On or Off-Site with Baby?

[diz_princess]

I am going back and forth with where we should stay with our baby. I am considering splitting a stay on-site with a stay off-site (rental home). Or should we just stay at the rental home the entire time? We'll have a 7 month old when it's time for our vacation. Anyone like to comment about-

Pros/Cons of staying On-Site?

Pros/Cons of staying at a Rental Home?

I'd love to hear comments, suggestions, advice!

Thank you!

 

[BevS97]

All I can do is tell you what we have decided. in the past with a 3 year old and then a 4 year old, we have stayed off site for 10 days and on site for 4 days, giving us the best of both worlds.

however, on our next trip with a 3 month old and a 6 year old, we have decided to stay offsite for the entire trip. A number of reasons, first off all I didn't fancy moving anywhere with all the gear that we are likely to be carrying with us, on our last 2 trips we lost about 1/2 day on the move day. Since we stay for 2 weeks, that's not too big a problem, but it is still hassle we can do without.

Also, I think for us the kitchen, laundry and 2nd bedroom will be a huge bonus. It means that my older dd can go to bed at a reasonable time some nights (we don't stick to normal bedtimes on vacation, but sometimes it's nice to put her to bed and have some adult time), and we won't all be tiptoeing around in the dark. Also, no hassle preparing food for her or baby - I have warmed bottles for dd1 in the coffee maker before, and yes it's doable, but there are easier ways!

Something to bear in mind though , is that we will hire a car regardless of if we are on site or off site, and even when on-site we tend to drive to the parks, we just find it easier with strollers and all the bags etc to drive ourselves, so the onsite advantage of transportation is not a big one for us. Also, we don't do mid-day breaks, instead we do shorter days, but more of them.

That's what works for us, but I am sure others will tell you you can't beat a monorail hotel (of course, I can't afford a monorail hotel!)

Bev

 

[aimb]

We've been with a 7 month old, and we stayed at an off-site villa. It was great for us because we had a full kitchen and a washer/dryer. And it was nice to be able to put the baby to bed and still be able to hang out in the living room and watch tv or whatever without worrying about waking up our son. Personally, I don't think I'd like having to move to another location mid-trip. We had so much stuff, and it would've been a pain to have to drag it to another place. We didn't find it inconvenient at all to stay off-site. Our son was still small enough to nap comfortably in his stroller or the baby bjorn so we didn't need to worry about heading back to the hotel for a mid-day break. Whatever you decide, you will have a great time either way!!

 

[riggins]

We faced the same dilemma when we went with DD at 9 months. We considered an off-site villa for the extra space, but really wanted the convenience of staying on-site. We really couldn't afford the high prices at Disney's Home-Away-From-Home resorts. I was really struggling with what to do until I found out about renting DVC points. We found someone on the DVC Rent/Trade Board here and ended up paying about $280/night for a 1-bedroom at Boardwalk Villas. The same room would have cost us almost $500 from Disney and the price was comparable to what we were considering at WL. The off-site villa we looked at was only $150/night, so we did spend more, but got the best of both worlds.

We loved having the kitchen and laundry for the baby's food and messes. We also liked having all the extra space so we could stay up after she went to bed without worrying about waking her.

We found the Boardwalk location to be a huge positive too. We were able to walk to both Epcot and MGM. This is a big deal with a baby. We just put her in the stroller and went. We didn't have to worry about buses, boats, cars, etc. It was so nice. We went to Epcot almost every night for dinner and Illuminations. She would fall asleep in the stroller and we didn't have to move her until we were back in our room.

In fact, we liked everything about it so much, we bought into DVC and are now owners at BWV.

If I can answer any other questions, please let me know.

Good Luck
-Leslie

 

[disneysteve]

I'd vote for offsite. As I always say, we don't sleep with our daughter at home and we prefer not to do it on vacation either. Especially when Jen was an infant (we took her at 5-1/2 months and again at 1 yr and 2 yrs so been there-done that), we definitely appreciated being able to put her down in one room, close the door, and go in the other room and keep the lights and TV on. Plus, there is the added benefit of the kitchen and laundry.

You can either do a suite hotel (Days, Quality, HI, Homewood, etc) or a condo or pool home. You can rent a 2-bedroom condo for as little as $55/nite depending on season. You simply can't beat that for space and price.

As for renting DVC points, I suppose that's the way to go if you are really committed to being onsite for some reason, but as riggins pointed out, its a very expensive way to go.

 

[BevS97]

You can rent a 2-bedroom condo for as little as $55/nite depending on season

this is what we've done, the villas at the Boardwalk sound perfect but $280/night is a heck of a lot of $$ I could spend on something else.

Bev