Newbie - starting from scratch!

[Jackie13]

Hi folks, My family and I would like to rent a Villa as close to the theme parks as possible for 2 weeks in August 2019. Just after some advice on getting the cheapest price. It’s for 8 but would need 5 bedrooms. Would it be cheaper to do it all separately or as a package? Which companies can you recommend? Thanks in advance :-)

[smithlane]

I have only ever booked everything separately before as I like complete control over every aspect of the holiday. I couldn't book an Allocate on Arrival but that is a personal choice. For villas I can highly recommend the Formosa Gardens area, they will be the closest you can get to Disney property. Estates such as Formosa Gardens Estate, Windsor Hills, Sunset Lakes, Indian Creek, Windsor Palms, Emerald Island to name a few.
Have a look on the Dibb villa rental section, VRBO, VR360homes and VR360floridavillas to get you started.
Edit to add its never too early to start looking. We booked our villa for last August in October 2015

[Ninnybobs]

I always do a comparison between a package and booking separately and for a family of 4 the savings of booking separately are circa 700 quid for the party for two weeks. Virgin for the flights, Auto Europe for the car and a villa from the dibb owners 😉

[Sitron]

I booked our villa for Oct 2019 in September last year through one of the owners on here. Just put a request in on the villa area of the site with my requirements, dates and budget and those with availability responded really quickly.

[cornishfrogboy]

Hi. You are in the right forum for the info you seek.

We like villas and generally book through Holidaylettings or Airbnb. Like others, we like control, rather than simply 'allocated on arrival'

Others have highlighted good spots, but I generally prioritise the Villa over the location (within reason). Travel is generally easy until you reach the main arterial routes and we tend to move early in any case to lessen traffic issues.

We have used Davenport and Kissimmee with no difficulties at either.

We do generally diy as, with experience gained, we tend to multi centre, use diverse arrival and departure points and generally tailor our holiday to exactly what we want (easy in Florida). For a straight forward flight and Villa combination and allocated on arrival, we have no complaints with Roundtheworld and Bestatravel.

Good luck and happy planning

[Suffolk dad]

Personally, I’d always go for villa over location (all other things beings equal), there are many many villa communities within an easy drive of the key parks.

We’ve always stayed in Davenport and more recently Watersong and Southern Dunes, which many would say are ‘too far away from the parks’, but we’ve always found the drive to be very simple and never more than 25 minutes.

Gives us more time to indulge in our Florida guilty pleasure of country music on the radio...

[Tinker-mum]

We have booked with debbies villas who are based in the UK so any issues you can ring them. They have been really helpful and even offered us a discount on our pool heating xx

[Jackie13]

Thank you all :-)

[legallyblonde]

Formosa gardens estate is lovely and literally 5-10 door to Disney in car. Be mindful of only one driver and going too far out, as the first time hubby got bored of that!