How do you go from on site to off site

[PixieFairies]

Been a smaller family in the past we relied on staying onsite & having the DDP. Now that we are a family of 6 & booked again for this year onsite its actually costing us 14,000 ( thats for direct flights, 14 nights 2 bed SSR, Tickets for Disney & DDP ) however i would expect to also have approx 2000 dollars for spending money & shopping, not to mention 4 kids passports, travel insurance, summer clothing & footwear & all that packing stuff that goes with a holiday which costs money. It is easily going to cost us the bones of over 17,000.
So we are cancelling for this year in the hopes that we can afford to go next year, however we may have to stay off site & try squeeze in a Disney Cruise. But our kids are still young & the idea of the costing for dining with the characters etc, driving, parking charges, tickets, will it bring the costing right up again. And for those who were so used to DDP and staying onsite to then first time staying in a villa, did you find it a big change? Looking at cruise, parking, driving, tickets, flights, villa, eating i still think it would cost over the 10,000 mark for our family which is alot of money. Just wondering if Florida & Disney is looking more fader for us in the future. How do families returning year after year or every 2 years.

[Bootrip2]

Hi, i think that looking at it a bit differently might help. You made it sound like staying offsite is a bit like second best! There are many ways to bring down the cost, we have stayed a few nights onsite but always stayed offsite too. Our 4 bed villa we stay in is £635 per week, including pool heat. Looking at themepark tickets too, with the kids will you really be park hopping? We just get base tickets now and spend each day in one park only. We love the variety of offsite restaurants and they certainly give value for money! Maybe have a bit of a rejig with changing some things, working out what character meals etc you need to do and go from there! I hope you manage to rearrange and enjoy a new holiday experience. X

[colin39]

Diy, we booked this year just the 2 of us, a villa 4 bed sleeps 8 for 3 weeks £1500. car hire a kuga size suv £560.0 and flights for a 24day stay as we are having a holiday inside a holiday in the keys £800 for both of us rtn on Norwegian airlines with extra legroom. The most expensive part is the park tickets.this was flyingvout on the 12 Sept and rtning on the 4TH October.
Villa £1500
Flights £2600
Car hire £1000 mini van (guessing the price of this) so ya out there for 5k just ya park tickets to sort out. That's 2018 iur villa was off home and away and we booked all of our holiday last year.
it can be done.

[Geordieprincess]

I can't really comment on on site then offsite as we have only been offsite, but what I can say about that is we stayed in a villa and the kids loved the space, having their own rooms and having your own pool with a pile of inflatables next to it for the second you got back from the parks was amazing. I'd even go as far as to say they loved pool time more than the parks as we had never stayed in a villa before.
In terms of character meals, I had ADRs for loads of them and cancelled more than we used (only did breakfast at Tusker house and CRT in the end) as we saw so many characters around the parks and the kids weren't that bothered about the meals that we decided to save the money. We ate breakfast in the villa, spent half days in the parks and ate at places like Millers which were good value compared to parks.
If money is tight, I wouldn't even consider a Disney cruise on top of Disney park tickets. I'd do Disney only, and use a cruise in a few years time as a Disney fix on a non-Disney (eg just doing universal) holiday.
I think a lot of people who return year on year don't try to do everything and with rising ticket prices people on here seem to be being more choice full than they maybe were in the past. And certainly with little kids downtime at the pool is essential (and free!)

[PixieFairies]

I think what happened was we booked in apr 2017, put down deposit & didnt want to commit to putting more money down or booking flights until accomodation was confirmed. Turns out we didnt get SSR & given the option of alternative, however its not possible for us to pay off now & get flights etc for Oct, so we booked a cheap Eurocamp holiday in Lake Garda for a week & hope to try get to Florida for next year with a cruise. Not sure we will be back for awhile after that as we want knuckle down & save for a family home. Renting has its perks but never feels like your own home if you know what i mean. Just wanted to experience Disney when kids are still young as next time we will be back they could be much older & experiencing it in a different light.

[cheekytink]

We try to do onsite once every 3 trips - it's just not financially viable for us to do it every year/trip.
Last year we stayed at OKW in a 1-bed, and it was fab - as you rightly say DDP is very convenient and helps to have the food paid up in advance (albeit without tips etc). The whole trip for 14 days cost in the region of 9-10k.

This year, exactly same dates we are flying BA to Tampa (total cost for flydrive x4 with 7 seater car is £2650) - the flight sale in September was just too good to turn down and I hate MCO, so hoping the little drive will be fine and I don't expect it will take much longer tbh.
We have a 4 bed villa booked via homeaway.com and this is really close to WDW in Indian Creek (2 mins from Formosa Gardens on 192) and that is £1500 for 2 weeks. It's round the corner from one we stayed at 2 years ago and is exactly a 7 min drive from MK parking lot. It's close enough to see and hear the fireworks each evening.
Park tickets - 14 day ultimate tickets we buy in the UK are significantly better value that any ticket you buy in the US. I wouldn't consider buying anything else.
We eat most breakfasts in the villa, have QS for lunch and eat TS across a mix of onsite and offsite for the 2 weeks. It will be cheaper by around £2.5k. We don't feel like we have compromised our trip at all, and in some ways, having more space ensures we all have space from each other.
We are also less likely to overeat because we want to "get value" from our DDP, and we like getting back to the villa in the evening, getting DD (5) to bed and chilling with a beer on the sofa or round the pool.
We have also ditched Universal for the last 2 trips as although DS(15) likes it, there isn't enough for DS to do, so we save the cost of that admission - which is NOT cheap!

[BevS97]

We return often but we don’t ‘do it all’. We are always on a budget.

Start by looking for cheap flights. Fly indirect. In / out of alternative airports. Different dates. There are always deals to be had on flights but you have to be flexible. It’s not unreasonable to find flights for under £500 each. So budget £3000 for your flights.

Off site for 6. I’d look at an apartment / townhouse or villa. Loads of space. Possibly your own pool. say £1500.

Car hire £500

Tickets. This is where you can spend a fortune. We try and be frugal. Usually just buying a 10 day myw base ticket and sticking to Disney. We splashed out this year and went to Universal but it was a last minute decision as we had some extra cash.

We’d plan one Character meal and then we eat a lot of site or we cook / reheat. We do wat lunch in the park because I don’t want to take sandwiches. But you don’t need to pay ADR prices. There are plenty of nice places off site.

Spending money / food. We budget £150/day for four. The kids did have their own spending money. But that covered all of food. We had a few pricier meals and some days eating in which were very cheap.

It’s definitely possible to spend less than £10k. But I think I’d leave the cruise. Do that for a European holiday instead.

[Shooby doo]

Another one to consider is Staybridge Suites, one at LBV & one on I-drive, the 2 beds are huge, full kitchen etc & free breakfast. The LBV one is easy walking distance to a WinnDixie (like right across the road) & plenty of restaurants.
Transport wise we are happy to use the Lynx bus but our logistics are different to yours or we walk if it's only a couple of miles. We have used Mears to get to Universal, approx. $40/way, but have heard that Uber is cheaper.
I would be looking at DIY, flights around the £500/adult but there are costs that you definitely can't get away from -passes are getting extortionate!
SD

[Guest]

Above all - timing is everything.

* Flights - timing when you go, and when the prices are lowest.

* Car hire - hire the cheapest car you can fit into. Then after that, tip the person who helps you select your car for a cheap upgrade.

* Villa - so much more space vs onsite. If you can go off-season so much the better. Work out your top priorities and focus on these (https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1025062).

* Tickets - why not have a Disney focus one year (eg buy 14 Disney tickets but nothing else), then a Universal focus the next, then a Sea World etc the next and rotate. It will keep it fresh too.

* (added, forgot to say) Also look at the 'beyond the parks' bit of the forum - https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/Bey...arks-c-56.html - an absolute golden chance to explore the many many many other things Florida has to offer. Over the weekend, I was thinking about what we would do on next trip, having been now 15 times - and I wrote a list with over 50 things we still haven't seen or done!

[duchy]

With a large family the savings for a villa are massive. A four bedroom villa with pool works out around from £600 a week . Choosing to breakfast most days in the villa saves loads, park days QS in the parks and dinner either off site or a takeaway or a cooked chicken, ready prepared salad and jacket potatoes is a fairly painless meal if you don't want to do any real cooking. There's also things like Kids eat free cards.
You may find that with your own pool the kids won't want to do the parks all day for full days and you could have a pool morning followed by a sandwich lunch before hitting the parks for the afternoon and evening some days.

Off site isn't a compromise but a different way of doing Disney and something many people actually prefer and the savings are just an added bonus.

If it's a step too far then a week on site then a week in a villa might combine the best of both , whilst still bringing the overall costs down.