Thinking of staying outside the park, or not getting the dining plan....

[JenDisFan02]

Hi All,

We are looking into every option to pinch pennies whilst we are down at Disney. Has anyone ever stayed off property, and felt it was a better deal than being at the parks? Are there any hotels that offer shuttle from the airport, and to Disney/Universal?

What about not getting the dining plan? How can we budget? We have two kids, plus DH and I. I don't mind just doing one dinner that we sit down at.

Thoughts? Advice?

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[janatmovies]

Hi. I stay off site sometimes. A lot of hotels offer the free shuttle. Keep in mind they pick up at 3 or 4 different hotels and can be slow. And a lot only drop you off at Epcot and from there you have to take a bus or monorail to get to your destination.

My personal fav was the homewood suites lake buena vista. I paid around 87/night and we had a suite. The free breakfast was great. The rooms were clean and pool/hot tub very nice.

That trip I did parks all day so I didn't miss out on much. Now that we know the parks better we stay on Disney property to get the theming and resort activities. But if you are mostly a parks family I say go for offsite.

I recommend hampton inn or homewood suites because they all give free breakfast and most the free shuttle. Use corporate code 0560041604 for good rates, you just have to be a hhonors member which is free.

 

[JenDisFan02]

Thank you for the information This is what I'm looking for, looking at these now!

 

[Momonthegogo]

We have stayed off site. It was cheaper but I felt it was missing something. You have to pay to park so add that to the hotel room. We are not doing the meal plan. Once your children become adults in Disney's eyes it is no longer worth getting the meal plan. We will eat breakfast in our room to save time and money.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

We stayed offsite and saved a boatload of cash. We drive though, so we have our own car available.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

I don't think any of the hotels close to the parks have free shuttle to/from the airport. You can get a towncar service for something like $120 plus tip.

The Transportation Board here on the DIS has a lot of good info on rental cars, Mears shuttles and towncar services.

 

[Bete]

A few things to think about for this decision are fastpass plus which allows onsite guests the opportunity to book 3 attractions 60 days out; whereas, offsite guests are only given 10 days out. This Disney perk more or less guarantees you will be able to go on your favorite attractions.

Also, you have extra magic hours as a Disney resort guest.

The off site shuttles are very limited with their pick up and drop off times. And as the other poster stated it's time consuming; because, the buses go to other hotels and many of them take you to Epcot and then it's up to you to get to your desired park. This gets old at the end of the day. You pay for park tickets which cost money, too. Now, let's waste time and energy on an off site shuttle rather than being in the park.

I haven't heard of other resorts offering shuttle service from the airport. You can share a shuttle service for a fee at the airport.

We stay off site because we take our dog, but we have our own car. This makes it tolerable to stay off site. If Disney was pet friendly we would be on Disney property for our resort. We like Residence Inn in Lake Buena Vista. This is more expensive than the other suggestion by the other poster. Residence Inn has very roomy accommodations. There is a wonderful breakfast that has hot and cold items galore. This meal gets us through the day. Then, three times a week they include an evening reception for about 90 minutes that is like a quick service meal. This includes wine, beer, and soda beverages.

I would rather cut back on the Disney resort choice like going from moderate to value, for example. Cut back on dining and split meals and perhaps do table service at lunch time which is cheaper. Get tap water for your drink. Bring snacks in your suitcase.

 

[Lindaland]

There are a lot of perks to staying on site that make it more convenient and IMHO a better choice to keep. Not only is the transportation free, there is also the EMH and FP+ perks too!

The dining plan on the other hand can be way more expensive. If you like the "having it already paid for" aspect of the dining plan but want to save money, just get the quick service plan, then you're not also putting out for tips every night. Also if you have kids that are picky/light eaters, I would just skip the dining plan all together and pay out of pocket.

 

[Planogirl]

A few things to think about for this decision are fastpass plus which allows onsite guests the opportunity to book 3 attractions 60 days out; whereas, offsite guests are only given 10 days out. This Disney perk more or less guarantees you will be able to go on your favorite attractions.

Also, you have extra magic hours as a Disney resort guest.

The off site shuttles are very limited with their pick up and drop off times. And as the other poster stated it's time consuming; because, the buses go to other hotels and many of them take you to Epcot and then it's up to you to get to your desired park. This gets old at the end of the day. You pay for park tickets which cost money, too. Now, let's waste time and energy on an off site shuttle rather than being in the park.

I haven't heard of other resorts offering shuttle service from the airport. You can share a shuttle service for a fee at the airport.

We stay off site because we take our dog, but we have our own car. This makes it tolerable to stay off site. If Disney was pet friendly we would be on Disney property for our resort. We like Residence Inn in Lake Buena Vista. This is more expensive than the other suggestion by the other poster. Residence Inn has very roomy accommodations. There is a wonderful breakfast that has hot and cold items galore. This meal gets us through the day. Then, three times a week they include an evening reception for about 90 minutes that is like a quick service meal. This includes wine, beer, and soda beverages.

I would rather cut back on the Disney resort choice like going from moderate to value, for example. Cut back on dining and split meals and perhaps do table service at lunch time which is cheaper. Get tap water for your drink. Bring snacks in your suitcase.

It's 30 days not 10 and people have been saying that that is plenty of time for most attractions. A&E and maybe the Dwarves coaster might be the hardest to get.

We enjoy staying offsite but we always have a car. We have one when we stay onsite so it doesn't matter much either way to us. You do have to budget for parking and also looks for a place to stay that has no resort or parking fees.

 

[WeHaveADisneyProblem]

The first 3 week-long trips we did as a family were onsite at CR and we loved it. There is something about staying onsite that sort of keeps you "in theme" for the trip. The problem for us is the cost creeping up. We home school so thankfully we get to go off season so a September rate for GW at CR was as low as $250 with room discounts a few years ago. When we started planning for some unknown reason the same room was showing $600 a night(!!!). It is around $400 right now (sold out however). After our September trip we went back in November and stayed offsite to see how it went and stayed at the Parc Soleil by Hilton Grand Vacations in a HUGE 1 bedroom suite and got the room for around $150 a night.

The truth is when we rode the monorail past the CR I felt like we were cheating. It sounds nuts but there is this sense of really being immersed in the DW experience staying onsite and since we were so used to staying on site we felt like outsiders crawling in our car driving off property.

Pros for Offsite: Cost, size of the room.
Cons for Offsite: driving, walking/tram to car, missed that immersion, no EMH (this is not a crushing defeat IMHO), parking (we are AP holders so not a concern for us)

We are staying at the Parc Soleil for 5 nights and WL for 3 for our upcoming trip in May. $250 per night at Hilton vs. $300 at WL. This is an experiment for us to try to solve for us what works best so maybe that would be something you would consider as well. The logistics of having our own car is big plus. We are also willing to deal with the pain of the mid trip move to satisfy the experiment.

We also did a very detailed analysis of the dining plan and found for us it isn't really that great of a value based on our eating habits. Keep in mind for counter service you are really paying for a drink, entree and dessert for each person and the counter service desserts are rarely eaten. The kids meal choices we find to be pretty poor in most areas (a kid can only eat so many Mickey nuggets in 7 days) so we tend to have our kids split something from the adult menu and the dining plan doesn't allow this. From a dollar to dollar comparison if you eat a LOT of food, scarf down any old dessert just because it is there you may find it beneficial. We did enjoy the freedom the dining plan offers because my DW always read the menu from right to left so the dining plan allows you to not penny pinch (hard to say with a straight face on trips when we paid $400+ a night for a hotel).

 

[plutolady]

the perks of staying on site far outweigh the few dollars you will save!

 

[ICF]

Off-site rocks....why cram 4 people into an overpriced hotel room, if you can spend a week in a 3BR townhouse or condo at Windsor hills for only about $500, get your own private pool (plus a nice community pool), a full kitchen...and plenty of space so you arent stepping on each other.

Yes, you will need a car....but its quicker for you to drive in most cases then it is to rely on disney buses....

 

[kmb584]

We really enjoy our off-site stays and for $130/night I get a 2-bedroom unit with over 1,000 sq. ft. at the Sheraton Vistana. It is so nice having the extra space to move about as we please without being in another's way. I do recommend having a car if staying off-site though.. it makes things a lot easier! The shuttle schedules are really odd (like last Epcot pick-up may be at 6pm, or first shuttle to DHS at 10a).

 

[maggiew]

We stayed offsite last trip at the Residence Inn Marriott in a 2 bedroom/2 bath room with kitchen, living room and dining area. I'm not sure we can go back to a regular hotel room, now. We have two girls (older teens) and having the 2nd bathroom was great! And they each had their own bed in the 2nd bedroom so no fighting about that! The hotel had free breakfast (with Mickey waffles!) and also an evening reception many nights (we didn't go to any of those, so can't comment, but the menus looked good!) We paid $123 per night.

We rented a car to get to the parks and liked it better than taking the buses. You don't have to wait in long line after park close and then cram into a bus!

We've never done the dining plan because it just isn't worth it for us and how we eat. We like to do 2 sitdowns most days, but we usually share or my DD gets an appetizer, etc. We can't eat 4 full meals between the 4 of us at any one time - too much food!! We usually go to a la carte type places where we can pick off the menu (not buffets or family style), which keeps the prices of the meals down.

Maggie

 

[stefplus3]

I'm starting to plan a possible trip in July for our family of 5 and we'll most likely be staying off site too. We stayed at Windsor Hills on our last trip and it was really nice and so affordable!! Our daughter had an awful stomach bug the whole trip though so we didn't have the fun we should have had!

 

[Luv Bunnies]

We loved our off-site trip in August. We had 5 people in a 3-bedroom, 3-bath townhouse at Windsor Hills. Everyone had whatever they wanted for breakfast each morning and it was cheap and easy. No more than 2 people had to share a bedroom or bathroom. Everyone had their own space. It was far more relaxing than cramming everyone into a small hotel room. Plus, we only packed for a few days and tossed in a load of laundry every evening. It was awfully nice to have clean clothes, especially in the heat when you sometimes need to change during the day. I would not recommend being offsite without a car. You can go anywhere you want, anytime you want. We were able to get groceries and drive to off-site restaurants for cheaper meals. We picked up pizza one night on the way back from Animal Kingdom. It was awesome!

 

[stayhomemom77]

I am definitely in the "save on food and stay onsite" camp.

You can check out my links below to see how eating well at Disney on a budget is possible.

Good luck with your plans!!

 

[pinoke]

We stayed offsite last trip at the Residence Inn Marriott in a 2 bedroom/2 bath room with kitchen, living room and dining area. I'm not sure we can go back to a regular hotel room, now. We have two girls (older teens) and having the 2nd bathroom was great! And they each had their own bed in the 2nd bedroom so no fighting about that! The hotel had free breakfast (with Mickey waffles!) and also an evening reception many nights (we didn't go to any of those, so can't comment, but the menus looked good!) We paid $123 per night.

Could you please tell me WHICH Marriott you recommend? Thanks!

 

[eliza61]

The only time we do on site is if we use our DVD points. Sorry, there is no perk worth those outrageous prices. Like others though we have a car. The only thing I miss is the EMH. I hate the values so that's not an option for us. Never had a bad trip offsite. Just as magical.. Once again depends on the person, even onsite I don't do Disney transportation

 

[mjkacmom]

I would stay offsite, but only with a car. As for the DDP, that's more of a luxury. We paid for it the last time, but only because we had many buffet ADR's, and four of my kids were under 10. I wouldn't do it now (and it really was too much food - we could definitely eat cheaper).

ETA - I forgot - when we did the DDP, tips and appetizers were included.