Advice re hotel - 8 people but 3 rooms needed

[eeyorefanuk]

Hello,

Firstly I am sooooooooo sorry you must be sick of me by now

Disney recommended Saratoga for the best price for us - there are eight of us but we would need three rooms.

Is there anywhere else you would recommend that might come within the same price but is a "proper" disney hotel. We probably go for deluxe so can have the dining plan included.

We were thinking of animal kingdom but because of the three rooms required it would cost us nearly double to the saratoga !!

Really sorry to ask again, any further advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Claire L]

When you say 'proper' hotel what do you exactly mean? Did you not want DVC accomodation?

Claire

 

[Portugal1000]

Saratoga Springs is a proper Disney hotel and in my opinion, fantastic. Am staying again in August and can't wait. Great location, great rooms and very relaxing. Can't recommend highly enough. They have some great deals on at the moment from August till 17th December, free dining and 42% off.

 

[eeyorefanuk]

hello,

sorry what a meant was a "themed" hotel (if that is the right word!)

Is the Saratoga just not like a very nice apartment, but with animal kingdom for example you get animals? Sorry know not explaining myself very well.

Would you say Saratoga is very well placed for alot of the parks?

 

[JohnnySharp2]

All the Disney accomodations, whether DVC or just hotel type are different and it can depend on your taste and budget where you choose to stay.
They also vary location wise too.

Saratoga Springs Resort is based closed to Downtown Disney, not necessarily right on the doorstep of one of the parks - I also do not think it feels that much like a Disney resort and as the name suggests isn't themed that way. To many that is part of the appeal, and as the resorts are all different they can cater for many tastes also. Many like the location , convenience of staying on WDW property without having that feeling of 'Disney overload' (whatever that is!) all the time.
There are hotels very close to Magic Kingdom, just a short monorail journey away but they are in the Deluxe category and like you say you would need 3 rooms.

The offers Disney have on at the moment for SSR and Old Key West to some are obviously appealing, however if you really want to be close to a theme park AND book DVC accomodation you probably need to either look at Beach Club Villas or the Boardwalk - both walking distance to EPCOT.

I don't know a great deal about Animal Kingdom Lodge but yes there are Animals there . I am not sure how close it is to the theme park as the resort isn't really my 'cup of tea' (just a personal thing but if I want to see Giraffe's I will go to Africa).

For the size of your party I would look at DVC 'if' you want to stay on-site but sounds like you really need to look at SSR or OKW for the cheaper price. To be honest I would probably look at an off-site villa but I can appreciate why you want to stay on-site.

Have a look on the resorts forum and do some research on them, there are photo threads on there and also on the links below, we can all reply and say we would do this or do that but if you can spend some time and check photos, facilities, restaurants and other details you can probably get a better picture of what the resorts are like.

http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=12

http://allears.net/acc/faq_hot.htm

http://www.wdwinfo.com/

 

[eeyorefanuk]

Thank you

To be honest when we have been thinking of going to orlando we said we would hire a private villa that someone in work went to and was very nice. The cost is around £1,000 for two weeks.

But

Disney priced up the saratoga for £4500 for eight of us with free dining plan and disney ticket.

Trying to work out, if we went to private villa, how much we would spend on food (like the dining plan) and also to include tickets to price compare, but struggling. It is very awkward when you have not been, and so much to take in.

It is only because of the dining plan we are thinking of staying on site, as we were thinking of eating say at Denny (or something similar) each day.

In your opinion do you think it is a bit of even stevens !!!

We are also going to busch gardens, sea world etc so wonder whether we will want to rush back to eat in disney !!

In your opinion again do you prefer saratoga or old key west !!!

Sorry and thank you

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Hi again,
Firstly I am not an expert on Disney accomodation( I just talk as if I am!). We have only stayed on-site once but have looked around many of the hotels/DVC accomodation, purely to see if they would be suitable for any future holidays, mainly with our son's special needs in mind.
I can't really advise fully on the Saratoga v. Old Key West issue, specifically because I have never been to OKW.
What we did do is have a tour around SSR at a time when we thought about buying DVC points.
We liked the resort, and I think it would be a good place to stay for you - the pool areas we especially liked, though didn't feel the restaurant/bar facilities were for us (or should I say what I wanted). In addition we would prefer a theme park location to a Downtown Disney one.
Again though that's just a personal choice.

As I say really I know very little about OKW, other than the rooms are the largest and it's the oldest of the DVC resorts. It is also spread out over a large area so you may not necessarily be that close to the hub of the resort.
I can't really make a choice on my limited knowledge though if I had to I would choose SSR because it is newer.
You will get pro's and con's for both - OKW is extremely popular and it would be unfair of me to really comment too much on it, after all I haven't been there and wouldn't want to offend any devotee's.

The Disney offer you quote is one that will be popular with many, again based on my own circumstances (we have an autistic child) our holiday approach is kind of unique, personally if I was travelling with a party of 8 I would definitely look at the villa option.
Unless the Disney resort is a perfect-fit for you, I like SSR for example but I don't particularly crave for a DTD location.

I wouldn't be interested in the DDP as my son hates eating out, or the ticket option as we generally always buy ours seperatley.
Doing villa, tickets, spending money, car hire seperate can save money but at the moment doing Orlando cheap isn't easy.
If you asked me what I would do providing you are happy with overall cost, for 8 people I would book a villa...but it's your holiday not mine.

 

[wayneg]

Just looked at costs, prices up for 8 adults as I don't know ages but any children would bring cost down slightly.

OKW/SSR £4,638 for 2010, knock off tix and its £2,946. You estimate £1,000 for offsite villa, leaving £1,946 for food or break it down to pppd which is £17.37 ($28.50). Eating lunch in parks and offsite for evenings you could probably just manage on $28.50/day per person but eat at cheap places, use coupons, share desserts etc.
If you want to experience onsite at a great price then this is a good option.
I am totally oposite to Johnny, AKL is my 'cup of tea' while I might have gone to Africa 15-20 years ago it now does not interest me so AKL is a perfect option, stayed there for 3 nights last year and for us is miles better than other deluxe resorts(but only with a savanah view) but there is no way I would pay the price for a full 2 week hol there.
To me it looks like your options are OKW/SSR with better dining onsite or a villa and budget dining offsite.

 

[eeyorefanuk]

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone !

I was kindly given a thread re dining plan ..... can we use our table service for a buffet meal in disney? For example we have just come back from disneyland paris and our half board voucher included a full buffet meal with drinks .... did find with alot of us with different tastes the buffet option was possibly the better one

 

[wayneg]

You can eat at most of these buffets http://allears.net/din/buffet.htm
Not the Swan and Dolphin ones though.
Also Cinderella's Royal Table is 2 credits.

 

[Claire L]

SSR is themed as an Upstate New York town that is famous for horse racing. The rooms are great and the facilities very good. The one thing about staying on site is if the group wants to come and go at different times they can as transport is so easy within Disney. As has been said the food credits can be used whenever especially the 2 credit meals, so on a day when youa re not at Disney that credit can be used on a 2 credit meal such as CRT, Cali Grill etc. As for buffet meals there are loads both breakfast and dinner so could always go for an early breakfast buffet then head off to say Seaworld for the rest of the day. We love the buffet brekkie at Boma in AKL, also Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary is good and the characters at the Cape May at the Beach Club is good.

2007 & 2009 reports from our stays at SSR.

Claire