on or off site???

[gtalum]

Personally I recommend offsite. You get a much nicer hotel room for much less money. You can rent a car and park at the parks every day for much less than the difference in room prices and then you have complete freedom of movement. With our car we can get from any park to our hotel in 15 minutes or less. The idea of waiting for a bus to go anywhere and then cramming aboard is a real turnoff for me.

To be fair, I have no desire to be enveloped in the Disney "magic" 24 hours a day, though. DW and I enjoy the chance to unwind without the "magic". I also prefer the better and cheaper food options offsite, so even if we stayed onsite we'd probably leave for dinner frequently.

That said, if I found a comparable rate for a comparable room, I'd consider onsite.

 

[gtalum]

And the cost is comparable to off-site...especially if you're staying at a value resort. Aside from a value resort, it can get expensive.

Not to nitpick, but the normal cost even of the "Values" is not comparable to offsite. With AAA discount, I could get a "Value" room for ~$74.00 if the discount is available, which seems to be rarely in my experience. I can get a similar motel style room for less than $50 offsite. To get a suite I'd have to spend nearly $150 at the "Values", when I can get a suite for $71 offsite.

Now if I had to fly in and rent a car (we are only a 90 minute drive away), and if Disney throws in dining, then it starts to make sense financially to stay onsite.

 

[pkasbohm]

We have always stayed off-site but we are planning on staying at POR in 2008. The reason? We don't want to rent a car, and after figuring the cost on everything such as food, car, hotel/house, tickets etc. we figured it would actually be cheaper to stay on property or pretty close to it.

So that is our decision this time around, we figured we would try it.

 

[bjscheel]

Has any one mentioned fast pass? Saved us so much time waiting in line. The kids only wanted to do spash mountain so they'd get a fast pass, hit Thunder mt rr. then go back to splash with little wait (may hit something else in between). We always keep a fast pass in hand for the next big ride.

Fastpass doesn't require staying onsite.

We did offsite our first trip and onsite our second. We will probably always stay onsite now especially with ME. Our offsite stay was at Homewood Suites. Great hotel, we had two rooms and kitchenette. Free hot breakfast and even free light supper M-Th! The bad part- the shuttle bus. It ran once in the morning and once at night. If we had missed the bus, we would have been stuck! And it was always full. The Epcot bus didn't return to the hotel until like 10:30 pm so I devised a plan to monorail to the TTC and catch the MK return bus at 6:30.

If you were planning on renting a car and staying offsite anyway, I do highly recommend the Homewood Suites! It's just the bus situation that was difficult but we dealt with it.

 

[Nick's Grandma]

This is our third trip and we have always stayed offsite. DD and her family want to stay onsite so in '09, we will try that.
However, we always drive in and will have a car available. If I stay onsite, I am worried more about the size. The first time we came dd in laws stayed onsite and had a sick child for two days, they said they felt sooo cramped.
However just once I want the feeling of staying onsite.

Eight days and counting down

 

[eliza61]

For me and my family, we are on site folks. When we go to Disney, we go for "Disney". we want the entire "feel" from the hotels to the EMH's. We pretty much don't want to rent a "house" because it's not a vacation to me and when we go to other cities, we stay at a usual hotel so I don't want to do it at Disney.

Generally once we've decided to do Disney, we pretty much accepted the fact it's going to be costly.

 

[afinnteach]

I have to admit I have not stayed off-site since I was a kid, but I will say that I love the feeling of staying on-site. It is so easy to take the bus back for a quick nap and even the bus ride is "magical" to my 2 year old.

My MIL and FIL swear by staying "on-site" mostly because my FIL loves a vacation where he doesn't have to drive.

We always drive down, so we have a car with us, but we've NEVER used it while on-property.

I'm sure whatever you decide, your trip will be magical!

Good luck,
Amy