What do you consider to be the greatest onsite perk?

[married2mm]

I have to agree with you! I tried to use my watch and MDE pin number at the grocery store yesterday!

I love this!!!!
Living in the bubble in the outside world.

 

[GCM]

For DH it is the transportation to the parks. He loves parking the car and not touching it until we head home. For me, it's living in the "bubble." I love forgetting about life and responsibilities while I'm there. DW is the only place I have ever been able to do that.

 

[disneyvoice]

None of the above??

For me it's more about the magic of staying on WDW property. I love all the WDW resort TV stations (we typically have one of them on as background noise whenever we are awake in our room). I love knowing I'm still 'at' WDW even when we are in our resort room. I love hearing "Welcome Home" when we drive into the resort. We don't do the dining plan. We can take or leave FPs. We typically always have a car so the transportation isn't a big deal. We rarely do EMH. We have APs so we get free parking anyway. And we are building a house 15-20 minutes from WDW. But to me staying on property is just "special." I made my DH promise that even though we are moving close to WDW we will still stay on property every now and then for special occasions.

 

[Micca]

I would say proximity to parks and being in the Disney "bubble"

Yep, I was going to say "Falling asleep/waking up at Disney World."

 

[Jennasis]

Location, location, location.

Theming.

Location.

 

[Texans_loyal]

1. Airline check in. I love checking in my bags and not seeing them till we get home.

2. Luggage pick up (yellow tags)
there is something about going straight to magical express once we get to MCO and not worrying about picking up luggage. I always make sure we have backup clothes in our carry ons just in case anything gets lost.

3. Magical express. There is no better feeling than running to that area once your plane lands. vacation has started!!

4. staying inside the bubble, The magic never ends. this is a huge reason why we prefer DW over DL.

 

[JARNJ3]

Transportation, I do not want to even consider driving while at WDW.

This is the biggest perk there is for me. I do all the driving at home - and I love to be driven on vacation!

And you can't beat the proximity of the parks at the Epcot resorts......

The extra magic hours nowadays are actually a hindrance rather than a perk.

 

[dledger]

As someone who HATES to drive, the answer is definitely all the transportation. Magical express and park to park. This is the #1 seller for my husband and I as we both hate to drive. Best perk of vacationing in Disney by far.

 

[Minnesota!]

DME/busses/etc. I love that from parking the car at our home airport, we don't have to do ANYTHING as far as navigating until we return..

 

[agavegirl1]

Yet another vote for transportation. We don't rent a car in Orlando. We like that our only taxi bills are from WDW to Universal and Universal to the airport for our trip home. We alway split our trip.

 

[vinotinto]

None of the above??

For me it's more about the magic of staying on WDW property. I love all the WDW resort TV stations (we typically have one of them on as background noise whenever we are awake in our room). I love knowing I'm still 'at' WDW even when we are in our resort room. I love hearing "Welcome Home" when we drive into the resort. We don't do the dining plan. We can take or leave FPs. We typically always have a car so the transportation isn't a big deal. We rarely do EMH. We have APs so we get free parking anyway. And we are building a house 15-20 minutes from WDW. But to me staying on property is just "special." I made my DH promise that even though we are moving close to WDW we will still stay on property every now and then for special occasions.

This! I think it's about the Disney Bubble. We drive down, so ME is not a factor. We sometimes take the disney buses, but we often drive or Uber (if we are drinking). We usually don't do EMH. I think it's more about the entire experience. I do like the 60-day FP and do use that perk, but that alone would not get me staying onsite if it weren't for the experience.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Location. Best location to me is Epcot resorts. Get to rely on your feet for two parks!

Transportation. I refuse to drive on vacation. That’s for any vacation i take. I’ll uber before i drive.

 

[HopperFan]

Is it proximity to the parks?
Free parking?
Availability of dining plans?
Fp+ at 60 days?
Extra magic hours?

Something else entirely?!

My dh would say free dining
But my answer is emh

If you fly and plan only Disney then Magical Express is the biggest perk.

To your thoughts ...

Proximity - really depends. I can stay offsite, not far, drive and am sure am in bed before some folks on the buses are. If you will spend most your time at MK, then the monorial resorts are a big plus. If you do mostly Epcot, then Epcot resorts a plus. The rest, no big deal.
Free Parking - well if you stay onsite you can use transportation so the parking is/isn't a perk. I have AP so it's no perk to me.
Dining Plans - not for me, I can eat better, for less by choosing what I want and combining with TiW card or AP. Even if I had neither I think it's really hard to break even (I've tried) let alone come ahead ....... so what is the perk? MagicBand vs CC.
FP+ 60 days - well look at Disney Springs now ... it's great for FoP and will matter for SWL but other than that, no, nothing is that hard to get.
Extra Magic Hours - this has always been the biggest perk for us but lately we seem to use less and less (and they've been more crowded). If I stay offsite I can save enough money to do the extras like DAH which is way better than EMH.
Free Dining - isn't free. We call it Complimentary Dining, which means if you pay more for your room they will give it to you. For us it stopped being a plus when we dropped to 2 that time of year, when they took away so many components, when they took away the good plan unless you were deluxe and upped the ticket that had to be purchased since we have APs.

We are past being wowed by pools, activities and some hidden mickeys in our room. We stay on and off, and it all boils down to price for each trip because we'd rather go often and have a nicer room than wake up to Mickey in our room. But we have stayed onsite about 6-7 times in last year as POP has good rates.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Transportation (I like sampling the alcoholic beverages, so no driving) and 60 days for fastpasses. I rarely use any of the rest of it, except DME.

Free dining is a promotion, not an onsite perk - it's not available to everyone who stays onsite.

 

[rinnythepooh]

1.Resort Airline Check In. Your luggage is magicly checked and given to tsa in the lobby of your hotel room. Next time you see it is at your home airport.
2. Luggage PU at Orlano airport with yellow tag. Luggage magicly appears in your hotel room after checking it at home airport.
3. Transportation. MDE and park busses. No Driving !

 

[Linkura]

Transportation for sure, I don't want to have to drive during a vacation.

 

[BigB0882]

For me it is the transportation. Both the Magical Express to and from the airport and the buses/monrails on resort. How amazing is it to only have to worry about booking your flight and not worry about a taxi/Uber or renting a car? That is so convenient.

We are staying off site in a month since we waited so long to book and I am seriously missing the 60 day FP window. We are definitely not going to get FOP or SDMM but we can rope drop if we really feel like we have to do it, we have done them before and will be going back plenty this year so maybe this trip will be our chill trip where we just enjoy the ambiance of the park and do whatever rides we can get FP for.

 

[jazz0007]

The Bubble for sure!! I don't want to see the outside world! We don't watch the news, we try not to talk to anyone outside eachother etc. We want to be immersed the entire trip. I remember on our last trip we were driving our own car home from a park and we missed an exit and went too far. All of a sudden Im seeing signs for normal Orlando streets and such and I immediately yelled, "Turn around!! Youre out of Disney! Turn around NOW!" LOL

 

[Farro]

Location, magic bands, ME and transportation are a given.

But I am a shopper and I LOVE being able to ship from park to resort!

 

[CarrieR]

1) DME (luggage delivery moreso than the bus) and RAC. If I don’t have to touch my bags between my home airport and my hotel room, I am a happy girl.

2) Transportation, not so much on its own merits, but because it lets our group come/go/split up/run late and not all have to be on the same timetable to ride in the same vehicle. Aunt Sally overslept this morning? See ya at MK after rope drop. Little Timmy is DONE after lunch? Head on back - we’re gonna do Just One More Thing and then we’ll meet you. In all honesty, we typically do all-adult trips, so knowing that we can each safely and securely go our own way is a huge boon.