4kiddies Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 My husband and I are trying to decide if we should take the kids on a quick trip to Disney World this November. Any tips or suggestions to get the most bang for our buck? On site? Off site? Park Hopper Passes or no? Disney dinning? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 What is your budget like? That will determine what my recommendations are! Just so you know, there are no Youth Education Services (YES) tickets available in November. We have pushed our trip up to arrive the 28th to take advantage of the YES tickets as those are the last ones for October. Dawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnIslandGirl Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 http://disboards.com A wonderful forum on all things Disney. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4kiddies Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 Thanks, anyone else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DianeW88 Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 I prefer onsite. But like Dawn said, it really depends on your budget. How long were you thinking of staying, and what did you want to see and do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjand6more Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 My husband and I are trying to decide if we should take the kids on a quick trip to Disney World this November. Any tips or suggestions to get the most bang for our buck? On site? Off site? Park Hopper Passes or no? Disney dinning? Thanks! Quick trip(4 days or less?) I would not get park hoppers. You will spend too much time just moving around. I stay onsite. It is our preference. It can be cheaper to stay offsite, but imo some of the "magic" is lost. We love Disney transportation and we fly and do not rent a car. We also have stayed value(the last 2 trips) and have decided it is just as great! We spend most of our time in the parks, so although the mod and deluxe resorts are so beautiful, we were only seeing them in the dark.:) Instead, we like to visit the restaurants and look around in the daytime. Also, it is easier for us to justify a longer trip. We try to stay for 10 days. You can only get the Disney Dining plan if you stay onsite. We love it and try to go when a free dining discount is available. We have bought the plan many years ago(when the perks were better) and felt it was a great value for our family. We went last (late)November to early December and it has been our favorite time of the year to go! Have fun!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeannie in NJ Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 how old are your dc and how long do you want to stay? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4kiddies Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 To quickly answer some questions, I have five kids~oldest 9, youngest 6 months. We would like to stay 5 nights. Right now i'm considering staying in the cabins at Ft. Wilderness or the new Art of Animation. These are chosen strictly because of the size of our family. We would like to keep the total trip under $5,000. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 If you go to disney.com you can enter various dates, resorts, and ticket packages to check actual prices. Or call a Disney travel agent; they are excellent at helping you figure out what you want. I book online now, but I had a zillion questions my first trip and they were super patient and helpful. Actually, even for this trip, I chatted with the online agent, and she helped me figure several things out. We are going right after Thanskgiving, arriving the Saturday, and we got the free dining package. One thing to consider is that, even if you go at an eligible time, free dining is not available at Art of Animation. We love staying on site. Love it, love it, love it. And we stay at the value resorts, so it's not like we're paying for luxury, but we really enjoy the theming and dh loves not having to drive all week. Not getting park hoppers will save you a LOT of money. Okay, b/c I'm compulsive, I checked, and you could go November 24-December 1 for $4,310. That's 7 nights at The Cabins at Fort Wilderness, 8 day base tickets (no hopping), and dining (one quick service, one table service, and one snack per person, per day). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 These might help: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=401988&highlight=site http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=415540&highlight=disney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Specifically about favorite resorts: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=402149&highlight=resort http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=402634&highlight=resort Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjand6more Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 To quickly answer some questions, I have five kids~oldest 9, youngest 6 months. We would like to stay 5 nights. Right now i'm considering staying in the cabins at Ft. Wilderness or the new Art of Animation. These are chosen strictly because of the size of our family. We would like to keep the total trip under $5,000. Thanks! The suites at All Star Movies are quite a bit less expensive than Art of Animation. We stayed there last visit and it was great! We went for 10 days with park hoppers and free dining for $4000 last year.(We were a family of 7 including 1 under 3.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 The suites at All Star Movies are quite a bit less expensive than Art of Animation. We stayed there last visit and it was great! We went for 10 days with park hoppers and free dining for $4000 last year.(We were a family of 7 including 1 under 3.) You can also get two Little Mermaid rooms at AoA. They are popular, and do not always come up online, so you may need to call for a quote. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4kiddies Posted September 24, 2012 Author Share Posted September 24, 2012 Thanks everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLDebbie Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 Go the first couple of weeks in November, before Thanksgiving week. That's when it starts to get busy. Also, during the week it's less crowded and you'll have much shorter lines. We stay at Fort Wilderness which is cheap (for Disney, not for camping) and you get all the benefits of staying onsite. Not sure if this is what you want to do, but we never try to go to parks two days in a row. It makes for a very tired and cranky family. If you do go to more than one park in a row, then Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom tend to be shorter days for us with Magic Kingdom and Epcot being longer days. We don't bother with park hopper passes; we go often enough that we don't feel the need to go from park to park in one day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Mungo Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 We don't follow a lot of the typical advice, lol. We stay off site We do park hoppers We don't do the meal plan (it's never been available with the special we've received on park hoppers, for one thing) We stay at one of the many time share places that rent out units that are not currently being used. The last time we went, we had 2 of my sisters and my youngest sister's daughter with us. We rented a 3 bedroom place with 2 bathrooms, a full kitchen and a washer/dryer. I made breakfast every morning but one (we did a character breakfast one morning), and it was so much easier than having to get everyone ready in time to eat breakfast. For us, that makes for a much more relaxing day. I like the park hoppers. Epcot is too big to see in a day. So, when Animal Kingdom closes early, we hop over to Epcot to see some more (and eat another meal there, yum!). Hollywood Studios does *not* typically take an entire day, so we hop over to Magic Kingdom to ride some of our favorites a second time. We don't eat breakfast in the park, so we tend to eat one big meal and one counter service type thing per day. We found that counter service portions are so big that adults could often share an entree and each get a side salad to fill it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amyrobynne Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 We were there for a week in March. We didn't do park hoppers and never missed them. We stayed at a nearby off-site condo and had a rental car and that was totally fine. We got there near opening every day, went home to nap/rest for the afternoon, and returned to the same park for the evening. Magic Kingdom is the only park where getting in and out is a hassle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DianeW88 Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 Keep in mind that if you decide you want to park hop later in your trip, you will pay the exact same price per ticket as you would have on the first day of your trip. If I remember my prices accurately, it costs $57 to add the park hopper option on each ticket....whether you want to do it for one day or ten. We always add it at the beginning, then hop to our hearts content. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSmomNY Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 okay I did a quick check of the disney web site In November their is free dinning if you purchase a non-discounted 6-night/7-day Magic Your Way room and ticket package at select Disney Resort hotels So I would call disney and see about a famly suit and if you could get the free dinning if you book now. you can get a family suit at all-star music for a week with free dinning ( Nov 11-18) ( quick service meal plan) and 8 day park hopper tickets for $3,658. You could upgrade to the new art of Animation resorts family suits for $4048 same tickets and dates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StaceyinLA Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 We are at POP with free quick serve dining and loving it so far. We really didn't want to be tied to any dinner reservations. I like on-site. Park hoppers are nice, but not mandatory IMO, especially at a non-busy time. When we finish up early in a park, we go do other things, like DTD, swimming or mini-golf. Since we have tickets that cover from arrival to departure, we can do half days in any parks we want to do repeats in. I don't know if I'll ever do a moderate again. I feel like I'll either do POP or AofA, or deluxe. I just don't find the mods to be enough of a step up for the money, and POP and AofA have really good food courts. We have been pleased with the bus service as well. Just some input as I sit here resting my body from a long day in Epcot! :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lgliser Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 That should be a fun time of year to go! We went in May and stayed for 9 days. We had park hopper but for 4 or 5 days I might not. We considered renting a house off site but I'm very glad we didn't. It would have felt like a hassle - renting a car, getting to the parks, paying for parking. We stayed at Pop Century and liked it just fine. They have their own shuttle bus so that's nice. We got 3 rooms because we were there with grandparents and uncle, but if it were just our family of 5 I would do Art of Animation. We had the dining plan and I'm really glad we did. I do not think it actually saved us money because we normally would not have eaten that much food, but it was nice to not feel guilty getting each kid a Dole Whip instead of making them share one. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 Just some input as I sit here resting my body from a long day in Epcot! :tongue_smilie: Yay! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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