Quote:
Originally Posted by rjolley
What are the good deals for places to stay? What is the advantage of staying at a Disney location vs a place in Orlando? Looking at their site, the best places appear to be nothing more than a room to stay in at a high price. What else is there?
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Deals they will announce usually about 30-60 days ahead of time. One of the sites I used to check for resort deals:
AllEars.Net - The Unofficial Disney Vacation Planning Guide - Walt Disney World, Disneyland and Disney Cruise Line
As far as cost is concerned, the difference between a value, moderate or luxury resort is typically based on amenities (for instance, value only has bus transportation to the parks, luxury would have bus as well as potentially monorail, boat, etc.), restaurants (luxury will typically have a couple of sit-down restaurants as well as fast-service where a value may have a single fast-service) and then theming, from pools to the building itself. Yes, it's typically really pricey to stay on-site.
The first two times we visited Disney when the kids were younger we stayed offsite and I knew very little about the resorts themselves. Later, I traveled to Orlando for work and a co-worker invited me to head with him to the Boardwalk for a night out after our conference. We drove up in our taxi and the doorman opened our door and said, "Welcome home." (this is standard modus operandi for all the resorts, but it was the first time I experienced it) We went down the staircase, and started up and down the Boardwalk, watched the various shows, enjoyed a margarita, people-watching, etc. I might be easy to impress, but the whole environment was alive and fun and I thought to myself, "holy-moley, the next time we go to Disney we HAVE to stay here." Mind you, I don't think we could afford to stay there a week or anything, but we've stayed there a few times for weekends over the years.