DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

Starting to plan the family holiday for 2007 (yea I know early but need to make a start)

Any advice

Looking for a villa type holiday with flights and car etc

best time to go, place etc etc ??

Dave.

darlodge

I'll get the girlfriend on here later tonight as she is planning our wedding in 2008 in Florida, we've been to Florida a few times.

Darren

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

i love the east coast, but i have been to Tampa as well.

Vero Beach is my favorite place, go every year

June to September is the hurricane season. i went last Sept and had to hide from two

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

yea had heard that - plus I do not like it too hot so its either may or october at the moment

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

Florida is nice all year round. the hurricanes are bad ones as well, the year before last the sister motel of the place i stay was flatterened, its exciting though

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

it was at first.............the waves are mahoosive, but then its time to go

Spoon

March is an excellent time to go from experience. There is so much more than flippin Disney too in Florida.

Get a vehicle, I had a Chevy Dayvan, great fun. Stayed in a hotel originally in International drive to do Disney and the surrounding areas.

Then hired a villa further down in (Place name escapes me temporarily), this allowed us to do Tampa, St Petersburg, Clearwater, etc without driving all the time.

Oh and the villa was 5 minutes from Hooters which helped.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

i have stayed near Disney and its horrible, no beaches there. Hernando Bay is a nice place to go as well. watch the crocs

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

and the one thing the daughter wants to do is swim with dolphins !

now I know there are good places for this and some that are not - does anybody know which are the ethical ones ?

Dave.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

did the dolphins last year but not in Florida. i think they are all pretty much the same as the health of the animals comes first. my daughter if 5 and she loved it...i did too

teajunkie

I dont think youre planning too far ahead!

We booked our holiday for april 2007 in feb this year Without a doubt the cheapest place to book is TRAVEL CITY DIRECT. http://www.travelcitydirect.com

But you will get a better deal if you speak to them direct rather than online booking.

we are getting married over there in april after we saw florida last year we decided it was amazing!

Last year we went with virgin (2x adults 3x kids)
This year were going with tcd and have saved more than £2000 on the price of our holiday.

We have a family car our own villa with swimming pool, dolphin swim booked for missus and eldest daughter, disney tickets x5 for 1 week, universal tickets x5 for 1 week, and our wedding for £4400 they are by far the cheapest.

You will find the earlier you book the cheaper it is!
We contacted the wedding organisers ourselves http://www.crownline.co.uk

We chose the cypress grove venu as this was the reccomended setting.
(wanted a beach wedding but journey was an hour and half each way)
They supply cake, photographer, champagne, flowers and all you have to do is turn up. (with the rings oh and your missus)

If you want to go shopping there are some great malls about and retail warehouses!

Beware! If you have kids and they dont like apple sauce dont buy food in usa, almost everything is served with apple sauce!
Chips = apple sauce!

Mcdonalds Is so much nicer but avoid the kfc there you wont get chips you'll get mashed potato!

Some great places to eat but we loved ponderosa and sizzlers, they both do great all you can eat buffets (no im not fat 11stone 5ft9) for a few dollars.

Sorry i've been waffling on but florida is great!

EP82

Me and the g/f are going to florida with some friends, staying in a villa. I guess we need to start looking to book now.

Daryl

More detail needed, budget, where you want to go, what you like etc.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

i had a villa about 5 years ago near Tampa. i booked mine from the local paper, was about £300 for a week, had a lovely pool and a mahoosive fridge and beattifully furnished.if the owners are British then you can be sure that the villa will have everything we have here and the properties are a lot bigger than at home

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

thanks for the info --- their site is a good idea

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

budget - not unlimited but it will be a major holiday so around £5k if needs be

want to do the normal family thinks so all the parks etc etc

a bit wooly I know but we are trying to work out what to do

so something like a 7 day disney pass and a 5 orlando park with discovery cove might go down a treat

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

when i went to disney world last year it was so hot. i found there was no shade, just a concrete jungle. all the american kids were in buggys cos they were too fat to walk and everyone looked miserable. i stayed in Orlando for 2 days and that was too long. Bush gardens was better though

teajunkie

I found a site a few weeks ago with different maps and information on for your holiday.

http://www.floridakiss.com/tools/maps/index.php
http://www.orlando-maps.info/top_down_maps/default.htm

examples of houses.
http://www.halishouse.com/

Tickets can be bought seperately from here http://www.floridatix.co.uk/
but personaly i like to keep it bundled with my holiday company so if i get a problem i can sort it out in florida whilst im there.

If you go into epcot check out the prices for the english stuff!
I saw a marsbar for $4.00
Tetley tea was $10.00
Marmite $8.00

We stopped at a subway and bought a sandwich so when they asked me what sauce i wanted i said "brown sauce"
The lady looked at me as if i was joking americans have never heard of brown sauce it seems.
Then the sandwich shop turned into a 4hr conversation about what was brown sauce!

So if you want brown sauce take your own (i dont advise taking food into usa they get very funny about it in customs)

There are shops in florida called PUBLIX which my missus thought was "Pubics"

Publix are great they are like mini asda's but then theres walmart
I love walmart.

Good thing to do is go into walmart and buy a pair of walkie talkies $3.00 (bargain)
And give one to your other half you will get seperated!

And those of you that have already been You must agree learn the words "FAST PASS" great idea these when you enter parks go to the rides and basicaly pre book your go.
You will be given a ticket with a time to return to the ride where you bypass all queues and get straight on.

I could go on & on about florida.......

sorry guys and gals.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

dont

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

no no no please do

and do not apologise --- all useful info - just what I need

So THANK YOU

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

couldnt help it, sorry

teajunkie

One piece of advice for you is tomtom!

Even though we have already been we have just bought the usa map for our tomtom one! http://www.tomtom.com/plus/services/mds.php

You WILL get lost easily trying to find a few places but we found most mall's by getting lost!

If you have a tomtom you can buy the south east maps for usa for £40 and a 1gb sd card from http://directfoto.co.uk for £13.00

You can hire one from the rental company with your car £30 a week (i think)

Beware the red lights. In usa they can turn right on red lights.
And the huuuuuuuge trucks are'nt restricted to 55mph over there so it gets scary when you're doing 60mph down the freeway and a truck overtakes you at 80-85mph (scary as ****)

One good thing is NOOOO roundabouts, the american cars cant corner that hard anyway!

My advise to anyone wanting to go to florida is phone around and get a price for everything, Then phone travelcitydirect and they WILL beat it!

If like us you live miles away from gatwick or your airport book a hotel for the night before your flight and get secured parking for the 2 weeks.

And on your return home take lots of breaks jet lag really kicks in when you get back and start driving.

And on the subject of jet lag.....

When you arrive like us you might find that you wake up at 4am thinking it's 8am (so will the kids) for about three four days.

Places to avoid:
Hard rock cafe in downtown disney, we waited three hours to get in with three kids then when we did get in there was nowhere to sit but the bar, and the menu was crap kids wouldnt eat any of it, so we ditched it and went to mcdonalds where the drinks are free help yourself re-fills.

Tgi fridays on the 192.
We went for a meal i ordered steak and guess what turned up????

Yep A steak nowt else just a steak!

Mall of the millenia:
Georgeous inside everything was marble the floor the walls the hand rails even the plant pots!
Full of gucci, prada, tiffanys etc.

We went into tiffanys looked at a necklace for the missus and there werent any prices so we asked the salesman "how much is that?"
You know when it's expensive when they describe that the details are hand crafted from 1'000'000'000'000 carott (lol) gold.
Then came " $35,000 dollars sir " and a beutifull piece it is and a wise choice sir!
"would you like to try it on?"
Would i **** we ran like mad before they charged us for breathing the air!

Anyway thats enough for the minute.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

GaryCat

all what teajunkie says except Hard Rock cafe was fine for us... or was it planet hollywood?

Ponderosa - cheap but great steak restaurants.

Don't bother with the electronics shops on the I-192 - the net is cheaper.

This is a great place to stay - http://www.bahama-bay.co.uk/ It's about 7 miles from the parks but very easy access with your rental car. Superb apartments and most people I know who have booked there have been upgraded from a 2-bed to a 3-bed apartment.

teajunkie

yes sorry did mean planet hollywood

Daryl

The best time to go is April/May or October /November as it's a bit cooler with less rain. Personally, I would book everything independently on the internet, it tends to be cheaper than going with one company and you can tailor the holiday more to your tastes.

If you are going during school holidays, the flights and hotels will be more expensive, so make sure you factor that in. I would rather fly with Virgin or BA than one of the charter airlines - I have heard some horror stories about TCD. You also fly into Orlando International (MCO), rather than Sanford, which is much closer to the hotels/attractions and is a much better airport.

There are so many hotels of all different classes that I can't really recommend one, you'll have to decide how much you're willing to pay and take it from there - a lot of people stay on International Drive, but I find it very tacky. The 5 star Rosen Shingle Creek has just opened and is doing some good deals at the moment, so might be worth a look.

If you'd prefer a villa, then the areas I would recommend are Formosa Gardens, Indian Creek and Windsor Palms. They are all just south of Disney and about as close as you can get, whilst being conveniently placed for Universal (30 minutes) and Sea World (20 minutes). Some other new developments are miles away.

For a hire car I would recommend using usrentacar and choosing Alamo (you get to select the car in your chosen class, unlike the others who allocate you one), it works out a lot cheaper than getting one as part of a flydrive.

I wouldn't recommend any restaurants to you, as only you know what your family like. Suffice to say there are thousands of choices to suit all tastes and budgets.

Finally, I thought Discovery Cove was great, even though it's a bit expensive.

All of the above is assuming you are only going to Orlando and don't want to spend some time at a beach resort on either the East or West Coast. If you want to know more, try asking at The Dibb or The Dis

teajunkie

You might be right with the horror stories of tcd but i know a lot of people that use them and never have a problem.

But it's the same with any airline you get horror stories about virgin BA and so many others, it just depends on preference and how much you want to save on your holiday costs!

Im not trying to promote any airlines just giving advise on how to save money.
At the end of the day you choose who you want to fly with etc.

Like i said I personaly chose to keep everything with the holiday company, so i could go direct to the rep's if i had any problems rather than chasing down different companys.

Nothing else to add for now but Hope you have a nice time and thoroughly enjoy it. We did last year and we wont go anywhere else now!

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

hmm taking all the advice in thanks - all opinions welcomed

TCD charge more for some elements like the car and villa, but I can get first class travel for way cheaper than I can find elsewhere approx £650 pp for 3 people. Virgin and BA are at least double that ??

I am not worried about whether I have to plan and arrange myself or go with a full package - I agree if its a full package then you are only shouting at one person

hmm -- what to do - but the main thing is I have realised if I want to go may 07 I will have to sort it soon !!!

Dave.