Should I stay at a Disney hotel (onsite) or outside Disney World (offsite)?
Why stay offsite
- Cheaper
- More space
- Want a break from Disney after the parks
- Might be more convenient if also visiting Sea World or Universal Studios.
Why stay onsite
- Disney transportation
- Disney’s airport-to-hotel luggage transfer service
- Shorter drive distance to parks
- Save the $15/day park parking fee
- Keep “the magic” going
- Have souveneir shopping sent to your room
- Extra magic hours
Offsite in depth:
Staying offsite costs less, probably about half as much for equivalent hotels. That’s the big advantage of staying offsite.
For the same money as a small Disney value resort, you might be able to find a 2 bedroom unit offsite!
Hotel shuttles to Disney World
Many offsite hotels run a shuttle to the Disney Parks, but I WOULD NOT RELY ON THEM WITH LITTLE KIDS. Frequently the shuttle is going to stop at all 4 Disney parks and average travel times will be over an hour PLUS the wait time for the shuttle to appear. You will burn up a lot of your kids’ awake time getting between hotel and parks relying on shuttles.
Using the hotel shuttle eliminates the option of returning to the hotel for an afternoon nap (which you’ll need.)
It also reduces the odds of your kids falling asleep on the ride home after the parks (which for us is what we want to happen.)
If you stay offsite and flew to Orlando, rent a car.
Booking a offsite hotel
If a normal hotel room (as is not like a condo/apartment style) works, book a hotel the same way you’d book a hotel in any other city (like expedia.com, hotels.com, hilton.com, etc.)
But it you are looking for a condo-style (multiple bedrooms and/or a kitchen), you might need to use websites you’ve never used before. Here’s some websites for searching for condo-style places to stay:
- Airbnb.com people listing everything from their spare bedroom to entire houses and condo’s for rent from 1-day to a whole month.
- VRBO.com Vacation Rental By Owner– owner listed condos and houses, usually with a 3-night minimum or more
- All start vacation homes Company renting houses in the Disney area
Onsite in depth:
Disney transportation
Disney’s bus system is excellent. All Disney hotels are connected to all Disney parks by frequent buses. The only except to bus connection between a hotel and a park is in some circumstances when there is a much more direct connection (like walking from The Boardwalk Inn to Epcot). The buses also run between the parks.
Some Disney hotels are on the monorail, an elevated train that connects those hotels with the Magic Kingdom. You can also ride the monorail to Epcot by changing monorail trains at the Transportation and Ticketing Center (TTC).
Some Disney hotels are connected to a park by boat:
Wilderness Lodge -> Magic Kingdom
Boardwalk Inn, Beach Club, Yacht Club -> Epcot and Hollywood Studios
Disney’s airport-to-hotel luggage transfer service
It’s called Disney’s Magical Express. You book it when you book your vacation. When you arrive at the Orlando airport you skip baggage claim, and check-in to ride Disney’s bus to your resort. You bags are supposed to arrive within 3 hours of checkin at the resort.
DO NOT CHECK LUGGAGE THAT YOU NEED THE FIRST DAY AND NIGHT IN CASE THERE’S A DELAY IN LUGGAGE DELIVERY.
Shorter drive distance to parks
Typically onsite hotels are a closer drive to the parks than offsite. That ‘commute’ time adds up if you count returning to your hotel for an afternoon nap.
Save the $15/day park parking fee
Disney charges $15 / day to park at the theme parks.
Keep “the magic” going
If you just wish you could stay inside the Disney bubble all week, stay at a Disney resort.
Have souveneir shopping sent to your room
Buy stuff at a store in a park and the store can send it to your resort room.
Extra magic hours
Disney opens at least one park early or keeps it open late for just Disney resort guests.
Disney Vacation Club Villas
Most Disney hotels are standard rooms with two beds and a bathroom.
But when Disney saw the super success of timeshare condos in Orlando plus the desire of families to stay in multi-room suites, it started building it’s own suites (“villas”) onsite.
These may be a great option for you if you need separate rooms for you kids to go to sleep in, but don’t want to go offsite.
DVC Prices
These rooms are really expensive. Disney mainly sells these rooms as part of their timeshare-like Disney Vacation Club (DVC). Disney then holds ownership of 10% of each resort to sell as hotel rooms.
To get a good deal you can wait for Disney to run a special that deeply discount these rooms or you can rent DVC points to book a room.
Renting DVC points
You can rent DVC points to book a Disney Vacation Club villa as way of getting these rooms for much less (like 50% less).
There are two ways:
- Connect directly to a DVC owner
- Go through a broker
Connect directly with DVC owner
If DVC owner’s aren’t going to use their points for a given calendar year, they may sell them to you by booking a hotel stay for you and listing you as the guest.
So what is happening is the DVC owner is booking you a villa stay for a specific hotel for specific dates and listing you as the person staying. You pay the owner directly whatever amount you agree upon.
You can connect directly with owners at the mouseowners message board.
You can see the point costs for each villas on this site
Go through a broker
A DVC broker is someone with lots of owner contacts that you pay directly at some fixed cost-per-DVC-point price with your vacation request, and they see if any of their contacts can fill it. An advantage to a DVC broker is they may be able to guarantee you a backup reservation incase something goes wrong with your reservation
Broker sites: http://dvcrentalstore.com/, http://dvc-rental.com/
Downsides to renting DVC points
- There is not usually any cancellations or refunds or date changes
- By staying in a DVC stay, there’s no daily housekeeping
- There’s a risk that the owner will cancel the reservation, at which point you are out of luck. This risk is the attractive part of using a broker if the broker can guarantee you a substitution if this happens.