January 2025 Disney stay options

Walt Disney World Accommodations
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Our family is planning a Disney trip for January 2025…probably looking somewhere around the 18th through the 26th.

There are some dynamics that will make planning this a little trickier than normal. Three of our children (married) are going, as well as our youngest son. (Our DS21 is likely not going…TBD.)

Anyhow, our oldest DS and his wife and son want to stay at CBR. However, our second DS and his wife are more likely only able to afford a value, such as All-Stars Music. BUT, it isn’t 100% certain they will be able to go on this trip yet. There are pending circumstances at play.

Our DD and her husband want to come down during the same time period, but want to do UOR instead, likely staying at Surfside Inn.

This leaves us in a quandary. If our second DS stays at ASM, we’d likely choose to try a Family Suite. But if they end up NOT coming, it seems silly for us to be a ASM when our other DS is at CBR.

We could stay at CBR for CHEAPER than ASM by not staying in a family suite (since CBR doesn’t have any)…giving us the advantage of being close to our grandchild…err, I mean…DS…but it is clearly a smaller room for the length of time we’ll be on this trip. We would also have to figure out a “family meeting place” during off times to hang out together, since the rooms wouldn’t accommodate this very well. CBR technically has Skyliner access…although, it is very possibly that some or all of that particular time of year the Skyliner will be undergoing annual refurbishment, so we can’t necessarily count on that.

We also toyed with the idea of staying at UOR where our DD is staying. This would necessitate renting a car, and having to face the traffic to WDW each day, but actually likely ends up being the cheapest of the options, since a family suite at Surfside is significantly cheaper.

We don’t have points available to us on our DVC contracts to utilize for this particular trip, so we have to book with Disney directly. Hopefully with some AP discount available.

Anyhow…all of this is to say…can you all provide input on pros and cons of each of these options? What would you choose? We have thinking of booking two options, and then cancelling one of them once we know for sure whether our second DS and DDIL can make it.

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This is what I would do, to give me time to think things over and to settle some of the uncertainty.

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I completely agree. If you can swing the room deposit for both resorts, I would do that so you have options. Those ASM suites can sell out quickly, so I think it’s better to have what you want than to come up with a Plan C.

Obviously, I don’t know your financial situation, but I would also consider if you can “supplement” the room rate for your DS who would be staying at the all-stars to move him to Pop? It would make finding a meeting place much easier.

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Yeah. My wife and I were just talking about that as a possibility.

The big unknown in this is whether the Skyliner will even be running. If it isn’t, there really is no point in doing Pop versus All Stars Music.

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Book them all! :rofl: :rofl:

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That isn’t entirely off the table! :slight_smile:

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So, we decided to book both the Family Suite at ASM, and a Standard Room at CBR. Unfortunately, between the time I was pricing out options earlier in the day and when I decided to book, standard room availability at CBR was gone for our dates. So I booked a Standard with 5th sleeper. It is about $30 more per night, but still works. I noticed that a Standard room is still available from Jan. 20 through 26, but not for Jan. 18 or 19. I could split stay it I suppose, but not worth the hassle… I guess I will keep stalking in case those dates free up.

In the meantime, we are covered for either eventuality of whether or second DS and DSIL can make it or not.

We asked our DS14, and he was not keen on staying at Pop Century again. We did that in 2020, and he prefers not to do that again, so that helped us eliminate that as an option.

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That’s what I was going to suggest as I read your post.
Book a ASM family suite and the CBR room and then cancel one of them.

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I would pool all the $ for whoever is planning on staying and rent points and get a 3br at Animal Kingdom Kidani (the lowest point total for 3br) and I bet it’s less than what everyone is paying combined

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Interesting idea! My biggest problem is that we won’t know for some time if my second DS and DDIL will actually be able to come, again due to some pending circumstances. So, I wouldn’t want to rent something, because we couldn’t then back out of it.

If not for that circumstance, though…I would definitely consider looking into that! (In fact, I will look into just for the sake of posterity!)

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Nope. Actually, it is WAY WAY more to stay in the 3-bedroom at Kidani. Well over $10,000. Probably around twice what we will all end up paying by staying separately. Thanks for the idea, though!

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I understand the love for a 3-bed (grand villa)….

BUT there are several points worth considering.

  1. What @ryan1 already discovered, the cost is prohibitive even when renting

  2. The likelihood of finding someone renting out enough points is very low

  3. The best value one is OKW

  4. You get more actual beds with 2x 2-bed villas AND this is cheaper than a 3-bed.

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Agree in general…But the times we have done the 3Br, its been an awesome experience to have everyone together and there really i a ton of room

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We would just rent off property. In fact, that’s our plan for January 2026. January 2025 is a different beast for a few reasons. We talked about doing off property, but decided against this time around.

We can rent a house big enough for everyone, including having a private pool, for about the cost of ONE of us staying at CBR.

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