Package holiday or DIY

[Minnie92]

Hi,
I have been watching direct flight prices for august and they seem to be staying around the £1000 mark. I have found a package holiday for 21 nights with direct flights staying at the Rosen Inn International for £1586pp. Is this a good deal or should I hold my nerve hoping flight prices drop in a month or two and book flights and hotel separate? TIA

[cornishfrogboy]

I guess you take the £586 per person, add them together and divide by 21 in order to find out what you are paying per night for the Rosen before seeing if you could book it (or similar), cheaper on bookings.com, Expedia, etc Etc.

You then weigh up whether you need transfers or are driving yourself.

For what it is worth, and I have visited Florida rather a lot, I would never, ever pay £1000 for flights.. or even anywhere near it. If I really needed to go and I could not get the price for directs down, then I would use indirects as well as considering arrivals and or departures from Miami, Daytona Beach, Sanford and Tampa. Also, I do not know where you live or intend flying from. In my case, the argument for flying indirect from Heathrow as opposed to direct from Gatwick is compelling, especially considering that as well as saving a fortune, it is actually just as quick door to door, provided I can get a 3 hr layover going out and a 1 hour coming home.

I would suggest that you do more research before reaching any conclusion. Good luck!

[wheety1621]

For August coming we're got direct flights with BA (with an inconvenient Manchester to Heathrow flight the day before) for £550pp. There are ways and tricks to use before thinking all direct flights are £1000pp. Just takes some research, plenty of dibb forum reading and you'll get it for far less!

[Noodle500]

I like DIY for flexibility. We do split stays so enjoy Disney on-site, I Drive and maybe beach stay. We stopped at Rosen Plaza which is a 4* last August and it cost about £65 per night, booked with Virgin Holidays hotel only. Hotel lush, it had been refurbished and we got a top floor room as we had requested.

[toonarmani]

DIY it then go into a Travel Agent and get them to match/beat it then you have it covered in a package

[CJC]

Agree - compile diy prices like I did, then phoned Travelplanners ((Jorden was excellent) who beat my diy price and booked with only a deposit. Had i booked diy then would have had to pay for flights in full!

[Aarti]

I’ve just booked for May 2019 and paid £4200 and that’s for 2 kids, 2 adults, 14 nights at Cabana Bay Universal, flights & car through VH. So on average that’s £1000 each for everything. I thought this was a good price unless I’m missing something?

[Tco200]

We've done both and both have had their benefits; time before last we did flights with Thomas cook and hotel direct with Disney which was cheaper but paid flights full upfront. Last time we went with Virgin as we were trying for a second child and wanted the flexibility to change should we need to, that came to pass and Virgin were brilliant in changing it, paid more obviously but for us that was worth it.

[Suffolk dad]

We’ve just booked for August, we got return flights LGW to Tampa outbound, and Club World FLL to Gatwick inbound, with Full size SUV and a night in the Bloc Hotel at LGW for less than 1000pp.

I wouldn’t pay 1000 for economy return in a million years.