Why Rent a Vacation Home at Disney
One of the key decisions to make when travelling to Disney is where to stay.
After more than a dozen trips, my strong recommendation is to stay off property in a condo or vacation home.
To illustrate why, I'll use a party of 10 as an example; a brother and a sister with 2 kids each plus their parents.
There are 3 primaries options for where to stay at Disney: on-site resorts, off-site hotels, and off-site condos/homes.
Disney Resorts To entice people to stay in their hotels, Disney properties offer a couple of perks.
Here are the 3 major ones.
Let's discuss each of these for a minute.
Extra Magic Hours seem like a great idea in concept, time in the park with fewer people waiting in line.
In my experience, the downside of extra magic hours is that the rest of the day is extra crowded, thereby eliminating some of the benefit you gained from the extra time.
You will hear people argue you can use park hopping to address this, and while that is true, I would argue the time you lose park hopping offsets a lot of the gain from extra magic hours.
The advantage of the Disney bus system is you won't have to pay for parking.
The downside is the buses take 2-3 times longer to get you from point A to point B on average than if you have a car.
Given how cheap rental cars are in Orlando, I value my time more in this instance.
The car also gives you the freedom to eat off-property (or go to a grocery store), which will save you a tremendous amount of money over eating every meal at the parks.
My thoughts on free airport transportation are similar.
A rental car is cheap and it gets you there much faster.
It also gives you more flexibility throughout your vacation.
Finally, there's Disney's claim of being closer to the parks.
The reality is while you will be closer than anyone else to one of the parks, if you take the average travel time to the 6 major parks, you will discover in most cases it is no different than staying in one of the hotels or rental properties right off of the Disney property.
One other potential benefit of staying in a Disney hotel is total immersion.
The Disney properties are wonderfully themed and often have Disney themed activities available.
There are themed off-property hotels, like the Nickelodeon Hotel, if that's your thing, but you definitely won't get a theme if you stay in a vacation home (other than perhaps some themed decorating).
So, why wouldn't you stay in a Disney Hotel.
2 main reasons: cost and comfort.
I'll cover the comparable costs later, but in terms of comfort, our family of 10 could rent a 3,500 sq ft 5 or 6 bedroom home for one third to one half of the cost of staying at a Disney Resort.
The home would have its own private pool and spa, games room, fully stocked kitchen, bbq, living and dining rooms, baby equipment and much more.
At a Disney property, each family would be squeezed into a standard hotel room of 150-300 sq ft with none of these additional amenities.
Disney does offer a few suite and condo choices, but the costs are astronomical, and you still get nowhere near the amount of space and creature comforts you would get from a vacation rental.
Off-Site Hotels It will come as no surprise there are a multitude of hotel choices surrounding Disney.
From the low-end to the high-end, your favorite hotel chain is probably here.
While there are some very good options, these hotels suffer from many of the same downsides as Disney properties when compared to a vacation home.
Specifically, cost and comfort.
The comfort issues are basically identical to those of the Disney properties, and while the costs are lower, they are still higher than the costs of a rental home or condo.
Cost Comparison What are the comparable costs for our family of 10? We will use a typical week in mid-July for our example.
All-Star Sports (value property)
To me, staying in a vacation rental is a no brainer.
After more than a dozen trips, my strong recommendation is to stay off property in a condo or vacation home.
To illustrate why, I'll use a party of 10 as an example; a brother and a sister with 2 kids each plus their parents.
There are 3 primaries options for where to stay at Disney: on-site resorts, off-site hotels, and off-site condos/homes.
Disney Resorts To entice people to stay in their hotels, Disney properties offer a couple of perks.
Here are the 3 major ones.
- Disney Extra Magic Hours
- Free use of the Disney Bus System
- Free transportation to and from the airport
Let's discuss each of these for a minute.
Extra Magic Hours seem like a great idea in concept, time in the park with fewer people waiting in line.
In my experience, the downside of extra magic hours is that the rest of the day is extra crowded, thereby eliminating some of the benefit you gained from the extra time.
You will hear people argue you can use park hopping to address this, and while that is true, I would argue the time you lose park hopping offsets a lot of the gain from extra magic hours.
The advantage of the Disney bus system is you won't have to pay for parking.
The downside is the buses take 2-3 times longer to get you from point A to point B on average than if you have a car.
Given how cheap rental cars are in Orlando, I value my time more in this instance.
The car also gives you the freedom to eat off-property (or go to a grocery store), which will save you a tremendous amount of money over eating every meal at the parks.
My thoughts on free airport transportation are similar.
A rental car is cheap and it gets you there much faster.
It also gives you more flexibility throughout your vacation.
Finally, there's Disney's claim of being closer to the parks.
The reality is while you will be closer than anyone else to one of the parks, if you take the average travel time to the 6 major parks, you will discover in most cases it is no different than staying in one of the hotels or rental properties right off of the Disney property.
One other potential benefit of staying in a Disney hotel is total immersion.
The Disney properties are wonderfully themed and often have Disney themed activities available.
There are themed off-property hotels, like the Nickelodeon Hotel, if that's your thing, but you definitely won't get a theme if you stay in a vacation home (other than perhaps some themed decorating).
So, why wouldn't you stay in a Disney Hotel.
2 main reasons: cost and comfort.
I'll cover the comparable costs later, but in terms of comfort, our family of 10 could rent a 3,500 sq ft 5 or 6 bedroom home for one third to one half of the cost of staying at a Disney Resort.
The home would have its own private pool and spa, games room, fully stocked kitchen, bbq, living and dining rooms, baby equipment and much more.
At a Disney property, each family would be squeezed into a standard hotel room of 150-300 sq ft with none of these additional amenities.
Disney does offer a few suite and condo choices, but the costs are astronomical, and you still get nowhere near the amount of space and creature comforts you would get from a vacation rental.
Off-Site Hotels It will come as no surprise there are a multitude of hotel choices surrounding Disney.
From the low-end to the high-end, your favorite hotel chain is probably here.
While there are some very good options, these hotels suffer from many of the same downsides as Disney properties when compared to a vacation home.
Specifically, cost and comfort.
The comfort issues are basically identical to those of the Disney properties, and while the costs are lower, they are still higher than the costs of a rental home or condo.
Cost Comparison What are the comparable costs for our family of 10? We will use a typical week in mid-July for our example.
All-Star Sports (value property)
- 3 small standard hotel rooms with double beds, think Days Inn, for $3,300
- Caribbean Beach (moderate property)
- 3 standard hotel rooms with double beds for $4,600
- 3 nice hotel rooms with queen beds, no view, for $6,900
- 1 studio and 1 2 bedroom condo for $7,500
- 6 bedroom, 4 bath luxury villa for $2,250
To me, staying in a vacation rental is a no brainer.
