We have been going to Florida for over 10 years and at the start, it was all very daunting but now I think we have got it to some kind of structured chaos. The information is only a guide and we do not receive any commission from the sites we advertise, it is all purely from our own experiences. If you have any tips we would love to hear them please leave them in the comments section or email them to me at ino@fl814@co.uk.
Where to start planning?
Once you have decided on your dates and the party number you can start planning!!!!!! Booking your flights or finding the villas depends on how strict your dates are. You may have booked your villa and looking for flights or you might have booked your flights and looking for a villa, this might be different each time.
Booking your flights.
There are many options when booking your flights, You can go to a travel agent, for just Flights or they sometimes offer a Fly and Drive package which is the flight and car hire. You can use a comparison flight site such as SkyScanner or go to the airline direct, British Airways, or Virgin Atlantic, We always use Virgin Atlantic as their prices are normally the cheapest.
Villa or Resort?
You need to decide if you want to stay in a villa or at a Theme Park Resort. There are positive and negative to both options, but we think it comes down to how you like spending your spare time. With the resort you can never get away from the themes, you eat in their restaurants, you all go back to the same room, and you swim in the pools with all the other guests. With a Villa, you have your own space and pool. You can eat what and where you like and it gives you a break from the parks which at some point we all need.
Once you have decided you need to make the location choice. If it is a Disney park you have so many to choose pop over to the Disney site for more details. If you are looking at Universal there are just as many choices so I will leave that decision up to you. If you decided on the villa option you need to decide on the location. This can vary depending on the reason you are going to Florida. If you are going for all the Disney parks nearer the 192 to better. If going for Universal the location of your villa would be better, north of Sand Lake Road. I have included a link to a map showing the resort location. Once you have chosen your location, FL814 is happy to help you find Villa options. Now on to the bit I don’t like Car Hire, I find it very stressful!
Car Hire
There are so many sites and options, where do you start? You need to work out the number of seats and the number of cases, you might only need four seats but you have four large cases are they going to fit? Especially if you have prams too. I would suggest checking if the villas have them available for you to use.
You can go to the travel agent we find Tui can give good car rates but the most important thing is to check what comes with the packages. There isn’t a petrol station that is easy to get to at MCO so we would recommend getting a free tank of fuel. You have to pay for it but it is way more expensive turning up empty and then them charging you for it. We have also found that is it more cost-efficient to get the car insurance separately. We use a company called
Quest Insurance UK, it is a fraction of the price and a better insurance in our mind. Remember that your spouse doesn’t class as an additional driver they can automatically drive that car and you shouldn’t have to pay extra Remember to take the card you pay for it on. Check out our UK-USA tip for more Driving information
So you have booked your flights, villas and car hire now don to the fun stuff. the tickets!!!!!
Much like villas, there are so many options. You don’t get the 1-week tickets anymore they are all 14-day tickets for the price of 7 days. The 14-day Disney ticket gives you an 18-day window to use for 14 days which is helpful especially when you have other parks to fit in. All park ticket websites have the tickets for pretty much the same price, it’s the extras you can get where the price difference happens. You can get free tickets to other parks, you can get the Disney memory maker, etc so double-check deals before buying.
Here is a list of sites we have which we have used to get our tickets
- FLORIDATIX
- ATTRACTION TICKETS
- ORLANDO ATTRACTIONS
What is left to do, you need to book the park days at Disney if still required when you go. You do this through the Disney my experience on the website but you also need to download the Disney world app. You need these to book your park days, lightning lane, and dinner reservation, You can also see your photos from the memory maker but remember to download them as soon as you get home or to your phone. You used to get 190 days but I think you only get 30 days now before they deleted them.
There are also apps for the other parks where you can add your tickets and enter the virtual queues.
I think we have covered the main things you need to buy and book, for more information about USA-To UK travel tips and USA travel tip click over to have a read
Check out my next blog. I will be attaching a free Packing list.