We finally gave in to our daughters and wound up booking a 4 night/5 day stay for March 2020. The plan is to drive, arriving in Orlando on the evening of March 14th. We would stay somewhere outside Disney that night departing early the next morning to check in at Pop Century and head to the parks. Check out of Pop on the 19th, spending one last day at the parks before heading to an offsite hotel for the night and starting the drive home the next morning.
Looking for recommendations for good hotels that are cheaper than Disney.
Details: Party of six, two adults and four teenage girls.
Ideally, on the 14th we would like something really close to WDW. Also, since we are hoping for an early start it would probably be better to have two bathrooms. We could do two rooms or a suite.
On the 19th we would not need to be as close to WDW. In fact, being closer to the east end of Orlando would probably be better. We would also be okay with only one bathroom that night.
Any suggestions? I would really appreciate the help! 
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There are LOTS of options but depends on what you’re looking for:
- What price range?
- What star-level?
- I assume you don’t need FPP 60+ day window since you are already staying on site but there are several non-Disney hotels that offer it
- Do you need bus service to the parks for either day?
- Do you care about pool or other amenities?
Good luck finding something wonderful!
We don’t need anything fancy. Value level quality is fine. Just want a place to sleep before driving over to Pop.
I would go on Priceline, Kayak, or Hotels.com and enter your dates and desired location, star-level, etc. and find the best deal. Or, name your price at Priceline - this might be a really good opportunity to try that since you’re not looking for anything in particular.
For example, I just entered a 3-star for March 14, 2020 on Hotels.com and the Wyndham Garden Lake (Disney Springs area) was available for $101 per room / night. You could find even better deals on the east side of town for the 19th.
The cheapest I saw for a 3-star close to WDW was the Baymont by Wyndham Celebration, which is not far from the All Star resorts, for $63/night. It has decent user ratings.
For a little more money, I’d recommend the Bonnet Creek area. It’s close to the Pop Century resort and has some nice branded hotels. The Hilton Bonnet Creek has pretty good reviews, for example. Closer to $128/night + tax.
I was just reading on Mousesavers (another good place for deals) that $69/night is about the low point for a decent hotel. Below that, you start getting dirty rooms, inconvenient locations, etc.
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Thanks for the suggestions @Jeff_AZ
Wondering if anyone has a place they have stayed at that they would recommend?
I’ve stayed at the Wyndham and the Holiday Inn on Hotel Plaza Blvd. They’re decent hotels. The biggest perk to me is that they’re walking distance to DS. It’s especially nice since they built the pedestrian bridges. On longer stays (conferences) I would walk to DS and take the bus to WDW.
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Why not add more nights at POP? Usually travel agents can get the price around $100/night. But you’d have to book 2 rooms.
I’ve always been really tempted to stay at the Rodeway that one of the liners always suggests. CHEAP but clean and very basic.
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The prices at Pop are currently more than double that amount ($100) per night. There hopefully will be some discounts available before we go, but I don’t think it will be anywhere near as low as we could get offsite.
Plus, we have the dining plan and wouldn’t want to add more days to it.
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ahh ok that makes sense about the dining plan, and i totally forgot about the prices increases for Pop - rumor is this is due to gondolas…