Talk to me about staying offsite during Christmas/Easter...

[edk35]

I haven't read this thread but we went last year over Easter break. We arrived the weekend before Easter and rented a house in Windsor Hills. It was great. The location was nice/close to restaurants/shopping and close to the parks. The crowds were not bad at all. We were pleasantly surprised at the crowd levels. We would go this time of year again in a heartbeat.

 

[Ckania]

We went the week before Easter and stayed at Windsor Palms. It was great! We had a lot of space, a private little pool and was less than 15 minutes to each park. We booked through Global Resort Homes and I would definitely recommend them! The parks were not too bad, just try and get a lot of fps if possible. We would sometimes leave the parks for dinner and eat off property and cone back when the crowds died down.

 

[Ametista]

We went the week before Easter and stayed at Windsor Palms. It was great! We had a lot of space, a private little pool and was less than 15 minutes to each park. We booked through Global Resort Homes and I would definitely recommend them! The parks were not too bad, just try and get a lot of fps if possible. We would sometimes leave the parks for dinner and eat off property and cone back when the crowds died down.

So you felt Global Resort Homes was a good management company? I have been thinking of booking through them.

 

[allmydisneydreams]

We are going Easter week, staying at Windsor Hills My only concern is all those MK EMHs .... What do you do about them???? I will definitely get there "early" - but I am worried about everyone being in before us! Has anyone dealt with this before? How did you handle MK rope drop?

 

[2002Disneybride]

Looking at wyndham bonnet creek. It seems there are extra magic hours every day...since we can't take advantage of them, how do we time our visits to the parks.

 

[Ametista]

Its easy. You just AVOID any park with EMH since they are usually busier those days anyway. If AK has EMH you look on one of the many crowd calendars available and see which park has projected lowest levels, but definitely avoid AK that day since so many people staying onsite will be swarming to the park. The easiest crowd calendar to access is probably here:

http://www.undercovertourist.com/planning/when-to-visit.html

There are others available, you can google it. I don't know, we feel much freer when we stay offsite. We don't have to revolve anything around EMH, ADRs, etc, except that I always pick a "slow" day at Magic Kingdom and take my daughter to Crystal Palace. (And obviously "slow" at MK is a relative term since its the busiest theme park on Earth.) Our other fave is Chef Mickey's (no theme park involved so its pretty easy). But then we also get to factor in the Seaworld and Universal parks, a beach day or two. It just seems like onsite people always stay stuck at Disney, or feel they aren't getting their money's worth if they miss EMH at MK when in fact that is probably the busiest time to go, esp. once all the regular people show up.

 

[allmydisneydreams]

The problem is that MK is having morning Extra Magic Hours EVERY MORNING during Easter week ... and the two crowd calendars I looked at are recommending different days for MK that week. I'm so confused...

 

[Ckania]

So you felt Global Resort Homes was a good management company? I have been thinking of booking through them.

I thought they were great and would use them again. We have used them for our last two trips and if you call you can ask if they are having any specials and usually they can give you a discounted rate!

 

[conniehar90]

We dealt with the EMH issue on our two trips during Christmas time. We arrived at the TTC very early (prob 40 minutes before opening. There was already a crowd being held there. They ended up letting us in at about the 30 minute mark and we were allowed to go right to the monorail and right into the park. So, we were in well before official offsite opening time. This worked out just fine as the parks are pretty dead at that hour anyway. It is not ideal, but it did not cause any major issues with our touring plan. This one problem outweighs all of the benefits of staying offsite. Only issue is that you will not get to see the opening show. I don't even know if they do the show on EMH days.