Chances of staying off property without a reservation?

[MicMouse]

We are planning on driving to WDW this summer from Illinois, probably making it a two day trip. :drive:

I think we will stop near Chattanooga the first day, and try to make it to the WDW area the second day, staying off-property.

What are the chances of just picking out a hotel and getting a room for the night without a reservation? Is it possible??

If not, are there any good places to stay in the Ocala area?

[AwPhooey]

While I can't guarantee anything, most off-property hotels I've driven by have had vacancy signs up, so you should be okay.

I've heard of some bad off-property hotels (dirty, needing maintenance, etc.), though, so you may want to make a reservation somewhere. Or, you could try for a one-night stay at Pop or one of the All-Star resorts.

[MicMouse]

I never thought about one of the Value hotels. I guess I figured they would be booked.

[Hair_Razor]

I agree I would probably do reservations, I stayed at POP last year it is a great resort and you can get as good a deal if not better to some off site resorts. Plus you also get the bonus of on site transport between the resort and the parks. Good luck!:)

[DizneyRox]

Chances are pretty good you will find a room off-site. Hotels in general love walk ups. It's a good excuse to charge rack rates for the room, which are often much higher than you could ever imagine paying for a hotel room.

I would make reservations though, even calling from the road just down the street will probably yield a better rate.

[kathiep]

We did just that 2 years ago. We had no problem finding an inexpensive, clean room for the 1 night.

But then as another poster recommended, last year, we made reservataions for that first night at a value. We had never stayed at one and thought the kids might enjoy it.

(Too bad we didn't get to experience it; when we checked in, we were told our 1 night stay was being upgraded to Old Key West :cloud9:)

[Hair_Razor]

(Too bad we didn't get to experience it; when we checked in, we were told our 1 night stay was being upgraded to Old Key West :cloud9:)
Wow how did that happen how lucky for you!!

[#1donaldfan]

Not a guarantee, but it's what we do....we drive from WV and just pick a place just outside of property for our "first" night...get up early to check in at POR, then hit the parks running.....by the way, we usually stay at the Holiday Inn Express right outside of DtD..have fun.....:mickey:

[DDuck66]

I live about an hour from WDW and I made the drive to Chattanooga this past Fourth of July and it took about 8 and a half hours. I would leave early in the morning and drive on in to Orlanda. There are plenty of places to stay and if you do not want to plan, you can probably find a place. I would go ahead and make a reservation just in case. There are several nice places near DTD for around $100. We stayed at the Sheraton Safari just the other weekend and it has a great location. It is about a mile from DTD so you could probably get in some shopping and eating that first night.

[MicMouse]

Thanks for the posts.

We have a six night stay booked at the Poly, but since we were driving from IL, I wanted to get as close to WDW on the second day, so that the day of our ressies, we could just get up, check in and get our hopper passes.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

[murphy1]

I have to highly recommend the Cabot Lodge in Gainesville FL. We love it! It is only 1 hr 45 min from Disney. It has a ton of restaurants right around it and a Target in case you need anything. It's right off I-75, too, and very safe. My rate was about $99 in October. I used to stay there when I was on business in Marion County for the week instead of driving back to St. Petersburg where I lived. The only time it might be tricky to stay is during UF home games or events.