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Daily December-->January - WDW hotels & me
What is my best and most effective secret for affordable, staying-on-site trips to WDW? (for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kaelie)
I am delighted to answer this question today, as it was 9/-13 degrees this morning when I dropped BabyBoy off at school and my 8:30 call kind of blew up into a screaming match between Dev and Client Implementations. Disney World is a much better topic!
That being said, I wish there was one magic bullet I could give you to save money on on-site hotels, but it's more like a combo platter and I generally spend a bit of time crunching numbers for options on each trip.
First of all, there are more than a dozen hotels owned/operated by Disney, and, unlike Disneyland in CA, the outside hotels, even if they bill themselves as being 'next to Disney' or 'Maingate adjacent' are not particularly close (this is because Disney owns a ridiculous number of square miles of property, and thus a hotel might be a mile away from Disney and yet still be another 6 miles away from the parking lot at Magic Kingdom. (To be fair, some of the Disney hotels are also that 6 miles away from MK, but that mile outside WDW proper is going to be through some brutal traffic.)
There are some non-Disney owned/operated hotels physically located within the WDW gates; I will cover them in a bit, because they are sometimes an excellent choice.
Unfortunately, for hotels inside the automagical Disney bubble, the sad truth is that it will *always* be cheaper to find an equivalent room outside the resort. BUT (and this is where the automagical part comes in), Disney does offer benefits to make up for this, like keeping the parks open later/earlier for resort guests only, free parking at the parks, being able to make FastPass reservations for rides, shows, and parades earlier than outside guests, and being able to book dining reservations earlier than outside guests. Plus, the bus/monorail/boat system is fairly efficient and if you're flying into Orlando, they offer free transportation to/from the airport and your hotel. (Yay for more buses.) Also, sometimes they'll offer a free Dining Plan for the people on the reservation, which can be a super-good deal (sometimes not, again with the number crunching.)
So. Deals.
1. Look on any number of Disney fan sites to see what the pricing levels are throughout the year (my go-to is allears.net – those people have gotten me through decades of Disney trips) and time your trip accordingly. Also, check the price variations in room location and views, because taking a 'Standard' view can sometimes knock another $20/night off the price. Don't just assume that because it's February, it'll be cheap – President's Day & the Daytona 500 will kill you every time. My all-time favorite time is when Easter is super-early or super-late, because our spring break is always the first week in April, so every couple of years we fall outside of the two-weeks-around-Easter pricing and get a delightful, lower-cost and lower-crowd trip.
2. Give disneyworld.com an email address and ask them to send you a planning video – this activates their heat-seeking discount codes (which are keyed to your name/email address) and you can pick up discounts there (usually for the cheaper times of year, too, so that's an extra bonus.)
3. Consider buying one (adult) member of your party an Annual Pass – it will probably cost between $200-$300 more than the passes you're going to buy for the time you'll be there, but AP holders trigger yet another discount code option, one that's almost always more than the standard codes. Depending on how long you're staying, that can knock upwards of $1K off your hotel bill. Plus, the AP gives small discounts on merchandise and tours and lets you buy the Tables in Wonderland card for additional discounts at restaurants.
4. Disney hotels come in 4 levels, with pricing and services varying accordingly (cheapest to most expensive: Value, Moderate, Deluxe, Villa.) Watching the discounts (the discounts are tiered, too, so Value resorts might only be 15% off, while a Moderate will be 25%), it's sometimes almost as cheap to get a room at a Moderate hotel as it is at a Value hotel, and the theming, room size and overall resort amenities are much better at a Moderate. (Port Orleans is my pick for fantastic theming at Moderate prices.) Deluxe hotels are super-pricey, but they are incredibly convenient, plus, I can put all 5 of us into 1 room, which is not really possible at the lower levels.
5. My current favorite trick is to "rent" DVC points. This lets you snag one of Disney's timeshare studios/villas at a seriously discounted price. (Please to note that this still isn't cheap, not exactly, but it gets the room cost into the realm of equivalent outside accommodations while still preserving the Disney bubble and extra goodies.) But, topaz, I hear you saying, I don't have to drag around your House of Boys, why would I need a villa? ahhhh, young padawan, that's because a studio villa is basically a hotel room with a small sink, refrigerator, microwave & toaster and is generally priced at the same level as a room at a Deluxe resort, which means you can get a Deluxe room & resort amenities for a Moderate price *and* have someplace to toast your bagel in the morning, thus avoiding the $12 breakfast platter and its associated crowds.
No, really—I had a studio at the Animal Kingdom Lodge with a savannah view during spring break last year and my cost was $260/night, including tax, which, while not cheap, was less than half the rack rate and gave me the tools/space to feed the teenage boys during our out-of-park time. Plus, I had giraffes walking by my balcony while I drank my morning Diet Coke and we could play with night vision goggles at the nightly campfire.
I use dvcrentalstore.com for this—they have been excellent and I have never had any problems with them at all. (My hand to God, the only trip in the last 18 months that has not had any crazy MagicBand disasters has been the one trip I booked using DVC Rental Store. Every single other one, all booked through disneyworld.com or the DVC, has had issues that have necessitated hours of someone dealing with Cast Members.) I have also heard good things about David's DVC Rentals, but I haven't ever tried him.
The trick here is to think very carefully about what your priority for the trip is & pick the resort closest to it. For example, if your focus is the Food & Wine Festival at Epcot, go for villas at the Beach Club or Boardwalk for easy access. If you need bigger rooms, do Old Key West. If you don't care or just want the on-property benefits, Saratoga Springs almost always has availability.
6. Try these specific non-Disney-owned hotels, in the following order of preference:
- The Swan/Dolphin – Both of these are walking distance to the Boardwalk's restaurants/entertainment options, Epcot & Hollywood Studios and are on the Disney transportation loop. (I don't think they qualify for the free airport transfers, but I'm not sure there.) They also get the Extra Magic Hours. They're both Starwood, so if you have a lot of points, you can get them discounted. You have to book them separately; they're not on the disneyworld.com roster of hotels.
- The Hilton Lake Buena Vista or the Buena Vista Palace – These are the "Hotel Plaza" hotels that are walking distance to Downtown Disney. They share an hourly bus loop with the other outside-owned hotels in the vicinity. No Disney transportation or Extra Magic Hours, but having Downtown Disney right there is helpful for food & entertainment.
- The Hilton Bonnet Creek or the Wyndham Grand Bonnet Creek – These are tucked away inside Disney property on a small plot of land that was never sold to Walt. Nice hotels, reasonable-ish prices, no extra Disney benefits, but no hideous crowds, either.
This was about on-site accommodations, but sometimes, the prices just don't work and I go offsite. After years of bouncing around various areas, the only place I look now is in the Lake Buena Vista area. It's not the cheapest, but it's not nearly as congested and overbuilt as the other areas. I already know I'm going to see crowds at the parks; I don't need to start the day off with trying to get onto 192 through the hotels stacked 3 deep along the access road. The Radisson LBV, the Embassy Suites LBV and the Hyatt Grand Cypress are my go-to choices. (The HGC has the best pool the HoB has ever thrown each other into in the continental US.) Also, you can bid on priceline for this area; I have gotten rooms as low as $45/night for the above hotels (ok, not for the Hyatt, but I got that for $90 once.)
kaelie)I am delighted to answer this question today, as it was 9/-13 degrees this morning when I dropped BabyBoy off at school and my 8:30 call kind of blew up into a screaming match between Dev and Client Implementations. Disney World is a much better topic!
That being said, I wish there was one magic bullet I could give you to save money on on-site hotels, but it's more like a combo platter and I generally spend a bit of time crunching numbers for options on each trip.
First of all, there are more than a dozen hotels owned/operated by Disney, and, unlike Disneyland in CA, the outside hotels, even if they bill themselves as being 'next to Disney' or 'Maingate adjacent' are not particularly close (this is because Disney owns a ridiculous number of square miles of property, and thus a hotel might be a mile away from Disney and yet still be another 6 miles away from the parking lot at Magic Kingdom. (To be fair, some of the Disney hotels are also that 6 miles away from MK, but that mile outside WDW proper is going to be through some brutal traffic.)
There are some non-Disney owned/operated hotels physically located within the WDW gates; I will cover them in a bit, because they are sometimes an excellent choice.
Unfortunately, for hotels inside the automagical Disney bubble, the sad truth is that it will *always* be cheaper to find an equivalent room outside the resort. BUT (and this is where the automagical part comes in), Disney does offer benefits to make up for this, like keeping the parks open later/earlier for resort guests only, free parking at the parks, being able to make FastPass reservations for rides, shows, and parades earlier than outside guests, and being able to book dining reservations earlier than outside guests. Plus, the bus/monorail/boat system is fairly efficient and if you're flying into Orlando, they offer free transportation to/from the airport and your hotel. (Yay for more buses.) Also, sometimes they'll offer a free Dining Plan for the people on the reservation, which can be a super-good deal (sometimes not, again with the number crunching.)
So. Deals.
1. Look on any number of Disney fan sites to see what the pricing levels are throughout the year (my go-to is allears.net – those people have gotten me through decades of Disney trips) and time your trip accordingly. Also, check the price variations in room location and views, because taking a 'Standard' view can sometimes knock another $20/night off the price. Don't just assume that because it's February, it'll be cheap – President's Day & the Daytona 500 will kill you every time. My all-time favorite time is when Easter is super-early or super-late, because our spring break is always the first week in April, so every couple of years we fall outside of the two-weeks-around-Easter pricing and get a delightful, lower-cost and lower-crowd trip.
2. Give disneyworld.com an email address and ask them to send you a planning video – this activates their heat-seeking discount codes (which are keyed to your name/email address) and you can pick up discounts there (usually for the cheaper times of year, too, so that's an extra bonus.)
3. Consider buying one (adult) member of your party an Annual Pass – it will probably cost between $200-$300 more than the passes you're going to buy for the time you'll be there, but AP holders trigger yet another discount code option, one that's almost always more than the standard codes. Depending on how long you're staying, that can knock upwards of $1K off your hotel bill. Plus, the AP gives small discounts on merchandise and tours and lets you buy the Tables in Wonderland card for additional discounts at restaurants.
4. Disney hotels come in 4 levels, with pricing and services varying accordingly (cheapest to most expensive: Value, Moderate, Deluxe, Villa.) Watching the discounts (the discounts are tiered, too, so Value resorts might only be 15% off, while a Moderate will be 25%), it's sometimes almost as cheap to get a room at a Moderate hotel as it is at a Value hotel, and the theming, room size and overall resort amenities are much better at a Moderate. (Port Orleans is my pick for fantastic theming at Moderate prices.) Deluxe hotels are super-pricey, but they are incredibly convenient, plus, I can put all 5 of us into 1 room, which is not really possible at the lower levels.
5. My current favorite trick is to "rent" DVC points. This lets you snag one of Disney's timeshare studios/villas at a seriously discounted price. (Please to note that this still isn't cheap, not exactly, but it gets the room cost into the realm of equivalent outside accommodations while still preserving the Disney bubble and extra goodies.) But, topaz, I hear you saying, I don't have to drag around your House of Boys, why would I need a villa? ahhhh, young padawan, that's because a studio villa is basically a hotel room with a small sink, refrigerator, microwave & toaster and is generally priced at the same level as a room at a Deluxe resort, which means you can get a Deluxe room & resort amenities for a Moderate price *and* have someplace to toast your bagel in the morning, thus avoiding the $12 breakfast platter and its associated crowds.
No, really—I had a studio at the Animal Kingdom Lodge with a savannah view during spring break last year and my cost was $260/night, including tax, which, while not cheap, was less than half the rack rate and gave me the tools/space to feed the teenage boys during our out-of-park time. Plus, I had giraffes walking by my balcony while I drank my morning Diet Coke and we could play with night vision goggles at the nightly campfire.
I use dvcrentalstore.com for this—they have been excellent and I have never had any problems with them at all. (My hand to God, the only trip in the last 18 months that has not had any crazy MagicBand disasters has been the one trip I booked using DVC Rental Store. Every single other one, all booked through disneyworld.com or the DVC, has had issues that have necessitated hours of someone dealing with Cast Members.) I have also heard good things about David's DVC Rentals, but I haven't ever tried him.
The trick here is to think very carefully about what your priority for the trip is & pick the resort closest to it. For example, if your focus is the Food & Wine Festival at Epcot, go for villas at the Beach Club or Boardwalk for easy access. If you need bigger rooms, do Old Key West. If you don't care or just want the on-property benefits, Saratoga Springs almost always has availability.
6. Try these specific non-Disney-owned hotels, in the following order of preference:
- The Swan/Dolphin – Both of these are walking distance to the Boardwalk's restaurants/entertainment options, Epcot & Hollywood Studios and are on the Disney transportation loop. (I don't think they qualify for the free airport transfers, but I'm not sure there.) They also get the Extra Magic Hours. They're both Starwood, so if you have a lot of points, you can get them discounted. You have to book them separately; they're not on the disneyworld.com roster of hotels.
- The Hilton Lake Buena Vista or the Buena Vista Palace – These are the "Hotel Plaza" hotels that are walking distance to Downtown Disney. They share an hourly bus loop with the other outside-owned hotels in the vicinity. No Disney transportation or Extra Magic Hours, but having Downtown Disney right there is helpful for food & entertainment.
- The Hilton Bonnet Creek or the Wyndham Grand Bonnet Creek – These are tucked away inside Disney property on a small plot of land that was never sold to Walt. Nice hotels, reasonable-ish prices, no extra Disney benefits, but no hideous crowds, either.
This was about on-site accommodations, but sometimes, the prices just don't work and I go offsite. After years of bouncing around various areas, the only place I look now is in the Lake Buena Vista area. It's not the cheapest, but it's not nearly as congested and overbuilt as the other areas. I already know I'm going to see crowds at the parks; I don't need to start the day off with trying to get onto 192 through the hotels stacked 3 deep along the access road. The Radisson LBV, the Embassy Suites LBV and the Hyatt Grand Cypress are my go-to choices. (The HGC has the best pool the HoB has ever thrown each other into in the continental US.) Also, you can bid on priceline for this area; I have gotten rooms as low as $45/night for the above hotels (ok, not for the Hyatt, but I got that for $90 once.)
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Glad to see you back on LJ, and hope your "holidays" weren't too stressful. I thought about you a couple of times... Oh, and I did you a December thingy on food, in case you missed it -- here (http://alphaflyer.livejournal.com/69120.html).
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We did okay with the holidays, thank you. I was mostly worried about my mom, but she put her wig on (cancer x 3 does wretched things to your actual hair) and went forth and conquered at the funeral and all, and then we sat around and watched ridiculous holiday movies for a couple of days, which was fairly soothing. I'm very happy to be back in my own bed, though!
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