Hey all,
I wanted to share my 2015 Family vacation idea. Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments.
Some background first... I am the planner in the family. I've been to WDW once before, years after I had moved out of Florida to NY. I like nice restful vacations lying on a beach somewhere with nothing to do. DW loves to do a ton of things on her vacations. Her family (parents, Brother , sister in law and 3 kids) also enjoy complicated vacations.
We have a 3 month old now, so everyone else decided to go to Disney on a family vacation next year. They wanted a whole family vacation for a while now, so I couldn't say no. At least not that many times.
Anyhow, my wife and I go to Miami beach on vacation a lot, since I have family in Miami. And my wife's family has never seen anything but NY beaches. So I decided to spice things up and include South Beach on our vacation. Thus the name, The South Disney Beach Vacation.
The plan is to fly from NY to Fort Lauderdale on a Friday. Not sure how we are getting to and from the airport yet. I am thinking Go shuttle. I priced multi city plane tickets at under $400 each. A bit expensive but its from a small airport nonstop as I really dislike having a stop and going from a major airport like JFK. If I splurge on anything, its airfare. Then rent a Limo company to take us all to a South Beach condo. I priced this at about $130. Seemed reasonable to transport so many of us.
Then we will stay 2 nights and 2 days at a condo on the beach. I think the price for this was about $150 a night. Pretty reasonable but it only has 1 bathroom. So I have to look around a bit more. My family will be visiting us while we are there. We will probably eat Pollo Tropical every day, since I love that place and its cheap. Although, it is a bit of a hike on the 25 cent south beach bus. Then rent a 12 passenger van to drive to Orlando on Sunday evening. I priced this at $125 for 1 day. But I haven't verified its that price for a one way trip. We'll probably stay in South beach as long as possible so we won't get to the parks that day. I've done the Miami to Orlando drive several times as I have family there, so I am pretty comfortable with that.
Once we get to Orlando we will stop by a Walmart or something and buy some groceries for our Disney stay. We will be getting in late, so we won't do Disney that night. Maybe we will do Downtown Disney or something.
We will stay at a value resort from Sunday night to either Friday night or Saturday night and then fly from Orlando back to NY.
We will be renting two rooms (hopefully adjoining) at either the music or sports value resort in Disney. The price should be around $130/night per room. I have already asked for help on this here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3292290
We will be going Mid August 2015, when I hope we will either get the room discount or the meal plan discount. We have teachers in the group, so a summer vacation is the only option. My wife and I just got the Disney Visa so we are getting $200 gift cards each. If we don't get the meal plan deal, then we will use the Visa dining discount as much as we can and we will also share meals at the sit down restaurants as we are not big eaters. We will also get the (two) free pictures from the Disney Visa card per day.
I'm currently trying to reach out to travel agents. I can do all this myself, but I'd rather some else do some of the legwork for me. Also, I used a TA in the past and found that even though I had to do 90% of the work for them, they were able to find me a more convenient flight time. So I'll give a TA another shot.
I am also trying to see what I can book now with no money down and easily canceled. Like the hotel. Things are still a bit up in the air and I'd rather wait until the last minute to put any money on the table.
I wanted to share my 2015 Family vacation idea. Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments.
Some background first... I am the planner in the family. I've been to WDW once before, years after I had moved out of Florida to NY. I like nice restful vacations lying on a beach somewhere with nothing to do. DW loves to do a ton of things on her vacations. Her family (parents, Brother , sister in law and 3 kids) also enjoy complicated vacations.
We have a 3 month old now, so everyone else decided to go to Disney on a family vacation next year. They wanted a whole family vacation for a while now, so I couldn't say no. At least not that many times.
Anyhow, my wife and I go to Miami beach on vacation a lot, since I have family in Miami. And my wife's family has never seen anything but NY beaches. So I decided to spice things up and include South Beach on our vacation. Thus the name, The South Disney Beach Vacation.
The plan is to fly from NY to Fort Lauderdale on a Friday. Not sure how we are getting to and from the airport yet. I am thinking Go shuttle. I priced multi city plane tickets at under $400 each. A bit expensive but its from a small airport nonstop as I really dislike having a stop and going from a major airport like JFK. If I splurge on anything, its airfare. Then rent a Limo company to take us all to a South Beach condo. I priced this at about $130. Seemed reasonable to transport so many of us.
Then we will stay 2 nights and 2 days at a condo on the beach. I think the price for this was about $150 a night. Pretty reasonable but it only has 1 bathroom. So I have to look around a bit more. My family will be visiting us while we are there. We will probably eat Pollo Tropical every day, since I love that place and its cheap. Although, it is a bit of a hike on the 25 cent south beach bus. Then rent a 12 passenger van to drive to Orlando on Sunday evening. I priced this at $125 for 1 day. But I haven't verified its that price for a one way trip. We'll probably stay in South beach as long as possible so we won't get to the parks that day. I've done the Miami to Orlando drive several times as I have family there, so I am pretty comfortable with that.
Once we get to Orlando we will stop by a Walmart or something and buy some groceries for our Disney stay. We will be getting in late, so we won't do Disney that night. Maybe we will do Downtown Disney or something.
We will stay at a value resort from Sunday night to either Friday night or Saturday night and then fly from Orlando back to NY.
We will be renting two rooms (hopefully adjoining) at either the music or sports value resort in Disney. The price should be around $130/night per room. I have already asked for help on this here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3292290
We will be going Mid August 2015, when I hope we will either get the room discount or the meal plan discount. We have teachers in the group, so a summer vacation is the only option. My wife and I just got the Disney Visa so we are getting $200 gift cards each. If we don't get the meal plan deal, then we will use the Visa dining discount as much as we can and we will also share meals at the sit down restaurants as we are not big eaters. We will also get the (two) free pictures from the Disney Visa card per day.
I'm currently trying to reach out to travel agents. I can do all this myself, but I'd rather some else do some of the legwork for me. Also, I used a TA in the past and found that even though I had to do 90% of the work for them, they were able to find me a more convenient flight time. So I'll give a TA another shot.
I am also trying to see what I can book now with no money down and easily canceled. Like the hotel. Things are still a bit up in the air and I'd rather wait until the last minute to put any money on the table.
