2002 Jan off site for 5 in a suite-suggestions please

[sillyminny]

We have stayed in Orlando 2X and need advice on place to stay that is good on the budget. 5 in a room.

 

[tink2dw]

Do you want to stay onsite at WDW or offsite??

Offsite We stayed at Holiday Inn Family Suites.
We stayed in a Kidsuite which sleeps 6.
Heres a link to the Kidsuites.
http://www.hifamilysuites.com/index.html?

 

[BonnieA]

Why don't you rent a house? If you are going in Jan (off season) you could probably get a 3 bedroom home for $80/night (pool heat extra if desired). There are plenty of good agencies and the houses I have stayed in have been beautiful. You also have the benefit of preparing some of your own meals to save more money. You can email me with any questions.

 

[goofymom/pop]

Well heres my 2 cents worth...

Last year we stayed at HIFS in the kids suite. This is the hotel on 536 and is very very close to the parks. The cost was 129 a night and there were 5 of us. This was a great bargain as it included the free breakfast buffet. I would say normally breakfast for 5 in Orlando would be 25 or 30 dollars a day making the room a great deal. Then the kids eat free all day. With each adult meal purchased in the food court you can get four kids meals free. My sis and I did this as often as possible and if we werent in the room to eat right then we ordered a pizza lunch and heated it all up in the room micro for a late dinner. They had great kids games around the pool and a game room in the hotel. We loved it!!!

I have also stayed at the Caribe Royale, which is also very nice. They offer the buffet breakfast each morning too. But no kids eat free all day option. The Caribe is a little fancier, less kid oriented. But right up the road from HIFS so it also has easy access to the parks. This year I got the Caribe booked at 118 per night in July through hotelkingdom.com. This is a huge savings. Five years ago I paid 179 for this hotel.....WOW!!!! we are thrilled to be staying there again. Oh and the caribe has a water slide and water falls.....really neat. And a nice little kiddie pool. Water shoes needed for the kids playground in the summer as the rubber matting gets awfully hot!!!

Hope this helps
Cindy

 

[ChiTownZee]

In Feb, we stayed at Holiday Inn Maingate East in a 1-bedroom suite (NOT a kidsuite) for $65 a night. I actually liked it better than HIFS for a couple of reasons, one was I thought there was a lot more room than at HIFS. There as an actual kitchen area with a bar to sit at as well as a small table and counter space! I know HIFS has some kitchens, but they are even more expensive than the regular rooms. And if you are having someone sleep in the living room, it has an actual bed that pulls down from the wall with a real mattress, which means a real bed instead of pull-out sofa mattress! This also made for lots of floors space when it was up.
The resort isn't as pretty and the pools aren't as nice (although they seemed to keep them VERY heated there was steam coming up every night!) but everything was clean, and the room we had was remodeled and maintenance was very prompt! We had some trouble with the fridge and they had to come twice and they were very quick, courteous and pleasant (talking to us and our DD, wiping their shoes, just really polite)
I was happy their especially for the price!