Low-budget hotel for two car-less 25 year olds?!

[atudz]

Hello everyone! Have been a lurker for a while, but signed up today to hopefully get some help in planning my upcoming (last minute) budget-style WDW vacation – specifically with regard to our accommodation.

The deal: We are two best friends who met in college, both 25 years old, both have visited WDW and stayed on and off site many times with our parents/families as children/growing up, and have decided to meet in FL as a reunion since we haven’t seen each other since I moved to the States after college a couple years ago. We’ve managed to get bargain flights from our respective London + NYC locations for 2/27/14 – 3/3/14. Now all that remains is some no-frills, budget friendly, but convenient (if possible) digs for the duration of our stay.

Call me crazy, but we’re looking to spend ~$60/night for a hotel/motel. Go a bit further and call me raving mental, but I should add that we are not renting a car. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who have done WDW in the past without a car (and have read the awesome report on mousesavers), and for us (two childless, carefree ladies who are somewhat flexible with arrangements and don’t mind extra travel time and/or a bit of push-and-shove), the pros on going car-less totally outweigh the cons.

Now, my main question, I guess, is whether you guys think it is best to go for a $60-ish basic hotel with free shuttle service to WDW, or to go for a super cheap $30-ish “hole” and spend money on cabs to and from the parks (is this even feasible as an option?! Don’t know if possible to flag a cab outside the parks!).

If the former, which I suspect, does anyone have any recommendations? There seem to be loads of options in Kissimmee for that period for that price (maybe ~$10 more), but a lot of them have reviews that say the shuttles are only twice a day, don’t make it in time for RD, and leave either just before or bang-on closing (not great, since we want to spend every second possible in the parks!). Plus, some places also charge an additional resort fee of 10-12 bucks upon arrival, which would totally blow, since we’d rather put that money into the base price of a (marginally) better hotel (or spend it on a glass of wine!). Is this really it? Or do you think there's some place out there that CAN get us in for RD and pick us up late enough to enjoy closing?! If anyone has experienced a place like this, please let me know...

I scoured through the boards, and couldn’t really find anything specific to our situation. At the risk of sounding a little dossy, we honestly have both travelled a lot, and stayed in some absolute dives in our time (as well as some gorgeous places of course). So the hotel/motel really is of little importance to us – it will literally only serve the purpose of resting our heads ready for another fun-filled day. On-site is not an option. Luckily, we don’t need it to make our stay special on this occasion, and we don’t have the budget for it anyway.

Any guidance you can offer would be GREAT!!!! Thank you all so very, very much.

PS – other things to note are that we might visit IOA one day, and maybe plan to head to I-drive for a night out in between our Disney fun. Cabs for that do you think?

Cheers,

Abby

 

[Brian Noble]

Is this really it?

Probably. A budget hotel isn't going to spend a ton of money on frequent hotel shuttles, because they can't afford to, and customers who really insist on more flexibility will pay more.

If you genuinely don't mind dealing with a big of hassle, your best bet might be to get a hotel somewhere near the Lynx 50 line.
http://www.golynx.com/plan-trip/rou..._1_1=showPublicPosting&calendar_entry_id=1683

 

[Rosy Robin]

Good Luck with finding what u want at those prices!
I would assume that staying farther away would have less free shuttle options, and if you chose a taxi, that fare would also not be cheap to stay farther away.
If you're spending the money for those flights, I would think you just need to splurge a little and up your budget. It's WDW, it's not cheap.
Meals are not cheap there 10-15 for a quick
counter service each person. Buy your wine at grocery and enjoy in your room.
Have u looked at the WDW value resorts? They say 90 ish a night. But including transportation and extra hours at park compared to people not at WDW resorts. You should also be looking to go during non-peak dates for best bargain.

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Yeah I'd look into the value (all star resorts) at Disney. You have free reliable transportation. Try to get a room only discount, or if you're going to be eating there. Free dining?

 

[suemom2kay]

Don't have a hotel suggestion.

I suggest you rent a car. Did you figure airport transfers into your budget? Mears shuttle will run you about $44 each way for 2. This brings you up to $88.00

If you join KLM Frequent Flyers, you can use this code 8572130 through National Car which includes insurance etc. I plugged in your dates and got $174.61 all in for an economy car. What time are your flights in and out of Orlando? If you go even a few hours past your arrival time on your departure day you will need to pay for an additional day but then you will qualify for weekly coupons. Right now, the coupons are not available that far out but watch http://carrentalsavers.com/national.html for new coupons. Alternatively, you can use NDA2354BU which is an entertainment book coupon. However, you may be asked (not likely) to produce the coupon when you pick up the vehicle. This would bring your rental down to $157.70.

So really for $87 over a shuttle you can have a rental car. This will make staying offsite much more doable. Parking at the parks, I believe is $15/day so that would be about $60/5 days. So you would need an additional $147 to rent a car and park at the parks. That would be $73.50 each. If you can manage that I believe it will make your vacation much more enjoyable.

Have a great time. My best friend did the same at about your age and we had a blast. Just make sure your friend brings enough money for food. My friend was anorexic and brought almost no spending money. I remember splitting a slice of pizza with her on the last day because we were both out of money since I had to supplement her under budgeting on our trip!

 

[Maleficent53]

I have a suggestion that might be more in line with what you are looking for, other than splurge and stay on property!

Go to the website www.golynx.com which is Orlando's public bus service. I have taken the bus all the way from the airport right into TTC and the best part, it costs $2.00 a ride! The bus goes thru business/residential areas and passes MANY hotel/motels along the way. Once you identify a route that works for you, find a place to stay in your price range.

One problem with public transportation is that it does not operate really late at night. When I used it I had to be out of MK by 10pm to catch the last bus. If you want to stay later than that, you may have to use taxi service that night (which BTW can be very expensive).

 

[nugov2]

Here is a groupon for one. I know nothing about this hotel or if they have transportation, but saw it in an email just thought you might want to check it out:

http://www.groupon.com/deals/ga-bk-sunsol-international-drive



I searched tripadvisor for your dates and nothing on site comes up that price. Cheapest was pop century for $138.

ETA: the actual hotel link in the groupon. It does say on the website free shuttle to WDW and Universal
http://www.sunsolhotels.net

 

[tina.tina]

Priceline has lots of hotels in the $30-$40 price range for your time period. In your situation, I would pick the best one of those and rent a car with a discount code like a PP suggested.

 

[robinb]

Hello everyone! Have been a lurker for a while, but signed up today to hopefully get some help in planning my upcoming (last minute) budget-style WDW vacation – specifically with regard to our accommodation.

The deal: We are two best friends who met in college, both 25 years old, both have visited WDW and stayed on and off site many times with our parents/families as children/growing up, and have decided to meet in FL as a reunion since we haven’t seen each other since I moved to the States after college a couple years ago. We’ve managed to get bargain flights from our respective London + NYC locations for 2/27/14 – 3/3/14. Now all that remains is some no-frills, budget friendly, but convenient (if possible) digs for the duration of our stay.

Call me crazy, but we’re looking to spend ~$60/night for a hotel/motel. Go a bit further and call me raving mental, but I should add that we are not renting a car. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who have done WDW in the past without a car (and have read the awesome report on mousesavers), and for us (two childless, carefree ladies who are somewhat flexible with arrangements and don’t mind extra travel time and/or a bit of push-and-shove), the pros on going car-less totally outweigh the cons.

Now, my main question, I guess, is whether you guys think it is best to go for a $60-ish basic hotel with free shuttle service to WDW, or to go for a super cheap $30-ish “hole” and spend money on cabs to and from the parks (is this even feasible as an option?! Don’t know if possible to flag a cab outside the parks!).

If the former, which I suspect, does anyone have any recommendations? There seem to be loads of options in Kissimmee for that period for that price (maybe ~$10 more), but a lot of them have reviews that say the shuttles are only twice a day, don’t make it in time for RD, and leave either just before or bang-on closing (not great, since we want to spend every second possible in the parks!). Plus, some places also charge an additional resort fee of 10-12 bucks upon arrival, which would totally blow, since we’d rather put that money into the base price of a (marginally) better hotel (or spend it on a glass of wine!). Is this really it? Or do you think there's some place out there that CAN get us in for RD and pick us up late enough to enjoy closing?! If anyone has experienced a place like this, please let me know...

I scoured through the boards, and couldn’t really find anything specific to our situation. At the risk of sounding a little dossy, we honestly have both travelled a lot, and stayed in some absolute dives in our time (as well as some gorgeous places of course). So the hotel/motel really is of little importance to us – it will literally only serve the purpose of resting our heads ready for another fun-filled day. On-site is not an option. Luckily, we don’t need it to make our stay special on this occasion, and we don’t have the budget for it anyway.

Any guidance you can offer would be GREAT!!!! Thank you all so very, very much.

PS – other things to note are that we might visit IOA one day, and maybe plan to head to I-drive for a night out in between our Disney fun. Cabs for that do you think?

Cheers,

Abby

I know that car rental is expensive because you're there for only 4 days and that you are are from NYC (I assume you don't have a car or insurance) but I would suggest that you rent a car anyway. The cost of getting to your hotel from the airport and back will be at least $35 each (plus tip), so that's about a third to a half of your cost for a small car. Check www.mousesavers.com for weekend discounts, for instance Avis has a car for your dates using the codes from Mousesavers for $162 including taxes but not insurance. Some credit cards include car rental insurance so you may not have to pay more for insurance.

Since you are in the US you can take advantage of "opaque" booking engines like Hotwire and Priceline. Priceline has what appears to be the Destiny Palms for $34 per night through their Express Deals (NOT guaranteed it is!). It includes free parking, breakfast and internet and gets "okay" reviews. You can select 2 beds when you book. Check out www.betterbidding.com for information on using Priceline and Hotwire and determining which hotels you might get when you bid.

 

[wiigirl]

Probably. A budget hotel isn't going to spend a ton of money on frequent hotel shuttles, because they can't afford to, and customers who really insist on more flexibility will pay more.

If you genuinely don't mind dealing with a big of hassle, your best bet might be to get a hotel somewhere near the Lynx 50 line.
http://www.golynx.com/plan-trip/rou..._1_1=showPublicPosting&calendar_entry_id=1683

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Yeah I'd look into the value (all star resorts) at Disney. You have free reliable transportation. Try to get a room only discount, or if you're going to be eating there. Free dining?

 

[Rosy Robin]

Again, I would suggest the value hotels (All Star/Pop) bc you can have free bus transfer to hotel on DME. Then free bus, back and forth on campus. Then book DME to go back to airport. The $$ ( 150 it sounds like pp are suggesting) would be used on the All Star rate at night...

 

[robinb]

Yeah I'd look into the value (all star resorts) at Disney. You have free reliable transportation. Try to get a room only discount, or if you're going to be eating there. Free dining?

Again, I would suggest the value hotels (All Star/Pop) bc you can have free bus transfer to hotel on DME. Then free bus, back and forth on campus. Then book DME to go back to airport. The $$ ( 150 it sounds like pp are suggesting) would be used on the All Star rate at night...

But paying $150 per night for an All Stars (cheapest is Pop Century for $600 with tax for all 4 nights) is a lot more expensive than paying for an offsite hotel and renting a car. In addition, they are stuck with eating on Disney property the whole time. That does NOT make a "budget" trip!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Personally, I wouldn't stay at any offsite facility without a rental car. Having the freedom to run to the store and pick up what you need and just simple get to where you need to be is worth the cost.

As a pp said, find some discount codes.

Even if I had all the time in the world, I wouldn't want to spend most of my vacation waiting on free shuttles in order to save $50 or so. It's not my idea of a fun vacation. It's just not worth it. jmho

 

[suemom2kay]

I know that car rental is expensive because you're there for only 4 days and that you are are from NYC (I assume you don't have a car or insurance) but I would suggest that you rent a car anyway. The cost of getting to your hotel from the airport and back will be at least $35 each (plus tip), so that's about a third to a half of your cost for a small car. Check www.mousesavers.com for weekend discounts, for instance Avis has a car for your dates using the codes from Mousesavers for $162 including taxes but not insurance. Some credit cards include car rental insurance so you may not have to pay more for insurance.

Since you are in the US you can take advantage of "opaque" booking engines like Hotwire and Priceline. Priceline has what appears to be the Destiny Palms for $34 per night through their Express Deals (NOT guaranteed it is!). It includes free parking, breakfast and internet and gets "okay" reviews. You can select 2 beds when you book. Check out www.betterbidding.com for information on using Priceline and Hotwire and determining which hotels you might get when you bid.

I believe OP and her friend are from the UK (London - NYC - MCO). That is why I suggested the KLM code with National which includes insurance. It is marketed to international travelers for this reason.

 

[robinb]

I believe OP and her friend are from the UK (London - NYC - MCO). That is why I suggested the KLM code with National which includes insurance. It is marketed to international travelers for this reason.

I originally thought so too! But she says that she had not seen her friend since she "moved to the States" so I assumed she was living in NYC while her friend is still in the UK. In any case, the KLM code is a good one to check too .

 

[atudz]

You guys are all totally awesome. What great responses! Thank you all so very much.

Re the issue of having enough spending money for the trip, the idea was to spend as little as possible on accommodation so we could be a little more flush while we're there with food, drinks and princess hats of course. We're not destitute (we have decent jobs and a bit of cash), but we just don't want any aspect of the trip to be more expensive than it absolutely has to be (so that we can put that money toward other fun things), if that makes sense. I know that seems totally ***-backwards, but I feel like the only time you can get away with this is in your 20s

So, interesting fact. I also priced Pop and a couple other value hotels at around $610, which was slightly too much than my friend wanted to pay, really. Even though I factored "hassle ratings" into my spreadsheet But get this. She put in the same details on the same website -- hotels.com -- but used the UK site. The cost for the same hotel for the same time is over $120 less for the whole trip. Tax, fees, everything included. I am talking bottom line, checkout page fee. Who'd have thunk it?! Maybe you need a UK card to book it, but that's where we're set, as we have UK and USA credentials between us (I'm a Brit in USA so have US bank account etc, but no US drivers license as someone guessed, I think). Maybe this combination is a winner!

I know a $120 ish saving does not seem like that much, but nightly, it takes a Value hotel from "no way -- why would we do that" to hmmmm, I GUESS we could spend that extra $$/night between us on a room rather than a taxi...

The only issue I see with this, as one person pointed out, staying on property does NOT a budget vacation make. We're both pretty sparrow-like, but in any case, having to be frugal with food was not really the original plan (we wanted to take that hit on the hotel, so we had much more freedom with food options and expense during the actual trip). But that's just the way it goes I guess.

Does anyone know what the deal is with Magic Express if you book a WDW hotel through a third party? Is there a way to make sure you're enrolled on this program, even if you don't book thru Disney Go?

Thanks again guys. You guys are awesome and have inspired me to trawl through and see if I can help anyone with anything

 

[atudz]

PS the hotel we priced through the UK website was All Star Sports.

 

[atudz]

I originally thought so too! But she says that she had not seen her friend since she "moved to the States" so I assumed she was living in NYC while her friend is still in the UK. In any case, the KLM code is a good one to check too .

Ding ding ding we have a winner!! Both Brits, but I moved to NYC after Uni

 

[robinb]

I'm glad that you were able to find cheaper rates through the UK site! Is your friend flying into MCO or Sanford? I don't know if Magical Express goes to Sanford. You may also want to ask questions over on the UK Board here: http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=47 . There may be a special offer for folks from the UK that we are not aware of in the US.

If you end up at a Value resort you can always pack some breakfast-y type things in your bag with you like pop tarts and english muffins. There is a toaster and microwave in the food court that you can use.