Disney hotels have always been over-priced, you are paying extra for the 'on-site experience' and the location.
Many luxury off-site hotels are superior and cheaper in the standard of accomodation.
We have been looking at our first 3 nights for our August holiday, still haven't booked accomodation, as an example booking through disney UK website the Boardwalk villas is just under £900 for 3 nights in August for a 1 bedroomed villa!
Beach Club is the same, they are having a laugh, I could get an off site private villa for that price for 2 weeks!
Wheras in my opinion accomodation of a higher standard and a much bigger room (2 bedroomed villa), not necessarily better located but the Omni villas at the Champions Gate resort is £485 with eBookers again for the 3 nights.
You have a private 2 bedroomed DVC type villa with luxurious furnishings and also the use of the adjoining magnificent hotel for a fraction of the cost, to be honest £485 isn't 'cheap' but nearly £900 is ridiculous.
I do think the reduced prices of Saratoga Springs and Old Key West offer value for money, if the resorts appeal, unfortunatley for us neither do.
when the kids were little and our budget was much more constrained, we always stayed offsite, at the cheapest suite hotel i could find in the Lake Buena Vista area....they were very basic, but had a kitchen and a living room and bedroom, so we all fit in comfortably and the kids could eat most of the meals in the suite (which they preferred).....
for $25/night it was a really good deal....those were the days...paying only $25/night for a reasonably nice 1 BR suite with full kitchen....
once we could afford it, we began staying onsite (starting from the value resorts and moving up to the deluxe).....
but now, though i can afford to stay at the deluxe, it just seems so needlessly frivolous....i guess i'm becoming scrooge in my old age...
last time i was there was just with DD.....since it was just the 2 of us, we went value (all star music) and had just as great a time as at the GF...
when DD went alone with a friend last year, she stayed at the pop and loved it and asked that we stay there again the next time we go together..
but this time i'm going alone......i'm leaning to staying onsite, just because i'll feel safer that way i think (though i know it's a false sense of security)...
for the conference, i'll be at the buena vista palace, which is one of the hotels on hotel plaza (by DTD)....but it's ridiculously expensive for basically nothing...but i have to stay there for the conference....but i'm not going to pay that amount for the week before the conference (i'm coming in early so that i can have some WDW time on my own)....but still i'd like to be onsite just for the security aspects (as i said, probably a false sense of security)...so i guess i'll end up at one of the values for that week....
