We have visited WDW on vacation many times both with children and without and have stayed offsite each trip. Either offsite or onsite stays are purely up to the individual and his desires, needs and pocketbook. You can have a wonderful vacation staying offsite as you can staying in the resorts. It is up to YOU to weigh the facts and choose!!
You do need to weigh the facts before you decide to stay off site or on and you do need to ask yourself these questions before booking your hotel off site. Doing a little homework will make any WDW trip so much more enjoyable for you and your travelling party.
1. How many are in your party? Are there any children or people with special needs?
2. How much time will you be spending at your hotel daily? Will you be there frequently through the day or just sleeping and showering? Will you be eating meals in your room and need a kitchenette?
3. What perks are important to you? Are you looking for a large playground and big pool? Do you need need a hotel with transportation available into the parks?
4. How much do you want to spend for each nights stay?
5. How far are you willing to drive each day to reach the parks?
MOUSER ADVICE:
I do not recommend any certain hotels and can tell you like any city or vacation locale there are good ones and bad ones. Do your homework, it will pay off!
If you are a member of AAA automobile club or have a close friend or relative who is, I recommend you get their current AAA Florida Travel Guide which is free from them. In this book they and rate lots of hotels in the Kissimmee area. Many also give AAA discounts to members. This can give you a good idea by their star rating how fancy or plain a place is currently.
One of the best is to order the Kissimmee-St Cloud guide by calling 1-800-333-KISS. This book contains many, many discount lodging coupons which can save you even more money. I have used coupons for many years from this publication and have gotten great rates at a near entrance hotel.
Do your own research! A hotel that was right for Aunt Mary may not have what you are looking for in a hotel as each traveller is differnt.
You will more money the farther you stay from WDW..BUT..the drawback is you will be doing much more driving. If you have never been to WDW I can tell you as you leave the parks in the evening you are exhausted and do not want to face a half hour drive to your hotel. It is not worth it in my opinion to save a few dollars each night and have to drive so far. I recommend you stay as close as you can to WDW entranceways and you will thank your self for it later.
You do not want to pay for more than you can use in a hotel. If you are just sleeping there and will not be spending a whole lot of time there, you may not need a luxury hotel with a lot of things your are not interested in like a huge pool, sauna, game room, etc. Why pay more for things you will not use. There are lots of nice just plain name hotels along 1-92 Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, where I stay that are good for just crashing between days in the parks.
If you have children or folks with special needs you may want to splurge for a more expensive place with more for kids to do. Some of these offsite resorts do get pricey though and if the price is high, you may want to reconsider on site for the same amount of money. Many of these off site places offer kitchenettes for an extra cost each night. This is a cheaper alternative to eating in the parks, but you do have to consider you do lose touring time making daily trips back to the hotel for meals. For those on a strict budget consider taking sandwiches into the parks with you rather than running back and forth. Other pages offer tips on bringing food into the parks which may help you with this.
If you are driving to WDW then you will have no problems with tranportation into the parks. For those that fly, remember few off site hotels offer free transportation to the parks. Most do have a transport service for a fairly expensive fee that will transport you to and from the TTC each day. I do not recommend these services as they often involve long waits, are expensive and make several stops at various hotels along the way. Rent a car if you can, Orlando has many good deals on rental cars them you can come and go as you please. Another better alternative is take a cab into the parks. In the long run it would be much less expensive than ground transport would be for a family.
More and more there are EXCELLENT internet deals at the chain hotels...rates that cannot be beat by any coupon or discount coupon etc.It is very worth your while to check out some of these sites...there are lower prices now than what I have seen in years for many hotels off site.
Enjoy your trip whether you stay off site or on, the decision is yours. Hope I have helped a bit in the planning of your special vacation.
Always glad to help an off site guest with questions you may contact me at TheMouser@webtv.net for further info.
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