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

same day cleaning service Arlington Heights ...

In The News:

Ahold Delhaize's cybersecurity incident knocked online ordering and digital coupons offline at Stop & Shop, Food Lion, Hannaford and Giant Food stores.

The Fox News AI Newsletter covers the latest artificial intelligence technology advancements, including the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Amazon's About You feature includes personality details from your shopping history, and some shoppers are finding hilariously awkward results.

Identity theft recovery starts with securing bank accounts, freezing credit and enabling two-factor authentication within the first 24 hours.

Apple's $299 HomeView smart display uses facial recognition to personalize screens for up to six household members and show live security camera feeds.

Domonique DuBose spotted red flags when a man on Hinge with 85,000 followers and a blue checkmark claimed to be a San Francisco 49ers player.

Your phone's location data can expose visits to doctors, pharmacies and places of worship. The FTC took action against data brokers selling this data.

Hackers targeted Danfoss refrigerator controls across French supermarkets, forcing chains like Carrefour and Monoprix to discard massive food stocks.

iOS 27 finally lets iPhone Shared Albums store photos and videos at full resolution in iCloud, but new items count toward the owner's storage.

A fake Facebook Marketplace text scam uses your real name as the seller to trick you into replying, and Malwarebytes warns even one response helps.

The Pentagon data breach exposed 2.76 million Social Security numbers and military records, raising long-term identity theft concerns for veterans.

Kodiak AI plans to haul IKEA freight on Texas highways with no one in the cab, raising urgent cybersecurity and safety questions for drivers.

Apple Intelligence in iOS 27 adds Extend and Reframe tools to Photos, letting iPhones generate new background areas beyond your original borders.

Microsoft's X account was hijacked to promote a crypto pump-and-dump scheme, exposing its more than 13 million followers to a scam campaign.

Scammers can combine your name, phone number and address with data breach details to attempt SIM swaps, phishing and even identity theft schemes.

ChatGPT Work, Meta Muse and Gemini Spark can monitor flight prices, sort your email inbox and track important deadlines, but savvy users start small.

iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel each hide a built-in tool that turns a video frame into a separate photo without any screenshot needed.

Operation KillSwitch dismantled KillSec's ransomware infrastructure, but investigators say a 16-year-old allegedly ran the entire cybercrime operation.

The Fox News Artificial Intelligence newsletter covers where voters will decide on AI data center ballot measures and Jeff Bezos' tech vision.

Apple's Impersonation Risk Detection in iOS 27 can flag suspicious activity inside apps, but the setting is off by default and must be enabled.

Federal Election Commission records can expose your name, address, employer and donation history once contributions exceed the $200 threshold.

Cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright says human skepticism remains the strongest defense against AI-driven phishing scams and voice cloning fraud schemes.

iPhone, Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy each handle security updates differently, and one screen saying "up to date" may not tell the whole story.

Deborah Del Mastro heard what sounded like her daughter's terrified voice on the phone, launching a five-hour virtual kidnapping scam ordeal.

Hotel TV privacy risks go beyond forgotten passwords when you sign into Netflix or other streaming apps on shared devices you don't control.

Orlando Vacation Homes - Comparing Homes to Hotels

Vacation Rental