HIFS or Coronado Springs

[suslynn]

I just would like some of your thoughts-we are going to Disney in mid June and are trying to decide which place to stay. My husband and I have a 15 year old and a 6 year old. We have heard that even if you stay on site, if you have a car you will want to use it to drive to the parks anyway. My concern about HIFS is the traffic driving to and from and if the Park will clse b/c it is too full.
Any suggestions or experiences?

 

[Mike]

Hi Suslynn,
I stayed at HIFS in August and will be staying there again in mid-June. As you mentioned I always drive my car to the parks even when I stay onsite at Port Orleans. The ride from HIFS is actually easier than from POR. It is very quick and easy. I don't think you will have any issues with the parks closing in June. The only consideration is that if you stay at HIFS you will have to pay $7 a day to park when you drive to one of the parks. This isn't an issue for us because we have APs and don't have to pay for parking.
With a 15 and 6 yo, I think you will appreciate the separate bedrooms at HIFS. You can also save quite a bit of money compared to CS. I was able to get a rate of $103/night at HIFS for June with the Entertainment rate. Toss in the free breakfast every morning and the kids eating free for lunch and dinner and I think it is a slam dunk.

Mike

 

[lejaf]

We've only gone in March, so I don't know about the parks closing due to crowds...does that happen often? But the drive to the parks is very short from HIFS. The only traffic we ever hit was driving back from Wet N Wild last year during rush hour and even that traffic only added about 10 minutes to our drive. We have never had any traffic to speak of going to or from the Disney parks. It's a very easy trip!

 

[w8ting4pooh]

We stayed at Coronado last summer. It was OK. We won't be going back there again. The wait for the buses was always long leaving the Parks...the walk to the food court was LONG! The CMs weren't always friendly.

We are going for 2 weeks this year. The first week is offsite (probably @ HIFS) without my DH and then we move onsite for the 2nd half when Daddy flies down. We're staying at AKL/GF the 2nd week.

It's good to see that the drive is less than from ONSITE! We flew last year but this year I'm driving the kids down by myself.

 

[veraletta]

I would stay at Coronado Springs, I love this resort.
I love the lay out of the resort, I would stay there all the time if I could. We found the buses were really good. We never drove our car any where after we got to our resort.
Last time we stayed at all star music and we found our self driving to eat at Coronado Springs.
I think if you can afford to stay on park that is the best way to go.
I've never stayed at downtown disney so I havent any ideal how it would be to drive to the park.
the only reason I feel staying on park is better, as if some one got sick they could take the bus back to the resort, without everyone having to leave.