Has anyone saved money by renting a vacation home?

[SpaceAce]

Has anyone saved money by renting a vacation home. (We will have 4 adults and 2 very young kids - so we would have to get 2 hotel rooms.)

Please share your experience, who you went with, how it was, how much it was, etc...

Thanks to all!

 

[drgnfly30]

We rented a house last year & loved it so much we are renting it again this July! there are four of us (DS17 & DS12) so hotel rooms have gotten too cramped.. and for the less than cost of 2 rooms (about $129 a night) I have plenty of room, my own pool, hot tub, game room & kitchen (which is a great help on saving $$ on food!) I also came home with no dirty laundry because of my own washer & dryer!!

Not saying when we start doing solo trips (when the kids are grown) we won't do a WDW resort again, but with the family it can't be beat!

ETA: We were in Indian Creek which is only minutes from AK... I second VRBO.com.

 

[MICOL]

Check www.vrbo.com, we had a great home 15 minutes from Disney. Your own pool. Fridge, kitchen ect, Very nice

 

[Chelley00]

It was MUCH cheaper for us to stay offsite with 4 kids. We payed roughly $120 a night for a 4 bedroom house. We had a ton of space had breakfast (and a couple of quick easy dinners) at the house instead of eating at the parks. We are staying onsite this year because free dining makes onsite more cost effective for us, but I'm a little bummed we aren't going to have all the space and private pool/hot tub of a house.

 

[mrsklamc]

We stayed in a 3 bedroom town house for less than $100 a night- but it was in the off season. I have heard of condos at the resort we stayed at going for as little as $300 for the week.

If you go to windsorhillsrent.com you can get bids from multiple homeowners at the resort we stayed at. It was awesome.

We payed less than a hundred dollars a night, plus we saved a ton on food by having our own kitchen. AND we had our own pool. Not that we used it much, cause the resort's has a huge water slide!

We had five people, and it was cheaper than the moderate resort or 2 value rooms we would have needed to hold us all. And we were VERY close to the parks. I absolutely LOVED Windsor Hills. We stayed with the homeowner- and disboard member- that you can find at www.5mins2disney.com

We got $100 worth of easy-prep meals and got through the week on pretty much that and 1 table service meal per day.

 

[JuneChickie]

We are going down again on Monday and rented a home thats said to be 3 miles from Disney.

We rented from www.fairwaysflorida.com

Its by the mystic dunes golf course in Kissimmee

they have pics of the homes with additional pics of the inside

We picked one with a pool also. It was 125 a nite.

Will post how we liked it when we get back.

 

[PlutoPup]

We stayed at a 3 bedroom townhome @ windsor hills for $100 a night. The $ we saved we put toward character meals. By no means did anyone feel we were missing out on any "disney magic". For a 7 night stay and car rental it cost about $1000. Beautiful resort, very safe and close to the parks.

 

[Kycha]

December 2005, DH and I took my MIL to WDW for the first time. We decided for the first week, we would stay onsite and the second week we would get a rental.

For our onsite stay, we wanted my MIL to have her own room, so the best deal I could get was 2 rooms at POP Century, with the AP rate of $49/night, each. So, that cost us approximately $770 for the week.

For the rental stay, we got a four bedroom/3 bath home with pool and hot tub. I know. Four bedrooms for 3 people is a lot. But, it was in a location we wanted. Including pool heat and taxes, we paid approx. $815 for the week.

We never use Disney transportation. The rental car cost was approx. $250 for the two weeks.

So, for an additional $45 we got 2 more bedrooms and 1 more bathroom. We got our own pool/hot tub, washer/dryer, DVD player with movies, 2 car garage, kitchen with all the amenities, BBQ, a crib, high chair, a ton of space, and peace and quiet.

The rental homes bedrooms and bathrooms were much larger than the resort rooms. The rental was in the Sanctuary at West Haven community, which is a gated community, near Champions Gate golf resort. Which is about 15 minutes from Disney.

So, even for my small family, the vacation rental was money well spent. I would definitely do it again and would highly recommend it for others as well.

The website I used was: http://www.vacationhomes.com/

The home we ended up renting: http://www.palmsvilla.com/

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

 

[Kellydelly]

We have rented a private pool home 4 times and LOVE them! They are cheaper than staying onsite and the space you get compared to a hotel room is incomparable.

 

[MrsPooh]

We haven't rented for WDW trips but we did rent for another FL trip and it was wonderful. We had two adults, two teens and one child. We are people who like our space and a full week all in one hotel room would have not been relaxing. Plus, we wanted to be right at the beach. Hotels that met our needs would have been about $150 ea and we would have ended up with two. Total before taxes, etc would have been over $2,100. We ended up renting a totally cute beach house using VRBO.com for $1,500/wk. It had three bedrooms and would have slept up to 8. The owners had beach toys in the garage and even bikes to ride. We had a full kitchen and washer/dryer. We also saved on food since we ate breakfasts & most lunches at the house and just went out for some dinners. I made everyone take turns cooking and cleaning up so I wasn't working the whole vacation.

Point is, we saved a ton of money and had a much more relaxing time in a house vs. hotel. That said, I still love being on-site at Disney so I don't know if I'd do rental in Orlando or not.

 

[powellrj]

check out the Orlando board, they have great reviews and tip for off-site rentals!

 

[Homer Simpson]

To those that have rented homes before... how do you pick up/drop the keys?

 

[CoralCayTownhome]

We originally stayed in hotels but then once we tried townhome rental we will never go back (we now even own one). The extra space is so worth it rather than being couped up in a small hotel room - the kids can play in a separate room letting us relax.

As previously posted vrbo is great but searching isn't as easy as on the likes of www.a1vacations.com or www.cyberrentals.com which all are direct rentals from the owner.

A lot of the homes now have a keybox entry system (a small box with a key pad and the key inside) some you have to go to the management company for the key which isn't always on site like ours.

IMHO a townhome/villa rental will work out cheaper for you - with the added benefit of getting all the laundry done and not having a load to do on your return home.

Tracey

 

[MYDISNEYHOUSES]

I know with my homes we have a lockbox at the house and give a code before you arrive. That way you do not have to go somewhere to pick up and drop off the keys.


I think it is a great option for families to have the extra space and own private pool.

 

[JoyG]

I am in LOVE with vacation home rentals!

I've tried it three times and it really works out for us. We rented the last week of June last year in Orlando at Emerald Island. We got a 3br condo for $500/week! How can you beat that? We've used vrbo.com for that one.

I've also tried out rentals in other areas too! We've rented a beach condo on Cape Cod(from cyberrentals.com) this June...right across the street from the water for $600/week.

I'm finding we can afford a longer and higher quality vacation when we rent a home or condo instead of a hotel.

The key is usually left in an agreed upon location outside of the home. The owner tells you a week or so before arrival where it will be.

 

[labdogs42]

We just stayed in a vacation home May 5-12. We had 6 adults and 3 kids and we paid $795 for the week for a five bedroom/five bath house! We would have needed three hotel rooms at Disney for this group. We sure saved $$ by going with the vacation home. I loved having our own pool and kitchen. We usually travel with just our family of three, so a vacation home isn't always necessary, but for this big group it was ideal. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

 

[Juliee8]

We rented a 3 bedroom 2 bath home with a private pool over Easter for $109 a night. We got a discount using the Orlando Magic Card. It was much cheaper than the hotel rooms and we had so much more room. It was great to have our own pool and the kitchen helped us save alot on food.

 

[teresajoy]

We love renting vacation homes! My entire family goes to Disney about once every 3-4 years, and we always rent a house or two! I think this will be our 5th house we've rented now. We are going next May, and we found a house to rent for $500 for the entire week! My Mom, Dad, my brother, his wife and two girls, as well as my family of 5 will share it, making the price VERY cheap ($24 a night per family!!)! It has 5 bedrooms (one room has two sets of bunkbeds, where we will put all the girls) and three bathrooms, as well as its own pool. My sister and her family are renting a house right across the street for the same price.

You can often bargain for a lower price than what is listed on the website. Look around at lots of different sites. Often times the same house will be on different sites for different prices. Most owners also have their own site, with lots more pictures than on the house search sites. Just email them if it isn't listed in their ad.

This is the house we are renting: http://www.disneynbeyond.com/index.html
We found it at this site: http://www.vacationhomebid.com/HomeDetail.asp?Houseid=581

And the house my sister is getting, across the street: http://www.dolphinvillaflorida.com/

But, check out the cool bedrooms at this house: http://www.floridavacations.com/fv/2360.html

 

[Michigan]

Co-worker rented a house over Easter and her 5 year old son drown in the rental homes pool. You can do search on Michigan boy drowns on vacation and find the stories.

 

[drgnfly30]

Co-worker rented a house over Easter and her 5 year old son drown in the rental homes pool. You can do search on Michigan boy drowns on vacation and find the stories.

While tragic, it's a bit unrelated to the intent of this thread isn't it?! However, other than the obvious - that a 5 yr old shouldn't be left unsupervised in the pool area; for anyone that is concerned, a child shouldn't be able to slip out unnoticed, ALL of the doors that led to the pool at my house were alarmed, so unless you hit the button (which was about 6' up)w/in several seconds of opening the door, the alarm went off.

A FL resident may be able to clarify but I'm pretty sure it's a law (at least for rentals).