Booking GCH, many questions

[Shell4624]

Looking to book a room at GCH last week of 3/12 or first week 4/12.

Any suggestions on which week would be better and why?

Do you recommend booking packages or separate? When could I expect the spring deals to come out and any ideas of typcial deals around this time of year? Free night, free food?

Finally my parents are most likely going with. Would it make sense financially to try for a villa? or would be spend less booking 2 rooms?

It would be myself, DH, DD6 and DD11 at time of travel.

Finally is planning to spend $2500 reasonable for 4 nights, 2 adults, 2 kids 3 day PH reasonable? Wonder if i can spend less??? Any ideas, thoughts are greatly appreciated!

TIA

 

[larina]

Easter is April 8, so the week of April 12th will still be spring break for a lot of private high schools and such, so I'd go with March, but you'll get lots of good feedback here from people who have been during those times more recently!

 

[mrswh]

As far as spring break, I think either of those weeks will be someone's spring break, but I'd guess that the first week of April will be the tail end of it, so the crowds might be a bit lighter.

You're not going to be able to get hotel + PHs for much less than $2500 if you're planning to stay at GCH. It all depends on the promotions, of course, but generally speaking (with a pretty good promotion) the GCH is $350+ a night - for one room. So you could all squeeze into one room, and then you're looking at another $800ish for PHs (again, depends on the promos at the time), and you're butting right up to that $2500 - that's if there is a good deal at the GCH. I am sure someone else will know the answer, but it's possible that if you go in April vs. March you might be back in slow season and could get better deals.

I like to book separately because I don't think that packages save you any money, and I also think that the cancellation policy for packages is more strict than it is for hotel only bookings. On our last trip, we booked hotel only, then later called WDTC and added our PHs. This got us a discount on the PHs (since the price had gone up - WDTC can honor the same price all year even if the price goes up) and also the preferred seating for Aladdin, etc. I think this worked only because the hotel was fully booked (so they could not convert our reservation to a package), but it's worth a try!

One other thing - with your family, you probably want a room with bunk beds. If so, make sure you make that request when you make the reservation, and then call the pre-registration line the morning of your arrival (I mean, like, at the crack of dawn) and you will have a much better shot of getting your request honored.

 

[larina]

If your parents are over 60 you can get a senior discount (30%) as long as they are there at check in. We do that and then book things individually. Works out the best that way for us.

 

[Nonsuch]

Finally my parents are most likely going with. Would it make sense financially to try for a villa? or would be spend less booking 2 rooms

You would need a 2 bedroom villa. You are a traveling in the high points rates of Magic/Premier seasons. Minimum is 70 points/night. Rental though DVCRequests or similar is $13/point (direct from owners would be lower).

The villa will cost more than 2 standard hotel rooms, however a 2 bedroom villa is so much better