Time4Orlando said:
There is not much difference between the neighborhoods. They are all basically the same and so are the homes. Not one management company in Orlando solely owns each house in a given neighborhood. There could be 10 different management companies that own houses in a given neighborhood. And unless any of these people have stayed in every neighborhood full of vacation homes, how can they say which is the best? Don't be oversold on a vacation home......if they are within 4-7 minutes of Disney...THEY ARE ALL BASICALLY THE SAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This isn't a question of 'agreeing to disagree'. This post is factually incorrect and thus unhelpful to the OP. In any event, you'd only have to stay in 2 villas to be able to state that they're not all the same. To be able to claim they're all the same -
then you'd need to have stayed in them all. And, as Jan has already pointed out, the management companies do just that - manage them. They do not own them.
We have stayed in 10
different villas on 5
different communities and we've visited many more. Here are some of the things which I look for when renting (and which certainly are not present in every case, thus making them different!):
Location;
South facing pool;
Extended lanai;
Not overlooked;
Jacuzzi;
Games room;.
Two similar sized master suites;
Computer with internet access;
Top of the range furnishings;
Large flat screen TVs;
Key code entry.
The newer/nicer communities tend to be gated, IMHO, although I do agree with Jan that the gates are rarely closed, so there's no real safety benefit. The community facilities available at some sub-divisions (such as Emerald Island and Windsor Palms) are not important to me. However, it's obviously a
huge differentiating factor and, if you want to be on this kind of development, you can immediately discount thousands of villas from your search, because there aren't that many of them.
shonadamson - Lindfields is the original rental community and, if you are going to rent there, you will need to ask questions about how recently the home was refurbished. In fact, bearing in mind that any photos you see will have been taken when the home was brand new (or newly refurbished), it's not a bad question to be asking about any home you're thinking of renting. As Jan says, not all owners are equal!
Of the three, Tuscan Ridge is the newest, but furthest from Disney (on the US27) - about 15-20 minutes drive. Indian Creek is fairly new and genuinely one of the closest to Disney (only Formosa Gardens and Acadia Estates are closer and we really are talking a hair's breadth!). It is possible to be on WDW property within 5 minutes. Lindfields is just a little further away.
Some like certain amenities, others prefer different things. 
Which is why we're here, offering our opinions 
