Help with early planning stages!

[kat777]

I've been reading through this site and others over the past few weeks as well as ploughing through a hefty guide book, so I've got lots of useful information and advice about planning our trip...I just don't know what to do with it all! We're looking at Sept-Nov 2008, which is pretty flexible. Is it best to wait for a deal on a flight and take the dates/make hotel reservations from there?

 

[Cyrano]

Welcome to the DIS
You have come to the right place. The DISers on this board will soon have you all knowledged up like a WDW veteran

 

[wicket2005]

As to waiting for a deal on flights it depends on how flexible the adults are on when they can actually go. I think I would select two weeks when everyone was happy to go and work on prices from there.

We usually just stay in a hotel and visit all the parks from there. It doesn't matter if we are onsite or not. Though I can recommend the Royal Pacific at Universal if you did fancy staying onsite there. You do get front of the line passes for the duration of your stay but I don't know how useful they would be in Autumn when the crowds are usually less busy. I would say visit Islands at the same time though if you can.

I think if you are in charge of booking everything I would just get it sorted out to what you want, then just pass the info round for those that wanted to go. Otherwise you are going to be chopping and changing all of the time to suit everyone.

 

[MorningGlory]

If you need to book an irregular number of days, you will probably have to go with someone like Virgin. Flights to Orlando in October work out at £526 each with Virgin, which is a pretty good price. On the off-chance you have Virgin air miles, 2000 each knocks nearly £100pp off the price. You can buy air miles through Virgin if you join the flying club. Buying 8000 to cover 4 adults would only cost £135, for a saving of over £300. I dont know if you have to earn miles before you can buy them, but it might be worth looking into if you need to fly with Virgin

 

[WiganTony]

Would suggest planning for dates around the four who are most likely to go, and then see what the others want to do.

As Bev says, get the details sorted out to suit yourself, and then put the plan to the others - far better than trying to get four (or eight) different requirements met!!

Also, maybe better looking at splitting the stay to stay off-WDW for one week (for visiting Seaworld/Universal/Aquatica/Bush etc), and then the other week on Disney property.

If cost is a constraint, we stayed in the Springhill Suites at Lake Buena Vista last year (approx £40/night for a double queen room), which is 5 minutes from Downtown Disney and about 10 minutes from Seaworld, so this could be the base for the entire holiday.

Whatever you do, remember that a plan is only a basis for change

 

[StephenKay]

If you want to try for 15 nights try being flexible in getting there, I recently found great prices on orbitz.com much better than anything I have found elsewhere.

 

[jen_uk]

Don't worry about it not being warm enough! I have been several times in November and it was always hot. Staying onsite is great if you can manage it, extra Disney magic! It's very easy to get to parks outside of WDW so you don't really have to stay elsewhere unless of course you want to.
My main tip tho is don't plan too much, if you do 15 full days at the parks you will be totally parked out, you need to plan to have rest and waterpark days as well. WDW is HUGE and yo will be surprised at how tired you will get.

Happy planning

 

[Daysleeper40]

I would suggest being an ickle bit selfish and work out a plan to suite what you would be happy doing and then see who is willing to sign up. You can tweak it a bit afterwards if needed but if you try to please everyone you will be going round in circles forever!

I can definately recommend September - we went for two weeks starting the 17/09. The weather was good (a couple of cloudy days) and we did two waterparks plus Discovery Cove quite happily and it wasn't too hot which might make the theme parks really hard work. US, IOA, BG and SW were all really quiet, we found Disney to be more busy - particularly AK but still ok.

As you want to do lots of non disney things and intend on having cars I'm thinking staying off site may be a better (and cheaper) option for you, or at least a split stay. We stayed on I Drive and really enjoyed it - close to Universal and Seaworld (and Aquatica when it opens) and we enjoyed the more adult atmosphere at CityWalk and I Drive for nightlife. We do prefer the other parks to Disney though so this obviously this effects things!

If there are 8 of you maybe a villa is the way forward - or are you dead set on staying on-site?

 

[wayneg]

If you want to try for 15 nights try being flexible in getting there, I recently found great prices on orbitz.com much better than anything I have found elsewhere.

I have booked our August return flight thru Orbitz. Got free flight out with Virgin miles then Orbitz did BMI home for £235, BMI themselves wanted £450 each

Don't worry about it not being warm enough! I have been several times in November and it was always hot.

We have never been in Nov but a lot in Oct, we like very hot, August weather, Late Oct can be too cool for water parks for us, it varies every year. So can depend how hot you like it.

We prefer offsite and get away from Disney but many prefer onsite.

 

[kat777]

Wow, plenty of help around here for us first-timers...thanks everyone!

Checking out Orbitz now.

 

[Shooby doo]

Kat firstly welcome! I can recommend both Sept & Oct but cannot comment on Nov- look at calender dates by that I mean avoid US holidays & british school holidays eg. US Labor day normally first weekend in Sept,Columbus Day weekend closest to the 10th Oct-so anything in between is good.
Try www.airline-network.co.uk just pick your dates.
IMHO Busch is what Animal Kingdom is trying to be,we love it & if any of you are coaster lovers it's great! But I wouldn't do it on a 2 week plan!There is just too much to do,plus you do need to factor in rest days & I can tell you that Blizzard is no rest day as all the slides are up Summit Plummet.Plus you just cant plan the weather no matter when you go so may have to change plans.
I would recommend Staybridge Suites as an option-one or 2 bed option & as you would be booking it I'd take the Kingsize- most comfortable bed ever & huge!!
HTH SD

 

[kat777]

Thanks! I took your advice, marked off all the dates to avoid on a calendar, and managed to narrow it down to 2nd Oct-17/18th.