Best Time To Reserve A Vacation

[strine56]

Would January and October be the best time to book a discounted resort vacation to DisneyWorld? I would also think this may be the best time to book airflight reservations for Orlando, Florida and get an air flight reservation discount.

 

[mommyof3princess27]

If you are planning to go in October, I have heard that this past October, there werent many discounts offered...A value season is the cheapest you are gonna get w/o a PIN code. Keep your eye out for a PIN code

 

[Marionnette]

Would January and October be the best time to book a discounted resort vacation to DisneyWorld? I would also think this may be the best time to book airflight reservations for Orlando, Florida and get an air flight reservation discount.

The Food & Wine Festival is in October. So is MNSSHP. So you might not find too many discounts since that time of year is beginning to gain popularity.

OTOH, there's not much going on in January besides the marathon on the first weekend after the New Year. The weather is not always warm (in fact it can be rather chilly sometimes). But the crowds prior to MLK weekend can be pretty light and there are usually pretty good discounts.

 

[strine56]

The Food & Wine Festival is in October. So is MNSSHP. So you might not find too many discounts since that time of year is beginning to gain popularity.

OTOH, there's not much going on in January besides the marathon on the first weekend after the New Year. The weather is not always warm (in fact it can be rather chilly sometimes). But the crowds prior to MLK weekend can be pretty light and there are usually pretty good discounts.

How is the weather in March?

 

[brookmey]

March weather is really nice. Our spring break is always mid-March and most of the time the weather has been in the low to mid-80s. One time it was mostly in the 60s, but that was still nice in the parks.

 

[strine56]

March weather is really nice. Our spring break is always mid-March and most of the time the weather has been in the low to mid-80s. One time it was mostly in the 60s, but that was still nice in the parks.

I would guess the first week of March would be less crowded. I believe spring break would go all the way to the end of April. I know that spring break in California goes to atleast the third week of April.

 

[IDoDis]

I have been watching the airline prices from my city to Orlando. They have not come down in the last 6 months and have, in fact, gone up on Southwest. The last time we flew to Orlando in June '09 we paid $99 each way and in Oct. '10 when we went to DL, we paid $89 each way. Now the cheapest gotta get away fair is $200 each way and many flights are around $264. Just with the cheapest fare that's twice as much!

I also checked room prices at WDW. Even with the 30% discount at a Deluxe resort, the prices are $1500 higher than what we paid in '09. I'm starting to feel like we can no longer afford going to Disney. Of course we could stay off-site like Windsor Hills and save $$ there, so we are considering that, but we are also now thinking about other destinations where there are airfare specials. For some reason, every time Southwest has a special, the prices are never good to Orlando! We have some air credit on southwest so we'd prefer to fly that airline and use up the credits before they expire.

I'm getting nervous by looking at these prices. I usually book right at the beginning of the year and find great deals, but so far it's been a dud. And with Disney's dud of a "One More Day" campaign, we might have to go somewhere else.

 

[Pikezh638]

I also checked room prices at WDW. Even with the 30% discount at a Deluxe resort, the prices are $1500 higher than what we paid in '09. I'm starting to feel like we can no longer afford going to Disney. Of course we could stay off-site like Windsor Hills and save $$ there, so we are considering that,

Why not stay at a moderate or value resort? Sure they don't offer as much, but are you really at the hotel that much ? I believe we got some kind of dining deal in the middle of October '11.

Plane tickets are way too much I agree. For me they are $1000 from two people, my last trip it was about 7 or 8 hours between leaving home and landing in "my other home" (hehe) and I can get to Disney in about 13-16 hours driving. So driving is my option until airfare gets cheaper

 

[alh921]

We usually aim to book for lowest crowd levels and best deals. The past 3 years, we took our vacation around the last week of Jan to 1st week of Feb. One of the years we got a great discount on a room-only rate and bought park tickets through my employer at a discount. The next year Disney had good deals on the MYW package, and Southwest had an additional couple hundred dollars off, which made for an overall really good package deal. 3rd year we took the free dining offer and that ended up making the trip very affordable. All three times we stayed at Pop Century, and flights were very cheap. We booked the vacations around Nov/Dec timeframe (so roughly 1.5 - 2 months in advance). The 3rd year Southwest didn't have as great of deals on air tickets, so we booked through JetBlue which was enough cheaper that it covered the cost to park the car at the airport for 8 days.

I watched the deals this year again, and they were very good. Disney had the free dining or room discount deal options again. Southwest and JetBlue both ran good deals on air. I think the best time to buy and guarantee a good rate is probably October-ish, maybe into Nov. However, this year Southwest had a special deal running on Dec 16th (a kind of random winter sale for one-day) where flights were the cheapest I had seen to Orlando in the past 3 years or so. In fact, all flights in the U.S. mainland were 1/2 off, but you had to travel in a very narrow window in mid-January. It was like $39 each way for me to fly from MD to Orlando .. so would have been $130 round trip after all of the taxes and fees -- ridiculously good -- but that's not something you can really plan for. I am on the airline mailing lists and I also get 3rd party travel alert notifications in my email that help me track flight cost fluctuations for the dates i would like to travel.

 

[swilshire]

As mentioned, October can be very busy. Especially busy is the Columbus Day week. Some schools take a break then because of the Federal Holiday on Monday. Our kids are out all week. When looking for accomodations, I find that week very difficult to get.

Sheila

 

[rvchat]

As mentioned, October can be very busy. Especially busy is the Columbus Day week. Some schools take a break then because of the Federal Holiday on Monday. Our kids are out all week. When looking for accomodations, I find that week very difficult to get.

Sheila

we recently visited in october. it was great. weather was a++++ and no crowds.

summer was v bad, february week of presidents was v bad too.