Wondering when? CHeapest way for a large family?

[LaDonna]

Sigh well I was a lil' dissapointed to find out that our Cheapest Disney trip onsite will probably run us about $2500 for 6 nights w/ free dining......Last year we stayed 8 nights w/ water parks added and free dining for $2000. Our vacation budgets are never over $2000 so now I'm bummed our DIsney Trips are gonna be much fewer. I'd Love to get some ideas on how to make it possible for my family of 5 to go to DIsney for $2000 or less. Has anyone been able to do this?

 

[Marionnette]

Sigh well I was a lil' dissapointed to find out that our Cheapest Disney trip onsite will probably run us about $2500 for 6 nights w/ free dining......Last year we stayed 8 nights w/ water parks added and free dining for $2000. Our vacation budgets are never over $2000 so now I'm bummed our DIsney Trips are gonna be much fewer. I'd Love to get some ideas on how to make it possible for my family of 5 to go to DIsney for $2000 or less. Has anyone been able to do this?

Stay offsite. Rent a condo or vacation home. Eat some meals (breakfast and some dinners) at the resort. Buy your tickets thru one of the places online that sells them at a discount. Or get annual passes and go one week earlier next year so that you get two trips out of them.

 

[RangerPooh]

We too are a family of five (one an infant so no tickets are needed yet), and have learned that we sometimes need to pull the kids out of school to take advantage of the off season rates. Flying cross country isn't cheap, but to take advantage of the deals you do what you need to do. We have also camped at FW and that really saves money. Otherwise we have stayed at POR, use APs, and try to go twice before they expire. As for meals, our kids often split them as they don't eat much (usually waste more) or share with us.

We just took a week long trip to DLR and while they are not the same as WDW, we did make it an ubber budget trip. Drove, stayed off site (saved us $1000+), and shared meals. Plus we did splurge on a character meal for being so good at the end of the trip.

 

[TheRatPack]

Yea, staying offsite is going to be your best bet. We're a family of 7 so we never go for less than $3500 and that is with the free dining and staying value. We used to stay for a LOT less than that off site though....and there are a lot of nice offsite hotels.

 

[Band mom!]

We are family of 5 also, and have stayed in a Downtown Disney hotel for almost half of value resort price. Our last trip in 2008 we stayed for 2 weeks, one week in Disney Value Resort and one week in DTD. (they were $130 and $70 per night).

 

[TiffanyK]

We're a family of 6 and stayed in a 3bdr townhome last spring. I cooked and froze meals to take with us. We ate breakfast and one other meal in the house. We bought 1 counter service meal/day in the parks. We didn't mind eating at the house at all. In fact, it is more relaxing and we know the food will be good.

 

[wiltwyck]

the key really is to stay offsite and go when the kids are in school

 

[Brer Shay]

We're also a family of five. I never thought we'd stay offsite - until we did. We got GAD passes in 2010 and the only way we could use them was if we stayed offsite. We went in August for 10 days renting an offsite 3 BR Townhouse and had a fantastic time while spending WAY less money. All five of us loved having the room to spread out - not that we'd felt cramped onsite before, but it was a nice change. We ate breakfast and dinner at the house - mostly frozen meals that I just heated (Bertolli, TGIFridays, Michealina's, etc) because I didn't want too much cooking on vacation. We grabbed a counter service meal for lunch most days. It kept us at $2000 for the 10 days which was right where we needed to be. We were in Windsor Palms and the driving was SUPER easy.

 

[mrsklamc]

Offsite- someone has actually timed it and you can drive to/from Windsor Hills, which is a fabulous resort, faster than waiting for Disney transportation.

And, I totally agree- go in the off season.

 

[TnTWalter]

Another offsite vote...we LOVED Windsor Hills. Family of 5. It will be hard to go back onsite.

 

[crusoe2]

Another thing you can do to save some money is to use a backpack cooler to take some food and drinks into the parks with you. We packed fresh fruit, cheese, crackers or chips, water bottles, and the individual packets of drink mix - not only did we save quite a bit of money but saved time as well since we didn't have to stand in line everytime someone was ready for a drink or snack. It was really nice to just find a bench and pull out whatever we needed from the cooler. You could do this with a picnic lunch also.

 

[pigletto]

If you don't mind me asking, where do you guys look for your Windsor Hills rentals?
I see people talk about it here often, but I wouldn't even know where to begin looking. Also, is there a special time to look for a rental, or discounts to be had?

Our next trip is onsite, but if I could keep it around 2000 for our family of four, it would spread the vacation budget farther and make us more likely to see other things while we were in Florida.

 

[mrsklamc]

I had a great experience with 5mins2disney.com
Our upcoming trip is through romancingthemouse.com

You can also send an inquiry through windsorhillsrent.com

 

[williamson_ja]

Remember that if you are renting off site, you are going to have to pay for a rental car. The free dining deal worked out cheaper for my family of 6. By the time I had to pay extra for a rental car that seated 6 (minivan) and had to pay extra for food- staying onsite was cheaper for us. What we did to stay in budget on our last trip was to cut out the water parks and hopper options. I thought we HAD to use those on our previous trips. This time, I found out that we could have a great trip without them. We spent more time at our hotel pool (ASMU) and had a more relaxed visit. Not using those 2 options saved us $600 for our family.

 

[maedelken]

If you stay offsite you can't use extra magic hours right? I love evening EMH at Animal Kingdom. Can you do the dining plan? We are a family of 7. By the time we go back we will need two rooms. We always drive so that cuts out that darn airfare. Gas and food is sooo much cheaper than airfare for 7. We drive straight through. Any families of 7 that stay onsite?

 

[Gr8t Fan]

We always drive so we don't have to factor van rental into our equation.

We're a family of 6 and stayed onsite in 2 rooms at Pop for our last trip with the regular free dining plan that we booked as a bounceback. That trip, with 10 day tickets, tips and minimal souvenirs was almost $4,000 for just under two weeks. Unfortunately the new free dining offer has changed and only the QSDP is offered at the values, so we've decided to stay offsite next trip in a 3 bedroom condo at Windsor Hills that we got for $760 total for two weeks. That leaves about $3,250 for tickets and food and I'm sure we'll come in well under that amount. We're really looking forward to the trip. We used to do offsite all the time but were lured onsite with free dining. They've chipped away at the value of the plan, first taking away the appetizers and tips, and now reducing the offer to QSDP at the values, so it's not worth as much to us as it was before, especially when we need 2 rooms. We will miss evening EMH but I'm sure we'll get over it.

 

[4forMe]

Another vote for staying off-site at Windsor Hills! We love it there!

We had our first onsite trip with the dining package two years ago and are returning to off-site for our next trip. The food was way too much! There is no way free dining would have saved us any money on our trip compared to off-site.

Our March trip I have a minivan booked through Budget for under $300 (for 8 days) with codes. Check out the transportation board for codes.

Staying offsite is definitely the way to go to stay within budget for a larger family. Not to mention it is way more relaxing for everyone to have their own sleeping quarters.

If you don't mind me asking, where do you guys look for your Windsor Hills rentals?
I see people talk about it here often, but I wouldn't even know where to begin looking. Also, is there a special time to look for a rental, or discounts to be had?

Our next trip is onsite, but if I could keep it around 2000 for our family of four, it would spread the vacation budget farther and make us more likely to see other things while we were in Florida.

You can rent through private owners through the following websites:

www.windsorhillsrent.com
www.vrbo.com
www.homeway.com

You can also go through one of the following management companies recommended on these boards:

www.allstarvacationhomes.com
www.floridasunvacationhomes.com (this is the one we have used)
www.ovhfl.com

Prices seem to be lowest during the months of September and January.

 

[My5Mouseketeers]

I seem to be the only person who stayed off-site and didn't like it

We always go in November (Jersey Week!) when the parks close early. We love to wander around the "World" outside the parks. Staying off-site for us, meant that we went home and watched TV. I *know* there were probably lots of things for us to do, they just weren't as easily accessible as staying on-site. I don't want to have to load everyone into the truck to go on an adventure.

Have you looked at the FW Cabins? we loved them. (We are DVC members now, love that MORE!). Any deals that don't include the meal plan? Free dining isn't really "free". IMHO, eating 3 meals a day out with 5 (or 3) kids, every day for a week is not fun. I like to eat some meals in the room. Always breakfast and snacks.

Good luck!

 

[Jenny-momof3]

I'm another one that didn't enjoy staying offsite. We stayed at Windsor Hills 2 times. 2 years ago in a 3 bedroom townhouse. This past March in a 5 bedroom house with a private pool. Awesome rates both times and the places were beautiful and the drive is super close.

But I really prefer just to say onsite. For several reasons..

My kids are really far apart....16,12, 5 and 11 months. My little boys just can't make it much past 8....neither can my DH. So he would take the boys back each night and I would stay and close the parks with my girls. When we stayed offsite this was a PITA!

I cook everyday at home...I did NOT want to cook on vacation. The reg. price for dining in Disney is just outrageous! Without the dining plan we just couldn't afford to eat much beyond a few counter service meals in the parks. So we ate at quite a few places close to Windsor Hills...Olive Garden, Fridays,etc. The prices were soo much higher than they are here at home. Every meal ran us $75 or so. Ridiculous! And we ordered pizza twice...again prices much higher and both places charged a $7 delivery fee!

From now on...it will be onsite only for us. Just went for free dining before Christmas with my inlaws...so I was able to put 1 of my kids on their reservation. We love the values. But also rent DVC points for our summer trip since we spend more time at the pools.

 

[pigletto]

Another vote for staying off-site at Windsor Hills! We love it there!

We had our first onsite trip with the dining package two years ago and are returning to off-site for our next trip. The food was way too much! There is no way free dining would have saved us any money on our trip compared to off-site.

Our March trip I have a minivan booked through Budget for under $300 (for 8 days) with codes. Check out the transportation board for codes.

Staying offsite is definitely the way to go to stay within budget for a larger family. Not to mention it is way more relaxing for everyone to have their own sleeping quarters.



You can rent through private owners through the following websites:

www.windsorhillsrent.com
www.vrbo.com
www.homeway.com

You can also go through one of the following management companies recommended on these boards:

www.allstarvacationhomes.com
www.floridasunvacationhomes.com (this is the one we have used)
www.ovhfl.com

Prices seem to be lowest during the months of September and January.

Thank you so much for the links and information. I am going to spend some time looking through them all today