When did single hotel rooms stop working for your family?

[joedplumber]

Just curios at what age did having a single hotel room not work anymore for you family, or perhaps it still does. We are a family of four DD 14 and DS 11. We no longer can make a single room really work for our entire family anymore. Even when we go on cruises we now have to get two adjoining rooms.

We also really can't stay on property anymore since the the single room takes away from the pixie dust. We have used WBC to fill the void. lol

We do have a 3 nighter in a single room planned for US/IOA as we wanted the free express passes. Fingers crossed that it all works out.

Anyway, curios to see how other families have evolved in their lodging choices.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Our kids are 2 and 4 and single rooms don't work for us because the 2 year old has to be alone in a quiet dark place to sleep. So its always 1 bedroom DVCs or bigger for us. We are looking forward to him getting older so we can book regular rooms.

 

[rdaky]

We have had to adjust things a little bit since our 3rd child is getting older, but our family of 5 is fine in a single room. We travel a lot, so we've all just learned to make adjustments to our comfort level in order to vacation more often.

 

[Magical2017]

On our last trip (summer 2018), we switched to a one bedroom offsite. 900 square feet at Wyndham Bonnet Creek in a presidential for the price of Pop Century was ideal, especially since we had planned to skip Disney that year but went anyway.We have two boys, ages 13 and 10. The w/d allowed us to do carry-on only, and the full kitchen was a great place to store fresh fruit, veggies, and snacks. I don't think I want to go back to a studio, so we will have to think hard about when we will pay cash for a one bedroom onsite. We may end up being offsite people going forward, as a two=bedroom sounds even better!

 

[CaLuCa]

We have 4 kids (three young elementary and one 9th grader). We still manage to stay in one room (when it accomodates 6) IF it's for a short time...one or two nights and it's basically just sleeping and showering. Being in one room is not conducive to relaxing.

When I go by myself with the kids, we can still make one room work, but adding their dad in really pushes us to have two rooms.

 

[Minsc]

The first time we tried to put two adults and four pre-teens in a single room at the Westin. That pretty much ended it, lol.

They are all high schoolers now, so when we family travel (not to Disney), we almost always do Airbnb. We just got back from a New York trip for Spring Break, and we rented a 3 bedroom apartment in the Upper West Side for less than we could have done two hotel rooms, and had a much better experience.

 

[BlueFairy]

This year? DD11 and DD14 - It's just getting tight where privacy is concerned. They still sleep ok together. We're also looking to take just one with us to a resort this summer, and she'd love to take a friend, but that won't work with Dad sleeping in the same room.

To the OP - we just got back. I'd suggest you look into the room layout of your US/IOA hotel. We stayed at RPR for the Express pass. The bathroom was 1 sink in the vanity area. A sliding frosted glass door to the toilet/glass front shower. I know this is the way WDW is heading too, but it cuts out a lot of privacy in a shared bathroom. I'm not a fan.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

We did a single room at Poly when my DS was 1 and that was the end of that! My DH snores and even though he now has a CPAP, it typically falls off or the machine makes so much noise, I have to have a separate room to escape to in the middle of the night. If it's a one or two night trip, I may try to save and do one room, but typically we do 1- or 2-bedroom villas and we just tried a suite at the Dolphin which was great and, with the deal we got, cost about the same as one room at Poly. On cruises, we typically do bedroom/living room stateroom layouts and connecting staterooms. Not cheap, but I would rather spend extra so I can get some sleep on vacation!

 

[MarkinNM]

Have stayed onsite and offsite with the family, 6 of us and offsite works so much better in the cost, but as the kids have grown and left the house, onsite it is.........but yea family onsite cost wise hurts the pocket hard.....

 

[lovewdwdvc]

We put 6 in the same room until the baby was too old according to Disney. We used the rooms for 5 and a baby. The kids learned to cope.

 

[VAfamily1998]

We're a family of 6 (4 boys that are currently 12, 14, 17, and 19 years old) and we almost always get one room. Our oldest is in college now, so our last trip it was just 5 of us, and we stayed in one room at BWI. Our last trip with all 6 of us was in January 2018 (kids were 11, 13, 15, and 17 at the time) and we stayed in a cabin at Fort Wilderness.

Even on non Disney trips, we mostly stay in one room. Our last non Disney hotel stay was with 5 of us, visiting the oldest at college for family weekend. We stayed in one room at a Courtyard by Marriott that had 2 queens and a sofa bed.

 

[MaleficentRN]

My two kids are in their late teens and we can manage a single room, even on cruises. I go with the largest room I can afford for the four of us. On trips other than Disney that could be an AirBnB or an Embassy Suites type so we have more space. But when it comes to Disney we make do with the one room. Haven't heard any complaints yet.

 

[CarolynFH]

When DS was 13 and DD was 9 and barely fit in the daybed at the Poly and we had to schedule shifts to use the bathroom! Bought enough points for a 2 bedroom at BWV. Joy!

 

[joedplumber]

My two kids are in their late teens and we can manage a single room, even on cruises. I go with the largest room I can afford for the four of us. On trips other than Disney that could be an AirBnB or an Embassy Suites type so we have more space. But when it comes to Disney we make do with the one room. Haven't heard any complaints yet.

Ya, its actually me and my DW that do most of the complaining about the room size. lol

 

[Marionnette]

Just curios at what age did having a single hotel room not work anymore for you family, or perhaps it still does. We are a family of four DD 14 and DS 11. We no longer can make a single room really work for our entire family anymore. Even when we go on cruises we now have to get two adjoining rooms.

We also really can't stay on property anymore since the the single room takes away from the pixie dust. We have used WBC to fill the void. lol

We do have a 3 nighter in a single room planned for US/IOA as we wanted the free express passes. Fingers crossed that it all works out.

Anyway, curios to see how other families have evolved in their lodging choices.

We’re a family of 5 and we made it work until the older son hit 14. At first, it was me and my husband in one bed, the boys in the other and our daughter in the daybed. As the boys grew, we switched to putting the older boy on the daybed, husband and young son in one bed and daughter & I shared the other. Once son #1 hit 14 and started his growth spurt, that was the end of sharing a single hotel room. It wasn’t long after that when we bought our first DVC contract.

 

[DumboDash2006]

Gosh, we are a small family (me, dh and dd almost 19) and we only stay in single room hotels for one or two nights and that's pushing it. It's been that way for five or six years now. We've only done two Disney trips as a family and both were off site. No way can we stay in one room for several days nor can we afford two rooms even at the Value resorts (plus dh is not a big Disney fan so it's too much Disney for him and I know he'd hate the Value styles). We need two or more bathrooms do to some digestive issues, and dd and I are big introverts and need some quiet time to relax without anyone else in view or making noise. So we prefer to use VRBO/Airbnb etc

Now I'm hoping to take a Disney trip in a couple of years with just dd and me and we can probably swing a single room onsite with just the two of us. We're the quiet ones, not dh lol.

 

[chicagoshannon]

When the kids were little a single room didn't work well because we, as adults, didn't want to be quiet at 7ish for bedtime. Now that the kids are older, as long as we have 3 sleeping surfaces(Boardwalk studio for example) we can go back to a single room if we want.

 

[trishadono]

We have a son and a daughter. When they hit preteen/teen we switched to the villas. BLT worked for 1 bedroom because it has 2 bathrooms. If we can get it, I do the 2bedroom now that they are in their 20's.

However its usually me and dd or me and dh so not an issue MOST trips. Oh if DS with dd trip or dh trip I can do 3 in a room no problem. I just CAN"T DEAL with all 4 of us in one room.

For our next trip I am doing 2 rooms at GF . We have club level so we can meet in the lounge. I have the std rpc the whole time but dd and I will be there 2 days before the guys. Then I have an outerbuilding room for dd24 ds21 for the last 2 nights when we all together. It was 40%off with AP so this time the 2 rooms were way cheaper than a monorail area villa.

 

[sparkle78]

We do 1 room with preteen boys, but it must have a balcony. I am usually the first one up and will read outside in the morning. I have also been known when they were younger to take one downstairs to use the restroom by the quick service.

 

[epcotobsessed]

My kids are the same sexes/ages as yours, joed, and we have one room for our trip in July. We have a BCV studio - we'll see if we leave saying "never again" but the three sleeping surfaces made it seem still do-able. When DS hits puberty he definitely will not be able to sleep on the pull-down bed anymore, so I do think our days in one room are numbered.