Only you can be the decision maker regarding whether the money to go to Disney is justified or not, what is worth doing in Orlando, and whether you would want to look at Orlando in more economical ways. We've been many times with a similarly sized group, but done it as a budget trip. All 10 of us stayed in a three bedroom condo that we rented on TUG2.net from a timeshare owner for $1100 a week, the week before Christmas week. Although the condo sleeps 10, we did bring two blowup beds to make things more comfortable. We just did three theme park days for our six days. One day at the Magic Kingdom was quite expensive, almost $100 pp. The other two days were at SeaWorld, $75 with an online deal and then going to the customer service window and getting another day that week for just $15 pp. That meant total pp ticket cost was just under $200 pp for adults (all in our party are adults now with ages being 20 - 80 of our party. For the Disney day, we brought in about 15 sandwiches in a soft sided cooler, juice boxes, fruit, cracker, and put the soft sided cooler in the
scooter basket. We had breakfast at the condo, ate these sandwiches etc. around 11:30, did some counter service at 4:30 p.m., did a Mickey ice cream bar at 7, and after closing out the park did the dollar menu at Wendy's for some burgers and ate those with salad back at the condo for a late night snack. For the other three days that were not theme park days we swam, played tennis at the resort, played family games, some did little attractions -- a mini golf outing one day, a Gatorland outing one day. We made every other day a theme park day. We had all breakfasts in and lunches in and sandwiches in except for SeaWorld days and on those we did the $30 pp dining plan for meals and did both lunch and dinner there. For our three dinners on non park days, one was a cook in, one was pizza delivery and salad, one was going out to eat at Sweet Tomatoes, a buffet we like. // This might now be your idea of a great Orlando trip, but we loved it and it was quite economical. Just some food for thought. What is appealing and fun to some families might be something other families might say, "Gosh I'd rather stay home or go to Dollywood". Our little ones and our seniors have always loved SeaWorld, so two days there and an MK day I think is great for all ages.
I have funds and budgets for everything. That means I've decided up front how much to spend on vacation, how much to put into a college fund, how much to put in a car fund for me and how much to put in a car fund for DS, how much to put in my retirement fund, etc.. That's why it's easy for me to justify spending all the money in my vacation account. My vacation account, though, is more likely to have enough money for the vacation described above than for the vacation that you are looking for. I personally cannot stomach onsite lodging prices at Disney (not a good value IMHO) and find the offsite condo the only way I go with a large group. But that has a lot to do with my budget, my priorities, and I'm sure it doesn't hurt that I love the offsite resort condos in Orlando and think of them as a great deal that offer enough entertainment that three park days is all I need for a week long trip and those are as many days as I want to do.
Cypress Point and Cypress Pointe Grand villas are two three bedroom condo resorts that we've rented at. With a two bedroom condo resort we do two condos with this sized group, which ends up being a little more money.
Saves money as well as that precious morning park time when lines are short.
). It's a very special place to me and it means the world to me that my mom is willing to take us all on this trip. Will DS remember it? Heck no. But he'll have the pictures and the stories we tell him and we'll have the memories. I went when I was 2 and we still laugh about that trip and I don't remember anything but the pictures & stories. 
