Orlando and New York in one holiday ?

[smudgester]

Hi all,

So after preparing, for weeks, a two week villa holiday in Orlando for 2 families @ Easter 2018 ... the other family has decided they can't afford it and have pulled out. Luckily no money had exchanged hands so no great loss; it also opens up more possibilities for us as we still want a US break next year but, now, maybe a slightly different one.

We still want a two week holiday but are no longer restricted to the Easter holidays but are still restricted to school holidays which means either; Easter, summer holidays or Christmas.

The OH has also now decided she doesn't want to spend the whole 14 days in Orlando either ... "can we not also include New York somehow as the kids haven't been there yet?". "Seems simple enough", I said, "... I am sure the DIBBer folk will have some ideas"

Our current thinking is to still go at Easter and:

• Fly into New York and stay there for 2/3/4 days
• Fly down to Florida for; about a week in Orlando (no real desire to do Disney again, mainly just Universal and BG) and then 3/4 days further south at the beach
• Fly home from Orlando [ or fly home via New York possibly inc 1 night stopover before flying back to the UK ]

The thinking being that New York will be less hectic over the Easter weekend than the Orlando parks and there is enough time at each location to do all the stuff we want to do.

So my questions are:

1. Does that sound perfectly do-able ?
2. Is Easter the best time to do it ? We are thinking summer in Florida would be too hot/humid and Christmas in both places would be totally manic
3. Would it be cheaper to book a direct return flight to either NY or Orlando and then a separate internal return flight ? Or go for 3/4 separate one way flights ?
4. Would you come straight home at the end or go back via NY ?
5. Last, but by no means least, is it likely to be hugely expensive ?

So, what do you think fellow DIBBers ?

[RM2016]

Perfectly doable. The flights in theory should not cost you any more using a multi city or stopover option than they would going only to Florida. BA I'm sure will have some great prices later on this year for exactly this. Your main extra cost will be hotels in New York. They are not cheap! And of course any attractions you wish to visit whilst there. Weather in Florida will be great at Easter without the summer humidity though New York can be a hit or a miss this time of year.

[Guest]

Absolutely doable.
If you are interested in BA then do a flydrive with them under customise your trip (Join BA executive club and Avis Preferred first - it is free, speedy and has car perks). It is then cheaper to book UK-NYC and MCO-UK flights plus car in Orlando and/or hotel in NYC (they often have good offers).

Then get your middle flight direct from somewhere like Jetblue rather than via BA. We booked our JetBlue flights (Blue+ so includes 1 checked bag pp) on the day they were released for around $74pp.

Paying for the middle leg separately is fine as it is just treated as a separate flight and there is no pressure of a missconnect. If you do the middle leg with the BA holiday it can substantially add to the price (by around £300pp) when we priced it up.


Also if prepared to do the return leg indirect (we go via Chicago on way back) - it will be the cheaper option. (But book this as a through ticket as part of your holiday, not as two separate tickets).

Accom in NYC is pricey though. This post may help for my overall costs - I did scout for the cheapest deals on everything. (other than NYC hotel costs - my DH was picky) - and costs are higher because there are five of us. NY seems to be better geared for 4 or less travellers. Now need to add my Statue of Liberty prices to that - but it doesnt bump my pp price up too much.

We opted for NYC stay first as flights to NYC are cheaper than flights to Orlando in general and because we wanted to relaaaax after all that walking around the city.

I have not been the adult in charge in NYC before and have only ever been there as a kid. It is taking a lot more planning than our usual rock up and go holiday.

[Guest]

We are doing this in October we have 3 days in NYC then 14 days in Orlando. We booked a multi-city with United Glasgow-Newark-Orlando did not work out much more expensive. Accommodation in NYC is expensive. We are spending 2 nights in Radio City Apartments 6 of us sharing 2 bed apt then spending that last night at Newark Airpirt on Marriott points as have early flight. We are so excited and it actually saves us money on doing separate trip. 3 Days is plenty to see main things.

[SleepyBlue]

I did this with my 11 year old son a few weeks back, just before Easter. It was more than doable. I usually fly direct and book DIY, but found booking via a travel agent with a two day stop over including NYC hotel was cheaper than the direct flights on their own. We only spent two days in NYC but my son and myself absolutely loved it and both feel it was the cherry on top to an amazing holiday. We also found it broke the journey up nicely, and our experience in Newark airport was much less frantic than Orlando airport can be.

[Florida White]

A few years ago I did LA Orlando & New York perfectly doable and I found it best to book my main flight out to LAX and back from New York then organise my own between using multi city option. Easter is early next year have you thought about mid May for 10 days then four nights to finish off school half term it's much more pleasant plus you could do the beach & Coney Island. I would recommend the New York City Pass too!

[Mentm]

Many years ago we did 3 days in new york, 4 days in vegas then a week in orlando in one trip. The only downside for us was we flew out of heathrow and back to gatwick, so had to park car at gatwick and get a coach to heathrow. But yes perfectly do-able.

[Weddingnyc]

We are doing 4 nights NY, 10 in Orlando. If we could change anything, I would move the internal flight time (1pm) , we lose a day to travelling. We booked with VH (£6.5k direct flights, inc Disney tickets), who price matched TC. We are staying in the Tryp but the Affinia hotels seem to be geared up to families.

[tracey1302]

We are doing this for our honeymoon this year. Not long now!

We are flying out of Manchester with TC to JFK (direct), spending four nights in New York before flying down to Orlando.

Our flights are from La Guardia to Orlando with Delta and cost us £95 each. Good times too.

Then after fourteen nights in Orlando, we're flying TC PE back to Manchester.

Thomas Cook are quite helpful in the sense that they let you book one way flights without the extortionate cost. Our flights were really good value.

[cornishfrogboy]

We did very similar in Easter of 2015 and it worked really well..

We flew into Newark and stayed at the Hilton in Times Sq for 2 nights. It's a great central location from which we walked Broadway, 5th, Central Park etc etc. We also walker across Westside to 39 st where we used the river cruise to go down and around the bottom to see Brooklyn Bridge, Librtty etc before a drop off at Financial area to see the World Trade Centre etc. We then caught the Amtrac from Penn Station, 2 blocks or so below Times Square, to Washington DC. That was 3 hours and a really lovely, interesting journey.

IN DC we got a taxi to our hotel, across the Potomac , really close to Reagan International, with a revolving top floor restaurant that gave really good views. We had one full day on the Mall, where we walked it, visited the Smithsonian, and generally sightsaw, all on foot after a brief taxi ride. The wife preferred it to New York.

After 2 nights, we travelled by taxi to Dulles in order to see the Smithsonian airspace before flying down to Orlando where we picked up the car and did 9 nights.

We then had 3 nights at Tampa in order to visit Busch Gardens and the Anna Maria beaches before flying home from Tampa via JFK after dumping the car.

A great vacation, easily planned and not demanding. The only disagreement with my wife was why we travelled 30 miles to Dulles when we had Reagan int directly in front of the hotel. Logistically, whilst Florida is obviously hot, we needed sweats and coats for Ny and DC.

Flights were found on Kayak multi flight, Delta, but with the long haul bits being Virgin Dreamliners on code share. All seat reservations, being Delta were free and done just after booking. £625 pp.

Hotels were all via search engines and villa through Holidaylettings.