Home
>
Vacation Rental
>
Orlando Vacation Homes - Comparing Homes to Hotels

Orlando Vacation Homes - Comparing Homes to Hotels

When staying in Orlando, you really do have a lot of choices ... sort of. One of the big decisions that the travel sites and the travel books will alert you to is whether to stay on property or off.

And to be perfectly honest, Disney hospitality can be very nice. We like the hidden Mickeys and the themed swimming pools, but on our last trip to Disney World, my wife and I looked at each other and asked, "We paid $250 a night for that?"

A Little Perspective

Did you know that you can get a room at the The Waldorf-Astoria? for less than $250 a night? It comes with neato robes, too!

Florida Lemons

The fact of the matter is, you have many choices, and not all of them put you into 250 sq feet or so of living space.

I compiled this chart for a 1st week in March stay for a family of six ...

Price/night Sq. feet Sleeps Doubletree $ 168 608 4-6 Holiday Inn $ 190 485 6 Caribe Royale $ 166 500 4-6 Caribe Royale (big suite) $ 316 1,260 8 Sheraton Vistana $ 218 497-910 8 Disney Value Resort $ 218 (2 rooms) 260 8 Disney Moderate $ 338 (2 rooms) 314 8 Disney Deluxe $ 578 (2 rooms) 400 8 Beach Club Villas $ 350 1,080 8 3 BD/2 BA Vacation Home $ 150 1,600 8

When you look at how much you pay, the hotel option leaves you wondering what the differences are.

Hotels - Tried and True

Hotels offer a standard quality of accomodation. They're centrally located - and this is especially true in Orlando. Disney's hotels are right on their property, and therefore the closest you can get to the "Magic." However, they're small, don't offer cooking facilities, and it can be difficult to get off of Disney property easily (say, to visit another park).

The Vacation Home Alternative

Orlando boasts an amazing number of vacation homes. These are detached homes that are individually owned. They have full size kitchens, several bedrooms and bathrooms, and many have private pools and/or hot tubs.

You do need to have a rental car. The homes in Orlando are between 10 to 15 minutes away from the parks at Disney World. My vote is that it's nice to get away in the evening to your own private home and pool, but some people prefer to be surrounded by the theme parks 24/7.

In addition, there is no room service at a vacation home. However, most homes are within several blocks of a grocery store, so stocking up on your favorite foods (both fast and not-so-fast) is easy.

For a family of six, these two differences add up to serious savings, both in terms of time and money. Having a car means we have choices in terms of getting to and leaving the parks. On a busy evening, we may choose to have dinner at one of the resort restaurants and pay for valet parking (or skip dinner and just pay for parking anyway). At the close of day, we can then skip the long monorail/bus/boat lines, and take the much shorter resort monorail.

In the morning, having a ready supply of breakfast foods means the younger members of our family don't have to wait until everyone is showered and ready to go before being able to eat breakfast.

Conclusion

If you're looking to take a group or a family larger than five people on a Disney vacation, and if having a rental car and a full size kitchen appeals to you, then you owe it to yourself to try a vacation home.

Steve Black is a Disney nut and owner of Fezziwigs, a luxury, golf-course Orlando Vacation Home.

See a 360? virtual tour of the home at http://www.4kidsnus.com/orlando/tour/tour.shtml

Or get more information, pictures, and rates at: http://www.4kidsnus.com/orlando/tour/tour.shtml

disinfecting cleaning services Lake Forest ...

In The News:

Teens increasingly turn to AI companions for emotional support and advice, but experts warn of developmental risks and inadequate safety measure.

SEO is dead, and its replacements are here to stay. Here's how to stay visible as AI takes the internet in an unprecedented new direction.

Vancouver architects created a prefabricated off-grid retreat on Keats Island that was helicopter-installed in two days with solar panels and rainwater systems.

Chinese automaker BYD introduced the affordable Atto 1 EV at the Indonesia auto show, offering 75 horsepower and 236-mile range option to compete with gas-powered vehicles.

There has been a recent surge in "quishing" attacks, which are a form of phishing that uses QR codes instead of traditional methods like emails, text messages, and phone calls.

Unitree just dropped its latest creation, the R1 humanoid robot, and people are talking.

Google just announced a partnership with Italian firm Energy Dome to help store clean energy using carbon dioxide in an entirely new way.

Checking your drink for drugs no longer needs to feel like a science experiment. Scientists in South Korea have created a new solution, a temporary tattoo sticker that instantly detects tampering.

Dating safety app Tea suffered a breach of its own, compromising selfies, photo identification, and images from posts, comments, and direct messages within the app.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) have developed an ultra-thin traffic noise absorber that significantly reduces sound levels while occupying just a fraction of the space required by traditional materials.

Known as the Lib Earth House Model B, this single-story home was created using 3D-printing technology and a soil-based mixture instead of traditional concrete.

Google's apps, such as Chrome, Maps, Search, and YouTube, are constantly tracking your activity and sending it to Google.

If your Facebook account was disabled and you believe it was a mistake, follow these proven steps to improve your chances of getting it back quickly.

A new study reveals that AI models can secretly transmit subliminal traits to one another, even when the shared training data appears harmless.

Microsoft is moving toward a password-less future. As part of that shift, it no longer wants the Authenticator app to handle passwords or payment methods.

Halo, the world's thinnest open-source AI glasses, packs more intelligence and capability than any other smartglasses that have come before it.

A coordinated phishing campaign has breached sensitive patient data at several cancer care providers affiliated with a Tennessee-based network of oncology practices.

A recent survey asked 1,000 Americans just how deeply they connect with their pets. Some of the answers are sweet. Others? A little wild.

Microsoft released patches for a SharePoint zero-day bug after hackers compromised over 400 servers worldwide using weaponized exploit chain.

Facebook's parent company, Meta, removed millions of accounts and adopted stricter policies against unoriginal content to help authentic creators break through on the platform.

Scammers have created convincing fake TSA PreCheck sites to trick travelers into paying fees and sharing data, with first-time applicants never paying online being key protection.

A new iOS 18.6 iPhone update fixes a passcode exposure bug, address bar spoofing and multiple memory corruption issues in quick, free security patch.

Paralyzed woman Audrey Crews controls a computer with a brain chip from Elon Musk's Neuralink, demonstrating breakthrough brain-computer interface technology.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Meta removed over 600,000 predatory accounts from Instagram and Facebook while launching enhanced safety protections for teenage users on both platforms.

Orlando Vacation Homes - Comparing Homes to Hotels

Vacation Rental