First-timer planning, help appreciated! :)

Pete C

Earning My Ears
Joined
Mar 1, 2010
Messages
4
Hi guys, my partner and I are looking at a trip to WDW at the end of August, ideally for 10 days. We have never been before and would love some pointers on good deals and where to start our research.

We have budgeted between £3,000 and £4,000. Is that enough for a decent trip?

PS - Although we'd prefer a trip to WDW, DLP would be great as well (provided it made big savings or allowed us to stay in a much better hotel).

PPS - It's for our honeymoon! Probably didn't have to mention that but I'm telling everyone! :rotfl:
 
Hi :welcome: to the dis

My DH and I honeymooned at Disney as well its a great place to go.

You have a pretty healthy budget and with the deals that are going on now you should be able to have a great time.

Where are you planning on flying from? Do you want to book separate flights and accom? and Do you want to stay on site (at a Disney resort) or off?

We stayed off site on our honeymoon at the sheraton vistana and it was lovely. Last time we went and stayed on site at Port orleans french quarter and it was brilliant. POFQ is a nice small resort close to DTD and its sister resort riverside but it is nice and quiet and romantic. To be honest we probably would not stay off site again. We did not have a hire car and it was so much easier to be on site.

I am sure that on here you will get loads of help and advice and congrats on the wedding.
 
Welcome to the DIS. And congratulations!!

Your budget should allow you a great time! My fiance and I had a 2 week stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge last year for around £3k including spending money, although I know if it were a honeymoon I'd have spent a lot more! :rotfl: There is a lotof cute wedding/baby stuff to be bought!

August could be very expensive for flights, but if you go indirect you might save a lot that time of year. We booked through KLM via Detroit and I had a look for school holiday prices for that route and it was less than half of what Virgin were asking (I guess not many people tale their kids to Detroit) it wounds a hassle but we didn't lose any park time and the planes were great. We're considering doing that route again for our wedding/honeymoon trip.

I've only stayed at AKL, but would (and do) recommend it to everyone! It would be amazing for a honeymoon. (We are staying there for 5 nights before our wedding, and the only reason we aren't going back is that I feel a bit small minded not trying the others. Wilderness Lodge is also in a great location and has some amazing deals.

We love DLP but excluding the cost of getting there WDW is much much better value! Go for WDW and maybe DLP for an anniversary some time. ;)
 
Hi,

As others have said it can be an expensive time to go, so the priority would be finding flights at a reasonable price and then working the rest of your plans around that.

I wouldn't want to commit yourselves on your accomodation budget until you have sorted your flights out.
Staying on-site can be expensive after all.

Many of us book flights, park tickets, car hire, villa (or hotel accomodation) seperatley as you can save some money doing that.

As for late August, that's when we go, it will be very very hot. :)
 

You mention 'good hotel' as something you'd look into - do you want to stay onsite or offsite.
Personally, as far as hotels go I think you get much better hotels for the money not staying at a Disney resort. For example you can get 10 nights at the new Waldorf Astoria (which is actually on Disney property) for about £1300 for the last ten days of august

http://www.waldorfastoriaorlando.com/

Bear in mind that you'd be paying over £1100 to stay at a moderate Disney resort such as Port Orleans, something like that gorgeous new Waldorf would be high on my list :)

:goodvibes
 
If it's just Disney you want to do then I'd recommend taking advantage of the Free Dining Plan and 40%+ savings available at Old Key West and Saratoga Springs. A studio at either of these hotels, with 14-day ultimate tickets and free dining plan runs around £1850 (this is what we got for October) through disneyworld.co.uk. Flights on top of that may take you closer to £3000. That leaves you with quite a bit of spending money and if you utilise the free Magical Express and Disney Transportation service you don't need a car, plus Extra Magic Hours etc. you get for staying in a Disney hotel.
 
Thank you all so much for your replies! :yay:

Heathrow or Gatwick would be fine for us to fly from. We're looking to stay on-site and spend most of our time at the Disney Parks, maybe a side trip to Sea World or to see a Walmart! :rotfl:

We found Venny's suggestion very interesting. Saratoga Springs looks very nice and flights look like they'd only run about £800 (indirect - change at Newark) so that would put us at around £2700. Is that a good price for Accomodation, flights, dining plan, tickets, and extras from staying at a Disney hotel (like Magic Hours)? (That's for 14 days btw - got more holiday time!)

We have until the end of March to book (and get the 14 day ticket for the cost of 7) so we'll be doing plenty more research 'till then!

Some other questions:
How easy is it to get from the airport to WDW?
Dining plan any good? I know it's free but it isn't available at some other hotels.

Thanks again everyone! :thumbsup2
 
Hi Pete C Welcome to DISboards
The offer at OKW/SSR is a fantastic deal, we are doing it at OKW this August for the 2nd year. The more in your room the better value it is. Last year cost is £91/night for 3 of us, ate an average $150 of food/night, this year costing £100/night a little more but still worth doing. To book room only on Disney.com would cost about $300/night.
If you stay at a Disney hotel you can book free transport to and from Orlando International airport.
£2,700 for 2 in August is a great price, I would have it booked now:goodvibes
 
Hi and welcome,

We have booked a studio at Old Key West also at £100/night with free DDP. When you factor the cost of DDP for the three of us at around £25pppn, it's only costing us £25/night for the room, plus we will be eating at quite a few Disney restaurants we may have otherwise decided not to eat at due to the price.

Some other questions:
How easy is it to get from the airport to WDW?
Dining plan any good? I know it's free but it isn't available at some other hotels.

As noted above, if you are staying on-site at Disney you can book the Magical Express from Orlando International airport free of charge.

Although the dining plan is not quite as good as it was when we had it back in 2007 (then you got a starter and tips were included at the Table Service restaurants), it can still save you some serious money.

The free dining is not available at the value hotels (Pop Century etc). If you book a moderate hotel (e.g. Caribbean Beach, Port Orleans) you only get free Quick Service Dining Plan (2 Counter Service meals/day). The Disney offer at OKW and SSR means that for the same price as a moderate hotel, you get the Disney Dining Plan saving around £7 pppn on an upgrade. Another advantage is that you can book character meals which are generally one TS credit, and/or use 2 TS credits for a meal at one of the Signature restaurants.

Also note that if you book your hotel/ticket package with Disney UK through Quidco, you get 3% cashback, so for 14 nights plus tickets, you should get around £50 cashback.
 
Hi guys back again! :)

We'll be heading to either OKW or SSR as they seem similar in price. I thought of some more questions though! :rolleyes1

When you arrive at a disney hotel can you request an upper floor room? Balconies are much better when you haven't got pedestrians looking straight in! If you're in a villa would there be pedestrians walking by just outside or are they out of the way?

Anybody out there been to OKW or SSR? What did you think?
 
Hi guys back again! :)

We'll be heading to either OKW or SSR as they seem similar in price. I thought of some more questions though! :rolleyes1

When you arrive at a disney hotel can you request an upper floor room? Balconies are much better when you haven't got pedestrians looking straight in! If you're in a villa would there be pedestrians walking by just outside or are they out of the way?

Anybody out there been to OKW or SSR? What did you think?

You can ask for specific requirements when you book either SSR or OKW, as both resorts are split into different building locations you may need to check what your preferences are as there is a difference depending on where you would ideally like to stay.
These are not guaranteed though.

As for the resorts themselves, and my opinion may differ from others, but neither suit us, we have an autistic child and both SSR & OKW are spread out over a vast area, basically neither are ideal for us.
SSR is newer, which can be an advantage but the restaurant/bar facilities again just my opinion are very limited. Though Downtown Disney is in close proximity.

OKW I know little about, other than the rooms are the biggest of the DVC resorts and it's the oldest also.

Personally, and again I stress just my preferences, the only WDW resorts that appeal to me are the theme park located one's, as that's where we would get most benefit. Being a short walk or a monorail ride away is a great plus point to have.
 
We stayed at OKW last August, we were offered a studio near Hospitality House but ground floor, I asked if they had upper floor, they had but building 55, without a car this is about 10 mins walk or a bus to reception, didn't bother us as we always have a car. Going again this August and would be very happy to get same room.

Difficult to know if anyone will enjoy a resort, we all use them for different things, for us its basically a bed to sleep in, we don't drink in bars, rarely use a pool, only went to reception once in 16 nights (twice with checking in) we don't use the buses.
As Johnny says its the oldest resort but they started renovating last year, our room was very clean and largest DVC studios onsite, more than big enough for 3 of us.
For next August we are trying to choose between OKW for 3rd time or SSR for 1st tme, we know we like OKW, not sure about SSR.
 
It's not necessarily a new idea but it's always worth it if you can having a look around some of the resorts, especially if you have doubts about staying there.

We had the full tour around SSR. The problem with some of the resorts are they so big and spread out you could potentially be a fair distance from the hub or centre, I have read that some people feel they need to actually drive at OKW just to get the restaurant, but I must stress I haven't stayed there to confirm. :)
 
I have read that some people feel they need to actually drive at OKW just to get the restaurant, but I must stress I haven't stayed there to confirm. :)

From furthest point to the restaurant its around 10-15 mins walk, I walk fast so 10 mins no problem. We never ate at Olivias, trying it this year, no problem for us how far it is I will drive if we don't want to walk it, I only drink sodas with meals. There are also plenty of buses if you wanted that option.
 
From furthest point to the restaurant its around 10-15 mins walk, I walk fast so 10 mins no problem. We never ate at Olivias, trying it this year, no problem for us how far it is I will drive if we don't want to walk it, I only drink sodas with meals. There are also plenty of buses if you wanted that option.

Like we say, all down to personal preference, to be honest I couldn't consider a resort where I had to either drive or catch a bus to get to where I want to go on the resort itself. To me that is just crazy.
If it works for others then cool. :goodvibes
 
Like we say, all down to personal preference, to be honest I couldn't consider a resort where I had to either drive or catch a bus to get to where I want to go on the resort itself. To me that is just crazy.
If it works for others then cool. :goodvibes

Its all down to what you do in the resort. Last year we had no reason to goto the hub of OKW, called at Guest services once to collect some tickets, used main pool once for a swim. Took boat to DTD and back once, just for the ride not because we wanted to goto DTD. So for us it doesn't matter how far we are away but anyone that wants to use the facilities then I can see its a bind and other resorts are probably better.
 




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