Staying offsite for our next trip-- HELP!!

[toledo13]

A friend of ours has graciously (!!) offered up his time share at his Kissimmee condo next October for us to stay in for free. OK, OMG, right?!?! Now, I've stayed offsite before, but lets face it, I was under the age of 9 both times. Since being old enough to plan my own trips, we've only stayed at the Swan, and ASMu. I need tips for staying offsite!! I know that...

I need a rental car, and have to pay for parking at the parks (unless we take the comp. shuttle... which we're not going to do)

Don't get EMH benefits

ok, that's all I know. ANY tips for making it a great offsite trip would be VERY HELPFUL!!!

THANK YOU!!

 

[Brian Noble]

That's just about all you need to know. Definitely drive yourself, and things will be great.

 

[lisajl]

We are going in October, too. We are also staying offsite. We are renting a house.
We will be hitting the parks early...I mean as soon as we can get though the parking lot. We will most likely stay all day. We have done it before, we can do it again.
We will also be hitting the grocery store once we get settled at the house.

I would not waste time on shuttles. When we stayed offsite 3 years ago the shuttle took FOREVER to get there. There is nothing worse than listening to the bus driver complain about "disney", and take his dear time getting there.
We were supposed to be dropped off at MGM and he went somewhere else first. We didn't complain because the ride was free but he could have at least said something.

 

[Brian Noble]

Assuming you have a full kitchen, you might want to provision for breakfast---either shopping yourself, or having a service such as Garden Grocer do it for you. We have kitchens whether we stay onsite or off, and we find that being able to have a 'real breakfast' without having to go to a food court is a real bonus. Lunches are generally in the parks (we're not ready to come home yet).

If you are relatively close, it's still very possible to come back for mid-day breaks. In fact, it's often faster to drive to a well-located off-site location than take Disney transportation, depending on the circumstances. The one exception to this is MK---having to go through the TTC takes away any advantages you might have had driving yourself.

 

[crusoe2]

We stayed offsite for the first time in forever this past October. I was so accustomed to the onsite perks that it did seem somewhat aggaravating at first but overall it was worth it to have the extra space and amenities of a condo. We were at Windsor Hills and found the drive at that time of year was not bad at all - virtually no traffic. We actually enjoyed driving ourselves rather than taking the buses as we usually do onsite. Our 6yo DD thought riding the parking lot trams was cool (don't tell Disney - they might start charging extra). A couple things I would recommend:
1) Just before you leave for your trip, double check for any changes in park hours or schedules. We didn't find out until the day we arrived that there had been some major changes that affected our park touring plan so we had to quickly regroup and come up with a new plan.
2) If you have a laptop and will have I'net access at your condo, I would recommend taking the laptop. It helps to make up for the lack of onsite access to information - I'd never realized that the park maps don't give EMH information. We needed to know that when we were re-figuring our park touring plan so that we could avoid those parks. Also, we decided a few days into our trip that we would like to stay an extra night but our condo wasn't available. We were able to go online and book & pay for a room at POR for that extra night much more quickly than if I'd called Disney reservations.
3) If you book a character meal for before park opening time, be sure you allow PLENTY of time to get into the park and to your restaurant and have your ADR# handy. This is especially true at Magic Kingdom but keep in mind that at any of the parks you may have to show that ADR# to a CM before you're allowed thru the turnstiles and you'll have to go thru the bag check also. At MK, we had to fight our way thru the crowd at the TTC and then show the ADR# before they would let us thru the gate and onto the monorail. I hadn't taken this into account cause we usually stay onsite, so we were just a tad bit late.
That's all I can think of for now. Hope it helps.

 

[toledo13]

Thanks for all of the info!!!

 

[kreed]

We too have stayed both on and off site. My teenagers miss the late night EMH but instead they fill their time with evenings at Disney quest. We love the extra room. Driving to the parks is fine. If you have not purchased tickets and have AAA if you purchase tickets there you can get a preferred parking pass. You still have to pay to park but it is an area much closer. Always ask for one because I find they don't offer them up!! In fact I purchase one ticket from them to get the pass and the rest of the tickets I purchased from the mousavers link to undercover tourist because they were about five dollars cheaper. When traveling to Disney, I find every little extra dollar I can save helps.

 

[Happiest mommy]

we love staying off site I love having the kitchen/space first thing we do is get our rental car and head on down to the nearest walmart and buy water etc afterwards just enjoy the rest of the vacation love also being able to drive down to other non disney attractions last trip purchased a navigation system that was the best! you'll love it, enjoy your vacation.