If we stay off site, do we need a car?

[arubadawn]

Staying at Silver Lake Resort in August. Vacillating between driving and flying. Trying to keep things financially reasonable...quite a task with an Orlando vacation. If we flew, do we need a car for our off site stay? Looked into rental cars but prices seemed to have skyrocketed. Family of 4.

 

[Lewisc]

Yes you need a car. How long a drive?

 

[piccolopat]

IMHO, yes. Even with off site hotels that have dependable shuttles to the parks, you'll spend a lot more time traveling and lose the flexibility to travel outside of their schedules. There's always Uber of Lyft, but those costs can add up and you might have a wait if you try to get a ride during peak hours before the parks open or when they close. A rental car will also give you the flexibility to eat outside of the parks or head to the grocery store for things you can eat in your room. This alone can save you quite a lot.

 

[smwisc]

Staying at Silver Lake Resort in August. Vacillating between driving and flying. Trying to keep things financially reasonable...quite a task with an Orlando vacation. If we flew, do we need a car for our off site stay? Looked into rental cars but prices seemed to have skyrocketed. Family of 4.

I wouldn't want to stay offsite without a car. Driving around WDW is really not difficult! Driving to DW and staying offsite are our keys to keeping costs in line - driving is cheaper than flying, offsite is cheaper than on (especially for the space we need), and since we drive, we already have our car. You could always still use the occasional Uber/Lyft if there was a day you didn't feel like driving or your party needed to split up.

 

[Mle8308]

There are lots of things to consider. What parks do you plan on visiting? Does Silver Lake provide a shuttle and if so, do you want to follow their schedule? Disney charges $25 per day to park, that can add up. Not sure what Universal or Sea World charge. Uber and Lyft are available, but it can be difficult at times to get a car in a timely manner, and if your children are younger and need car seats, that can be a problem with rideshares. And think about eating. How will you get to restaurants or grocery stores if you have kitchen facilities? There are grocery delivery services, check with your resort front desk to see how they handle deliveries if you are not there when the order arrives. Car rentals are expensive right now because many of the rental companies sold off a large portion of their vehicles during the pandemic. Not sure how far away from Orlando you are and how far a drive it would be, I can’t imagine staying off property without a car. Depending on the distance, you may be better off driving. Air fare is not inexpensive right now, either. Best of luck and enjoy your vacation!

 

[Upatnoon]

Staying at Silver Lake Resort in August. Vacillating between driving and flying. Trying to keep things financially reasonable...quite a task with an Orlando vacation. If we flew, do we need a car for our off site stay? Looked into rental cars but prices seemed to have skyrocketed. Family of 4.

How much do you plan on coming and going?

Silver Lake Resort is close to Animal Kingdom, Animal Kingdom Lodge and off-site shopping and dining, so you could Uber to those places fairly inexpensively. However, those trips will add up the more you go.

With the costs of rental cars soaring, it still may be cheaper.

I think the ideal situation would be to uber to AKL and take the Disney bus to whatever park you want, however you might want to check if Disney has been restricting resort drop-offs in the AM. I know they are strict about the Contemporary, but don't know about AKL.

I don't know if Silver Lake offers a shuttle.

 

[arubadawn]

I really appreciate all these replies. My instinct was that we definitely needed a car however I was trying to explore all of my options. Seems pretty universal that everybody thinks you need a car if you're staying off site. We are driving and coming from Pennsylvania so we're expecting the ride to be between 16 and 20 hours. Fortunately we do have three out of the four of us that are drivers so we can split it up. I think it's pretty clear that we're going to drive at this point. Thanks again for all of the good tips. In case anybody was wondering no silverlake does not have a shuttle service. Yes, we are planning on getting groceries and at least eating breakfast in the room. That is very interesting about the cost of rental cars being up because of the company selling off some of their cars. I didn't know that. Always good to learn something new. Traveling with older teens so things are a little more flexible than with young children. Now our big decision is parks. Does anyone want to weigh in on that? Kind of exploring Discovery cove. The cost of Discovery cove plus tickets to Disney however is pretty costly.

 

[starry_solo]

Yes, you will need a car.

Besides the rental fleet being sold off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was also this disaster (fire destroying 3500 rental cars):

https://www.businessinsider.com/fire-at-florida-airport-destroys-over-3500-rental-cars-2020-4

 

[Upatnoon]

I really appreciate all these replies. My instinct was that we definitely needed a car however I was trying to explore all of my options. Seems pretty universal that everybody thinks you need a car if you're staying off site. We are driving and coming from Pennsylvania so we're expecting the ride to be between 16 and 20 hours. Fortunately we do have three out of the four of us that are drivers so we can split it up. I think it's pretty clear that we're going to drive at this point. Thanks again for all of the good tips. In case anybody was wondering no silverlake does not have a shuttle service. Yes, we are planning on getting groceries and at least eating breakfast in the room. That is very interesting about the cost of rental cars being up because of the company selling off some of their cars. I didn't know that. Always good to learn something new. Traveling with older teens so things are a little more flexible than with young children. Now our big decision is parks. Does anyone want to weigh in on that? Kind of exploring Discovery cove. The cost of Discovery cove plus tickets to Disney however is pretty costly.

If you are looking to save money, keeping it to one park system is the best as the longer you stay, the cheaper the per-day ticket entry is.

In your case, I would do only Disney. For your next vacation you could do a Universal/SeaWorld trip.

 

[Upatnoon]

I would also suggest driving down if looking to save money.

 

[HopperFan]

Now our big decision is parks. Does anyone want to weigh in on that? Kind of exploring Discovery cove. The cost of Discovery cove plus tickets to Disney however is pretty costly.

Agree, car needed if off site.

Discovery Cove. We love it, but it is an expensive day. Really depends on how often you have been to Disney or other parks and your must do's, if you take the time and money for there. The Discovery Cove tickets have options for including Sea World, Aquatica, Busch Gardens at greatly reduced rates. We've used the combo tickets and just Cove tickets.

When you consider the limited attendance, the food and drink that is included, free parking, the equipment and towels included and the beauty of the place - you feel like you are on a special island somewhere - at some certain rates the money can be totally worth it. I highly suggest if you have access to Tickets At Work or AAA you look at their rates. We have done very well via those sites. Also some great rates come up if you google for discounts and code sites send you in to Discovery Cove with discounts activated.

 

[MICKIMINI]

Yes, you need a car. If the drive isn't too bad you'll save a bundle on the rental. Two weeks was $500 two years ago and $600-900 (I have 4 different reservations for Oct/Nov 2021) when I made reservations in February. I made multiple reservations as we are not entirely sure if we will have 7 or 9 people and if others are driving. I have a "special" car (any car in a certain aisle usually SUV), medium SUV, Mercedes sedan and a Nissan Pathfinder in order of low to high price. I will keep at least two reservations as I've had desk agents challenge me on price even with a printed reservation.

I checked with AAA (free second driver) online yesterday and comparable reservations are now $1600+ which is beyond crazy! Good luck!

 

[ElyseInWonderland]

Definitely need a car; the shuttle transport at offsite hotels was unreliable at best!

 

[heather70]

We (family of 4) stayed offsite for the first time at the Vistana this past December 11-18. We did not have a car and used Uber with no problems. The rideshare sites at the parks are very conveniently located except for MK of course drops you at TTC. I live in NY, total including to airport and back was about $370. We have another trip 6/23-7/3 staying at River Island Orange Lake. Again, we will use rideshare. HTH good luck!

 

[Pooh's World]

x

Staying at Silver Lake Resort in August. Vacillating between driving and flying. Trying to keep things financially reasonable...quite a task with an Orlando vacation. If we flew, do we need a car for our off site stay? Looked into rental cars but prices seemed to have skyrocketed. Family of 4.

yeah rental car prices are insane for foreseeable future because the rental companies sold their hole inventory back in August.

The 192/Irlo Bronson area is not very conducive to using the LYNX Bus because you have to take LYNX 55 all the way east of the highway then transfer/wait on LYNX 56 and go back west of the HW to get to Disney transport center. IMO this is impractical.

It looks like you could walk to the mcdonalds and bone fish, Giordaono's from Silver Lake but the key is how often Silver Lake has shuttles to the parks. The LYNX bus like I said would be impractical to use to get to the parks.

If you stay in the Disney Springs or Lake Buena Vista hotels then you would have access to alot of food options and the LYNX 50 bus that goes directly to Disney Springs and the Disney TTC center. In fact anything up to Double Tree Sea World is just using one bus LYNX 50 to get to Disney. This along with the shuttles that run 3 times in the morning/comes back 3 times at night to Disney gives you alot of options for going to Disney and coming back late at night (as the last LYNX 50 bus leaves the Disney TTC around midnight)

 

[Pooh's World]

The other thing to consider about driving from Pennyslvania is that they are expecting gas prices to skyrocket during the summer as everyone travels (post covid/vaccinated). And there is a huge shortage of gas tanker drivers right now (as alot of them were let go during the pandemic) and that because of that there will be a shortage of gas at the gas stations driving gas prices way up.

IMO just with the nature of things for the next year with the short supply of everything and high demand that LYNX bus is the way to go.

There also is a Hertz on West Irlo Bronson that has cheaper rates (and no airport tax/concession fees) across from the walmart. In normal times you can get rates around $15-$25 a day, but I believe even there the rates are really jacked up now.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

I really appreciate all these replies. My instinct was that we definitely needed a car however I was trying to explore all of my options. Seems pretty universal that everybody thinks you need a car if you're staying off site. We are driving and coming from Pennsylvania so we're expecting the ride to be between 16 and 20 hours. Fortunately we do have three out of the four of us that are drivers so we can split it up. I think it's pretty clear that we're going to drive at this point. Thanks again for all of the good tips. In case anybody was wondering no silverlake does not have a shuttle service. Yes, we are planning on getting groceries and at least eating breakfast in the room. That is very interesting about the cost of rental cars being up because of the company selling off some of their cars. I didn't know that. Always good to learn something new. Traveling with older teens so things are a little more flexible than with young children. Now our big decision is parks. Does anyone want to weigh in on that? Kind of exploring Discovery cove. The cost of Discovery cove plus tickets to Disney however is pretty costly.

We use to drive for all the same reasons.
If you have an instantpot bring it, because we drive I have more options on what I can bring and that was nice. I would throw things in the slow cook setting and eat when we got home or make overnight oatmeal it was a real time saver.
We have 3 young adult kids, we decided to lay out all the options and let them help plan the trip. We did 2 day Disney tickets and drove to Coco beach. They rented kyacks at night for that bioluminescence it was amazing. If I were you let them help plan. There is so much you can do in central Florida

 

[GoofyDad_4427]

If money is a main concern, it is definitely worth laying out your day to day plans to see if it is cheaper to just use Uber or another ride share service, versus renting a car. The answer will depend on how much you plan to drive and how much a rental car would cost. We greatly prefer to use ride share if the cost is even close to the same, for the convenience, being able to get into a nice cooled down car, and so i don't have to worry about how many cocktails i have while on vacation.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

If money is a main concern, it is definitely worth laying out your day to day plans to see if it is cheaper to just use Uber or another ride share service, versus renting a car. The answer will depend on how much you plan to drive and how much a rental car would cost. We greatly prefer to use ride share if the cost is even close to the same, for the convenience, being able to get into a nice cooled down car, and so i don't have to worry about how many cocktails i have while on vacation.

Also consider parking fees..
Not necessarily with a rental house but hotels charge them and the parks charge them.
I get dropped off curbside no big tramless parking lot. No $30 parking fee (off site disney)
No hotel parking fee $15+

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Personally I would not stay offsite without a car. Uber is great but not always the most reliable especially when it comes to arriving at parks for rope drop or when leaving a park at closing.