Staying off property?

Wrap around 60+ dining I’d say is the other big one. If you want to eat at a hard to get ADR you may need that. You could always use reservation finder.

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Not sure I understand the camp site example

We had always done Disney staying off property with our five kids. It saves so much money, and allows us to do more days than staying on property. Only in the last couple years have we stayed on property. Obviously convenient, but we like renting a house with a private pool, etc. We enjoy the relaxing family time at the house.

Advantages of staying on property are there, but not enough to make a huge difference. I would definitely trade the cost of staying on property for more days at the parks.

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If you have enough adults in your trip to spread out the cost of the lowest price campsite at Disney’s campground, you are essentially Disney guests even tho you are actually staying off property.

I’m pretty sure that lowest price is about $100/night.

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Since @Sophia818 did a great job answering, I will not repeat information. But I am happy to expand on the campsite.

For our trips in 2016 (10 people) and 2019 (7 people), the cost of renting a campsite we never set foot on PLUS the cost of the rental property, still was much lower than the cost to stay on-property for a group our size.

For example, when I went last (NOT today’s numbers) I got a 4 bedroom, three full bath house with private pool for $100 a night, and the campsite, with taxes, was $80. Meanwhile, even the All-Star rooms were at $138 a night when I was booking. And that wouldn’t have been as comfortable.

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Here is an older thread with links that could still be helpful.

Staying offsite/house rental? - Walt Disney World / Accommodations - TouringPlans Discussion Forums

Also - I just sent this to a friend IRL who was asking me about it.

*My biggest caution in renting houses now is be careful of the location being too “far” away. The house we rented in 2014 and 2016 was around the corner from the house we rented last month and it took 2-3x as long to get up to the Disney area because of massive so much sprawl and construction. What used to be gigantic barren spaces now has looming hotels, townhouse complexes, strip malls and schools. We were horrified. Going forward, if our family were to vacation in FL again I would be more willing to spend a little more each night ($50-75) than ever get in those traffic nightmares again. Leaving Universal one evening we plugged our house into GPS and it was 1H and 1M away.

Also - while it is still significantly cheaper than hotel spaces (and much more comfortable). But I had to pay a good deal more this year than I did in 2019. Inflation is everywhere.

The more modern and flashy a house is the more it costs; something that last got new furniture in 2015 will be cheaper than something that was built last year. Etc.

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To answer your question about worth, I think some other points need to be considered.

Since you’ve been to the World already, you have an idea of what rides/attractions are necessary.

You may also realize there’s no repeating the last trip. Your trip focus is key to the success of your next trip. November is an awesome time to go, as you’re generally not sweltering. You will be in June.

If your focus is rides, decide which are must do. Which are unnecessary.

The only real reason I could see your wanting to stay on property is if your two oldest would be allowed/comfortable touring a park on their own and using Disney transport on their own.

Otherwise, with good thinking and planning ahead of time, and good use of touring plans and wait times on MDE, you can have a successful trip staying off property. With solid decisions regarding what your must do attractions are.

I do think you’ll have to address more logistics going in June - that heat and humidity. Depending on your school calendar, even Thanksgiving week might be an option. On our December trips we’ve always left by the 20th.

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We have 11 people plus a toddler. Do we need to order our tickets WITH the camp site reservation or can we do it separately?

We want to do 7 day passes, but I only see 4-5 day options for the camp ground

They can be each done separately.
I got my tickets through undercover tourist.

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But, you have 5 adults and essentially 3 paying entities? With 8 days, do you want an extra $250 - $300 added cost?

With 10 names in the campsite you can now get in 30 minutes early to a park. The 2 year old doesn’t need to be on the list. I think the 2 yo doesn’t need a ticket.

Unless Disney changes things you now don’t pay for park parking. You can park in the Fort Wilderness lot and ride Disney transport.

If you were planning to drive to the parks anyway, I’m unsure how a campsite/being a Disney guest helps you. If your goal is to ride as many rides as you can, arriving at a park prior to opening and using what you know about touring plans is your best bet.

Edited: your campsite needs to be separate. Essentially “room only”.

Edited again: yeah, I was thinking you had 11 with the toddler. Everyone really needs to be the same - not some being Disney guests and some not.

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Alternatively - you can just wait for ROTR. We waited despite having access to ILL$. There comes a point where I can’t keep throwing money at WDW.

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amen

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We stayed west of WDW in 2017 - what looked on the map like a 15 to 20 minute drive.

There wasn’t an easy exit out of the subdivision our vrbo was in. Traffic lights are long. Horribly long. A lot of people are trying to get places. I did find a back way that helped some. We were more than 30 minutes drive.

Our second off site was in 2019, at a resort an actual 15 min drive from Fort Wilderness. Much better. The only reason I did the campsite thing in 2019 was that the birthday kid wanted to ride Disney buses. And we could could split the cost 6 ways. We still wound up with nearly half our group being non Disney and thus ineligible for early entry.

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For our family of Star Wars fans, ROTR is a bucket list item, however we just can’t wait potentially 2+ hours in standby with a significant risk of it going down and our efforts wasted. It would exhaust us physically and mentally. We didn’t go on it last 2 trips for this reason. Solution for next trip is to get a dummy All Star Movies room for 1 night to qualify for the onsite $ILL. This may sound expensive but it’s a lot cheaper than staying onsite the entire trip.

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I’m all for finding the combination that works the best. We had two partial days at HS and flew through our day one goals (yay Merlock!). I think we waited 75 mins. I’d have to look at my TR. We had only a few waits our whole trip…

I did pay for a second time through GOTG. And it’s probably good they have a limit because I’m sure I would have paid for another ride. :exploding_head::laughing:

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The dummy campsite is cheaper yet

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When is your next trip?

Last week of June 2022, we were at WDW. The kid and friend rope dropped every park. At MK they were held til 8:30.

At HS they arrived at tapstyles at 7:45. Guests were already in the park. And in the Lands. The kids got to RotR at 7:57 and got in line.
They were off Rise, on to Millennium Falcon and off it by 8:45.

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Between Xmas and New Years. DW and DD are not early risers, and if I tried to force them to be at the park too early it’d be like a scene out of The Walking Dead. :woman_zombie:

Thanks. I did consider the FW dummy campsite, but staying at a hotel gives us a place to take a nap in the late afternoon/early evening before going back to the park. Also, I came across a discussion on another site where several FW guests asked that people not book dummy campsites, b/c it made it hard for them to book camping stays there. I feel FW is unique among WDW resorts and one of the remaining pieces of Walt’s original vision, so I will leave it to the campers. :slight_smile:

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This is definitely a thing to be considerate about in winter.

Summer - not so much. There’s probably no availability tho few actually occupied sites.

I’ve camped in Death Valley in summer. We had no neighbors. :wink:

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You can also save a tish by doing them separately. TP has a ticket finder that calculates the cheapest 3rd party tickets. Since their list includes only reliable sellers you don’t have to worry. It also seems that to make any changes to a package you have to call an agent (and wait on hold for forever). But some ticket and hotel changes can be made online.

With a tent site, everyone on the reservation can park in the parks for free. You don’t have to go to the campsite, although you can if you want to. Do you still have questions about the logistics of booking a throwaway campsite? I don’t want to push it if you aren’t interested.

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