Talk to me about disneyland florida.

Schizo

Schizo

Schizo

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I want to take my daughter to Disneyland (she is 7 now),don't want to go to paris as i feel the best experience is Florida in my eyes.

What im after is some help/info for parents who have been to Florida.

How much did it cost,places to stay,what else to do whilst over there.

I don't drive so car hire is a nono,public transport/walking is my thing.

What im really after is peoples experience really,i want to go for 2 weeks really to get to see a lot of Disneyland,is it best to stay inside Disneyland or stay outside due to cost,i have got a rough quote of £3500 so looking to get a better deal with peoples experience of going there.
 
schizo said:
public transport/walking is my thing.
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I'm not really sure the USA is the best place for a holiday then :p

You'll be better off arranging most things separately - depending on the time of year you go there is massive oversupply of accommodation in Orlando, I ended up paying 35 quid a night for a half decent Holiday Inn for 4 nights near Orlando. Not much use without a car, mind.
 
me and the wife have been 3 times, absolutely love the place.

the i-ride pretty much go's to everywhere u wish, u can buy a ticket for 2 weeks use, it does get busy at certain times, so best to go early.

most hotels offer free shuttle buses to the parks / Busch gardens etc. so getting around really isnt an issue.

the restaurants on international drive are all pretty much all you can eat, there are a few specialty ones that arnt, breakfast was always good at friendly's or sizzler.

We have always stayed outside the parks, the premium for being inside just didn't justify the costs really, out of a whole day we only really used the hotel to sleep as there is so much to do!. quality inns are all ok, there is higher class places but as i said, you wont be there much!

We always went into the travel agent and got competitive prices, it actually worked out cheaper to get the tickets for the parks here rather than when i was there, Discovery cove is nice, maybe a little overpriced but spending the day swimming around the whole place and with dolphins etc was fun.

hope ive given you some info, any questions let me know :)
 
[TW]Fox;26487586 said:
I'm not really sure the USA is the best place for a holiday then :p

You'll be better off arranging most things separately - depending on the time of year you go there is massive oversupply of accommodation in Orlando, I ended up paying 35 quid a night for a half decent Holiday Inn for 4 nights near Orlando. Not much use without a car, mind.
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Fox,I'm 46 and have survived for 30 Yeats without driving,I'm sure 2 weeks in Florida isn't going to kill me :)
 
[Death];26487639 said:
me and the wife have been 3 times, absolutely love the place.

the i-ride pretty much go's to everywhere u wish, u can buy a ticket for 2 weeks use, it does get busy at certain times, so best to go early.

most hotels offer free shuttle buses to the parks / Busch gardens etc. so getting around really isnt an issue.

the restaurants on international drive are all pretty much all you can eat, there are a few specialty ones that arnt, breakfast was always good at friendly's or sizzler.

We have always stayed outside the parks, the premium for being inside just didn't justify the costs really, out of a whole day we only really used the hotel to sleep as there is so much to do!. quality inns are all ok, there is higher class places but as i said, you wont be there much!

We always went into the travel agent and got competitive prices, it actually worked out cheaper to get the tickets for the parks here rather than when i was there, Discovery cove is nice, maybe a little overpriced but spending the day swimming around the whole place and with dolphins etc was fun.

hope ive given you some info, any questions let me know :)
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Massive massive help thank you,did you drive over there or use the public transport ?

What kind of price did you pay ?
 
schizo said:
If you have nothing to say that's helpful then please move on as your post is rather pointless .
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He's sort of got a point, though. The US is not very public transport friendly at all. Everything is aimed around the car, especially more spread out areas. Even things like the road/sidewalk layouts make the concept of walking places seem like an afterthought. Without a car you are limiting yourself to the courtesy shuttles etc which in theory sound great but in reality tie you down and make you do things on somebody elses schedule. On a 2 week trip you will want to see more of the place than just Disneyland and for that you are going to need to transport yourself. It's a bit of a shame to fly for 9 hours and then not see the area you fly to!

The best deals on hotels will be ones which are a drive away from the park. The one I mentioned was about 10 miles away which sounds really far but with a car means a 10 minute drive. You can also rent villas for the whole family at reasonably low cost but again, without a car, this won't work for you either.

This is the country where they even have drive through ATM's :D I go to the US every year and couldn't imagine not having my own transport.

Does your partner drive? Perhaps that's the answer?
 
Stay on the resort..so for instance 'All star resorts'

That way you get free transport to all the parks and water parks. You can also arrange other trips to Universal, Kennedy and Seaworld if you wish. Another trick is to take the free transport to 'Downtown Disney' then get a taxi to the main shopping outlets. (Only about $10)

If you can afford it then buy the Disney ultimate tickets for unlimited access to all the parks. :)
 
bitslice said:
Seriously, you are not going anywhere without a car in Florida.
The heat and humidity will kill you, the locals will mug you and you will spend the entire time walking nowhere.

Rethink this plan.
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I did Florida twice without a car, stayed in a hotel on international drive and had no issues with public transport.

it's not like the uk where bus drivers are miserable

On a bus taking a photo of a bus
h1t1AmO.jpg.png
Bus stop
v66wFOP.jpg.png
You do not need a car
 
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I went when I was around that age (I am 19 now) and it was great. Old enough to be able to go on nearly all the rides. Young enough to still like the Disney thing.

I can't really tell you about anything else. It's been a while and I'm sure everything changed.
 
schizo said:
If you have nothing to say that's helpful then please move on as your post is rather pointless .
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I've been there, you haven't, don't make threads if you don't want input.
I suggest you have a look on google maps to get an idea of the scale of the problem, if buses exist in Florida then I didn't see a single one.

FWIW we ran from the shop to the car just to get the aircon going, not having easy access to a cool area will make your kid miserable.
 
I went at the end of September last year, amazing time to go. Barely qued for anything, done all the Disney parks in a tad over two days. 2 adults though, so skipped most of the overly childish things which was crazy. Over 2 hour que for some Toy Story ride, no thanks.
 
If you aren't driving then you'll need to stay on site i.e Disney hotels IMO - what you'd save on car rental put towards staying on site. The parks take the energy out of you as it is.

Probably be about £1000-£1500 each (especially if staying in Disney) depending when you go obviously so the quote you got wasn't far off.
 
The Disney theme parks have something called meet-and-greets where you can have your photo taken with one of the princesses (actors). Schizo, if your daughter wishes to attend one of those, I have been warned that Elsa and Anna from Frozen have a waiting list of several hours. Just giving the heads up as you'll probably only be at Disney for a couple of days and you'll wanna do as many of the rides/attractions as possible.
 
[pedant]It's Disney World[/pedant]

Now that's out the way :p I've never considered doing it without a car - Disneyland California definitely as it's all in one place, but Florida is very spaced out. I don't think there's anything stopping you doing it though, and some of the parks are linked by boats (IIRC Epcot and Hollywood Studios?) so dead easy there.
 
done disney last september we have 4 kids 2 with autism we stayed on site old key west 2 weeks was not enough for us we only did disney except on sons birthday we went shopping and to toys r us while for free the disney staff put stuff all over our apartment could not believe what they did this was done just because we asked them to deliver his cake http://youtu.be/NxpqjNbrygs

the holiday was stupidly expensive but worth every penny that's why we are on way back very soon.
We did not hire a car there had no issue with the disney buses and there a loads of them easy to get a taxi to any other places
I honestly think i could have stayed there for another 2 weeks still not be bored of it we want to go visit universal and other things but we will save that for 2015 trip when we hope to go for 3- 4 weeks

EDIT
We used the dinning plan although works out more expensive unless you always order most expensive items it was free with our apartment loads of choice and nice to not worry about the cost of food and drinks
 
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schizo said:
Thanks for the helpful posts people,looks like I'll be wanting at least £4000 to go,does that seem reasonable ?
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probably more you can spend money like crazy although if you want to try and save money on food might be worth getting a
http://www.officialticketcenter.com/kids-eat-free-card.aspx
kids eat free card for each of your kids but it means almost planning your day around where you will go to eat or you will likely just eat at wherever is convenient and they likely don't do the kids eat free thing.

actually if you are the only adult going you would only get one free kid meal anyway so meh
 
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