so overwhelmed! - where to start planning?

[unfitmummy]

my family of four(two adults, dd(12) and ds(9) had a week in orlando a few years ago but a death in the family and the children being small stunted our fun. i am therefore planning a two week trip to orlando in 2019. however, i have started planning and am so overwhelmed! i am used to planning for DLRP so this is a whole different undertaking.
- i know we want to visit disney and universal as priorities. we may also do seaworld and discovery cove. anywhere else not to miss?
from what i can tell, it is cheapest to book everything separately rather than use virgin/BA. or is there another way of booking?
- last time we went we stayed four nights in a disney hotel then one in a universal hotel then another two in seaworld hotel to get all the early access/fastpass benefits. however, i got very bored of packing and moving and checking in and out! therefore i'd prefer to stay in one place this time. maybe a villa somewhere? but it would need a pool (private or shared). any suggestions? also, is there another way of getting the early access or fastpass benefits?
- we are stuck with British school holidays at the moment so taking that into account, when should we go? easter or july/august? are there any crowd histories?
- can someone explain the free disney dining plan deal to me?

really hope someone can help me get started!

many thanks

[Guest]

Hello

Fun times ahead! What really helped me was youtube.. There's loads of useful videos on there. Disney in detail is good and so is Charlotte Ruff. Search them on YouTube and look for there planning videos.

Enjoy.

[klr15]

Definitely consider booking everything separately if you’re thinking of booking a villa as you’ll be able to see the villa you’re getting before arrival.

If you decide to stay in a villa then you could stay in one of the top universal hotels for one night to have access to early entry and to the express passes. This way you’d only need an overnight bag.

The free Disney dining plan won’t be available to you unless you stay onsite at Disney for a minimum of 5 nights and buy your tickets at the same time as booking your hotel. It usually comes out in April for the following year, with blackout dates of December and sometime around Easter. If you stay in a value hotel you’ll get “free breakfast”. This is actually a quick service credit that you can use at any point during the day at any quick service location. If you stay in one of the moderate hotels then you’ll get the quick service dining plan. This is two quick service credits per person per day and two snack credits per person per day, plus a refillable resort mug for each guest. If you stay in a deluxe hotel you’ll get the Disney Dining Plan. This will give you one table service credit, one quick service credit and two snack credits per person per day, plus the refillable resort mug for each guest.

[Lucyjane45xxx]

Easter is the busiest time of year at Disney so you may want to consider summer holidays. In 2016 we went end of july-beginning of august and it wasn't as bad as I expected

If i were you I would probably just stick to Disney and Universal, more than enough to fill 2 weeks, I think you will be really overwhelmed if you try to do too much more, plus it puts the cost up as tickets are the most costly part

I would book separately not through someone like Virgin as I always find them more expensive

You cannot get early access benefits unless you stay onsite. Both Disney and Universal you do not have to be staying onsite to use fastpass. If you stay onsite at a premium hotel at Universal you get the unlimited fastpass included, if you are staying offsite you have to pay and they can be pretty expensive especially over summer.
At Disney, fastpasses are free (3 per day to start with) but if you stay onsite you can book 60 days before, if you stay offsite you can only book 30 days before so some of the popular rides will already be gone before you can book (the new Avatar rides, 7 Dwarfs Mine Train etc)

To get the dining plan you need to stay onsite at Disney, you cannot get it offsite.
To get it free you need to book at a specific time and depending on the level of the hotel, depends on what you get free. If you stay in a value hotel you get 1 free Quick Service credit per day. If you stay in a moderate hotel you get 2 Quick Service Credits, 2 snacks per day and you get a refillable mug for use in the hotel for the duration of your stay. If you stay in a deluxe hotel you get 1 Quick Service Credit, 1 Table Service Credit and 2 snacks per day plus the refillable mug. You can pay to upgrade. With either the moderate or deluxe level of dining plan you don't need to buy any addiitional food it is more than enough. With the table service plan you need to also build in tips for the meals (15-20% of the cost of the meal)

[unfitmummy]

this is all great information to start with,thanks.

we will aim for august 2019 then. i shall start pricing things up. i did a quick look at caribbean beach resort and i am thinking if we were to get the free dining plan then i would consider staying there for the whole time and just buying extra tickets for universal.

[Mumtotwo]

Remember that if you stay in a villa off site you will need to add in the cost of the car hire as well.
Have a look at some of the Dibb villas on here to give you an idea of location, amenities and prices - that's a good starting point. We have been in August for a number of years now and if planned you can do nearly everything you want to do. I am sure you will have a great time. The Dibb is a great tool to plan with.

[loobey73]

We've been planning our trip in July/August since beginning of last year. Comparing prices looking @ when the flight prices were best. If you get Skyscanner put your dates in then in then it shows you the prices when hey rise etc. In the end we didn't book with ss took the cheap price and went to flight centre. We found have found a lovely villa (we hope) in Davenport 10 min drive from Disney. We did look on the villas on here but couldn't find anything to suit our dates or needs. I'd did a package quotation and it was 4K more expensive. Staying in the art of animation resort with 2 bedrooms This was including dining plan as well. Happy hunting

[Guest]

I went in mid June 2016, and there were a couple of things I did that I would definitely do again.

1. Book a one night stay at one of the Universal luxury hotels, I booked at Royal Pacific. We checked in early at about 8.30 in the morning. We could leave our bags there and this gave us a 2 day unlimited express pass for both universal theme parks for each person. Using the express pass, you can go on all rides multiple times and watch the shows and still leave the park fairly early to go chill out and relax by the pool. You can then wake up the next day, check out, leave your bags in the bag room use the early park hours available to hotel guests to go to one of the Harry Potter worlds, and then again finish the park fairly early.

2. Purchase a touringplans.com subscription, pretty cheap -
This was a life saver for me at Disney, it recommends certain days to go to certain parks based on historic data and EMH - this may or may not be accurate but for me it was pretty spot on.

It has a great site and app where you can build itineraries, you just tell it what you want to do at the parks, your MDE bookings and it builds an itinerary around your fast passes, reservations, historic wait times and walking distances between attractions.

If you happen to see a short queue you can join this and just tick it off your itinerary and request the app to rewrite your itinerary using live wait times - I found this particularly useful if I missed shows etc

The only time the app was a bit off was when I visiting Hollywood Studios on an EMH day as the park is ultra busy.

Using the site/app, I did Magic Kingdom in 1 day, Epcot in just over a half day, Hollywood Studios in 1 day and Animal Kingdom in probably 3/4 of a day.

Hope this info helps.