Getting luggage to the resort.

[jothp]

Hi, when we go next year we would be keen to stay at a hotel at universal for one night to get the FOTL passes. We are also considering staying at a seaworld hotel on their two parks package if we decide to do there and busch gardens. Obviously it would work out much cheaper to do these either at the beginning or at the end of our stay so that we can check into OKW later or check out sooner. The problem I'm having is getting our luggage between the different hotels and to/from the airport. We will be hiring a car for doing offsite things but there are 7 of us, so I don't think we will be able to fit all of us and all our luggage into the car. Has anyone got any suggestions about how we can make this work?
Thanks Jo

 

[disneyholic family]

why do you have to stay near sea world if you're going to have a car when you're there?

i would stay at OKW and drive to sea world - it's not far at all.

as for universal - hmm...i definitely see the advantage in the FOTL, but i don't see how you can manage the luggage issue.

backing up - how are you planning on getting your luggage to OKW from the airport? By ME?

 

[chmurf]

If there are 7 of you, I assume you'll have a 7 seater.

I'd send 2 or 3 adults (driver + those who are lead passengers on the ressies) with the luggage to check in at the next hotel. Then send the driver back to pick up the remaining party members at the hotel you check out from.


Next solution, more expensive but less time consuming :
3 people with all the luggage in the car, and the remaining 4 take a cab, everyone meets up at the hotel. (give or take $50 for WDW to Universal each way)


note that spending a night at Universal (RPR, HRH or PB) gives 2 days of unlimited express.
So if you check in at one of the 3 deluxes as soon as you land in florida, you won't be able to go to the parks on that day, as you'll land 3pm (ish) + transfers + check in. So you effectively pay for one expensive nights and only get half the perks of your onsite stay

Spending a few nights at seaworld is rather ineffective.
It's a very short drive from WDW to SW. And the convinience of not having to pack once more beats the benefits of staying around seaworld.

 

[jothp]

why do you have to stay near sea world if you're going to have a car when you're there?

i would stay at OKW and drive to sea world - it's not far at all.

as for universal - hmm...i definitely see the advantage in the FOTL, but i don't see how you can manage the luggage issue.

backing up - how are you planning on getting your luggage to OKW from the airport? By ME?

Thanks for your reply. You are right if we went straight to OKW we would use ME and pick up a car later in our stay.

We were only planning to stay by seaworld because looking at similar dates for this year the two parks package which includes hotel, tickets for seaworld and busch gardens and their version of FOTL is actually cheaper than just buying the tickets!! If we then stayed when we weren't also staying at OKW too it would make it really good value.

 

[jothp]

If there are 7 of you, I assume you'll have a 7 seater.

I'd send 2 or 3 adults (driver + those who are lead passengers on the ressies) with the luggage to check in at the next hotel. Then send the driver back to pick up the remaining party members at the hotel you check out from.


Next solution, more expensive but less time consuming :
3 people with all the luggage in the car, and the remaining 4 take a cab, everyone meets up at the hotel. (give or take $50 for WDW to Universal each way)


note that spending a night at Universal (RPR, HRH or PB) gives 2 days of unlimited express.
So if you check in at one of the 3 deluxes as soon as you land in florida, you won't be able to go to the parks on that day, as you'll land 3pm (ish) + transfers + check in. So you effectively pay for one expensive nights and only get half the perks of your onsite stay

Spending a few nights at seaworld is rather ineffective.
It's a very short drive from WDW to SW. And the convinience of not having to pack once more beats the benefits of staying around seaworld.

Thanks for your help , we will be getting a 7 seater and I hadn't thought of making the driver do two trips so that is a definite option.

I know that we will loose the arrival day if we go straight to universal from the airport but we would then stay 2 nights instead of one as a universal hotel is looking at being about the same cost per night as OKW. If we are going to avoid paying for two hotels at the same time the other option is to do it at the end of our stay but we would also loose at least some of our check out day because we would need to get back to the airport.

Sorry about repeating myself from the previous post but we are only really considering staying at Seaworld because their package which includes hotel, tickets and their version of FOTL is cheaper this year than just buying tickets. If we can have that sort of deal instead of OKW then it is super value.

 

[wilma-bride]

Another alternative would be for the driver and a couple of passengers to go ahead with the luggage and the others to use the transport provided by Universal to get you to Sea World (they provide transport to Sea World for guests staying at onsite hotels), however the transport only leaves once a day (around 9.30 in the morning) so that might not work very well.

Of course, since they provide transport, would you not be better off just staying at the Universal hotel and using their transport anyway

 

[jothp]

Another alternative would be for the driver and a couple of passengers to go ahead with the luggage and the others to use the transport provided by Universal to get you to Sea World (they provide transport to Sea World for guests staying at onsite hotels), however the transport only leaves once a day (around 9.30 in the morning) so that might not work very well.

Of course, since they provide transport, would you not be better off just staying at the Universal hotel and using their transport anyway

Thanks - that is another option we could think about.

We were only really looking at a Seaworld hotel because for similar dates to ours this year two rooms for the 7 of us including park tickets for seaworld and busch gardens and tax it is coming up at $1050. Just the park tickets are coming up at $1040 so if we can stay in the room without paying for another room at the same time the hotel is effectively not costing us anything. Not definite that we are going to visit those parks yet but even if we do I think convenience may just win over cost.

 

[wilma-bride]

Thanks - that is another option we could think about.

We were only really looking at a Seaworld hotel because for similar dates to ours this year two rooms for the 7 of us including park tickets for seaworld and busch gardens and tax it is coming up at $1050. Just the park tickets are coming up at $1040 so if we can stay in the room without paying for another room at the same time the hotel is effectively not costing us anything. Not definite that we are going to visit those parks yet but even if we do I think convenience may just win over cost.

Is that 7 adults? Where are you looking at ticket prices? Have you considered the Orlando Flexticket since that includes Universal/IOA too. If you give us an idea of what parks you want to visit, we could make some suggestions of the best ticket options.

 

[jothp]

Thanks for your help The price is 6 adults and one child and is direct from seaworld website. Converting the currency it works out about £625. I can get them slightly cheaper in this country - about the cheapest I have found is travel republic which is £585 for 2015 tickets. I did look at the flex ticket but on both Florida tix and travel republic it is more expensive than the two park sea world tickets and the two park universal tickets added together.

 

[wilma-bride]

I can find tickets slightly cheaper than the SeaWorld website, from www.undercovertourist.com but not cheap enough to cover the extra hotel costs if you stayed at a Universal hotel the whole 3 nights. Like you say, it comes down to convenience against cost, I suppose. Even if you do go with the Sea World package, it would be worth considering getting your Universal tickets form Undercover Tourist.

 

[jothp]

Yes thanks the undercover tourist does look good for the universal tickets. I think that travel republic is probably still better for the seaworld tickets if we decide not to go for the package.
It is going to come down to convenience against cost and factoring in the risk that the packages for seaworld will not be as good for next year once they are released.

 

[disneyholic family]

when i mentioned magical express, i meant that you would rent the car at the airport, but a few of you could travel on the bus with all the luggage and the rest of you go in the car.

You really should pick up the car at the airport because the airport tends to have a far better selection of cars.

 

[jothp]

when i mentioned magical express, i meant that you would rent the car at the airport, but a few of you could travel on the bus with all the luggage and the rest of you go in the car.

You really should pick up the car at the airport because the airport tends to have a far better selection of cars.

thanks for your help. We were only considering picking up the car later on because we are not sure we are going to have a car for the whole trip.

My mum and dad have decided that they are not going to come with us so we are down to the 5 of us. How big a car would we need to hire to transport us and our luggage? We will definitely have 5 pieces of hand luggage but I am hoping on the way there we will only have 3 or 4 hold suitcases between us.

 

[scoobydooby]

You will need a 7 seater mini van for that much luggage and 5 people and will need to recline the back seats. Been there and done that trying with a smaller car. Trust me, it's not fitting in......

 

[tinkerpea]

when i mentioned magical express, i meant that you would rent the car at the airport, but a few of you could travel on the bus with all the luggage and the rest of you go in the car.

You really should pick up the car at the airport because the airport tends to have a far better selection of cars.

Just seen this and now I'm worried lol
Were collecting a car 6 days into the trip,
I'm.collecting from a hotel on i-drive as were staying at Universal and as dh is not flying out with us I didn't want to collect from the airport without him,as it's my 1st time driving.
Are the cars that bad?

 

[jothp]

You will need a 7 seater mini van for that much luggage and 5 people and will need to recline the back seats. Been there and done that trying with a smaller car. Trust me, it's not fitting in......

Thanks, I was thinking we probably would . It has just occurred to me that we will also need to work out how to get the luggage from our house to the airport in the first place!

 

[Elise79]

Just seen this and now I'm worried lol Were collecting a car 6 days into the trip, I'm.collecting from a hotel on i-drive as were staying at Universal and as dh is not flying out with us I didn't want to collect from the airport without him,as it's my 1st time driving. Are the cars that bad?

Depending on locations it's not that the cars are bad but they don't have the choice of the airport locations as they don't have the space. They only have one or two of each category.