Factors to think about, off-site or on??

[Cakegirl]

I'm trying to compare the benefits of staying on-site at a value resort (POP) versus not going the Disney route at Wyndham Bonnet Creek for our May 2012 trip.

What all factors do you consider when you think of getting the best deal? Saving money is a big consideration, although having more room during our week long stay would be great too. We would be driving our own car and would like atleast one Chef Mickey dinner for the kids, I'm up for cooking/preparing meals too.

Please share your thoughts, what do you consider?

 

[Brian Noble]

You might want three things:

To be onsite
To have a reasonable amount of room
To keep costs down

For the most part, you only get two of these, so you have to decide which one you'd rather do without. For me, sharing a single hotel room with my kids is not vacation. So space takes precedence. After that it is just a matter of budget.

That said, I personally don't find being onsite to be all that big of a deal. I will spend a little more to do it, but not a lot more. And getting the kind of space I prefer often costs a LOT more.

 

[jeff968]

Reasons we stay off-site only now:

Saving money - We eat breakfast, lunch, and snacks at the resort. We visit the Publix and load up first thing with everything we need. The savings in drinks alone can be great.
Room - The suites are huge, multiple bedrooms, your own deck, plenty of space for everyone, it is tough to do a hotel room these days. The in-room washer/dryer is so convienient and means you can wear cloths multiple days which means less luggage.
Resort rental - We save lots on the resort rental as well. For President's week I never pay more the $900 for 7 days and have paid as little as $600, out the door, no fees or taxes.
Resort brand name - With Marriott, Hilton, and Sheraton you know you are getting a first class resort experience. Beautiful, clean, lots of activities for everyone.
Orlando - so much to see and do, great retaurants, shopping, outlets.
Parks - you can still get as much or as little Disney as you want as well as Universal and Seaworld. You can hit some of the Disney restaurants without going into the park like Chef Mickeys. Downtown Disney and Citywalk are also fun if you choose.
Sun - The sun, the main reason we travel to Florida, is just as nice from the poolside at the Marriott as it is from Disney.

 

[TMJR]

For us it is all about the space and the washer and dryer! When we can stay in a 3BR townhouse with a plunge pool at Windsor Hills complete with a full kitchen and washer/dryer for less than POP, how can we pass that up??? We are a family of 5, so that is huge for us.

The cost savings are great too, but it is the space that is our dealbreaker!

 

[Grimley]

More space for less money. I'm considering off-site for our next trip and that is the biggest motivator for me. Plus, we've been enough times that we don't need total immersion in all things Disney!

 

[jlp879]

We've done both and enjoyed both. However, after our last trip where we spent half the time in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom timeshare and the other half with 5 people crammed into a Disney room, my kids(!) made me promise not to do the hotel thing again.

We did the larger space first, checked into the Yacht Club room and my son said "what happened to the rest of it?"

 

[BrerMama]

The cost is the least of it for us. Space, the opportunity to explore more of Orlando, the washer and dryer, and a need to actually get away from the "magic" sometimes -- those figured more into our decision than price.

 

[3sweetpeas]

I am actually trying to decide the same thing. We have never been to Bonnet Creek but have stayed in some very nice condos off site. We have also stayed on site and I personally looove it. I WANT the Disney immersion with the rest of the world blocked out but...we are a family of 5 with kids 11, 12 and 14. They take up more space. There's also the money factor. If we get 2 rooms at POP or possibly POR, it will cost WAY more than staying at Bonnet Creek even with the free dining (which my family loves by the way. Freedom to eat whatever they want and ice cream every day) I do know that last year we did a split stay; half on and half off. We did POR and AKV Kidani 1 BR first, then went off site to a 2 bedroom. Everyone spread out and got comfortable. Almost too comfortable! I had a harder time getting everyone going each day. I had to remind them that they could sit and do nothing at home! I have never been to Bonnet Creek so I don't know how separated from Disney it will feel. I am soooo confused myself. I would love some wisdom from others also. I forgot to mention that money is a definite factor for us this year also.

 

[shalom]

The only way we'd stay on site right now would be if we could afford a Grand Villa for the cost of a nice place offsite, which ain't gonna happen. Disney just isn't offering what we're looking for. If we actually get around to doing an "all Disney" vacation, we'd probably go with Wyndham's Bonnet Creek -- much prefer the layout of their units, and they've got lazy rivers, which we like, and a wide choice of pools, ditto.

We've always been able to find a 2 BR Timeshare when we go for a little more than half what it would cost to get one Value room -- and of course we'd need two Value rooms anyhow! Plus we hate hotel rooms, so never even considered them. Trading through our system a DVC 2 BR is less than the Value room, however most other Orlando resorts cost the same. Working that concept through is when I finally realized that, for the same price, I think I'd rather have Bonnet Creek. (Haven't stayed at either, mind you.)

If it were just hubby and I, we'd go onsite for the same price (still DVC and at least a 1 BR, though). Wouldn't feel so crowded in the unit and hubby doesn't care as much about lazy rivers as the kids do. Storm-Along Bay excited hubby way more than it did the kids.

Some of us do love the theming at the WDW resorts, but only for about the length of a visit. After an hour or so, the excitement wears off or the disadvantages out weigh the advantages, I suppose. If you had more control over where your room was at WDW I think I'd be more excited about on-site. "Requests usually honored" only works for me if we're talking a view I particularly want but the possibility of a view that is only okay; when it can mean a view I really want or a view I'd really hate, that doesn't excite me much.

It's my suspicion that a lot of the really rabid onsiters don't care about the view; for me, that's a deal breaker. If I'm vacation, I want to be somewhere relatively quiet, looking at something pretty, while zoning out. But I'm good with a quiet lake; someone else might want, not merely a pretty view, but a Disney view, and thus have a higher tolerance for some of the views that make me shudder (because "it's still Disney!"). It's all about what makes you feel like you're on vacation, I think.

 

[mikehn]

Do I need extra park hours?
Do I need or want to rely on buses to get around?
Do I want to be immersed in Disney 24/7?

These are the three perks that Disney resorts offer and they are what drive peoples decisions. If none of these perks matter to you, then your decision should be simple.

 

[dougsmom98]

I'm not sure if anyone else mentioned this, but I like off site because the thought of making ADRs for table service restaurants months in advance and then having to make sure I am in the right park or resort area at the right time to get to that reservation would drive me crazy. I know that I could do counter service and avoid reservations, but a few days of just counter service lunches is more than enough for me.

 

[momto2js]

One of our biggest drivers is the ability to have one kids naping and the other playing without having to worry about complete silience. For a week we just can't be in one room, it is too much togetherness. I have also learned the value of a washer and dryer the hard way. One of my kids tends to get car sick and having to go to the laundry room on the way to your room is NEVER the way to start a vacation.

We also drive and I take the crock pot and a few pre-assembled meals with us. In the morning I plop the stuff in a crock pot liner and turn it on. Dinner is ready when we return and we can relax and eat with our the stress of a public meltdown by one of my boys!!

 

[Branabb]

Saving money is a big consideration, although having more room during our week long stay would be great too.

This is my family in a nutshell. We are a family of 4 now. One boy is 6 and one will be 15 months at the time of our visit. We like to stretch our dollars because it satisfy the frugal Dad (me). When we vacation, we know what we want. We explore the options that fulfill those wants and generally choose the best deal.

Interestingly, this year we didn't want to be in a single hotel room no matter how nice the room. So, we checked out several of the better reputed resorts off-site and found the savings to be jaw-dropping. We will still spend our vacation budget, but we will be getting a lot more out of that money. Legoland and Medieval Times are already on the menu, and we are using the savings portion of our budget for those. I think we are going to have the best Disney vacation ever to be honest.

I think someone already posted the selling points of on-site: immersion 24/7, EMH, etc. Coincidentally, none of those factors matter to my family. EMH means go to another park that doesn't have EMH to us. Immersion is not that big of a deal after many years of having it.

So, we are happy to know we can spread out and have separation for the kiddos when one is sleeping and the other wants to play. For us, we come out cheaper even factoring in the FD in a Mod. We just get a lot more comfort.

We are staying at Bonnet Creek BTW, and I booked with Utopia World Vacations. Paul beat every other quote we got for our Dec.11-18 visit, and he is just an awesome guy to deal with thus far. I thank whoever recommended him in another post.

 

[Kat&Dom]

For me, the biggest factor is, are you spending all of time at Disney or will you be visiting other parks like SeaWorld, Universal, Islands, etc? Is your main focus seeing and doing as much as possible of the Disney parks or checking out other things in Florida?

For us, we love SeaWorld (have AP's for it), we also love to drive down to St Petersburg to catch a baseball game as there are no MLB teams anywhere near where we live. We are hoping to catch a hockey game in Tampa in November - prices are 1/3 to 1/2 the price of what we pay for a hockey game up here in Alberta. We enjoy the heat and just being in Florida. We love Disney but we enjoy the other parks too.

I also love having a 3 bed/3 bath condo so everyone can get ready at the same time, eat breakfast together, have laundry in the unit, having pretty much empty swimming pools and being able to shop at Disney Outlet store. We also love being able to park just outside our unit and walk a few steps into it.

 

[momof1+1+2]

We are planning for June of next year and we are leaning towards off-site in order to save money. I love the whole Disney experience and can't get enough of the decorations, magic, all of it. My fear is not having that "magic" and probably more so, I really don't want to cook on vacation! We are a family of 6 so I really like my break when we dine at Disney. Our deal breaker is cost - period. Wish we could stay on site but it's looking like off-site it is. We are considering renting at Windsor Hills, Bonnett Creek or the Fountains.

 

[famousmockingbird]

After our last trip, we might be spoiled to off-site. We like having more room, a full kitchen, and laundry facilities in the room. We stayed in a two bedroom condo with another family back in April, and it was perfect. We were less than ten minutes from the park (Wyndham Cypress Palms) and had plenty of room to spread out and do our own thing. We have another trip booked in June 2012 with my inlaws, and we are getting the two-bedroom block unit that has two separate living areas, full kitchen and kitchenette, etc. There's no way would could afford something on-site with the space to accomodate us all.