in Clearwater. You can buy a day pass for access to the pool, showers and their own private beach! Well worth it in my view. Then if your family like Italian and you want to have probably one of the best meals in the USA then head over to Indian Rocks to a restaurant called Villa Galace. Simply super.

Cheers
Craig