[RuthC]

I am surprising my youngest three (ages 8, 5 and 5) with a trip to Disneyworld for spring break and my 8 year old's birthday. I have been there many times with my older two and we have ALWAYS stayed on property at one of the Disney resorts, except one time and we really didn't like the place we stayed at when we stayed off property.

With the economy, I'm trying to be conservative and many non-Disney resorts in the area are offering various deals. Any suggestions on great family resorts to stay in the DW area? We'll likely do Universal one day and Sea World another.

Also, I understand that there are various promotion codes out there and if Ii give them to the Disney reservations folks they can get better pricing. If you know of any of those, I'd love to know too.

Thanks

[GuatMommy2Be]

Ruth,

The promo codes (40% off hotel, free dining, kids stay/eat free) all seem to be random. But Disney is offering the buy 4 nights/tickets get 3 nights/tickets free. You might consider looking into that since it is open to everyone if you travel before June.

Happy Planning!

[Anne1377]

Ruth,

I sent you a private message but I travel to Disney every year and have some thoughts. Hopefully we will meet up later today and we can talk.

Diane

[lisaf1]

Disney World is also running a special if you book by the end of March with at stay 4 get 3 free. You can book right on the disneyworld.com website of you can call disney directly. I am will be going this April with my DD and my parents. We booked a 1 bedroom Villa at saratoga springs resort and got a great price with this special.

Lisa

[Snook182]

YEs we just went to disney and we did Buy 4 nights and got 3 free.....It's an Awesome deal....we stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and we LOVED it!!!Check it out on their website!!!Have Fun!!!

[kaynig]

I would surely stay IN Disney World. It is worth any extra from the perks. Plus you will get the full "Disney" experience.

[JGarrick]

Our experience when staying off the Disney resorts has been that we save relatively little, if anything, compared to Disney hotels of equivalent quality, and we kill a huge amount of time on ground transportation. I always sort of figured that if we were going to drop a pile of cash on a Disney vacation, I'd pry the extra few dollars out of my wallet so that I was spending my time in the parks instead of driving or riding busses all over Orlando.

That said, if you don't mind spending the time, and the money really makes a difference, there are lots of cut-rate hotels in Orlando. I googled "Orlando hotel" and got 12.4 million hits. A quick search on priceline.com found rates as low as $35/night. We once stayed at a HoJo about 20 miles from Disney World for about that much. The room was nothing to write home about, but the air conditioning worked and the shower had hot water.