Anyone think they've seen this cheaper...?

[bazzanoid]

Afternoon all,

With a nice sunny afternoon and a half-finished front garden, i decided to
<S>get out in the sun and carry on me bricklaying</S> sit indoors and start price comparisons for our upcoming trip at the end of november.
Four adults, private villa already booked. Dates: Tuesday 25th November to Friday 12th December this year. (17 nights)
Bear in mind that i'm only looking now, not buying, so general advise is welcome. Yup, i know expedia has a 3 day sale on at the moment and if i had the cash now i would have bought their BA flights from gatwick to orlando for £318. Always the way....
Four adults, we're not fussy which airline but it must be direct flight from the london area airports, the dates are not flexible. The car has to be a large 4x4 sized vehicle like the Chrysler Pacifica (Dollar's Premium cat), platinum insurance type thingy with all charges and a tank of gas to boot.
So far, i've come up with:
Flights £401 with Virgin, both direct with virgin and thru expedia
Car hire £340 from USCarHire, Gold option.
Tickets from themeparkticketsdirect:

• Disney 21 Day Ultimate £185
• Orlando Flexticket Plus £135

Naturally prices will rise and fall between now and then but if anyone has any suggestions where i may be able to find this lot cheaper, it's appreciated! Those who have chatted with me on the community board in december will know i'm job hunting, so every penny counts as we've made the conscious decision to not cancel the holiday, since our savings are more than sufficient to cover it. Needless to say i don't want to dent them too much though!
Hopefully I'll be out on my own soon once i take care of some nastiness still hanging over from previous employment that i can't go into, so with any luck i won't have to use any of my savings at all!
How is everyone by the way?

 

[loadsapixiedust]

Which parks do you really intend to visit and how often?

Do you make plans and stick to them or do you need tickets which allow maximum flexibility?

There may be savings to be made by scaling down on the tickets a bit. The Flex is valid for 14 days so a 21 day Disney ticket on top might be a bit of overkill for a 17 night trip. Maybe a 7 or 14 day ticket would do? Maybe you don't need the plus visits or hopper option then a MYW base ticket might be cheaper? Unless you'll use all the admissions on the Flexticket there may also be cheaper alternatives to those.

It is a bit of a big job and can be confusing at times but it is worth trying out some different combinations and comparing the total price for each.

 

[bazzanoid]

Which parks do you really intend to visit and how often?

Do you make plans and stick to them or do you need tickets which allow maximum flexibility?

There may be savings to be made by scaling down on the tickets a bit. The Flex is valid for 14 days so a 21 day Disney ticket on top might be a bit of overkill for a 17 night trip. Maybe a 7 or 14 day ticket would do? Maybe you don't need the plus visits or hopper option then a MYW base ticket might be cheaper? Unless you'll use all the admissions on the Flexticket there may also be cheaper alternatives to those.

It is a bit of a big job and can be confusing at times but it is worth trying out some different combinations and comparing the total price for each.

We never make a full itinerary before we go, so full flexibility is a must - for example quite often we'll go to MGM for Fantasmic and then on to EPCOT straight after for their fireworks etc - we like DisneyQuest as well, plus we always end up visiting a disney park on day 1 of the holiday as well as the final day, so it's a must that we can hop about, visit all the parks for the entire duration.

We go for the Flexticket - we won't be visiting wet n wild but all the others yes, and again because we don't have set days we like the flexibility of going as and when we feel.

Last time we went we looked at all the options and this was the best... then we decided to do discovery cove, so we went for the swim package with 14 days seaworld and busch access, separate tickets for universal as they had a 14 for the price of 7 offer on their US website.

As we're doing 17 days this time we're heading for a more relaxing holiday so the less restrictions the better! The only real planning for the days will be if we get any ADR's and naturally the weekends so we can avoid the parks - downtown kissimmee has a xmas event on the first weekend so that neatly takes care of it, second weekend will be shopping! (speaking of which, i'm creating a separate shopping thread for some advice on shopping destinations other than florida mall and the mall at millennia!)

 

[loadsapixiedust]

OK so you do need the flexibility.

Mercury Travel Have the Flexticket Plus at £135 and the 21 day Ultimate at £179, saving you a few £££.