family of 5 ,best place????

[langin]

Always the dilemna, we are a family of 5 and I can't decide which would be the best value for us (kids will be 12 and twins 9 yrs).

would love to stay on site but don't think that's "doable" for us!?!?

 

[Cujo]

There is so much to choose from for accomadations in Orlando.
It is a matter of finding what would suite you and your family best.

After extensive searching we have settled on Cypress Pointe for our stay in January. The price through Hotelkingdom is unbeatable. When we booked our room in July we got a rate of $84.34 for a 3 bedroom unit. It comes with an equipped kitchen and washer and dryer.
In booking with hotelkingdom they mention that maid service is optional and would add another $80 to our rate. For us, I would rather not have that service.
Being able to prepare breakfasts in our room and an occasional meal or snack will help with our budget.
It is located near DTD, which is convenient as their are many restaurants in that area.

But what we find is that after a day at the parks it is so nice to come back to our room and have some space to unwind, where we aren't tripping over each other.

There are a lot of positive reviews about Cypress Pointe on these boards as well as on tripadvisor.com.

Good luck in your planning.

Sandra

 

[hellooothere]

Hi,
We are a family of six! I knew I wanted us to stay onsite as we are only there for 2 nights. I originally booked two rooms at the POFQ. ($79/per night). Then changed to Fort Wilderness Cabins ($149/night). And we are now staying at POP Century(55/night).

This is value season with the general public code.

If you are going during value season and don't plan on cooking. (if you do I would opt for the cabins or renting points from DVC members), then I think the POP looks like great value for your money. It is a relatively new facility so should be clean and up to date. The pools look awesome for young kids. I have read lots about the transportation and because they have their own buses and don't share like the All Stars the transportation is pretty good. Plus the rooms are small but having two connecting solves the space problem, and you have 2 bathrooms!! The perks of EE, room charging,etc. make it worthwhile to stay onsite at these prices.
If I was going for a longer period of time I would have stuck with the cabins. You can't get a better deal onsite if you get the cabins in value season with a code. Then you have a kitchen so you can do some of your own food, plus morning coffee etc.
The only thing about the cabins that I didn't like the look of was the pools. Pretty standard. It would have been perfect when River Country was open.

Hope this helps! I pulled my hair out in the planning stages but I had a lot of help from these boards!

 

[hockey mom]

Offsite- I would use Skyauction. You can get a 2 bedroom unit very close to Disney(within 5 mins), for about $261 US for the week. My other offsite option would be Holiday Inn family suites.

On-site I would do exactly what the last poster said and get connecting rooms at Pop century.

We just got back and had 2 rooms at Pop which was great and rented points from a DVC person for a 2 bedroom at WL which was heavenly. Last April we used Skyauction and the unit was beautiful and very cheap. We have stayed at HIFS 3 times now and my kids love the free bingo and kareoke.

 

[Sandyincanada]

Two big questions would be How long are you going for and Are you doing anything other than WDW?

We also chose Cypress Pointe resort. Place looks wonderful, tons of room, 2 bathrooms, and most importantly for me, a balcony! I believe it was 72.00 a night for 2 bdrms through Hotel Kingdom. Like Cujo, we love the space when we leave the parks and we dont want to have to eat onsite all the time.

Sky Service wasn't really an option as we were staying 10 days and most of the good options were for a week. We didn't want to waste our time moving hotels.

We have stayed at HIFS as well but found the suites on the small side and it was quite abit more than Cypress Pointe. The included breakfast was great though.

We are also going to Busch Gardens, Univ and IOA. We also like a rental to roam around Orlando and check out the sites and discount stores (like Nike) which we dont have here. So onsite would be a pain for us.

lol, this is long. Was just pointing out the reasons why these questions are so important in deciding on where you want to be.

 

[sammi]

Another vote here for Cyptress Pointe! My family from the UK are owners there and we've been down nearly every year for the past 10 years and love it everytime we go. We've actually had 6 people (all adults) in the 2 bedroom villa with no problems.....there's lots of room.

Here's a link to my photos that we took on last years holiday. Good luck and have fun whatever place you choose! Be sure and click on each picture to see the photos better.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v412/sammi04/?action=logout

 

[langin]

We are hoping for 10 days, and we would like to rent a car because DH has a few places he wants to visit and if I can convince my best friend, maybe she and her daughter may join us??? We will be visiting primarily WDW and I would like to stay at HRH for 1 night if it doesn't completely blow the budget.

 

[Alannah]

I met you on another post. I'm the one with a 14 yr old and two 9yr old twins. I just phoned CAA and they have a pkg deal right now where all 5 of us can go with the dreammaker plan for 10 nites with 2 rooms at Port Orleans for $3650 US including taxes. It sounds like a great deal based on the research I've done. And the Pop Century would be quite a bit cheaper. Have you checked with CAA? It may be very doable.

 

[langin]

I am torn between staying on site (2 rooms ) or off site in some sort of suite/condo thing where we have the whole living room, kitchen, and seperate bedrooms, I just can't decide. I know you don't spend lots of time in the rooms but tired and cranky kids (and husband), we need a little breathing space!?!?!?

I am so overwhelmed at the moment, we just bought a new house 2 months ago so saving $$ for WDW trip has been tough, always something to buy like a toilet for the downstairs bathroom!!!! I'll keep plugging away!

 

[Figment's friends]

Alannah what's included in the Dream maker package is it just rooms or is UPH included. I'll be traveling with 5 next year and money is tight- I'm still weighing options. Any insight is welcome. Thanks.

 

[Alannah]

Dreammaker includes Ultimate Park Hoppers for all guests. The one we are using is the Cdn at par which makes it cost effective because the whole pkg is at par. I booked thru CAA but I'm not sure if you have to with this particular plan. You have to pay with visa and must book by Dec 1st/04 for travel from Jan 05 to April 15th (I think that's the last day). There's a couple of extra small things included as well which I can't remember right now. Things like luggage tags and there's a choice of miniature golf, 25.00 towards planet hollywood meal etc. We were going to buy an Annual Pass to take advantage of room deals, but this pkg ended up being cheaper (I was going to buy 9 nite Ultimate Park Hopper tickets anyway). The 10 day plan is really good. As you can see, it ends up being 365.00 / day for 2 rooms and all tickets (for 5 people - 2 adults, 1 junior, 2 kids), taxes included. The 7 nite plan works out to about 400.00 /day which is still a great deal as far as I can tell. I'm not an expert. This is my first go around planning a Disney trip. Port Orleans Riverside will sleep 5 but we felt we would be too crowded. Hope this helps. Note - These are all US dollars.

 

[Sandyincanada]

Maybe this will help one way or the other Langin, keeping in mind we like to go to different parks. 10 days at WDW would be overkill for us. We are going for 10 days and for 5 people it would cost:

Cypress point 720.00
4 day hopper 1000.00
Univ/IOA APs 500.00
Busch gardens 200.00
rental car 300.00

so total is 2720.00 US. Oops and tax. Busch/Seaworld is at par right now.

 

[Ontario]

We are a family of 5 - 2 girls aged 12 & 14 and a boy 8. We got 2 adjoining rooms at the Pop Century and had a fabulous time. Having 2 rooms was just great - tons of space and 2 bathrooms! This is the only way we would ever go again. We went the last week of April and got the CAA rate of $72 per room per night. I could have got a "suite" cheaper off site, but being on site was worth every penny. The Disney transportation is the best.

 

[EvilQueen]

When I was growing up, my parents took my sisters and I to WDW quite often. I would always prefer to stay on site, but I'd have to say that my favourite resort was the Vistana. It's close to Epcot. My sisters and I loved it. We also stayed at the Polynesian cause they have a day bed in the room as well, I think if you request a room with one. The last time we were down in 2000 we stayed in 2 adjoining rooms at the All Star Sports. When we were looking into it, we realized that a number of the deluxe resort on site offer a day bed.