DH wants me to cut budget by $1500??!!

[ruadisneyfan2]

OP, if you still want the Hyatt at MCO I can see it on Last Minute Travel.com for $143 plus tax. Not as cheap as other places off site but still much better than your original $216.

http://www.lastminutetravel.com/PageHotels.aspx

To see it:
Enter your dates and travel party and either Orlando or MCO for location.
Then on the left at the Filters, click on Airport area.
Then at the top above all the search results, sort by star rating.
The first one listed then should be a 4*.
Click on the photos. Anyone who has ever stayed there would instantly recognize them as the Hyatt.

A small pop up did come up saying call for better rates. It appears they now have some type of club to join.
They didn't have that the last time I booked through them but that's been a couple years.


There is also a possible match on Hotwire for your dates for $133+tax.
It's a 4 star in the MCO area. The reviews are 95% positive with additional comment of "Amazing". Usually the only other 4* in the MCO area is the Renaissance by Marriott and in the past the only way to tell the 2 apart on HW is to look at the TripAdvisor rating. Hyatt had 4.5* and Renaissance had 4*
It stinks but they no longer list the tripadvisor ratings, only their own ratings, so there's no way to know for sure or even make an educated guess. Not sure if the additional $10 savings would be worth the gamble. jmho.

I don't know how early your flight is and if it's worth the cost. Only you can decide what's valuable to you, but you can literally look down from the balcony and see the lines for security so you can kind of roll out of bed and be there in a couple minutes.
We like it for late arrivals. We really appreciate it when late arrivals become delayed.

 

[mls02]

You can get your Universal tickets here http://store.usssa.com/Category/66-theme-park-tickets.aspx

I bought and used 10 tickets for our trip in June from them and they worked great. Many of the people on the disboards have used them as well with no issues. They would be $338 total for 3- 1 day park to park.

Can you upgrade these at Universal for a 3 day vs 2 day?

 

[MrsPete]

Coming in late to this topic, but I'm sure of the answer:

Yes, it's very possible to plan a trip for $1500 less.

No, it's not possible to have THIS TRIP with all these already-chosen details for $1500 less.

 

[trainingupmy4princes]

Yeah, maybe if you get the luxury of going frequently you don't have to, but if you go with the notion that this may be your only family vacation there (which it possibly could be), I think you do.

I would challenge you to think hard and honestly and pretend that you have not been in 11 years, have never been with your spouse and child and this is your child's first and maybe only time there (oh, and child has never seen the ocean), and possibly your family's only chance to go. Your child is a boy about to turn 8, has ADHD and loves adventure. You have to fly from Indiana because it is a good 16 hour drive and you only have a week, plus DS would be miserable thus making everyone miserable, in a car that long. You have to go during a school break too.

What would your budget be for this possibly once in a lifetime vacation to Orlando. And please be honest with me AND yourself!

I will be honest, I have spent less on a trip for my large family of 7. So yes it seems poor planning budget wise. I can assure you if I planned a trip that was more expensive than it needs to be and running around that much, my DH would say no to going back. I'm not trying to be mean I'm just saying you said several times you would like to go back or mentioned it as a first trip. So with that in mind the way to convince your DH to want to go back, I would try to alter things and make it more affordable and enjoyable. As for the ocean even if you don't go back to Florida there are other states with beaches on the ocean. So I would suggest saving that for a different vacation. We have seen the ocean when visiting Texas,Virginia Beach, California, and Oregon as well as Florida. They were all pretty nice. Although my kid's favorite would have been San Diego, I like Oregon's a lot more visual to the coast line.

I would stay on-site because with a discount it would be cheaper than $800 and save in the rental car/parking fees. Also most kids like the fun pools at Disney and have fun playing with other kids rather than just swimming by themselves in a private pool. We do like Universal but I would only do it by cutting the beach and spending at least 2 days as trying to run around between 2 parks in the heat to get it all in one day would be tiring. You have purchased pictures but I don't see how much time you will have to wait in line and take them with only one day. I think with good planning and budgeting it wouldn't have to be a once in a lifetime trip. Either way, no matter what you decide I do hope you enjoy your trip. And we have 2 spectrum kids and so we do use the Fantasmic Dining package to avoid the crowded line but you do have to be there early and wait in your seats. Of course with autistic kids the waiting is secondary to the feeling of crowds and jostling. I find having something like DS's nintendo DS (with headphones so as not to bother the other guests)keeps him busy the 45 minutes we're sitting waiting for the show.