My onsite Disney days are coming to an end

[captainkidd]

Not sure what it is, but the past couple of days I've come to the realization that if we are to continue going to Disney, it will be off-site. We've been very lucky in the past with discounts and bounceback offers, but none seem to be coming for next year (though it is still early.)

As a family of 5, our options are limited. And since we have to go in July, when prices are very high, it makes it that much worse.

I'm just having a difficult time justifying to myself spending nearly $7,000 to stay at the Poly, when I could stay offsite for 1/4 of the price. We could do the All Star Suites, but in the summer, those are even $300 per night. Riverside is an option, but the rooms are way too small for a family of 5, and the bus transportation, especially when crowded, absolutely sucks. 2 rooms at a Value Resort in the summer would be over $300 per night. The fact is, Disney simply doesn't offer enough affordable options for larger families.

I was looking online last night, and we could all take a 10 day Carnival Cruise, everything but booze included, for about $3,000. We could spend 2 weeks in a 2 bedroom condo on the water in Aruba for $2,000. When you start seeing things like that, you can't help but ask yourself, is Disney simply getting too expensive?

 

[Disney Family 5]

Have you thought about renting an RV for those 2 weeks? We also are a family of 5 and we love staying at Fort Wilderness. Gas sucks but we do end up saving in the long run because we eat the majority of our meals in the RV. I quoted out 2 weeks in the middle of July 2011 and with a 10 day ticket with hopper and water parks and a preferred parking spot it is less then $3,000. Of course that is 2 adults and 3 children so 5 adults would be higher.....but it is still a thought.

 

[NadieMasK2]

I feel ya on this. We only have 2 kids but they are older and the oldest now has a serious significant other. Having 5 near adults in one room just doesn't work. Fortunately Orlando is full of luxury condo options, and don't believe that your trip will be any less magical. You might find it more enjoyable just because everyone has room to stretch out and you're not all on top of each other, and having 2 bathrooms is nice! I'd look into Bonnet Creek, Celebration World Resort (off of 192 west of I4, near AK), Windsor Hills just to start.

 

[mickeymaniacs]

We also stay at Emerald Island and love it. We got a 7 bed 6 bath house and it cost us $548 per family. There were 4 families that went. It was 5000 sq ft with private pool. We won't stay on site because of the cost. Check out vrbo.com they have some beautiful homes and great deals

 

[DisneyJoe]

We also stay at Emerald Island and love it. We got a 7 bed 6 bath house and it cost us $548 per family. There were 4 families that went. It was 5000 sq ft with private pool. We won't stay on site because of the cost. Check out vrbo.com they have some beautiful homes and great deals

Did you drive your own cars or rent?

 

[Blueliner]

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. We stayed off site for our 08 Easter visit. I'll never do it again. We would rather go less often to keep the onsite magic.

HB

I'll second that, almost, because I won't completely rule out another off-site visit.

We have a family of 7 (plus usually bring granparents with us), and we typically go the weekend and half-week before Thanksgiving (Fri-Wed). We generally have gotten two rooms at Pop Century (one of the kids is under 3).

One year, to save money, we rented a house (as I recall, in that Formosa Gardens area). It was very spacious, well-kept, and inexpensive. Moreover, hopping in the car and driving from the rental house to the parks was as fast as waiting for and taking a bus from Pop Century to the parks. We had some annual passes, so we did not pay for parking. In other words, for all objective purposes, it was "better" than staying on-site.

We decided we were going to go the off-site house route for this Thanksgiving to save money. However, when it came time to pull the trigger, we decided to stay on-site. Somehow, being crammed in two overpriced (as compared to off-site options) Value Resort rooms, coupled with the buses to the parks, makes our trip more of a "complete" vacation, if that makes any sense.

In other words, Disney has us right where it wants us.

DVC rental points looks like a good option for the next trip, assuming we do enough advance planning.

 

[Pioneer Hall]

Don't the "Value" villas at AKL only sleep 4?

The values do, but the standard do not. I just looked at the 2011 point chart that I created (I like to look at everything comparatively and suprisingly Disney doesn't offer that). The two best values you could look at for five would be AKL Standard and OKW. The will run you 456 and 444 points accordingly. If you were to rent at the average price of 10 dollars a point it would cost you significantly less that your Polynesian stay and give you a lot more space. You may even be able to find someone who is renting at less of price considering how many points you need.

 

[captainkidd]

The values do, but the standard do not. I just looked at the 2011 point chart that I created (I like to look at everything comparatively and suprisingly Disney doesn't offer that). The two best values you could look at for five would be AKL Standard and OKW. The will run you 456 and 444 points accordingly. If you were to rent at the average price of 10 dollars a point it would cost you significantly less that your Polynesian stay and give you a lot more space. You may even be able to find someone who is renting at less of price considering how many points you need.

Thanks for finding that out for me. OKW I'll never stay at again. Hated it. I'd definitely give AKL a shot. Guess it's just a question of trying for that or waiting for an AP rate to come out. It's a risk....

 

[sueuk]

While it's great to stay onsite; and we will while we can; we've also had 4 fabulous holidays in rental villas only 10 - 15 mins from the Maingate. We had 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and our own pool for less than £800 for 2 weeks. We get a fly drive flight. On these holidays we saw more of the area and other Parks and attractions than when we stay onsite.
Staying offsite you need to factor in daily car parking charges at the parks, not being able to go back easily to your resort mid day, extra gas, and the biggie - dining (the 'free' DDP helps make onsite more affordable). Both holidays are good in different ways.

 

[spoodles]

captainkidd I hear exactly what you're saying. I'm the Dad of a family of 5 and it is frustrating that WDW (and much of the rest of the world for that matter) seems set up for families of 4. My addiction to WDW developed while staying at moderates in my younger years. This became the sugar in the WDW Kool-Aid I was drinking.

Last trip ('08) we caught a 40% pin and got adjoining rooms at Pop. It was OK, but the Value experience was not the same for me personally.

First trip with kids was in '05 when we stayed offsite at Nick Suites, which was just being finished. I gotta say, I found the Nick experience to be a constant conflict with the WDW state of mind I wanted to be in -- I just didn't go to WDW for Spongebob and slime.

I know there are some onsite options, but as you pointed out they're all expensive compared to offsite options. And my sister-in-law and her husband just bought their retirement home practically within walking distance, making it all that much harder to justify staying onsite. Of course there are worse things in the world, but it does bug me to realize we may never stay onsite again.

 

[Pioneer Hall]

Thanks for finding that out for me. OKW I'll never stay at again. Hated it. I'd definitely give AKL a shot. Guess it's just a question of trying for that or waiting for an AP rate to come out. It's a risk....

There is an element of risk to anything, it's really a matter of finding your confort zone and committing. If you need assistance, I will be happy to help you out with the point issues. I know that we don't really work those transactions here, so I will point you to places I know that are reputable for renting if you so choose. Feel free to PM if you want...my old travel agent habits come out when it comes to peoples vacations. Always gotta strive to make people enjoy their trips as much as possible.

 

[durangojim]

Capt. Kidd, we're in a similar situation as you except instead of staying off site, we're considering just visiting less. We usually go 3-4x per year and stay at deluxes. This year we stayed at at the WL and BC, but then stayed at Pop for one of our trips. Next year we will only go twice, but have decided to still stay on property. I've already booked our first vacation for May 2011 staying at WL for 3 nights and BC for 6 with the AAA discount (10% and 15%) respectively. We're really hoping for an AP discount for our dates of 40% (which would save us well over $1000) but we realize for us that part of our enjoyment of going to Disney is staying at Disney and remain immersed in the magic. We'll take a second trip next year in December but have already decided to stay at Pop for a week (this is something we wouldn't have even considered a couple years ago). If the economy doesn't rebound and Disney continues to raise prices we will likely just go to WDW once in 2012 but still stay at a deluxe. We are hopeful that due to the trends for the past seven years, AP discounts will still be available. I can't imagine Disney not offering them even though the economy is still in the can. I think whatever Disney executive who stated that discounts would be decreased was assuming that the economy would be greatly improved by next year, and that hasn't happened. To sum up, I just couldn't see myself staying off site.