First time planner - Not sure where to start?!

[adcadc]

Hello!

I was hoping that some kind soul might be able to offer me some help and advice with booking a trip to WDW for the first time from the UK!

My two friends and I are looking to go to Orlando during early September for 7 days, possibly 14 if we can persuade my friend to take more time off of work .

I'm just wondering where to start and what the best deal would be for this trip? We aren't overly fussed about posh hotels or whatnot, as we are quite young (21) and are more interested in the parks themselves.

We have seen some extremely good deals for around £500pp which provide flights and a hotel in Orlando, these hotels are in rather good distance to WDW (about 10-15 minutes). Some of these deals also include a car hire, which of course would be extremely helpful. However if we opt not to have this option, we would be relying on busses.

To make everything easier for us, I did take a look at the budget hotels on the actual disney resort, these were fairly reasonable. For the hotel, flights, tickets etc all included it came out at about £1000pp.

However when looking at this price I was considering just booking one of the deals that take us straight to Orlando, staying in a hotel in close proximity to Disney, but then I realised that we would need to buy a 7/14 day park ticket and this looks to be around £278.00 so by then it'd already be turning out to be quite close to the £1000 mark, meaning it may be more simpler to buy directly with disney for the £1000 price due to all the added disney perks. (Not to mention if we just get an offsite hotel, we won't have the disney transportation perks).

It all seems extremely complicated and I really can't decide what is best!
Not to mention we would quite like to visit some other things, such as Universal, which will add more on top of the price.

So I was wondering if someone would be kind enough to offer me some guidance? Is hoping for anything under the 1K mark (for each of us) a silly thing to be doing? Would it be best to book directly with disney and stay onsite at the Disney resort, or stay offsite and book disney tickets etc all separately?

Considering everything, I think it really boils down to whether it'd be more cost-effective to book a package directly with Disney, staying with Disney. Or to buy a cheap, special deal which will just get us into Orlando, staying in Orlando, but then this leaves us having to find our own way of getting to (and paying for the parks). I think whatever I do, it's best to buy some sort of package, as buying flights and hotels separately seems extremely expensive in comparison to a package. It's just deciding on the best one! However if anyone does know of a completely different way to make all of this cheaper that I haven't even considered, then please do say

Apologies for the massive rambling, as I said, I'm new to all of this planning and am becoming a little overwhelmed

Thanks very much in advance to anyone who can help me!

 

[Elise79]

Sorry, I haven't got a massive amount of time to reply this morning.

You will probably get it cheapest by booking DIY.

Also at 21 you will be stung with young driver surcharges which may make hiring a car very expensive.

If you stay on site at Disney they will get you to and from the airport free and you have all the on site transportation to get you to the parks. You would only need a taxi or transfer to Universal then.

If you post dates I will have a good look later for you

 

[BettyBoo29]

Hii

Me and DBF are booking our very first trip to Orlando aswell, we are staying down I drive from the 16th sep - 30th sep, we booked this through Thomas cook - 2 weeks, flights, transfers and hotel for 898pp, although we just booked all our tickets last night from attraction tickets.com - Disney and universal 14 day ultimate combo x2 & discovery cove ultimate with dolphin swim x2 & a 2 day trip to Miami including Everglades and this all come to £1'400.

We did compare prices to virgin but they was around 300 more pp, we compared planes and the foot room is exactly the same so we opt'd for TC.

We also have looked into hiring a car may times but as I am 21 and DBF 22 the u25 surcharge was unbelievable. So seeing as though we are on I drive we thought we will just catch a bus and we are in a good location anyway. Plus we didn't want that weight and worry of driving in a foreign country!

We are just looking at our itinerary and what ADRs we want as 180 days is fast approaching.

Will be good to have another first timer around :-

We can maybe help each other!

Beth

 

[adcadc]

Sorry, I haven't got a massive amount of time to reply this morning.

You will probably get it cheapest by booking DIY.

Also at 21 you will be stung with young driver surcharges which may make hiring a car very expensive.

If you stay on site at Disney they will get you to and from the airport free and you have all the on site transportation to get you to the parks. You would only need a taxi or transfer to Universal then.

If you post dates I will have a good look later for you

Hi Elise! Thanks very much for the help Yeah I have heard a lot about the surcharges, it does seem that staying onsite will make our lives a lot easier, but of course more expensive, so I guess it's just a matter of weighing out the pros and cons.

We're looking at staying sometime early September, so probably something like the 1st till the 8th! Thanks again for the help

 

[adcadc]

Hii

Me and DBF are booking our very first trip to Orlando aswell, we are staying down I drive from the 16th sep - 30th sep, we booked this through Thomas cook - 2 weeks, flights, transfers and hotel for 898pp, although we just booked all our tickets last night from attraction tickets.com - Disney and universal 14 day ultimate combo x2 & discovery cove ultimate with dolphin swim x2 & a 2 day trip to Miami including Everglades and this all come to £1'400.

We did compare prices to virgin but they was around 300 more pp, we compared planes and the foot room is exactly the same so we opt'd for TC.

We also have looked into hiring a car may times but as I am 21 and DBF 22 the u25 surcharge was unbelievable. So seeing as though we are on I drive we thought we will just catch a bus and we are in a good location anyway. Plus we didn't want that weight and worry of driving in a foreign country!

We are just looking at our itinerary and what ADRs we want as 180 days is fast approaching.

Will be good to have another first timer around :-

We can maybe help each other!

Beth

Hey! Yes, it does seem that many people our age are having a hard time with the high surcharges It's definitely making me think either booking a hotel close to the resort and catching a bus or simply staying onsite at a cheap disney hotel would be best.

Yeah I had a quick look at Virgin and it seemed pretty expensive, I'll have a quick look at TC later to see what prices for us would be, so thanks for helping with that
You sound like you'll have a lovely trip with all the things you have planned! Luckily our main ventures will just be WDW and hopefully Universal so we don't need to worry about sorting too many things, but it does still seem to be becoming rather expensive!

But yeah it's nice to know I have another first timer around here on the boards to help me through this stressful journey Good luck with the rest of your trip planning

 

[Elise79]

Hi Elise! Thanks very much for the help Yeah I have heard a lot about the surcharges, it does seem that staying onsite will make our lives a lot easier, but of course more expensive, so I guess it's just a matter of weighing out the pros and cons.

We're looking at staying sometime early September, so probably something like the 1st till the 8th! Thanks again for the help

Just had a quick look and you can get direct flights with Virgin traveling 6-13 September for £679 or indirect for £664 with Aer Lingus.

Hotels - Pop Century on Expedia £416 less 8% cash back on Quidco = £383 or £138 each before cashback. This includes the extra adult charge.

For tickets as you are only going for 7 days I would look at getting MYW tickets for Disney. A 7 day with hopper and water parks from Undercover Tourist is $396 which is about £247 far less than the 7 day Ultimate sold here. You can save money if you are not going to need the hopper or water parks by getting a base ticket for $319 or about £200.

Total is then with VA flight and base MYW tickets- £1017 each.

 

[adcadc]

Just had a quick look and you can get direct flights with Virgin traveling 6-13 September for £679 or indirect for £664 with Aer Lingus.

Hotels - Pop Century on Expedia £416 less 8% cash back on Quidco = £383 or £138 each before cashback. This includes the extra adult charge.

For tickets as you are only going for 7 days I would look at getting MYW tickets for Disney. A 7 day with hopper and water parks from Undercover Tourist is $396 which is about £247 far less than the 7 day Ultimate sold here. You can save money if you are not going to need the hopper or water parks by getting a base ticket for $319 or about £200.

Total is then with VA flight and base MYW tickets- £1017 each.

Sorry for the slow reply! But thank you very much for all of the info, it's very insightful and helpful

It looks like the disney onsite hotels such as pop century will be best for us, so I think I'lll look into that route, thanks again for making everything a lot less stressful!

 

[iona]

Also, if you're only going for a week then a 7 day Disney ticket (with hopper & water parks) could easily keep you occupied for the whole week, reducing the need for taxis & tickets to Universal, etc.

 

[pols56]

Check out booking through wdw direct for package with virgin Atlantic flights we have saved £330 compared to virgin holidays and booking separate. We are staying at the carrabean beach resort. Thomas Cook fly to Sanford and virgin travel direct to orlando international.
We have stayed on international drive many times, if you are thinking of getting the local buses they don't take you direct to the parks. And can take upto an hour to get there
We used mears transportation shuttles which cost 19 dollars return and pick up outside your hotel
We are staying on site this year as we are taking our grandson and if he gets tired can go back to our resort for a rest and back to the parks later in the day.
If you stay on site they have magic hours when certain parks open earlier or stay open later for disney guests.