How much cheaper?

[palavra]

I know without details, no one can give me an exact answer, but can anyone tell me how much they have saved by staying off site rather than on Disney property?

 

[englishteacha]

There are only 2 of us, but we've saved anywhere from $200-500 by staying offsite, and that includes paying for parking and renting a car. The year we shared a condo and car with friends we saved a lot. We eat a lot of meals offsite, and have some breakfasts and such in the condo (just cereal and such). I don't want to cook on my vacation! We still get to eat tasty food; we just aren't paying the park prices for it. We have lots of room to spread out in a condo, which we appreciate even though there's only 2 of us. We're planning a trip with friends next year, and there will be 4-6 of us. The condo will come to $100-150 a person. So for DH and I, we'll pay $200-300 for a week in a lovely home in Kissimmee. I can handle that! I don't think you can get a value room for that!

Edited: I just looked up the condo where we stay. It's usually $50-65 a night, plus a $65 cleaning fee. We try to get the cheapest rental car possible. We haven't paid more than $200 for a car for a week.

 

[Darcy03231]

When we went in August 2007 we were a party of nine. I rented a 5 bedroom/3 bath private pool home. If we stayed on property we would have had to rent 3 rooms at a value resort.

Cost to rent house per week: $700.00
Cost to rent two cars per week: $400.00
Parking for two cars per week: $168.00
Gas for two cars per week: $100.00

Total $1,368.00

Cost of 3 rooms at a value resort $3,045.00

Money saved: $1,677.00

We also saved a lot by eating in. We had breakfast at the house every morning and most days returned by early afternoon so the kids could swim and we'd eat a late lunch/early dinner. Since it was so hot no one really felt like eating a lot in the parks - mostly it was ice cream and slushies.

 

[powellrj]

Its really hard to say how much we save. We feel we get more for our money staying off-site. Last year just DH and I went and paid $76 a night for a 1 bedroom condo. It was 1/2 the price of a value for the same time period. We didn't have a choice of time because we wanted to be there when our DS performed for showstoppers which just so happened to fall during a period where there were no discounts on values.

We ate most meals in our condo or off-site which also saved.

This year we stayed in a 3 bedroom condo which also included Sea World and Aquatica tickets for 7 days. It was $140 a night which was a great bargain. We like the extra room we get plus the things like the spa tub and balcony that you can't get when you stay at a value. Sure you give up things like EMH and room charging, but I will take my own room with a king size bed any day over sharing a full size bed in the same room with the kids!

 

[ChrisinNJ]

We rented a condo for 12 nights for $1300.00.

We are a family of 5 so we would have needed 2 rooms at a value.

Having a full kitchen means we saved on breakfast by eating in. We also ate 1 lunch in.

For us it is less about the overall money saved as the comfort factor. My DH & I are big people. We cannot share a double bed. We had a King sized bed at the condo, a queen in the second room, 2 twins in the third. The condo had a stroller, so no rental! We had plenty of room to spread out & relax, hang out without disturbing anyone's sleep, and privacy at night .
And, I went home with clean clothes, so no laundry!

To have the same accomodations on disney property would have been alot more, it would have meant a 2 bedroom villa which is very$$$$$$.

Condo $1300.00
7day MYW $1038.00 (through undercover tourist w/ mousesavers discount)
Gas from NJ - FL & back around $300.00
Parking $88.00
Paid for MNSSHP & almost all food & Souvenirs on WDW property with Disney Rewards from Visa

Total cost for the vacation was around $3000.00
(If you don't count the car I had to buy after we got totalled on the way home )

 

[xmlguy]

For solo travelers, couples, or small families, it's rather easy to find 3* rooms for $30/night using Priceline, and 4*/Resorts for $80. See biddingfortravel.com, which is my primary resource to see bidding results.

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

I have to say that I haven't saved much by staying offsite. We are a family of 4 and with DME and the numerous package discounts Disney has had lately, we can stay in a value resort for about what it would cost us to stay in an offsite hotel.

I think that most people with larger families and especially those who rent a house or condo will find that it's more economical to stay offsite. We do that when we go to the Jersey Shore every summer and it saves us a bundle on dining costs.

 

[My3kiddos]

ALOT! There is 6 of us so we would have had to rent 2 rooms and even at a value resort it would have cost us $2160 for 8 nights in October. We rented a house and it is $589 for 8 nights and we have 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, a pool, washer, dryer, etc. I would much rather have the conviences of a house than a hotel room and it is $1571 cheaper. Even paying for parking I'm still saving $1500.

 

[Mama Steph]

We were there over Easter week. There were 9 of us and we rented a beautiful 5 bedroom house with private pool and spa and huge gameroom for $1080 for 8 nights. We had 2 cars (1 we drove down from Michigan) so we paid $24 a day for parking but we were able to eat a lot of meals at the house. We ordered our tix from Undercover Tourist. I think the total cost was about $5800 for 9 people. That included gas from Mi, 1 night(2 rooms) in hotel each way, food, gas, parking, souvenirs, etc... I don't think we could even come close to that staying onsite.

 

[andrews_dad]

Last trip stayed at Seralago .. a bit of a dump .. for $39 a night. It was Xmas-New Years so the Diz hotels were booked, but if not they would have been ultra-high cost for ultra-high season. Drove ourselves so no car rental. Added $10 a day for parking cost that we would not have on Diz property (plus gas), but saved buy eating at Denny's and McD's and Red Lobster over Diz property all of the time (no meal plan). For the week I'd guess I saved maybe $500 or so?