Back home a week, our budget (sort of) high and lows

[london75]

We landed on Tuesday morning but to be honest with going straight back to work and eldest DD going straight to a new school it was too soon to think about a mini review, so rather than a trip report this year, I thought I'd do some highs and lows with some info for people searching for similar things over the last few months.

First some details, we booked this trip after having cancelled a much bigger one due to having to get a bit more sensible with the spends. We went to Egypt at Easter as we all really needed a holiday and thought we'd better try something else. We tried it and while not outright hating it, were bored after a few days, we're just used to having so many things to do in Florida.

So we got last minute flights indirect with American Airlines for around £500 each, a villa at a resort I'd not heard of before called Calabria and a cheap SUV. Using tickets from last years free dining and some Universals + free Legoland tickets ordered this year we were all set for our cheapest trip yet. (still not cheap obviously though!)

Highs
• American Airlines flights were perfectly fine and at 500 pp a bargain considering it was so last minute. I could sit comfortably despite being 6'5" which surprised me. No entertainment but we're all tabletted up now so no need, far better saving the flight money and having your own tablet.
• Tampa airport was great, admittedly we'd done immigration in JFK but it was so quiet and relaxing to walk through despite the time.
• The villa at Calabria was beautiful and for the first time we have a villa we'd actually love to return to and would heartily recommend. The owners are UK based as well which shouldn't matter but does. It was well kept, very large and a great pool. Link here for anyone interested http://www.eaglewoodluxuryvilla.co.uk we would book again in an instant.
• Magic Kingdom just gets better and better and I am always still in awe of a company that had a perfectly good set of restrooms but tore them up and built a whole area themed to Tangled with so much detail and effort just because they could.
• New Fantasy Land is great although I think DW and I appreciated it more than the kids who measured it by number of rides ie 1 so never wanted to go and have another look. Tough.
• No BTGs

Lows
• On the outbound flight - second leg there was a storm in Tampa which meant we had to circle for 45 minutes, then the pilot decided we didn't have enough of a safety margin fuel wise so we flew to Orlando, landed, refuelled, sat for 30 minutes and returned to Tampa. All in all an extra 3 hours on the trip which we'd convinced the kids would be on and off again!
• The drive from Tampa to Kissimmee in the dark and some rain never having done it before and shattered was no fun at all. I would probably not use Tampa for this reason alone unless the price is so stupidly low its a no-brainer. I was very tired and it was a very boring drive if you know what I mean!
• I don’t know if it’s just because we were on a budget which I found impossible to stick to with my spoilt children but I really felt prices had risen significantly this year. As an example, a pair of Mickey ears used to be almost a throw-away purchase, but now the newer ones are a full toy price and not just a triviality. An ice cream is almost $4 now as well. It just made it feel much more expensive than it used to.
• Simple Mobile US SIM card, all right its a good price and the supposed data allowance was great but if I actually found any way to get a signal to use the allowance, there was almost always a better wifi option. The phone is a modern 4G one so there should have been no problems and I'm a geek by trade so no worries there however maybe I overlooked a setting because 9 times out of 10 I looked at the phone it was in "Emergency Calls Only" due to no Simple Mobile signal.
• I found the other road users particularly aggressive this year and I'm ashamed to say this was fellow Brits on more than one occasion, football shirts are a pretty good method of determining drivers.
• There were fewer people in the parks and shops yet so many more "incidents" of rudeness and bad manners than normal. There were some nice families with pleasant kids still but lots of pushing, shoving, queue jumping and just no please or thank yous. It felt like Paris to be honest. Booo. Hopefully that will improve as the economy picks up again, maybe everyone is just in a bad mood at the moment.


I'll add more as I think of things!

 

[joolz1910]

The villa looks lovely!
It's such a shame about the rudeness of other holiday-makers. I think people can get a very 'entitled' attitude.

 

[irenep]

Great Highs and Lows report

I haven't really considered using AA or Tampa before but will certainly think about them considering you got such good prices. Shame about the delay and weather - driving when tired is so scary.

 

[queendisney]

beautiful villa.

Glad you had a good time and so long as you spent less then your normal budget then I am sure you can call it a budget holiday!! Our budget holiday a couple of years ago worked out as expensive in the end as we found we spent more in the malls on goodies because we'd saved on the hotel etc..!!

Thank you for doing the hi's and low's, enjoyed reading them.

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

Great highs and lows we found driving a bit hairy last time but mainly with people being lost and switching lanes, wandering etc also it was really busy at Christmas.

I don't know why people are rude, it's just as easy to smile

 

[dixonsontour]

Thanks for doing your highs and lows

We are on a very much budget trip this year after last years dxddp/OKW trip.

 

[london75]

Thanks for doing your highs and lows

We are on a very much budget trip this year after last years dxddp/OKW trip.

That's what spoilt us last year, we did OKW with dining and then for our 10th anniversary went back at October half term with the kids for a 7 night cruise.

As I posted earlier this year, it suddenly twigged how much all the extra luxuries were coming to so we've scaled back now. I think we'll try for direct again next year, possibly alternating between direct and indirect each year. We have a cruise booked and we had talked ourselves into Concierge for a week in the Caribbean but I'm now thinking the money would be better spent on 3 weeks in OKW on dining plus a 3 nights bahamas cruise. DW is 40 next year so it's a bit of celebration trip rather than budget.

 

[wayneg]

We have used TPA a few times now, its not just cost I also consider flight times, often TPA is more convenient than MCO, for example this last trip we wanted to be in Boston around lunch time. MCO times were really early morning or late afternoon, from TPA we could leave at 10:30am with a 1:30pm arrival, perfect for what we wanted.

We bought a T-mobile SIM last month from Walmart, unlimited data (4g upto 5GB, Matt used it all day every day for a month and only used 0.5GB) unlimited texts and 100 mins. We added another $10 online to allow international text so he could text us on our UK mobiles at 10cents/text. Service was great in Florida. http://www.walmart.com/ip/T-Mobile-SIM-Kit/24099996

 

[Elise79]

That's what spoilt us last year, we did OKW with dining and then for our 10th anniversary went back at October half term with the kids for a 7 night cruise.

As I posted earlier this year, it suddenly twigged how much all the extra luxuries were coming to so we've scaled back now. I think we'll try for direct again next year, possibly alternating between direct and indirect each year. We have a cruise booked and we had talked ourselves into Concierge for a week in the Caribbean but I'm now thinking the money would be better spent on 3 weeks in OKW on dining plus a 3 nights bahamas cruise. DW is 40 next year so it's a bit of celebration trip rather than budget.

How did you find being in a villa compared to being at OKW? It's something I keep thinking about with the speed of the onsite price increases!

We have used TPA a few times now, its not just cost I also consider flight times, often TPA is more convenient than MCO, for example this last trip we wanted to be in Boston around lunch time. MCO times were really early morning or late afternoon, from TPA we could leave at 10:30am with a 1:30pm arrival, perfect for what we wanted.

We bought a T-mobile SIM last month from Walmart, unlimited data (4g upto 5GB, Matt used it all day every day for a month and only used 0.5GB) unlimited texts and 100 mins. We added another $10 online to allow international text so he could text us on our UK mobiles at 10cents/text. Service was great in Florida. http://www.walmart.com/ip/T-Mobile-SIM-Kit/24099996

We got a friend to pick us up these as we have decided to let our AT&T sims expire after 3 years as they just got too expensive. Matts/your review of using it was the final thing I needed to switch

 

[flortlebap]

I can't help but think the price inflation is due to free dining and making people feel they're getting better value for money. It's almost not worth paying OOP anymore.

Glad you had fun overall though!

 

[london75]

How did you find being in a villa compared to being at OKW? It's something I keep thinking about with the speed of the onsite price increases!

We've stayed in villas quite a few times and for me, having separate living and sleeping areas plus multiple bedrooms and our own pool are what win me over every time.

Now a 2 bed at OKW has all that except the pool privacy but the cost for three weeks with dining next year is over 8000 I think. A nice villa would be 1500, 10 nice meals (every other day is more than enough) at around 100 per meal takes it to 2500. 10 offsite meals at 50 per meal plus 20 small meals and snack at 25 per is another 1000 so 3500.

We have the luxury of annual passes but even if we had to buy them that 3500 adds up to around 4700 including tickets. Now I know you don't get the transportation or snacks etc and the meals aren't like for like but you get you own pool, bigger and arguably better accommodation for at least 3000 less.

The free dining is still a quite good deal if you can sacrifice the accommodation but I just wouldn't relax with the girls keeping as all awake all night in a single room.

 

[london75]

One more thing, we took lucozade for DW and some Jaffa Cakes for Tiana as she asked the girls to bring her some last year and they really wanted to. This was all packed in the suitcase. I'd decided to declare on the form after reading on here that some people swear by it.

We got routed to the special desk in customs where they asked what we had, I told them and they said fine and let us go.

It was only at the villa we found the inspection leaflet in the case saying they'd inspected it before we collected so wonder what would have happened if we'd not declared.

Just thought I'd warn everybody. It was probably the lucozade as that would show on a scanner as being very dense and heavy/large but might not be worth the risk if you are taking stuff with you. We'd never declare before but thought this wasn't the year to risk it as a delay in JFK would have been rubbish.

 

[tinkerpea]

We've stayed in villas quite a few times and for me, having separate living and sleeping areas plus multiple bedrooms and our own pool are what win me over every time.

Now a 2 bed at OKW has all that except the pool privacy but the cost for three weeks with dining next year is over 8000 I think. A nice villa would be 1500, 10 nice meals (every other day is more than enough) at around 100 per meal takes it to 2500. 10 offsite meals at 50 per meal plus 20 small meals and snack at 25 per is another 1000 so 3500.

We have the luxury of annual passes but even if we had to buy them that 3500 adds up to around 4700 including tickets. Now I know you don't get the transportation or snacks etc and the meals aren't like for like but you get you own pool, bigger and arguably better accommodation for at least 3000 less.

The free dining is still a quite good deal if you can sacrifice the accommodation but I just wouldn't relax with the girls keeping as all awake all night in a single room.

See we always did offsite trips when I was a child. We would stay at I drive in days in etc "this was like 25 years ago" and it was great as i knew nothing about the disney hotels at this point lol,

So for easily 20 odd 4wk trips we would do quality inns and was very happy, I did long to stay onsite though and so when me and dh took our kids for the 1st time together we stayed at pop loved it so much that we have since done pop twice AKL and SSR with next stay at poly
BUT the prices are getting so insane that once the boys are a few years older and not into character meals so much still then a villa would suite us well!
There 8,8,11 on our next trip in October and its the food prices that swing me for onsite with the ddp I can't imagine going with our it,
You say $100 for a good meal our family of 5 cost us last trip around $170 easily for the cheapest character meal lol and nearly $300 for the expensive one! That's what staying in a villa scares me about!! The food cost with out the ddp.

 

[london75]

See we always did offsite trips when I was a child. We would stay at I drive in days in etc "this was like 25 years ago" and it was great as i knew nothing about the disney hotels at this point lol,

So for easily 20 odd 4wk trips we would do quality inns and was very happy, I did long to stay onsite though and so when me and dh took our kids for the 1st time together we stayed at pop loved it so much that we have since done pop twice AKL and SSR with next stay at poly
BUT the prices are getting so insane that once the boys are a few years older and not into character meals so much still then a villa would suite us well!
There 8,8,11 on our next trip in October and its the food prices that swing me for onsite with the ddp I can't imagine going with our it,
You say $100 for a good meal our family of 5 cost us last trip around $170 easily for the cheapest character meal lol and nearly $300 for the expensive one! That's what staying in a villa scares me about!! The food cost with out the ddp.

I was using £ so a bit closer around $150 but I also think even every other day in a table service restaurant is a lot so you save in that way as well. We found we only ate out once a day rather than twice, generally publix on the way home at night for a piece of cake or worst case a chinese takeaway was more than enough.

We have been cutting back on how much we eat as it was getting stupid even in this country. Since we've had the new food waste bins around here (it's shocking how much food waste we were creating and I'm no hippie save the planet type!) combined with getting fat over the years, we've started eating one main meal in the day and not much else and it's worked a treat for us. This had a knock on effect in Florida where we were hungry at 11:00am so had whatever we fancied at lunch (wherever we fancied it), then never really got hungry again. The kids were the same even though they've not really been on the same regime as us.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. Just add up how many meals you would actually eat rather than what you eat on the DDP because it's there and free and see how much that costs. Even if you want to stay onsite, it's possible booking with discounts via the US gives the same benefits without the cost.

 

[paul_toria96]

Thank you for your highs and lows, your villa looked lovely