It all depends on where you are coming from, financially.
Disney has raised their resort prices so much over the past 5 years that we seem to be effectively priced out of staying onsite for what we want and need in our vacation. In 2010 we stayed at a 1BR at BWV for a 45% discount, for under $300 a night. Now the best you can get is 30% and with the base price of $600, we'd still pay over $400 a night. That's a significant difference, and we really can't afford to spend that much and buy park tickets so - we are staying offsite our next trip.
We're going to Bonnet Creek which seems to be a perfect alternative. Because we drive to Disney from home, we almost always drive to parks, so transportation will not be an issue. Distance to the parks should be about the same as OKW distance and location, so we feel good about that, we'll still be inside the overall Disney geographic bubble. Paying $120 a night for a 2 br condo, so no one is on a sofabed. We are hopeful that this will work for us and we can continue to do our week-10 days every year and not break the bank. We only go on cash so we won't go into debt for any trip.
Disney onsite comparable room $3000 vs. offsite $900. Total trip cost reduced over $2,000. Wow!! Our condo cost is comparable to a value resort room onsite.
We too will be staying at Wyndham Bonnet Creek this trip (in just under two weeks from now
). We got a one bedroom deluxe villa for just $896.00 ($89.60 per night for the ten nights). Even with my AP discount I couldn't beat that, for even a WDW Value resort. We planned on renting a car and driving to the parks anyway, because we don't like waiting around for Disney transportation, but even if we didn't, the money we saved on accommodations would be alot more than enough to pay for a rental car. With the AP we don't have to pay for parking and since my mom is going with us, we'll have her handicap tag, so will be able to park close to the gates (except at MK). As you said Bonnet Creek is physically within the WDW geographic bubble (within the gates of WDW), so is closer to the parks than some of the WDW resorts. Paying less than we would for a tiny value room with two regular beds, we will be getting a one bedroom villa in a deluxe resort with a fully equipped kitchen, dining area, living room with sofa bed, a seperate bedroom with king size bed, a jacuzzi tub, a large walk in shower, two flat screen TVs, and a washer and dryer (that will allow us to easily do carry on only, saving baggage fees). Bonnet Creek has mutliple really nice themed pools, several pool slides, hot tubs, two lazy rivers, a kids water play area, a free mini golf course, game room, kids activities and crafts all day long, plus several nice eating places within walking distance. Why would I pay more to stay in a tiny WDW Value room?
We plan on using the rental car to run over to Universal for a few days and over to the outlet malls, and will do most dinners offsite, because you can get better food for much cheaper prices, but if we didn't want to go offsite, we could easily never go back outside those entrance arches once we arrive and never lose any of the Disney ambience.
I always swore I'd never stay offsite, but last Oct a coworker offered me a week in a her timeshare (just one mile off property) for just $400.00 for the week. A week in a one bedroom villa for just $400.00 seemed to good of a deal to pass up ($57.00 per night), so I canceled the reservation I had at CBR and decided to give offsite a try. We loved it so much, that we've sworn we would never stay onsite again. We had tons of room, two TVs, jacuzzi tub, huge walk in shower, washer/dryer, fully equipped kitchen, multiple pools and hot tubs to choose from, a mini golf course, paddle boats, onsite free disney movies, etc. We were only about five minutes from AK and not too much farther from any of the other parks and had a ton more room and nicer facilities than if we'd stayed onsite. We ate better and cheaper than we ever had down there and spent a ton less money for the trip. With the money we saved, we could make another trip down there, staying in nicer accommodations than we could get at WDW.
