When does staying offsite make sense?

[Grim Grinning Marathon Runner]

I think I've become a resort snob!

We started staying on property about five years ago when I ran the marathon, and been hooked ever since. We've stayed at a lot of different resorts, and enjoyed each one for various reasons.

My question is, when does staying OFFSITE make sense? I know the rooms themselves can often be cheaper, but I'm wondering if it's really ever a good value? When you factor in cost of gas, cost to park, and the fact that you have to drive yourself rather than use Disney transportation (or take the less reliable bus transportation or pay for a cab), is it really worth the dollar savings?

Maybe it would make sense if you were staying a while, and wanted to do lots of other things in Orlando, but if you're an exclusive Disney guest, does it still make sense to stay offsite?

[buzznwoodysmom]

The only way it would make sense for our family is if we had a lot of children. My husband is one of 7 children so staying on site for a family that size would cost a small fortune. If staying value or mod you would need 3 rooms for the 9 of them. Even renting 2 rooms at a deluxe would be much more expensive than renting a vacation home off site. I am sure many people have lots of different reasons for staying off site, but this is the only reason that would make us consider it.

[Mousemates]

To me (and we MUCH prefer to stay on-site and do unless we're traveling on business or in a group)its very simple, staying offsite makes sense when you :

1) Can't afford the necessary accomodations on site (i.e. if you are six seven and big boned and need at least a queen sized bed, and the all-stars suites are full, you have pretty much been relegated to the deluxes...which are expensive, especially if the family is large)

2) When you could afford accomodatons on-site but feel like you are paying too much for those accomodations and would prefer to use the money you save on something else....like say extending your stay from 5 days to 8 days.

3) When you aren't interested in an immersive disney experience....while I doubt that is true of hardly anyone on Intercot, some folks can only take so much of the Mouse and like to get away for awhile. (in fact I used to somewhat be that way myself until I was "cured" by a wonderful stay at the AKL).

[bkfree]

2 trips ago we stayed offsite.
We went with another family so there were 4adults and 5 kids, ages 3-7. We rented a great 5 bedroom,5 bath house with a private pool, hot tub and huge game room.

It worked great for us because
1) after splitting the cost of the house for a week(really inexpensive) we had plenty of money for park hopper tickets,Ts meals and souviners. Also extra cash to go to Sea World.

2) We stayed only 3 miles from the parks and it took us about 10-15 minutes to get there. Not too different from riding the buses.

3) Once we parked we used Disney Transportation the rest of the day, so we did not move the car from park to park and used very little gas.

4) Having a private pool was glorious for us and the kids.It was very relaxing and the kids felt very special having a big pool all to themselves.

5) After the kids were tucked in bed, the hot tub was great for the adults. The kids could sleep and we could relax and have some fun of our own with the kiddos close by and not tied to the resort room. I think this is a great option if you have young kids.

If we opted for a later start day, the kids still had plenty of fun things to do at the house and we could chill out and get ready for the day.
We felt just as much a part of Disney and just as much magic as when we stay onsite.

Because it was very different from being at home the kids were just as excited as when we stay at the resorts.

[DizneyRox]

From a value perspective, I don't think it's worth it. I won't say never, but hardly ever. Total value that is... Yes, you can often save a little money on accomodations, but factoring in things like gas, rental car, parking, time, etc, and off-site often just doesn't add up.

I can see things like types of accomodations, but that has never been any kind of a factor for us.

[RAIDER]

Staying off site makes alot of sense if your visiting the other theme parks and not just going to wdw parks.
Also taking in the sites of Florida as a whole and your on a budget as well as wanting to do lots of shopping .

We used to stay off site a long time ago as we would basically use the motel /hotel as a base and head off to the Keys or Clearwater for a few days

As whole we still do the same as we normally head off for a few days to visit an NFL game in either Tampa or Jacksonville ..but fortunatley we dont run around as much now the various theme parks , so we find the disney resorts more relaxing in our old age

But offsite you still get that disney buzz and
the offsite hotels/motels certainly have a better tv channel selection !! and not so crowded if you want to get a meal

Its basically works on how your planning your holiday and if your going to visit wdw parks alot then the wdw resort is the better option if not then offsite is more practical in my view

[biodtl]

For me, never. I really enjoy being completely in Dinsey mode and not having to deal with rental cars and driving and parking and traffic. But I have a friend (a former CM, actually) who always stays off-site. I'm not sure why, though.

[ginger19]

We're struggling with this right now. I want to stay on property and DH wants off. I can get a 2 br villa for $400 for the week. Hard to beat that on disney property. DH is very tall and won't sleep in anything less than a queen which puts us in the deluxe category since we have two children who will come with us.

I can't seem to justify the price but I have an excel spreadsheet trying to

[RaRaRoundTheWorld]

The only time we've considered this is for when we were planning a big family gathering. We were thinking of renting a resort home. This is primarily because certain of my relatives were recovering from surgeries and needed kitchen facilities to accomodate their specific diets. Also, not everyone was planning to go to WDW, but wanted access to the other parks and attractions.

[kakn7294]

We're struggling with this right now. I want to stay on property and DH wants off. I can get a 2 br villa for $400 for the week. Hard to beat that on disney property. DH is very tall and won't sleep in anything less than a queen which puts us in the deluxe category since we have two children who will come with us.

I can't seem to justify the price but I have an excel spreadsheet trying to

If it helps your budget, Coronado is adding queen beds to all their rooms - and so far it's still at a moderate price.

We, too, prefer to be onsite, but budget-wise sometimes those off-site deals look hard to pass up. If it weren't for losing the access to Disney transportation (I don't want to drive - I'm on vacation!) and the EMHs, I would strongly consider it.

[ginger19]

My kids are so young that we hardly use EMH really. We are going in november so I think we'd be risking not getting a queen at CSR since you can't get one guaranteed. I checked with MJ and there isn't a way to guarantee a queen. My comparison is being based on CSR and hoping we get a queen but DH is not so easy to convince.

I'd personally just like to stay at the poly

[yjgirl32]

for me NEVER. I guess I am a on-site snob too. I would much rather skip a year and save my money to go the following year then to stay offsite. I love the Disney transportation. Sometimes it can get a little annoying, but then I think if I had to drive myself I could be sitting in traffic or worse lost.

[TheRustyScupper]

Off-site is a good idea for several instances
. . . you need/want full kitchens without DVC prices
. . . you want more room to spread out than cramped hotel rooms
. . . you want your own pool and hot tub
. . . you want enough rooms for kids to be away from adults
. . . you want to house large families for reasonable prices
. . . you want to spend time in the house relaxing
. . . you want to do non-Disney parks or activities

NOTE: Sure, we like to stay on-site, but we have three weeks of timeshares for when the entire extended family comes down. This gives us free or cheap amenities that Disney or Disney DVC cannot give us (golf, 6-pools, 5-hot tubs, sailing, lake swimming, daily bingo, water parks, putt-putt, daily exercise programs, structured kids activities 9-6 daily, movie theater, games, nightly parties and celebrations, luau).

[MushuGrl]

Do any off the off-site properties have shuttles to Disney?

[tink'72]

Okay, I have been a huge advocate of staying offsite the last few years.

It always made sense to use due to our family size 6 and the age of my younges son. We always rented a villa about 10 minutes outside of WDW. The cost was a huge factor. This year I had the house for 11 nights and it cost me $1,080.00. The house is beautiful 4 bedrooms, 3 baths game room beautiful pool . Absolutely perfect. My youngest son is let's say a bit active so having our own pool made me feel safer. I could see him while I was sitting and relaxing by the pool which is something I probably couldn't do if we were on property. And the drive to and from the parks was nothing really maybe 15 minutes with traffic. We always had a car because we drive down, so that wasn't an issue.

However this year staying offsite seemed to be more of a burden to us. The traffic around town was crazy- nearly doubled my drive time and for the 1st time ever I felt the disadvantage of not having the advantages of EMH and the buses..My son is older now so I'm a little more comfortable with him and the pool .
My older kids said this year the missed staying on property...(we used to split our trips to include a few days on-site)

Sooo we decided to buy into AKL. We were looking at it for years and it never seemed quit right for use to do the DVC but this year changed our minds.

[Lizzie]

We stayed off site a couple of years ago. Rented a 7 bedroom house and the cost per night was cheaper than one night at a deluxe.

We had 9 adults and two kids. It was great at night because we could put the kids to bed and go swimming.

We only needed to rent two vehicles one of the families drove and two of the families shared.

It was a great trip and made sense for the group. I missed staying onsite but our twin girls were only 7 months at the time so it was great having a kitchen for bottles and the pool there for us to swim in while they slept.

[tink'72]

My family uses a house that we get offsite almost every year. But then again me, my DH, DD,and 2 DS and sometimes my DF come. Its harder for us to get a hotel room without spending a fortune. Thats why we bought into DVC. It helps a lot. But to answer your question if you have a small family then staying onsite would be better. The atmosphere is amazing in every hotel!! The only time you should stay offsite is if you have a bigger family or if you want to do things other than WDW. Hope this helped! Have a magical day!!!!!!

[TINKERBELL_82]

Do any off the off-site properties have shuttles to Disney?

Yes- most of them do. Sometimes the hours can be a bit sketchy though.

[theyoungs07]

In Nov I'm making my first return with kids and staying offsite makes complete sense for us. We have five children and the oldest is 7 and I'm not completely insane so we're driving . We're getting a 4 bedroom home with private pool/jacuzzi for $120/night less than the cabins onsite would cost us and much MUCH less than any of the suites that we'd have to cram into onsite. Two rooms isn't much of an option with little ones that small with just two adults. There is no way that cost would equalize, even with $11 a day for parking and gas. I wouldn't want to use Disney transportation, it was nice when we were a couple but I like to have control with the little ones.

We can pack half the clothes since we can do laundry...my wife was practically giddy when she realized this...seriously.

Maybe I'm completely wrong, I'll know better when I get back in mid-late November.

[merlinmagic4]

It works for us. We paid just 3800.00 for a timeshare at a resort very near to Disney. I am probably home before most of the buses get to the resorts. We have no payment except a 750.00 maintenance fee. I couldn't get a week in a value for that (we travel prime time) and I get two bedrooms, kitchen, 2 baths, laundry, 7 pools, etc. etc.

I would probably also rent a car even if we did stay onsite because I don't like public transportation. I don't like the trams when you have a hundred people trying to get 50 seats. It annoys me when people are rude so this way I don't have to deal with it. So, that is well worth it for me

The 11.00 per day parking is nothing compared to the money I save eating 1-2 meals per day at our resort.

Sure, we would love to own DVC but for the 300 points we would need for school vacation weeks in a 2 bedroom, it's just not cost effective.