Should I change my onsite reservations?

[zippy2]

I already posted on the resorts board and I thought I would post here to get the other opinions. We are a family of five, myself, DH, DS 18, DD 14, and DS 6. We are currently booked POR with the free dining. I am thinking of switching to Bonnet Creek. I worried about all of us staying in one room. Switching would be roughly $800 less than my Disney package. I really like staying on site but my family doesn't care. I'm going back and forth on this. We will drive but I do like to use the shuttle buses. Any opinions please.

 

[KellyWasHere]

I already posted on the resorts board and I thought I would post here to get the other opinions. We are a family of five, myself, DH, DS 18, DD 14, and DS 6. We are currently booked POR with the free dining. I am thinking of switching to Bonnet Creek. I worried about all of us staying in one room. Switching would be roughly $800 less than my Disney package. I really like staying on site but my family doesn't care. I'm going back and forth on this. We will drive but I do like to use the shuttle buses. Any opinions please.

With those ages I would definitely stay offsite. I can barely take a standard size hotel room with 2 little ones. The only thing that would make me reconsider would be if any of my kids really wanted to stay onsite (I'm thinking the 6 year old) but even that probably wouldn't sway me. Last year staying offsite was wonderful. Having so much room, and driving to the parks was so simple. The tram was fine. It's always a pain when you have a stroller so I'll just say it wasn't more of a pain than the buses. And at least you're never forced to stand on the trams. You didn't say when you're going, if it's not during peak times, parking and taking the tram should be easy with your family.

Also, $800 if alot of money for us. That alone would make the decision for me. Matter of fact, we're staying onsite this year because it saved us around $500.

One pro-onsite thing I thought of just now, if you're onsite your 2 older kids will have the freedom to do more on their own perhaps ... take the bus over to a different park if they want to on their own, if you normally allow that type of thing. That will be more difficult staying offsite and not having access to the buses, even though Bonnett Creek does have shuttles.

Good luck with your decision. I'm sure you'll get lots of opinions on both boards.

 

[KellyWasHere]

I just reread your post and you say you'd save $800 staying offsite. But your onsite package includes dining. Did you figure in dining expenses to your Bonnett Creek package?

 

[zippy2]

Yeah, the $800 would go toward dining. The funny thing I'm the only one who cares about staying onsite. They don't care where they stay as long as they go. We go every two or three years. Also I just found out that my daughter's eighth grade graduation is not the 2nd to last day like I thought but on the last day which is the 2nd. I guess this makes the decision for me as we are driving. There is no way I can get there to check in on the 2nd.

 

[*disgal*]

I already posted on the resorts board and I thought I would post here to get the other opinions. We are a family of five, myself, DH, DS 18, DD 14, and DS 6. We are currently booked POR with the free dining. I am thinking of switching to Bonnet Creek. I worried about all of us staying in one room. Switching would be roughly $800 less than my Disney package. I really like staying on site but my family doesn't care. I'm going back and forth on this. We will drive but I do like to use the shuttle buses. Any opinions please.

We've done POR with free dining with a family of 5 also and it wasn't the first time we were all in that room. It was definitely not the best situation but we really cared about the dining part. Would we do it again? I don't think so but we can say we've done it once.

you say they don't care about onsite, but do they care about the food!! that would be tough to give up. You'd be getting about $1400 worth of free food. If it doesn't matter and you think you wouldn't spend more than the $800 on food then go for offsite. That's where we usually are now since my children are 18, 15 and 11.......I feel your pain when it comes to a hotel room.

 

[KellyWasHere]

If your BC number does not include dining, then you're probably going to break even, or maybe spend more at BC if you're not planning to cook any meals in the condo, and eat the majority of your meals at Disney. Did you factor in $14/day for parking?

When you say your family doesn't care where they stay, do you mean they do not care if the room they stay in is cramped and have to share a bathroom? If that's the case, and you prefer to stay onsite, I think you should stay onsite. It will probably save you a bit of money if you are planning on eating most of your meals at Disney anyway.

Have you considered switching to one of the value resorts and getting 2 connecting rooms? I wonder if you'd be able to do that and still keep your package with free dining.

To me, staying offsite (ie a multi room condo) is worth about $200 extra. And when the kids get older I will probably shell out several hundred more. But I really like staying offsite, it ultimately saves us because we make breakfast in (just cereal or toast or frozen breakfast sandwiches) and eat most dinners at cheaper off-site places.

 

[zippy2]

My kids probably prefer Bonnet Creek because they would have more room. My youngest just wants to go to Disney. Adding up everything Bonnet Creek is about $1000 cheaper, which I would apply toward dining. My husband will leave early, we are going on to Universal for a couple of days. The only way we could stick with the package and still go to dds graduation would be for him to fly in a day early. That probably wouldn't be a good idea anyway. I would like to use their shuttles but would drive if needed. I'm not worried about the parking cost and I can spend more for dining if needed.