I'd ask in the HTF but this place gets moar traffic

Gueses my dad wants to go in January so January we will go.  Looks like the least expensive hotels on site will be Port Orleans(which would be my choice) Coronado Springs and the Carribean Resorts.

In your experience, good idea to rent a car down there or just take the busses and call a shuttle service from MCO?  (I haven't been since I was, 10).

Thanks.

You can't rent someone with a disability pass anymore.




Well, you still can its just a pain in the ass now.

Not planning on it.  We're not scumbags.

The Disney Transportation system will get you anywhere that you want to go in the parks. I personally like having my own transportation.

Are you planning on staying on the property the whole time or are you going to the Kennedy Space Center or Universal Studios, ot other attractions as well? Last time we were down there we rented a car, but saw a lot of stuff outside of the the park.

We're going down there before the end of the year, but not renting a car. Staying on property, Mickey Mouse is picking us up at the airport and handling luggage. Didn't see the point of renting.

disney will pick you up at MCO

all three resorts are comparable the only difference is theme.

unless you have other plans I wouldn't rent a car. getting stuck on i4 sucks balls.

+people in fla are some of the worst drivers in the country

 

If you go in the off season (much cheaper!), the most convenient hotels are the ones on the MK monorail loop. Getting off the monorail inside the lobby of the Contemporary is a wonderful thing in a downpour.

Also, if you get a car and park it at the TTC OR if that is the hub for your resort's bus, you don't need to wait in the "general" monorail line that goes for blocks when the parks close. Go into the Resorts Only one, get out at the Polynesian, it's right next to the TTC. You'll get there faster.

Be sure to bring a Smartcarry for space mountain.

Port Orleans is a mid level resort.  I have stayed at Riverside.  If you do not plan on leaving the park the transportation system, while sometimes not reliable, will get you around nicely.  There will be times it is very crowded and there arrivals are inconsistent.  Definitely not a reason to not utilize it though.

If you do need to rent a car we did so through the Swan resort which is accessible through the WDW transportation system.  

As Aimless mentioned there is a boat service which you can use to access Downtown Disney, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and I think on or two other places

It will be cold in January.  There was ice in the drainage culverts when I was there in January one year.  

Think about the meal plan.  It will save you money if you plan on eating in the parks.  Plus you are able to get some very nice dining that would have been very costly otherwise.  

I have been there about 7 times in the past 8 years.  IM with any questions you may have.  I always stayed on the property for convenience purposes.

Enjoy!

I disagree. Georgia and Illinois share that distinction.

People in FL are not the worst drivers in the world.  It's the lost tourists filling our roads causing all the problems.

RENT A CAR!!!  If you leave Disney property, taxis are very expensive here.

If strictly doing Disney and staying on site skip the expense of a car.  If you want to go check out other stuff or are staying off site you will probably need a car.  We stayed off site at a place with a shuttle, but found it easier to take our car.  We had to pay for parking, but it got us in and out of the parks when we wanted.  Take advantage of early entry or after hours.  If you have park hopper passes go to the early entry park for the first part of the day and then go to another park later as it will tend to be less crowded.  We did not have park hoppers and from our experience would not have used them.

Depending on how much time you have I would plan at least 2 days for Epcot, 1-2 days for Disney Studios, 1-2 for Animal Kingdom, and a day for the Magic Kingdom.  Fantasmic at Disney Studios is a good show, Fireworks are probably best at the Magic Kingdom, and the Epcot show is pretty cool.  Take rain gear and a bottle for water.  With the family we try to do things on the cheap and take a water bottle for each person, drink mix packets, and snacks.  Generally we have lunch in the park, breakfast at the hotel, and dinner off site.

Can you go to other resorts to do stuff? IE mini golf at the swan, etc?

Take the mini speedboats out of any of the resorts on the MK lake. They're fun.

(Just don't buzz the ferry. Not that I ever did that.)

If you plan on going to other places in Central FL. then rent a car. If your plan is just to stay on Disney property then you can get by with staying at one of their hotels and using the shuttle buses etc to get around.

Overall my recommendation is rent a car and do other things besides Disney. Got to KSC, the beach, etc. A lot more to Orlando and Central FL than just Disney. Spread your money around to other places than just the mouse. We need it as a whole.  

... tagged



My GF and I, and her two daughters, are visiting Disneyland next month

Thats in California.

We are Disney-O-Philes and go several times a year, usually five or more.

If you are staying on property and have no plans to travel anywhere else, a car is not necessary. The shuttle from MCO will reflect the usual Disney quality and attitude. The hotels you mentioned are all fine, same level, just different themes. January is an excellent time to visit, crowds are low and the weather is usually beautiful.

However, if you can swing it, stay on the Magic Kingdom monorail loop. Life is exponentially easier.

If you have questions, PM me.

Just stayed in Coronado Springs the 1st week of October.
Wifey set it all up so I'm not sure of the $$$.
Big resort, 2 nice sized pools. One has a waterslide, small arcade, food joint next to it.
Several restaurants on premises.Fantastic mexican (Maya Grill) on site.

Parks are massive, rent a stroller if you have kids.
Mine were assed out 2 hours into each one.
You can rent these for multiple days for a discount.

Buses, shuttles, trams are easy to navigate once you figure it out.

Blizzard beach waterpark, highlight of the trip!
120' slide that has a speedo at the bottom, I made it to 48MPH.

Cheers

The family and I will be at D-Land from the 16th to the 21st.

Oh, yes, OP, if you've not been since you were 10, if you go to EPCOT, I would recommend entering on the World Showcase side and only going to that.

Future World is not. The hopeful Reagan-in-office America-has-a-bright-future stuff I remember as a little kid is all gone. Horizons is gone. Living Seas has no science anymore and is just a Finding Nemo cartoon-themed thing. Imagination has no imagination whatsoever, and in fact insults designers like myself by suggesting that I have no imagination until they gave me some...in a pathetic way that's a sad shadow of the old dark ride through art and writing and the rest. Even the entrance plaza lost its Worlds Fair-like music and crystalline fountain and is now a depressing graveyard of grey, dark, angular "memorial" stones people bought.

We just got back from Disney World 3 weeks ago.  We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside.  As everyone else has said, you don't need a car to get anywhere in Disney's domain.  Between the buses and monorail, you can get anywhere.  We only had one problem using the buses. Our last day there, we had breakfast scheduled at the Polynesian (with Lilo & Stitch)  at 7 am.  The buses start running at 6:30 am, BUT the concierge neglected to tell us that the first bus only picks up at the hotel's main entrance, not the other 3 bus stops at Riverside!  So, we just had to get a cab to get us to the Polynesian on time.

One really nice thing about Disney's "Magical Express" is, we checked our luggage in Dallas and it arrived at our hotel room about an hour after we did; we didn't have to do anything with our luggage at MCO.  When we checked out, we used the curb-side baggage check at the hotel and then our bags magically appeared at the baggage claim back in Dallas.  Now, if they had lost our luggage somewhere along the line, it probably wouldn't have been as nice!

If you are just staying at WDW, then no car needed.












 

Deej - Go check out the forums for WDW at Disboards.

My SIL belongs to the vacation club, or whatever the Disney timeshare is called.  They go every year, stay on property, and never rent a car.  The Disney transportation is efficient and effective.



For me personally, I never go anywhere WITHOUT renting a car.  I never want to be reliant on public transportation in case of an emergency, etc.

Get a car and make sure you go to Gatorland.

OP check Disney's site they are offering up to 35% off of rooms. depending on level of resort i believe its 25% for Port Orleans and Coronado. they also have a Play stay and dine discount for early 2014.

Oh, yes, one other time-saver for OP. Unless they've changed policy, you can pick up the park passports from your local Disney store, rather than wait in any line there.

They are using a new system called Magic Bands where everything from room key, to dining, and charging privileges are on a wrist band that is mailed a month before you arrive at the parks.

heads up the marathon is 8-12 of Jan.......will be hectic

also florida drivers are terrible if I forgot to mention

Go to disboards.com it's the arfcom of disney.
 

I just read some specs on that. Active RFID bracelets on every guest. Wow. No more going into unauthorized areas ever, plus absolute tracking metrics on every movement of every guest throughout the whole property. How long they spend in stores, which stores they go into, which rides they go on, average time spent in a restaurant, when they're in their room...

Marketingwise, brilliant. But a little creepy.

if your staying at a disney resort and doing mostly disney stuff just use their shuttle they go to all the parks and downtown disney you also dont have to pay to park when you ride the bus. The endless refill cups are the best deal the meal plans can be ok depending on how long your staying and many people.

Yeah... Seeing how the Magic Bands wouldn't scan if you held it 1/4 in from the reader, I don't think they are going to be scanning the entire park clandestinely to see everything about everyone.

At restaurants, you didn't scan in/out, your server just brought an iPod (really!) with a RFID reader to your table to scan your Magic Band, and it didn't work half the time.  At most of the "Table Service" restaurants, we had to use our cards because the Magic Bands wouldn't read correctly.  All the places that had a fixed reader, rides, "Quick Service" restaurants, stores, etc... seemed to work fine.  ETA: The only reason we had to use our Magic Bands when dining was we were on one of Disney's Meal Plans (which was free when we were there!)

The only time you had to scan your band at a ride was if you had a Fast Pass.  It was linked to your Magic Band.  You would scan it once at the entrance to the ride and again as you got close to where the Fast Pass line merges with the proles.  When we went, we only "needed" to use our Fast Pass on one ride, Toy Story Midway Mania at Disney's Hollywood Studios.  There was a 65 minute wait when we arrived!  Every other ride said 5-20 minutes, but for the most part, we just walked on with maybe a 2-3 minute wait.  Going during the off season is nice.

My wife is a master Disney planner and she knows all the ins and outs of planning a Disney vacation.  We've been 3 times with our kids and once by ourselves.  How many people in your party?  If 4 or under you can stay at any of the resorts.  If 5 or more, you're limited to certain resorts.  I don't think you can stay at any of the value resorts other than the Art of Animation across from Pop Century.  We have 5 in our party and we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside.  When my parents went with us, we stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter and got two rooms.  When it was just the two of us, we stayed at Pop Century.  

If you are staying on property, Disney will pick up up at MCO.  Just take Disney's Magical Express and they'll take you right to your resort.  Once you arrive, there's no reason you need to get a rental car unless you want to leave Disney property.  There is a reason they pick you up and have transportation on property, however.  If you don't leave, any money you spend stays at Disney.  

Disney transportation is pretty good but sometimes it can take awhile to get a bus back to your resort.  This is especially true if you stay at a park until it closes, more specifically if it's a park with Extra Magic Hours (EMH).  We've used Disney transportation every time we've been but once and we like it.  The last time, however, we drove to Florida and although we stayed on property, we drove to the parks most of the time.  Usually it was because we were running late and it was faster to drive than wait on transportation.  The only exception to that is if we went to Magic Kingdom (MK).  If you drive to MK, you have to park at the Transportation and Ticket Center and catch either the monorail or the boat across the lake.  If you take Disney transportation from your resort, they'll drop you off near the front gates.  For the other parks, we found it's faster to drive.  

There are numerous websites you can explore to get lots of good info and tricks in planning a Disney vacation.  Go to disboards.com, allears.com and others for really good info from people who to all the time.  The big thing right now is the Magic Bands.  If you stay on property, you'll get Magic Bands that will allow you to sign up for FastPass online and reserve up to 3 FastPasses for certain attractions at each park.  If you don't sign up for FastPasses ahead of time, you might have trouble getting to ride the popular attractions like Soarin', Space Mountain, Test Track, Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, etc.  Plus, staying on property allows you to sign up for dining reservations earlier if you want to eat at table service rather than counter service restaurants.

Good luck and have fun!  

Good advice . No need for a rental car unless you plan on going outside of Disney. All those hotels are very nice there.
I didn't know they had a Disney in Somalia

They're active RFID with a battery, probably for rolling codes. And they'd be insane to NOT periodically poll all devices via hidden doorway arches or other transmitters that can get a "count" of the number of guests in a room to determine shop popularity versus purchases, traffic flow and the like. They will. System is likely having bugs worked out, but in a few years, their metrics people will be able to "follow" a visitor throughout their day, duration spent where and for how long, where they ran into a bottleneck, what they ate and whether they returned or went somewhere else, just like I can follow an individual visitor's steps through a website with Google Analytics.

You're staying at a "moderate" level resort.  When we go, we stay at the "value" level resort...Pop Century to be exact.  Save between $75-85 per night at the "value" level resort.

I agree with all of this!

Just dad and I.

Hell, come out to the Place that started it all.  SoCal in January is still rather pleasant weather wise.

If you're going to be just on disney property and don't want to go anywhere else, you will be fine with disney transportation.  And driving on disney property sucks. I've done it a lot and it always gets old quick.  In January, unless you're there near New Years it wont be very busy.  But it will be a bit chilly.  It could even be downright cold depending on how lucky you are, but this is coming from a Floridian YMMV.  Have fun and don't forget to bring $$$$$$$$$$! Disney is outrageous nowadays.

Thanks for making me homesick. (Grew up within sight of Disneyland and Knotts)

Been there before. Dad really wants to do WDW.  Someday I will come back to SoCal...the wx is great in December.

Got around just fine without a car down there.  The bus system is awesome.  

We stayed in the budget hotels and they were great.  The Coronado is a beach-style resort and probably wouldn't be great in the winter.  

If you go to the Magic Kingdom on days when it closes early, you can ride rides all day long without a wait.

Deej, we did Disney a few years ago. I really don't know what you would need a car for, everything is right there.  I almost think fooling with a car at Disney would be a much bigger hassle than it would ever be worth.