<p>My H is a Disney fanatic, and we went every year or two when our kids were younger. I’m going to second the people who recommended the Polynesian or Grand Floridian over the Contemporary if you want to want to stay on the Monorail. The Contemporary is nice, but the other two have a lot more Disney flavor and resort atmosphere.</p>
<p>Since the Polynesian and Grand Floridian, and even the Animal Kingdom Lodge are high end resorts, are they all pretty much the same price?</p>
<p>I got a quote from Triple A and was shocked at how high it was. This was, of course, for a 7 day stay, including park hopper pass and meal plan, but no airfare, which we should be able to get pretty cheaply. I know we could save a lot of money staying off site or a value hotel, but we’d rather do that when we have our son along and do HP world with Disney. </p>
<p>I’m wondering if we should cut our stay in half, but there’s so much more to see now than 30 years ago, so I’d like to do as much as I can in one trip. I’m not getting any younger, you know.</p>
<p>Husband has already stayed at Polynesian, so the alternatives would be Grand Floridian or Animal Kingdom, or perhaps even Beach Club, but I worry we’ll regret it if we skip the Contemporary just to save a few dollars.</p>
<p>I believe that the Grand Floridian will cost more than the Polynesian, but call their 800# and price out various packages that they offer (including any dining packages). In my opinion, do not stay off site. If you’d like to spend less on a hotel, I strongly recommend their value hotels. No, the pools might not be as nice, there might not be a lake on the property, they may not have a full service restaurant (they all have cafe type of dining), but so what… I have stayed at the Polynesian and the room was a room. I did not find anything in there that I felt was a must have experience. I have stayed in their value hotels and had a great time.</p>
<p>You can get a taste during the day of all of the hotels by going early when you dine at restaurant on their premises. Take a walk, sit in the lobby, visit their shops, snap a few pics, and save your money. </p>
<p>Being on site is really so much better if you take advantage of extended hours, and you don’t need a car rental. Disney value hotels are truly a good deal! YMMV</p>
<p>I’m wondering if we should cut our stay in half, but there’s so much more to see now than 30 years ago, so I’d like to do as much as I can in one trip. I’m not getting any younger, you know.</p>
<p>You might consider cutting your stay to 5 nights instead of 7 nights…and only stay in the Contemporary for 2 nights and stay in a moderate priced place for the other 3 nights…like The Caribbean or Coronado Springs. The moderate priced hotels often have great deals. I think we paid less than $100 per night during high season once. </p>
<p>To get the most “bang for your buck”…you arrive early in the morning the first day…and then depart late your last night. That way you get the most “park access” if you stay on property and do a pkg. So, with 5 nights, you can have 6 days of park access.</p>
<p>Since it doesn’t sound like you’d be doing the “water parks”, I think 6 days of park access is enough. 2 days at Epcot, 2 days at MK, 1 day at AK and the evening at Pleasure Island, 1 day at Disney Hollywood Studios. </p>
<p>I think the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian are higher priced than the Contemporary, but I may be wrong. Animal Kingdom Lodge is pricey as well. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s EVER worth it to stay off-site when visiting WDW parks. You lose too much time traveling, parking, etc. You also don’t get the early morning access if you stay off-site. Even if I were visiting HP at Universal, I would only stay there a couple of days to visit those attractions, and then move “on property” while visiting WDW parks.</p>
<p>One year, we met Calif family in Orlando. The first couple of days we stayed off-site just to relax and let them get used to the “time change”. In the evenings we went to Downtown Disney. Then, early on the 3rd day, we arrived at our on-site hotel and stayed 7 more nights.</p>
<p>Are you going to go to the parks <em>every day</em>? I would price out a vacation with the hotel you want, and then look at the dining and parks a la carte. </p>
<p>If you pick the right hotel, hanging out at the resort pool for the day, maybe with a little boat rental thrown in, and then a trip to Downtown Disney for shopping, dinner, and entertainment can be fun.</p>
<p>If you’re not set on staying at Disney the whole time, allow me to recommend this hotel: [Orlando</a> Luxury Resorts- Orlando Resort Hotel- Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, Lake Buena Vista](<a href=“http://grandcypress.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp?null]Orlando”>http://grandcypress.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp?null)</p>
<p>I stayed there some years ago, and it was wonderful. Reasonably priced, amazing swimming pool (I live to swim), good food… in general far superior to anything Disney offered at the time (I’ve stayed in a few of the Disney hotels, can’t honestly remember which ones). The only catch was not being able to take the monorail and get in early.</p>
<p>If this were my trip, I would not cut it short. I would stay in a value hotel onsite and plan to spend little time there other than for sleeping/napping, dip in the pool perhaps. I would buy the length of stay park pass without the water park expense/admission (enough to allow for park hopping). I would buy the meal plan that allowed one table service meal per day. </p>
<p>When we stayed at the Polynesian it was because we had a special offer.</p>
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<p>I agree. Also, you don’t get the evening extended hours that might be offered to hotel guests.</p>
<p>For many years, we stayed off-site. Its better to be on ground. </p>
<p>Moderate–Port Orleans. We used the hot tub every night. Son had pancakes in Mickey Mouse shapes for breakfast. Another night had a pizza sent to room. Nothing special with room. The beach at Polynesian was nice feature, but we didn’t spend time at hotel during the day.</p>
<p>There is a new Value hotel opening in 2012, the Art of Animation. </p>
<p>I’d vote for a few days at one of the deluxe places, and rest of time at a moderate or value hotel. You can pick 2 hotels, where one is near MK and the other near another park. Make dinner reservations at Epcot or at one of the hotels. There are a lot of hotels within the park that are reasonable, but they feel standard, without the Disney touches.</p>
<p>Are your dates flexible? Sometimes the nicest hotels offer specials. Sometimes we’d go in 2 days, just to try a different hotel.</p>
<p>You might also check out The Swan and Dolphin hotels:
[Walt</a> Disney World Resorts | Orlando Vacations | Disney Hotels | swandolphin.com](<a href=“http://www.swandolphin.com/]Walt”>http://www.swandolphin.com/)</p>
<p>They are located in the EPCOT hotel area right next to the the Yacht Club. They have all the perks of WDW hotels including early entry and extra late hours. The only thing is that they don’t participate in Magical Express so you’d have to rent a car.</p>
<p>But their rates tend to be way less than the deluxe resorts and they have special rates for nurses, teachers and gov’t employees.
I’ve stayed in both the Swan and Dolphin and while they don’t have Disney decorations, the rates are great and you can walk or take the boat to both EPCOT and MGM.</p>
<p>Why not stay a few days at the Contemporary and be near the Magic Kingdom, and then move over to Swan and Dolphin and enjoy EPCOT and MGM for much less $$$.</p>
<p>Also, I’d suggest skipping the dining plan.
When it was first introduced it was a pretty good deal, but Disney has cut back what was originally included, (tip and more), and now you have to eat an awful lot to break even.</p>
<p>Sarha, there are limo services and shuttle buses too. Some hotels may have complimentary pickup at airport.</p>
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Due to this issue, Magical Express has recently changed its procedure. If your flight arrives after 10 PM, Magical Express will not deliver your bags. You have to retrieve your luggage from baggage claim and bring it with you to the bus.</p>
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No. Grand Floridian is generally the most expensive, Poly next, and Animal Kingdom the least. Both GF and Poly are on the monorail, convenient to Magic Kingdom. The only mode of transportation from Animal Kingdom Lodge is by bus to all parks. Personally, I love Animal Kingdom Lodge, even without a savannah view (we had a pool view last time we were there). Beautiful theming, wonderful people, great pool, and you can see the animals from all over the lodge. We just got back from Disney, and I don’t think the monorail is worth much - it took us 45 minutes to get from Magic Kingdom to the Grand Floridian!</p>
<p>Can’t you walk from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom? Since there are so many more stops on the monorail, we might just use it to go to dinner at night. </p>
<p>Also, which park is least crowded on the weekends? Since we’ll probably arrive on a Saturday or Sunday, and will be staying quite a number of days, I thought we might start with the least popular on the weekend, and save the more popular for midweek when there will hopefully less crowds.</p>
<p>You can walk from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom, which is a plus for the Contemporary.</p>
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<p>It might depend upon who has hours before opening or after closing (you can call Disney for that info).</p>
<p>Least crowded will likely be AK and Disney Hollywood. You’ll need to check online to see when the early/late nights are.</p>
<p>What time of year are you going? </p>
<p>I don’t think you can easily walk from Contemporary to MK. There shouldn’t be too many stops from Contemp to MK. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.solarius.com/assets/pdfs/wdwmap.pdf[/url]”>http://www.solarius.com/assets/pdfs/wdwmap.pdf</a></p>
<p>How many nights will you be on WDW property?</p>
<p>Let me add my voice to those encouraging you to stay on-site. There are so many conveniences that save you time and money. For example, you can have packages sent from the parks directly to your room, saving having to tote them around. (You need to put serious thought into minimizing the amount of stuff you carry.) </p>
<p>I also suggest you buy one of the latest edition books to read up on best strategies for maximizing your time, which means minimizing waiting in line. Have fun.</p>
<p>Which park is more or less crowded depends on a number of factors: seasons, time of year, whether anything special (like Food & Wine at Epcot or Star Wars Weekend at Hollywood Studios) is going on, etc. There are a number of “crowd calendar” predictors around; the free one that I like is [Free</a> Disney World Crowd Calendars, Ride Reviews, Resort Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, and More](<a href=“http://www.easywdw.com%5DFree”>http://www.easywdw.com). There are also a couple of paid ones that people swear by - TouringPlans is one.</p>
<p>Here’s a discount hint I learned on one of the Disney boards. Go to the Disney travel website, sign up for an account and request trip planning info. Also go to the reservations website, sign in with your account and plan a trip. Do not purchase the trip but “hold” it in your account for a week or two. Coincidentally (magically!) Disney will often send you a postcard with a discount code.</p>
<p>Also, when you call for rate information and reservations some reps are more helpful than others. It often pays to call back until you get a rep that enjoys looking for the best deal.</p>