My wife and I just got home from Disney An hour ago.
We are Disney Vacation Club members and have been for 21 years. We joined 1997 when we lived in New Jersey and kept it when we moved to central Florida in 1999.
Even though we are 15 to 20 minutes from Disney depending on traffic we plan 1 and 2 day trips staying on property several times a year.
We love staying on property not only because we are vacation club members but also for many reasons Sig forum members have mentioned above.
Yes it is very very expensive to visit Disney but you have to decide if it is worth it for you.

All the parks are expensive, outrageous to some extent, then again if you want a clean, well run, no bullshit no problem vacation experience without dealing with low lifes, problem people (for the most part) the park is going to cost a bit more.

To the OP question, if you plan on spending the majority of your time at Disney parks, shopping, restaurants, etc then stay at Disney. You can eliminate a rental car, parking fees, traffic, and let me tell you I-4 and the tourist area traffic including I-Drive is horrible, most of the area is now under construction, you have drivers from Chusugwang to Boston who either can't navigate or drive worth shit.

Now if you want to go to I-drive, dinner, Universal, Sea World, GatorLand, KSC, and spend maybe one or two days at Disney then it doesn't matter.

Doing that you'll want transportation, and staying off property in a central location makes sense, I'd do a condo or VBRO find a location with a kitchen, pool, grill, there are lots of nice developments in the area for that.

IF you go, get the park pass, fast pass or whatever they call it, so you can skip the long lines, all the places are nice, some are just nicer.. I like the wilderness lodge, ain't cheap but hell you're dropping some serious coin anyway so wth right.

Thanks for coming to FL, we appreciate your sales tax dollars keeping us income tax free, remember, it's for the children....

We stayed in the park here:

https://disneyworld.disney.go....t-wilderness-resort/

I liked it a lot. Gave me a chance to get away from the crowd at the end of the day. You can park right next to your deck and housekeeping cleans your grill everyday.

Enjoy your trip.

What about non-Disney hotels that are in the Disney resort? My wife was looking at those on Costco.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

Come to think of it, I believe you and I had an exchange like this in the past, yes?

Not that I recall.

Not trying to start anything. Someone asks a simple question and you make a reply like that. Just making sure you weren't hacked or something. You, as well as all of us, are entitled to an opinion.

We've stayed on Disney property and always enjoyed it. Depending on the time of year you go you can get a discount on the meal plans. We've gone three times in the fall of the year and the dining plan was always offered free. We went last June and there was no free offer. They do that to attract guest in the off season but it worked for us.

Disney does cost a lot of money but - in my experience, everything is clean, everything works, everything is on time, everyone is friendly. It's just a very nice experience.

I hope ya'll have a great trip. Enjoy it.

stay on the property so much nicer then dealing with parking car bus train etc. when we stay at Disneyland we always stay at the great big main lodge. walk right out the door and in the park someone get's tired easy peasy

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
What about non-Disney hotels that are in the Disney resort? My wife was looking at those on Costco.

Do you mean like the Swan & Dolphin? These allow for the early, late entry, and you can get to EPCOT & Hollywood Studios via boat. I think that any on property hotels should be fine. They must meet some kind of Disney standards to be on property.

I will say the advice given is pretty solid. Planning ahead is huge. Staying at the Park gives some perks that are hard to beat. We planned about two months out but our criteria were probably quite different. We flew in Orlando and then hit LEGOLand the next day. Drove to Long Boat Key that night as our kids crashed out. Spent four nights on the beach and then got that condo I mentioned early in Orlando for three nights and did our remaining parks.

So basically it just depends on what you want to do. We wanted to split our time so staying off park was preferred. If you only want to see Disney stuff being on site would probably be the way to go. Costco was a good deal if I recall but we split our trip up so it didn't work for us when we were planning.

It's a lot of fun. Epcot felt a bit dated but will still worth a full day. We had more fun at Animal Kingdom and probably could have used a second day there. We liked LEGOLand and Kennedy the best but want to still go back for some of the other theme parks. The Columbia Restaurant in Celebration is excellent. The surrounding is a quaint shopping area and there's an ice cream shop and pet shop too (if you have doggy kids).

Some things are pretty much park exclusive. If you see something really groovy that you must have. You might only be able to get it at the park. We had an item that was defective and were able to go to the Disney Store in Disney Springs to easily resolve it. Just in case you need to do more shopping (nice spot) or have something come up.

Have fun! We had a great time!

A side note: Last time I was there was January of 2016. Flew into Orlando on the 10th of January, checked into Shades of Green. Checked out on the 23rd, had a car rental (compact) reserved for the 23rd to drive and visit my MIL in Savannah until the 27th, then drive back and fly out. It was actually cheaper to drop the car off at the airport.
When I went to pick up my car at the Alamo kiosk at Shades of Green, they didn't have the compact car. I could wait about 2 hours for it to get from the airport, or I could take the only car they had available for the same price as the compact. So I took it. 5 days at $27 a day. So I drove it to Savannah and back. And managed to not get a ticket

I'll be an opposing view. When we stayed there it was off property in a vacation condo. Worked out great for us, a break from the parks and not being immersed in all Disney all the time. We also visited the different parks on different days; Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney Studios and Wild Kingdom as well as going to Universal Studios for a day.

If one was planning on spending time primarily at one park, I could see how staying on property would be a benefit. For us he flexibility staying off property was great.