Staying offsite

[Melora]

As I was laying in bed last night it occured to me how much I am paying to stay at OKW this coming summer...(well over $400 per night).

Has anyone stayed at any of those houses that rent out for around $150 or so per night (or any offsite location that can accomodate 7 or more people) and if so what was your experience?

Should I just bite the bullet and stay at OKW where I love? or try to save $3000? (ACK thats SO much money!)

 

[helenabear]

I personally loved OKW when I stayed there last May (so much so that is where I am in the middle of buying into at the moment). But have you thought about looking into renting the points you need? It might save you some money that way. Not that offsite is bad, but with a large family the convenience of bus travels vs car is wonderful!

 

[Dan Murphy]

Send a PM to snoopy and mare. They stayed at some offsite place that they said was great. less than $100 a night if I recall, like a house.

 

[katerkat]

I've never stayed in a house, but I've stayed in timeshare condos that can have up to 8 people (2 bedrooms and a pull-out couch) that were very nice. In fact, I won't stay on-site very often because of them. (But then, I get an extremely good military discount - Disney just can't compare to $35 a night.)

 

[niks81]

I am a biased DVC member but here's what I could add.

I went with my best friend's family in 1999 and stayed at Marriott's Grande Vista. (obviously not one of the houses, but an offsite timeshare complex like DVC) It was a beautiful resort....we had a one bedroom I think....and it was very spacious. The grounds were gorgeous, there were two nice restaurants, and it had a great pool. I believe they only paid like $150 a night for it back then, which seems really low! As great as it was, the one thing that was hard was the transportation. We would drive to the parks everyday....get stuck in traffic....park the car....and then come back to a very HOT car at the end of the day.

Boy do I sound like a whiner I'm not trying to....that was the *only* thing that wasn't great about the whole trip.

I think it really depends on what is most important to you. I know for me, I love staying on the grounds. I love taking the monorails, boats, buses around. It's just all too convenient Some others though don't find that near as important and stay offsite quite a bit.

Either way you're going to Disney world so have a great time

 

[HauntedMansionGeek]

You like OKW you should seriously consider a DVC purchase there.

The prices of the Epcot resorts kept rising so 5 or so years ago we finally bit the bullet and bought a Boardwalk DVC...best/smarted investment we've ever made for ourselves!

I can't imagine paying $400 a night anymore! YIKES!!!


*EDITED TO ADD: I forgot to mention the previous posters comments about staying off site. I did it one time and that was enough for me. The transportation TO the parks from the condo we were at was enough to sway me to never do it again. We were caught in traffic more times than I can remember.....it was awful......but the condo was lovely! LOL LOL

 

[winniedapooh]

We have 5 children and have stayed both ways. The kids have only stayed on property once and until we are only taking 2 or 3 with us we will not do it again. It is just too costly for us. We have rented at Windsor Palms and enjoyed it so much we are gojng back and staying in the same home in October. For us it has worked out great to do this and it is not a bother for us to drive where we want to go and when as we always rent a car. You may want to check out the Other resorts and hotels board here for more information if you are thinking of renting to look into what others think about it. Pixie dust!

 

[maps]

we have stayed offsite in a vacation home and loved it! everyone had their own room, we had our own private pool and a full kitchen to make meals or snacks.

we stayed at coronado springs once and paid more per night for the one room than for the whole house.

when we were onsite, we still rented a car because i hated the hassle of waiting for the bus--standing in line, crowding, folding the strollers. even when we got off the bus it was still a long walk to the room.

renting a house was something i never thought i would do but now i've even talked my family into doing the same. they thought it was better than their stay at the grand floridian. (and much cheaper).

 

[want2retire]

Our group of 14 (3 families) stayed offsite in a 6 bedroom home over Christmas 2002. We were about 15 minutes by car from WDW which was no problem whatsoever. The home was lovely, just a couple of years old, with a heated pool. We were very comfortable and would definitely do it again! The only problem we encountered was our credit card being charged FOUR times (over several months) for the same week. It tooks months to get the charges completely removed from our statement. At first I thought it was an honest mistake on the part of the rental agency, but not when it kept happening and they protested all of our disputes. Long story... all's well that ends well, but it was a huge headache. We would not rent from the same company again obviously.

 

[Megan's Mom]

This past fall we rented a house and that is the way to go. It wasn't too far from the parks. It was close to the Walmart there so that made it convient to get supplies. The rental company we used and I don't remember their name but their office was close to the giant orange, let us pick the area that we wanted. For the 5 of us we had a three bedroom house that had a heated pool, washer and dryer and two bathrooms. It easily could sleep two or three more people. It had a den and living room and dinning room. It was nice having the kitchen so that we could have breakfast there everymorning before we left. It was in a nice quiet neighborhood.

I almost forgot ours cost about $89.00 a night.

 

[dianeschlicht]

We are spoiled DVC owners at OKW too. There is NO WAY I would stay off site ever again! Staying on site is just so easy and so magical.

I agree with another poster, that you should try renting points from a DVC member for your stay. Points rent for about $10 a point. Depending on what size unit and which month of summer you are going... For example: If you are staying in a studio unit in June or July, it will "cost" 109 points for a week (7 nights) or $1090. A week in a 2 bedroom would be 296 points, or $2960 for a week. If your trip is the last half of August, it will be 98 points for the studio ($980/week),196 for a 1 bedroom($1960/week), and 263 points for a 2 bedroom ($2630/week). I did this per week, since that is the usual length of stay, and it is difficult to do per day, since different days of the week cost different number of points.

If you have accommodations reserved at $400/night, that would be a total of around $2800 for the week, so you can plan from there. Log into the rent trade board to see if you can rent points.

 

[jfulcer]

We have stayed offsite before in a house a few times and it worked out great. As another poster mentioned - one of the only problems was the traveling to and from the parks was a bummer. We got stuck in traffic once for almost an hour.

One other time we arrived to the house only to find green water in the pool. It took them half the trip to get it cleaned to a usable state. Thankfully they gave us almost 1/3 of the bill back in compensation.

I also suggest you look into purchasing into DVC. The rates are high, but it's worth it. You can get a resale really cheap right now - check the DVC board. Once of the Timeshare resellers is a sponsor there.

 

[Aimeedyan]

We had a great exp renting a 5 bedroom house last time I was there... we didn't just do Disney, though, so it was a bit different. We were moving my mom there, did the parks, did some other tourist stuff, etc. AND we had her cat that was moving too, and could leave it at this place while we did our stuff...

I LOVED it and would do it again even for a WDW trip if enough people came... the one we were in slept 14... with a full kitchen, washer dryer, pool, living area, cable, etc. We enjoyed it =)

I can't imagine ever spending $400 a night on a room, so it's hard for me to get my jaw off the ground and think logically about it =)

Good luck in your decision!!!!!!

 

[marlasmom]

I took my kids, grandkids and their spouses for 8 days. Rented from Elite Homes. We had 6 bedrooms, 3 baths, living, dining, den and private pool. Cost was 1300 and we were 5 minutes from MK. Of course we rented 3 cars but got a good deal on luxury cars from National. Would do it again in a heartbeat.

 

[snoopy]

We're staying at Orange Lake Country Club in a beautiful 2 bedroom condo with a full kitchen, washer & dryer, jacuzzi tub in the master bedroom and a big balcony for less than $600 per week. If you are considering this route, check out skyauction.com - you can get a villa for a steal.

I can't even imagine paying $400 per night for a WDW resort -- there is no kind of "magic" that would allow me to part with that kind of $$ !!

 

[Lorix2]

Yikes! $400 a night is a ton of money.

Like Niks81 mentioned, we stayed at the Marriott Grande Vista in a 2BR villa with all the amenities, 2 bathrooms was a bonus too. Luxurious resort for sure. We only paid $850.00 for a week and I just found another owner for next year and I'm paying $900.00 for the week.

It is less than 15 minutes from the WDW gates and traffic was never an issue.

I'm sure a house would be great too, but I hear alot of those developments are a bit further out. Also, when I considered renting a house, I remembered that's all it would be. If you like the atmosphere of a resort and it's staff, you wouldn't find that there. A private pool is also nice, but my kids would be lonely, they want to explore and meet alot of kids and we like to sit out amongst the people too.

I'd venture out to a condo/villa before a house rental, especially after staying at the OKW, but that's just me. I'm sure you'll be happy wherever you decide.

 

[Robinrs]

I've stayed in condos and houses, love them both.

We stayed in 3 different private poolhomes less than 5 mins from Disney. It's great for the privacy and the pool is a Godsend! My son now likes the condos because he can find more kids his age there. We've stayed in the Vistana Resort and LOVED it. The Embassy Grand Beach is awesome, too. Lots of great reviews for Cypress Pointe Grandvillas though I've not stayed there yet.

I used several different management companies for the house, most affiliated with Elite. I've never spent more than $600 for an entire week on houses or condos.

Let me know if you need any help. The Orlando board is loaded with helpful input, also.

 

[katerkat]

Originally posted by snoopy
We're staying at Orange Lake Country Club in a beautiful 2 bedroom condo with a full kitchen, washer & dryer, jacuzzi tub in the master bedroom and a big balcony for less than $600 per week. If you are considering this route, check out skyauction.com - you can get a villa for a steal.

Is that what you chose instead of Silver Lake? Let me know what you think - Orange Lake is next on my list to try! It was only a mile further out from Silver Lake. (Psst, try ducking across Black Lake Road - I think the entrance is by a 7-11, a left going toward Disney. It skips all the 192 traffic and goes right past Silver Lake. Then at the end, you can turn left to go to Animal Kingdom, or turn right then left onto 192, and World Drive is about 1/2 mile from there. We got to the MK in about 7 minutes in early December.)

 

[snoopy]

Actually, the Silver Lake thoughts were last trip -- I had bid on and won an auction trhough skyauction, but was told that they didn't have my reserved dates available, so they gave me Vistana Resort instead. We really liked Vistana, but surprisingly, not more than Cypress Point Grandvillas, which go for a lot less $$. We decided to try Orange Lake this time. I will let you know what we think!

 

[Melora]

Thank you all for you replies!

We actually did start the process of buying into DVC but in the long run we realized that we will probably start branching out more and wanting to go different places that we would not have access with DVC. We decided that it wasn't the best investment for us.

After talking to Jeff about it, he concluded that we stay on site for the experience (and the transportation). Since we can afford it right now, we might as well make the most of our trip.