WDW Moderate Resort Bus Service Question

Holy cow. When did airfare get so damn expensive?!

Exactly why I started to look at moderates. Multiple four flights from crappy Pittsburgh to Orlando by four (not counting grandparents). This goes above 1000 pretty quickly with add on charges.

I was looking at taking my wife to the Bay Islands of Hondurus for a week in January (We stopped there on a cruise last year for a day). I quit looking pretty quickly after seeing that the flights were well over a 1000 dollars a piece. Christ, a villa over the bay in coral reef was less than a 1000 for the week.I just have a hard time spending 2/3 of the total price and budget on the transportation. This may just be me though on that.

I am actually looking at relocating to Phoenix for a possible promtion with my company. I have been going in and out of Arizona for the past four to five years. I am taking my wife there in mid December for house hunting. USAIR direct flights are ridiculous at best in my opinion. They have the crappiest service I ever experienced with the most outrageous prices. For what it is worth, I take AirTran when possible. However this always results in an Atlanta stop which I really do not mind as long as I am not going in the opposite direction totally (i.e. Chicago, Pacific NorthWest, New York or Boston).

Sorry for the long non-topic rant. We just hit an area that is sour with me...

I usually take AirTran from Akron to MCO, but even those flights are $360 each right now. Continental's always been a favorite of mine, but even out of CLE, flights are $3-400 each. I could drive to Orlando for less than that right now.

That's why I love having Southwest at Indianapolis (2-hour drive, but its two and a half hours to Columbus, and 4+ to ORD, Fort Wayne isn't too great). Especially since the Final Four is in Indy, I have tickets, and oh...looks like I'll be needing to get from Orlando to Indy. :)

I've flown American a few times, and they've never been too bad. AA flies out of CLE, or at least one of their small couriers, right? Continental has always struck me as Southwest with a $200+ premium for not much difference. I've pretty much split the flying that I've done between SW and AA, and I haven't really noticed much of a difference. American tends to be a little more expensive, but they also have been slightly larger planes in my experience. Both pretty equal, though.

Bill2 said:
Are the prices on the "allears.net" FAQ's pages pretty accurate for those of you that use that site? This is what I have been using for budgeting purposes.

Why not just dick around on the WDW site? Start booking different rooms and see what they cost.

Ahhh Southwest.. A bus with wings... But never fails me.

Yeah Josh.. All the airfares seem to be a tad bit crazy right now.. But if its a last minute booking that where they zing you anyways.. Its just typically not as bad as its been lately.. On top of almost airline (why I love SW) charges you for every bag, it becomes cheaper to drive it seems. Course its 13h drive for me and I would certainly go nuts with whomever is riding with me by that point..

And yes Bill allears.net updates itself frequently. Its a good site for quick accurate page views, but if you want detailed info for addon packages, its probably best to surf the WDW booking site. There you can build comparison packages. Though I find it a midge slow due to heavy code on the page, so I only use it when Im ready to pull the trigger.. General info I can get quicker page views elsewhere.

Lord Gonchar said:

Why not just dick around on the WDW site?

Nice.. 2 words that go well in the same sentence..

If I want to fly SWA, I've got four, yes FOUR options within three hours. First, and closests, is Manchester-Boston Reigonal (MHT). A full third of their gats are for SWA alone. Plus, they fly non-stops like crazy to Orlando, Vegas, and yes, Pheonix.

The next closest is Logon International in Boston, which is about 1.5 hours away. Then TF Geen in Providence, RI, and Brady in Hartford.

I wish I could say I was even looking at a last minute flight, but I was planning a mid-March trip, and it's still almost $400 a person.

The drive for me is insanely long, so I've never attempted it. I do drive a Civic, that gets around 40 MPG under the right conditions - probably closer to 30 is we had it bogged down with luggage, so it's still way less than $800 round trip.

Problem is, I hate driving.

Lord Gonchar said:

Bill2 said:
Are the prices on the "allears.net" FAQ's pages pretty accurate for those of you that use that site? This is what I have been using for budgeting purposes.

Why not just dick around on the WDW site? Start booking different rooms and see what they cost.

Sometimes logic escapes me. :) . I think I also avoided the main Disney site because years back it seemed to be more expensive than the Expedia, Travelocity and such packages. I got a killer deal for my Wilderness Lodge stay on Travelocity that would have cost about 600 more direct with Disney. It does not appear those same deals exist on there now though since i have searched those. Going to search Disney tonight... Thanks for the obvious heads up that I missed. :)

Happens to the best of us. :)

I'm thinking about going on to DIS and renting someone's villa points.

If you're going to do this, don't bother with a studio. Get the 1BR. Whirlpool tub, full kitchen, in-unit washer/dryer. An entirely better way to vacation.

We've stayed only at Old Key West so far, but done so three times. Every stay was great. We had a stay planned for Beach Club Villas this February, but had to back out. To make up for it, we've got a week booked at the Villas at Wilderness Lodge next July. Hard to go wrong with any location.

Truth be told, we're a little sad not to be returning to OKW, but VWL should be a lot of fun.

Edited: airfare to MCO from the upper midwest is almost always pricey during the get-out-of-winter months of February and March. But, you can catch sales if you get lucky or are on the ball. I snagged $159 RT fares for Maureen and the kids for their cruise on the Disney Wonder in February the day Southwest extended into the winter months. It's got a stop, but no plane change, so not too bad.

Keep an eye on farecast---the when-to-buy advice seems pretty good.

We usually go every March, and the past 2 years, I haven't spent more than $170 on a round trip flight. I'm hoping once it gets closer, rates will drop.

TBH, we most likely won't need more than a studio - we don't need a kitchen because we do dining, and I love eating at the restaurants, but the whirlpool tub and in room laundry do make for a good case.

Ive been happy with Studios.. We typically arent there long enough to take advantage of W/D and whirlpool tub is nice, but even that we never really used. Plus I dont like to eat up my points in 1 trip.

A 1 bedroom is double a studio in points (for boardwalk in my example) which in essence halves the number of potential return trips on my points.

1 Trip with a whirlpool tub isnt worth sacrificing 2 trips to WDW IMHO..

Well, sir, I do believe I agree with you 100%.

If the detroit metro airport is within your driving range, I suggest you check out spirit airlines. On average, you can fly round trip form $120-$170 per person to orlando. Not bad at all. They also have flights to tampa that are even cheaper than orlando. If you are planning on getting a rent a car anyway, tampa would be the cheapest route to florida thrue spirit air.

http://www.spiritair.com/Default.aspx

They also have a $9 fare club that saves you a buch of money as well. It's $30 a year, and it saves you $$$ on each flight you take(some flights you can get for pennies). It's well wort joining. I travel with them quite a bit.

It's even cheaper if you fly on a tue or wen.

A 1 bedroom is double a studio in points

I suppose that's true. I generally get in through a timeshare exchange, so for me the costs are identical. I've just become so used to condos, here and elsewhere, that "just a hotel room" doesn't feel like a vacation to me. Especially when traveling with my kids, I can share a single room with them for one night, maybe two, before it's just not fun anymore. I guess if it were just one or two adults, a studio would be okay.

To put it another way: if it's the four of us, I'd rather stay offiste in a 2BR condo than onsite in a DVC studio for the same money. And, it's usually a tad cheaper to stay offsite in the 2BR, even accounting for the necessary rental car, parking, etc. Wyndham Bonnet Creek is my current favorite "offsite" place. I put offsite in quotes because it's technically not on RCID property, but it feels like it is---it's right next door to CBR, it's landlocked by RCID property and I-4, and it is a shorter commute to most of the parks than OKW or SSR. And, depending on where you stay, you can have a room that overlooks most of Epcot, with the castle in the distance. We had such a room this past July, and it was great.

http://www.yesterland.com/bonnet.html

Since we are on the subject of Disney resorts. I figured I would post this here instead of a new thread.

I have been doing some research on the current resort themes and found some resorts that never happened. I knew about the second phase of POP, but never heard of these.

I provided links to the ones I could find. There are some post card art for a few and a map to were exactly they were they were planned on the "wdwhistory" page. I guess we can take the wiki information for what it is though

Disney Asian Resort:
http://www.wdwhistory.com/index.php?title=Disney%27s%20Asian%20Resort

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Asian_Resort

Disney Persian Resort:
http://www.wdwhistory.com/wiki/index.php?title=Disney%27s_Persian_Resort

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Persian_Resort

Disney Venetian Resort:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Venetian_Resort

Disney Mediterranean Resort:
http://www.wdwhistory.com/index.php?title=Disney%27s%20Mediterranean%20Resort

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Mediterranean_Resort

I thought these were pretty cool and figured I would share them. Sorry if this is already common knowledge, but this type of stuff fascinates me. I know, I need to get a life...

crazy horse said:
If the detroit metro airport is within your driving range, I suggest you check out spirit airlines.

I strongly suggest you not. Several Toledo relatives booked with them to get to my wedding in Ft. Myers. They cancelled the flight last minute, and just told everybody sorry about your luck, and we'll give you your money back eventually. They apparently don't have agreements with other airlines to get people there on alternate carriers.

Jeff said:

crazy horse said:
If the detroit metro airport is within your driving range, I suggest you check out spirit airlines.

I strongly suggest you not. Several Toledo relatives booked with them to get to my wedding in Ft. Myers. They cancelled the flight last minute, and just told everybody sorry about your luck, and we'll give you your money back eventually. They apparently don't have agreements with other airlines to get people there on alternate carriers.

That's weird.

I have used spirit many times, and never had any issues other than a flight being delayed for a short time.

I guess any airline has horror stories.