First Timers to Florida with Young Family and MIL...Help Needed!!

[allie5]

Who are booked through Dazza? If you are booked through Virgin, then they do Villas at fairly good prices and wont charge you for "upping" your booking.

We have actually booked Animal Kingdom Lodge for this year's holiday (booked months ago), but to be honest, the thought of being in the same room with the kids for 3 weeks is not seeming very appealing. We had a Villa over Christmas, and I am 99% certain I will be cancelling AKL and booking another villa this year as well. The freedom is wonderful and as the others said, there is no need to cook or clean if you dont want to. I ran the dishwasher twice a week, bought a tub of anti bac wipes to run over the surfaces and that was it for 3 weeks!

A 2 bed suite would certainly be a HUGE improvement over all of you in one room (and out of curiosity, I am very surprised they actually let you book a standard hotel room for 5 people, they can only usually fit 4 with 2 double beds??). My own view is, a party such as yours would have a much more enjoyable holiday in a villa, but of course, the choice is yours! I just hope that you find different opinions useful!

 

[vernon]

I am very surprised they actually let you book a standard hotel room for 5 people, they can only usually fit 4 with 2 double beds??).

You would be correct, but in Dazza situation he has one child age under three. Most hotel rooms will take 4 "adults" (i.e. anyone over the age of 3) and one child (under 3 years) in a "pac away" crib.

Dazza, I think the Enclave would be a much better idea than the single hotel room. Usually the set for those type of suits is a king or a queen in the "master bedroom", one or two doublebeds in the second bedroom and a sofabed in the livingroom. If you can ask the number of beds in each room it is probably a good idea, occassionally you'd find that the set up would be just one double/queen in each bedroom and a double sofabed in the living room. While you could work round that set up without too much trouble, it would be best if you could have at least one extra proper bed for the 4 Yr old.

 

[Dazza]

Hi again all. We are booked through Airtours via Going Places travel agents. Anyways they got back to me yesterday evening. They (Airtours) are looking an extra £700 or $1300 to move us to the enclave suites, currently I don't think I could afford this. That amount would go quite a bit towards tickets to the theme parks, so I am going to give some consideration to another idea the travel agent came up with. Basically she said that we should try the living arrangements out for a few days or a week, if things aren't working she suggested we speak to the hotelier directly and ask if they could do a deal on a second room. She stated that this should be a considerable amount less that the £700 the tour operator quoted. I thought that this was a fair enough suggestion, fingers crossed though that we won't need to take the option in the first place!

 

[alisonbestford]

Hi there,
Please, please, please don't dismiss Universal (especially if you want to go )
We took my DD 3 years ago when she was 3 and, to this day, both IOA and Universal Studios are her favourite parks! Yep, she loves Minnie and Mickey but the water features at Universal are great fun, there's Barney to see, Barney's playground to play in, Curious George, Dr Sseus (can't for the life of me think how to spell it ), Woody woodPecker, ScoobyDoo, PopEye and, of course, SpiderMan (DH is a big Batman, spiderman fan and has passed this love down to DD )
Have a fantastic time.
Alison

 

[vernon]

Dazza, while $1300 sounds like a big lump, it works out to only about $60 a day (or GBP 30), between 5 of you that's about six quid each. I would keep on at the TA to come up with a workable solution. I agree you could also contact the hotel direct and see if they could promise you a connecting room, but I'd be very suprised if that option were to come in at less than $50 a day. It is worth taking into consideration that the enclave suites have full kitchen facilities. If you went with the suites option, and decided to have breakfast in the room (cereal, bagels toast etc) you'd probably save yourself $30-40 a day on breakfasts. That would bring the extra cost down to a more palatable $550-600 or a little under GBP 300. If you decided to eat just one evening meal a week as a heated up frozen pizza or an easy cooked pasta meal you'd get out ofthe deal with no extra cost and FAR superior accommodation.
Again, using the kitchen facilities, buying beer/wine in a supermarket as opposed to at a bar could save you major $$$. Even something as simple as just buying bottled water in the supermarket, chilling/freezing them overnight and taking a couple of bottles each to the parks could easily save you $25 per day.

If you try to look at how you can use the facilities afforded by a higher base cost to save money, you can realise that it need not be an overall increase in your holiday costs.

IMHO the TA's offer of "try it and see" is a tactic to move the problem off her desk. I don't think that anyone in the travel industry would seriously suggest this is a viable solution or set up. Once you're abroad it'll be down to you to sort it out if things are not going well. This, in the very least is going to waste your time, mean you may have to pack up and move rooms, and that's assuming the hotel has connecting rooms available.

 

[MazdaUK]

IMHO the travel agent should have offered alternatives (i.e. villas) more suitable to your party in the first place!

Try speaking to the organ grinder rather than one of the monkeys and see what you get

Dazza is right about savings - we did a 4 night (5 day) Disneyland Paris trip in 2003 and lack of self catering opportunities (we went by Eurostar so were completely mousebound) worked out v. expensive - all you can eat breakfast is all very well asl long as everyone eats plenty!! (If they don't you're looking at big bucks!)

 

[allie5]

£700 is scandalous. You could easily book a 3 bed Villa for £350 a week. I wouldnt accept that at all.

The problem with UK Travel Agents is that they charge on a per person basis, when in the US rooms are sold a on "room" basis. The travel agent is already making a killing out of your booking as it is. I would cancel ALL the accomodation and just take the fly drive. Arrange the accomodation yourself, it will be $$$$$$$$ cheaper.