First time to Orlando - Villa advice

[lpop]

Hi,

A gang of us are looking to go to Orlando next Summer during the school holidays for two weeks.

We want to try to do it as cheap as possible so I'm looking for advice on the best times / ways to book accommodation, flights car hire and tickets.

With accommodation, there could be approximately 18 of us (mixture of kids and adults). Our logic is hopefully it will be cheaper if there are a lot of us. Does anyone have any recommendations on how, when and where to hire Villas?

Random question, but do any Villa's come with annual passes you can use to avoid paying for tickets? I'm assuming not!

As for flights, is there a best time of year to book flights for next summer? Are there some airlines cheaper than others in general and are some airports cheaper to fly from? I appreciate these are all variable but I'm just looking for some recommendations on where to start looking.

With tickets, there are plenty of websites that seem to have offers all the time but is there a time when the best offers tend to be available or is it a case of the sooner you book the better?

Same question with car hire!

Thanks in advance - apologies for all the questions!

[tonymc]

One area to check is the dibb villas section - put a request in there to find out what is available.

Certainly for a party of your size, I would imagine you would be looking for at least two, if not 3, villas. I’m sure when I was looking that a couple of people had two or more villas in the same location, so hopefully you will get sorted out.

[7SeasSailor]

If you narrow your search to how many bedrooms you need you can either look in the Florida Villa Rentals on the Dibb menu on the right of this page or just google Florida holiday villas. There are loads of sites. Love your optimism about finding a villa that also gives out park tickets. If there was such a place its address would be plastered all over this site and you wouldn't be able to book it for the next 20 years. I take it that you are tied to the school holidays which means that prices will be high. Travelling indirect could bring the price down a bit, a lot of people do it without any problems.
I would price up a travel agent to get a ball park figure, then play off one TA against another. I would also price everything independently. It depends if you are prepared to put some time into doing things or pay somebody else to do it for you. There is a ticket section on the Dibb, the yellow sticky at the top of the page gives a number of vendors. Car hire prices are up and down all of the time. Go with a company that will allow you to amend or cancel your booking if you see a better price. I'm due to go in September but I believe that the car hire will come down by at least £50 before I go so I check every couple of days. You have taken on an evolution and you haven't even started planning what you will do yet. Best of luck with it all and when you have questions keep coming back to this site.

[Guest]

With that number and a desire for cheapness you may find getting a couple of condos or suites in the same building cheaper than two villas. Depends on the level of luxury you want to go.

Tickets. Worth contacting some of the ticket sellers on the yellow post it on the ticket forum to see what the group discount offers might be.