Who stays off site and where do you stay?

[weeluvdisney]

Interested in hearing about local offsite hotels and resorts that you had a good experience with to help me decide if that's what we should do.

 

[weeluvdisney]

Sorry, wrong board

 

[webray]

If we stay offsite we stay at Gaylord Palms.

Wonderful rooms, great restaurants, free high speed internet, fanstastic overall experience.

 

[MarthaJr.]

Any suggestions on how to get a discount rate at Gaylord Palms????

 

[spiceycat]

Any suggestions on how to get a discount rate at Gaylord Palms????

other than priceline - there aren't many.

sometimes this site has it a little cheaper but not much

www.expedia.com

to the OP - I like timeshares.

www.skyauction.com - if you like to bid on things

www.condodirect.com - if you don't.

also

www.myresortnetwork.com

www.tug2.net - classified ads

also

www.hotelkingdom.com - has Cypress Pointe.

 

[Freyja]

We stay in a villa in Indian Creek. Last time we stayed at the Best Western Plaza on I-drive.

 

[Mickey&Donald]

DH and I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn on International Drive when we went to WDW for our honeymoon. We really enjoyed our experience there, other than the transportation to the parks. The buses were often late, or left earlier than scheduled (!), and the drivers were surly and demanding of tips. The transportation issue was bad enough that we were convinced that it's Disney Resorts or nothing...

 

[Brian Noble]

Our first several trips were in privately-owned vacation homes/townhouses that we rented direct from owners. Fantastic experiences all, but something of a pain to arrange---there's no centralized marketplace that's easy to navigate, so there's a lot of mailing back and forth with individual owners before you settle on a place you want. I finally found that to be so much of a hassle that I bought a timeshare resale. I'm not saving much money compared to the private rentals, but because the purchase price was so low, I'm not spending much more either.

Reserving my timeshare unit every year is just so much simpler than all the rigamarole of mailing owners one at a time.

Edited to add: and to follow up on Mickey&Donald's post: if you are staying offsite, you need a car.

 

[crazelion]

I have stay at Hawnthore suites on Canada Avenue. Which is off Sand Lake road and International drive. I had a one bedroom suite for the week and it was clean. The hotel include a free breakfast. It had a nice pool area. The hotel had plenty of restaurants in walking distance so want have to drive. The drive to parks was easy.

If do offsite you will need a car. There is really nice places offiste.

 

[MYDISNEYHOUSES]

I would recommend the Formosa Gardens area, the rental homes in this area
are as close as you can get to Disney without staying on property.

 

[calgarygary]

We last stayed offsite at Vistana Villages and it is a great resort. The past two trips were onsite but this year we are doing a split stay. We are going to try WorldQuest have a 3 bedroom, with continental breakfast and evening snacks for $159/night. It's a brand new property and hopefully will live up to the good things that I see on tripadvisor.

 

[5mins2disney]

I would recommend the Formosa Gardens area, the rental homes in this area
are as close as you can get to Disney without staying on property.

By that she means the resort complexes in the Formosa Gardens area including:

Windsor Hills
Windsor Palms
Emerald Island
Indian Creek

http://www.thedibb.co.uk/villa/map.htm

You can rent awesome pool homes / villas / etc in some very nice resorts at a fraction of staying in a hotel, with much more space, amenities, and in very nice, high-end resort settings! Yes, you will have to do a little "legwork" to correspond with the owners, but the payoff can be just huge!

 

[Remember The Magic]

I disagree with the people who said if you're staying offiste you need a car. Most people who stay offsite stay on and around International Drive, and the public buses take you right to Disney and all the local malls, outlets, etc, from there.

 

[5mins2disney]

I disagree with the people who said if you're staying offiste you need a car. Most people who stay offsite stay on and around International Drive, and the public buses take you right to Disney and all the local malls, outlets, etc, from there.

If you're staying in I-Drive, perhaps, true, if you're staying in any of the newer offsite resorts off of 192 / Kissimmee, Formosa Gardens area, etc, you'll definitely need one as there's no bus service and the resort shuttle service is available, but not a suitable replacement for having a car. The good news though, you'll be saving so much $$ that it will more than make up for the car rental, and be in a much nicer pool home type of setup if you go this route!

 

[Motherofboys]

We have stayed in rental homes and really enjoyed that. Last year we stayed 1 week at a rental home and 1 week at Hilton's Grand Vacation Club @ Seaworld. We all enjoyed that too. The convienence of having the washer and dryer and full kitchen was really nice. The kids also liked the pools, the waterfall, and the chocolate chip cookies they sold in the deli

 

[weeluvdisney]

Thank you for all the great information. We are stayiing on preoperty this year again but want to stay offsite in the future.

 

[FLParadisevilla]

We love Indian Creek.....
But I have stayed in Windsor Palms, and Comfort Suites Maingate.
They are all on 192 and Formossa Garden Blvd. They are very close to Disney!

 

[snowwite]

we have stayed at Liki Tiki abd Summer Bay and kids went w/thier dad to Cypress all nice time share type places with full kitchen,laundry etc. I relax more in hotel. I feel like I am the only one still doing housework and cooking when we get one but the extra space and having a washer/dryer is nice. It has plusses and minuses.

 

[weezy26nm]

We stayed at the Lakeside Suites last summer and thought it was great. We had a full kitchen, 2 king size bed and a double pull out sofa. The had a wonderful, clean pool and hot tub. Free breakfast every morning (big savings for 5 people) and I did see shuttle buses although we did prefer to rent a car. My daughter PiratesFan has a trip report in the trip report thread called Had a Bad Day (no reflection on our hotel) with a couple of pics of the inside of our room.

 

[englishteacha]

We stayed at and will stay again at a condo at Grand Palms. It's in Kissimmee in the Lindfields development. It's a smallish condo complex with a beautiful pool and hot tub. It's really pretty quiet, too. It's not far from WDW. 10 minutes, maybe. Someday I want to stay in a pool home but they're a bit too expensive for us at the moment. The condo where we stay has great rates and they give us a returning renter discount.