DisneyWorld newbie

[RicksAlfas]

Countdown said:

How does Navigon compare with Navfree? I'll be buying a TomTom so this will just be a backup....

I don't know as I've never used Navfree. The Navigon did the whole "proper" sat nav thing. Turn by turn, street names, speed warnings and so on. I took it instead of a TomTom as I didn't want to be forking out for one I'd only use for two weeks and it worked brilliantly. If you're buying a TomTom you don't need this as well, but you could use this instead of a TomTom. You're not going to remote jungle country, you're going to the most sign posted place known to man!

[Lauryn]

I went with my other half in July for a fortnight this summer - stayed in a 2 bedroom villa (which actually turned out to be a 3 bed), booked flights with extra luggage, meals etc, that came in at £2300 total, plus the car hire was around £350 from memory, so £2650 just for the holiday itself. We bought our own Tom Tom with international maps for less than £100 instead of paying extra to have one included with the car for a small fortune, plus it's ours to keep and can always be sold for a return.

We put £1k each on one of those Thomas Cook cash cards, and then separate money to buy clothes, shoes, gifts etc.

We came back with £400 on the shared card - so it cost us £1600 on fuel, food (eating out every single night and most lunches as well, plus doughnuts and sweets galore), doing all our activities including going to Disney, Universal Studios, Kennedy Space Centre, airboat tours, shooting ranges, cinema trips, big shops for the villa at Walmart that we didn't even need - after 4 days I had to check what we had left because I thought we would have needed to top it up, I can't believe how cheap Florida is!

So really it was just over £4k for 2 adults spending money like it was going out of fashion and having an excellent holiday.

From my experience, tickets wise there are a LOT of the people offering Disney tickets etc for $50 - those are passes they've bought back from people who didn't use the full allocation, it's a little dodgy because they take your fingerprints when you enter the park, I bought one of them unaware but got in absolutely fine. We were recommended all these places to go to get cheaper tickets but in all honesty, buying them at the parks is fine and not much dearer, plus a lot safer. Maybe I'm just too cautious or lazy but shopping around and getting second hand tickets is just a pain, keep it clean and legit in my opinion. We went to Magic Kingdom which was brilliant, the other parks look great but we spent time doing a lot of other things there. Disney is MUCH better than Universal in my eyes.

I can't wait to go back, brilliant place! Your kids will love it.

Edited by Lauryn on Friday 26th October 12:28

[FiF]

Deva Link said:

Countdown said:

Thanks for the offer Roger. Tampa seems a lot further away than Orlando or SFB. Not sure I fancy driving 100 miles plus after a 10 hr flight....

I don't think that journey would faze me - to the main villa areas around SR192 it's probably 80 miles - but I'm always amazed at the people who fly into Miami and drive up to Orlando, that's a long drive and it's *very* boring.

But then people drive up to Scotland after flying overnight into Manchester, or to South Wales having arrived in Heathrow - both seem mental in the extreme to me.

I'd completely agree with Deva Link, iirc Tampa to Indian Ridge Oaks is 1hr 18m, from Sanford is an hour, From MCO is only 32 minutes.

It is a long time since I went through Tampa, but the car hire pickup at Sanford made me swear never to go near the place again.

[Deva Link]

Lauryn said:

Maybe I'm just too cautious or lazy but shopping around and getting second hand tickets is just a pain, keep it clean and legit in my opinion. ]

Even staying onsite with tickets loaded onto our room keys we've had a fair amount of trouble over the years. One year I had a *massive* row at MK - my key didn't work so at the turnstile they referred me to Guest Service. The woman there grabbed the card off me, scanned it and stamped VOID on it, literally threw it me and walked off! That card had about £4500 of value in it, with room, dining plan and park tickets.

Eventually a manager appeared and I went mental. Was ushered into the park and given an unlimited fastpass for the family for the day.

[Roger Woods]

We use this place almost every visit now:

http://www.kgstickets.com/

Well worth a look, DONT buy the cheap tickets from anyone standing outside a supermarket etc - They look for the brits!

[Countdown]

Roger Woods said:

We use this place almost every visit now:

http://www.kgstickets.com/

Well worth a look, DONT buy the cheap tickets from anyone standing outside a supermarket etc - They look for the brits!

Thanks - looks likes a massive saving

How do you use them? Do you pre-order and deliver to UK or drive down and pick them up when you're there ?

[Countdown]

Lauryn said:

I went with my other half in July for a fortnight this summer - stayed in a 2 bedroom villa (which actually turned out to be a 3 bed), booked flights with extra luggage, meals etc, that came in at £2300 total, plus the car hire was around £350 from memory, so £2650 just for the holiday itself. We bought our own Tom Tom with international maps for less than £100 instead of paying extra to have one included with the car for a small fortune, plus it's ours to keep and can always be sold for a return.

We put £1k each on one of those Thomas Cook cash cards, and then separate money to buy clothes, shoes, gifts etc.

We came back with £400 on the shared card - so it cost us £1600 on fuel, food (eating out every single night and most lunches as well, plus doughnuts and sweets galore), doing all our activities including going to Disney, Universal Studios, Kennedy Space Centre, airboat tours, shooting ranges, cinema trips, big shops for the villa at Walmart that we didn't even need - after 4 days I had to check what we had left because I thought we would have needed to top it up, I can't believe how cheap Florida is!

So really it was just over £4k for 2 adults spending money like it was going out of fashion and having an excellent holiday.

From my experience, tickets wise there are a LOT of the people offering Disney tickets etc for $50 - those are passes they've bought back from people who didn't use the full allocation, it's a little dodgy because they take your fingerprints when you enter the park, I bought one of them unaware but got in absolutely fine. We were recommended all these places to go to get cheaper tickets but in all honesty, buying them at the parks is fine and not much dearer, plus a lot safer. Maybe I'm just too cautious or lazy but shopping around and getting second hand tickets is just a pain, keep it clean and legit in my opinion. We went to Magic Kingdom which was brilliant, the other parks look great but we spent time doing a lot of other things there. Disney is MUCH better than Universal in my eyes.

I can't wait to go back, brilliant place! Your kids will love it.

Edited by Lauryn on Friday 26th October 12:28

Thanks

Yes - I'm budgeting along similar lines (about £2k-£2.5k per head). Don't think my youngest two will be the problem but my wife and eldest daughter Do like to shop Not sure if I'll be able to go back within 3-5 years so I'm intending on making it "one to remember" :smile:

[Countdown]

RicksAlfas said:

Countdown said:

How does Navigon compare with Navfree? I'll be buying a TomTom so this will just be a backup....

I don't know as I've never used Navfree. The Navigon did the whole "proper" sat nav thing. Turn by turn, street names, speed warnings and so on. I took it instead of a TomTom as I didn't want to be forking out for one I'd only use for two weeks and it worked brilliantly. If you're buying a TomTom you don't need this as well, but you could use this instead of a TomTom. You're not going to remote jungle country, you're going to the most sign posted place known to man!

I'm an absolute control freak when it comes to travel (should have had a career in Logistics I think ). At the moment the plan is

TomTom USA
NavFree on IPhone
Hard copy "Orlando Map" thingy as referred to by an earlier poster.

[Countdown]

Hi all

Can anybody recommend good villa rental sites?

TIA

[Tophatron]

Countdown said:

Hi all

Can anybody recommend good villa rental sites?

TIA

http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/ is a good one.

For Florida villas it's also worth having a look on http://www.thedibb.co.uk/ as there are many villa owners on the forum.

[Roger Woods]

Countdown said:

Thanks - looks likes a massive saving

How do you use them? Do you pre-order and deliver to UK or drive down and pick them up when you're there ?

We call them up and pre order via Credit Card and then pop round to pick the passes up, all very easy

[Roger Woods]

Countdown said:

Hi all

Can anybody recommend good villa rental sites?

TIA

Try www.loyaltyusa.com They look after ours (Minnies Mansion) and have some great homes that they look after.

We are also on Owners direct - Villa F1895

[Stewart-83]

http://www.vrbo.com/vacation-rentals/usa/florida/c...

That's another one to look at.


I was married in Orlando (nice hotel, not Disney resort) in March this year, 44 friends and family came over. I went to quite a number of villas that trip!

The standard is generally VERY high but prices can vary wildly due to age of villa and location. I tend to opt for a newer villa in a slightly quieter location with well spaced villas. Some can be quite close together in certain areas. You could consider something with a couple of master suites to aid getting ready in the morning!

We flew into Miami and drove up (stayed in an airport hotel overnight) as I know the drive is fairly boring - done it before. This isn't something I'd consider with kids.
My parents flew internally from Miami to Orlando and said it was a total faff. They wouldn't do it again (both are very seasoned travelers)and only did it as my sister and niece were with them.
Tampa is a nice easy drive up to Orlando and I'd look at that if it's saving cash - potentially the price of a hire car for the duration for you.

I hired a car through Avis and got the 'preferred card' - What a revelation! No queues and straight to the garage and in a car within 5 mins. I also got a free upgrade (although this was maybe as the Americans seemed genuinely happy we'd traveled from Scotland to get married in their country) from a generic mustang to a Camaro SS which cost 3 times as much!

Edited by Stewart-83 on Tuesday 30th October 02:48

[Deva Link]

Countdown said:

Roger Woods said:

We use this place almost every visit now:

http://www.kgstickets.com/

Well worth a look, DONT buy the cheap tickets from anyone standing outside a supermarket etc - They look for the brits!

Thanks - looks likes a massive saving

How do you use them? Do you pre-order and deliver to UK or drive down and pick them up when you're there ?

Which do you think are a lot cheaper? Bear in mind those prices are plus tax.

For anyone who is having a mainly Disney focussed holiday I always suggest just biting the bullet and buying the Ultimate tickets which are only available in the UK.

You really don't want a limited numer of days ticket, only to arrive at a park and it's rammed for some reason, or the weather's crap, or one of you is having an off day. With an Ultimate ticket you can chop and change your arrangments without it being a financial disaster, and you can go for a few hours, perhaps in an evening, without feeling that you've wasted a day of the ticket.

[Countdown]

Deva Link said:

Which do you think are a lot cheaper? Bear in mind those prices are plus tax.

The 7-day "Magic Your way" are coming out at $1710, which is roughly £1,200 at current exchange rates? AFAICS similar tickets through Thomson/Virgin are £1,700 sterling. Thats £275 for 5 adults (>9) and 1 child.

For anyone who is having a mainly Disney focussed holiday I always suggest just biting the bullet and buying the Ultimate tickets which are only available in the UK.

Deva Link said:

You really don't want a limited numer of days ticket, only to arrive at a park and it's rammed for some reason, or the weather's crap, or one of you is having an off day. With an Ultimate ticket you can chop and change your arrangments without it being a financial disaster, and you can go for a few hours, perhaps in an evening, without feeling that you've wasted a day of the ticket.

Fair point. Tickets will be the last thing I get as there doesn't seem to be the same level of advance purcahse required.

[ChrisBMW]

For someone visitng for the first time and wanting to spend a lot of time in all of the parks I think that you just have to accept that it is going to be very expensive, Disney is crazy money with Universal being much better value. Having been 10 times we find Disney now to be overated and usually only spend one day in either Aminal Kingdom or Holywood Studios.

The Universal Flex park plus ticket is very good value, I think we paid around £180 for them each last year and that got us in to Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure, Bush Gardens, Sea World, Aquatica as many times as we liked over the two week stay. On the really busy days we just added a fast pass as we needed.

I understand that a lot of people go purely for Disney but when compared with Universal it is a very expensive place to visit.

[Deva Link]

Countdown said:

The 7-day "Magic Your way" are coming out at $1710, which is roughly £1,200 at current exchange rates? AFAICS similar tickets through Thomson/Virgin are £1,700 sterling. Thats £275 for 5 adults (>9) and 1 child.

That $1710 will be plus tax, which I think is 6.5%.

I suppose looking at 7 days distorts it a bit - for years Disney has sold the 14 day Ultimate pass for the same price as 7. Their current price (on WDW UK) is £252 for adults and £232 for kids. That does also include water park admission and park hopper which you may or may not find useful.

So you're really looking at a difference of £200, which across 6 people and 2 weeks would be an absolute no-brainer to me. But YMMV.

[Olf]

For anyone thinking of Disney - this looks like the weekend to book. I'm living in the States at the moment but just saved £2k on a holiday by booking via the UK disney websites given the ticket and meal deals they are doing.

[Deva Link]

Olf said:

For anyone thinking of Disney - this looks like the weekend to book. I'm living in the States at the moment but just saved £2k on a holiday by booking via the UK disney websites given the ticket and meal deals they are doing.

The deals have been available for months - the last one finished maybe a month ago and this one replaced it. It does expire tomorrow though and based on past history that's probably it for free dining for 2013.


The differences between the UK & US deals does amaze me though - OK, Americans usually go for shorter periods than we do, but I can't believe how much it costs them.

Personally, having done Disney Dining a couple of times, I'd rather just get a good price on the accommodation and pay as I go for food. Normally we'd have booked for next year by now, but I just thought it was coming out too expensive and felt bounced into the Dining plan which I don't want.

[Olf]

Deva Link said:

Dining plan which I don't want.

What don't you like about it?