Trip planning for next summer and i have a question…
Beach Club using Daves DVC rental OR Hilton Orlando Buena Vista Palace?
Hilton has EMH and 60 day Fast Pass booking… Is staying in the bubble worth it?
In the bubble.
Always in the bubble.
(now to read your post)
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Yep, for me it would always be in the bubble. Especially at the Beach Club. 
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I think @OBNurseNH has made her position a little fuzzy. Maybe she should clarify it better!
We stay off site. But we stay off site not because it is better, but because it is way cheaper for us. But if you are looking at a case where pricing is SIMILAR, then I’d choose being in the bubble for sure. It is easier to make the price points similar with a smaller family.
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I just finished staying “out of the bubble” for the first time in June. We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria. The price was equivalent to staying at a moderate. We were were excited to stay there! It’s a lovely looking hotel. We thought we were getting a real deal!! Then came the Hidden fees!!!
Resort fee - $40 a day
Parking - $35 a day
Internet - $14.95 a day
Not to mention the extra Lyft and Taxi fees getting too and from the parks. No Disney busses from the outside hotels. Just a shuttle that would have killed hours of time for us waiting.
With those daily fees we could have stayed on property and saved money… I’ll never stay at the Waldorf again.
Make sure you check out the hidden fees before you make your choice.
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Definitely IN the bubble, and 110% definitely in the bubble for Beach Club if you have kiddos (or even not) because that pool is amazing. And it is so easy to pop over to Epcot and HS. We always try to stay at one of the deluxes in that area for at least part of our trip.
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I have stayed at BC a couple of times and it is wonderful…
The COST of the bubble is getting out of hand… In my opinion…
The Hilton has a nice pools and will save $1200 compared to BC and $600 compared to POP…
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In the Bubble because it is “in the bubble”. 
I only stayed outside once and it just didn’t feel as special.
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Just looked at the Hilton site, and it is a nice looking pool! Don’t forget to factor in the resort fee + parking fee (if you have a car) (and don’t forget tax, both are taxable, looks like together they add $60 per night) for your calculations.
Oh, and cost of car rental if you would opt for MDE + disney transpo instead of getting a car for BC/Pop.
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oooh good point.
Wyndham Bonnet Creek where there are NO hidden resort fees or parking fees. You do need to rent a car as their bus system is expensive and not that great.
Condo with private balcony, fabulous pools and amenities, a washer and dryer and full kitchen…can’t be beat and it’s on property.
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so, I have been pricing out trips every which way- on site, off site, DVC rental, etc. I just cannot for the life of me make it any cheaper off site. By the time I factor in either a rental or a lyft from the airport, plus park transportation, parking fees, hotel taxes etc, a package stay at Pop is always either the same price or only slightly more- and the benefits of not hauling my own luggage or having to drive make it an easy choice for me to stay in the bubble. But I don’t think it’s necessary for a great vacation- my first trip was offsite at a terrible days inn and I still to this day remember it as magical and wonderful. But for me, now, at this stage of my life, traveling with either one or two other folks, Pop is my go-to.
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That’s a big thing right there. Staying off site becomes less advantageous if you have to rent a vehicle. We drive, so that is not an additional cost for us.
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One other thing - I only stayed off site for an actual DW trip once, but two other times I have stayed in the Hilton and another Disney Springs area hotel for work conferences and I wanted to add that the other “non-'bubble” aspect of being off site is the hoards of business people in some of these hotels. I remember feeling bad for the families I saw walking around the hotel trying to get by us all and thinking how un-magical it must have felt for them. I’ve stayed at the Dolphin 3 times and although it can also have a lot of conference/business people, it wasn’t as bad as the Disney Springs area - you felt more like being in the bubble.
We stay off-site, almost every time we go. We rent a big house with a private pool, 4-5 bedrooms, laundry facilities and a game room on-site. Yes, some of the fees add up, but where do you stay that does not have a certain amount of fees, including hotel tax rates etc? Plus, the ability to spread out and enjoy some personal space in a private house is a huge value for us. The biggest issue for our family is that not everyone in our family wants to spend every waking moment inside WDW while we are on vacation. We do like to spend a lot of our time there, but we also hit the beach for a day, and occasionally go to another park or resort and generally check out the local area while we are in town.
All this being said, the position of the OP sounds like they are going exclusively for WDW. So, that being said, in the minimum staying in the general area like they mentioned would be sufficient for our family. It gets hard for us to justify the rates to stay at BC when you compare it to other nearby hotels with similar amenities, even though we have done that and loved it.
@thrasher543 I priced it out exactly as you did, and in the end I booked our trip for Pop. I can’t figure out a way to make this vacation cost any less by staying off-site if I’ll still need to rent a car.
Check Swan / Dolphin.
Also, Costco if you are members.
Swan / Dolphin FTW for our family. Easy Peasy.
Figure the pros /Cons, and prices / conveniences for each.
Why are you thinking about staying offsite vs a DVC rental? What do you value? What do you need?
I would think you would come out ahead with the DVC rental compared to a Hilton because of all the Disney perks (180 days ADR for your entire stay, 60 days FPP for your entire stay, regular bus services, Disney Dining Plan … package delivery from any park to your resort, and Disney bubble), square footage, and a kitchenette. The cost of the rental and Hilton are probably very close. I looked!
Having said that, we are staying offsite for our 10-night December trip at the Hilton at Bonnet Creek. It will be our second trip to WDW and we will be staying completely on points. 2 of the 4 of us will get free breakfast everyday. Even then, we will still have to pay $490 in resort fee, and here and there, we will need to pay for Uber. There is no way we would pay $2,500+ for housing when we have the points option with 60-day FPP. The hotel has a bus service. When it doesn’t work for us, we can take Uber. We were not planning on hanging out in our resort much, buying the dining plan, cook, or have ADRs everyday. So staying at a Hilton works for us.
If you want the point option but are not Hilton Honors member, consider applying for a Hilton Honors credit card and membership. The credit card comes with sign on points bonus. It also gives you gold status, which among other perks gives you a free night for every 4 nights you stay on points. That is why we are staying 10 nights vs 7 nights. Before this year, if we stayed completely on points, we did not have to pay a resort fee either.
I think it totally depends on your families vacation style. We went in January and stayed offsite i cant remember the name, but it was before Disney closed the loophole on the throwaway rooms fp availability. We chose offsite because it was a week long vacation and we flew, with laundry facilities we were able to use only carryons. We also went to the grocery store and bought food for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as snacks. We packed our lunch almost everyday and ate dinner in the room almost every night. I think we only bought 2 or 3 park meals the entire week.
We are planning a quick trip next June and chose to stay at CBR for fp and the skyline. We haven’t decided if we are flying or driving so staying onsite gives us more flexibility.
What I’m discovering is that if your family fits in a room for 4 and you don’t care about extra amenities, staying on site is practically a no-brainer.
Where it becomes trickier is if you have 6+ in your party, are planning to travel offsite and need additional transportation (i.e. rental car), prefer to have a kitchen or in-room laundry, etc. A full suite or two rooms is MUCH cheaper off site. You get more amenities for your dollar outside the bubble. Plus, there are some non-Disney hotels which offer 60-day FPP, etc.
Case in point - Pop is a value resort but for the same price you can often snag a 4+ star off-site hotel. But if all you need is a place to sleep, it will do the job, and you’re getting all the benefits of the bubble.
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