Well just ended up going to Thomson's last night and booking a villa package. Ended up with direct flights from Glasgow on 26th June next year, a villa in Southern Dunes (I think), upgraded the car hire to an SUV option, extra legroom on the flights plus 14 days Disney & Universal tickets. Came in around £6500.
The villa was a bit more as it was a 4 bedroom one they had and the car extra as well. Tickets prices I'd checked and looks like they were on par with most places (around £2100 for 4 of us).
Flight times are also decent flying out at 1100 to arrive at 1445, then flying back overnight to get in early morning on 11th July.
Got the price and thought my first car was less than this data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Not told the kids yet, we'll probably do it next week ....
Wife was there for two weeks in June and flew direct with Virgin. Sister, mother, two neices and a friend - 6 women!!
I could have gone too - but I declined data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 Six females data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I'm going in November with BA via Gatwick. We've been every year for some years - flights out of Glasgow never come down in price, especially when you are booking for 4-8 people. With only one or two direct flights per week they mostly sell at full price as demand is always high. Waiting last minute is fine if you want to gamble on a couple of seats being available - no chance for 6 seats.
Southern airports have numerous charter and scheduled flights going out 7 days a week - savings can be had if you shop around and are flexible with your dates. It's little wonder families take the multi stop options when you see the savings you can make - that can pay for all the theme park tickets, car hire etc - a no brainer.
Enjoy your trip - plenty of time to get planning //static.avforums.com/styles/avf/smilies/clap.gif
Homer
We are going in August - we have to go in the school holidays so are fortunate enough to pay the huge premium on flights....
We used to go direct but the cost is too much so the last couple of years we have gone indirect via Philadelphia.Direct is better but we are saving around £1000 which we use to stay onsite at Universal or Disney.
Fantastic place for a holiday
Villas sound good in Orlando. I'd recommend that.
The KSC is absolutely brilliant and if you have kids interested in science, space and all that I'd recommend you not give it a miss.
Ive booked to go back to Orlando in January.2 weeks direct flight with Virgin staying at Universal Cabana bay for £1800 for both of us. Tickets on top of course but really happy with that
Coming to this thread a little late in the day, but for anyone going to the Orlando area and wanting to do something a little different on "down" days, and don't mind some driving (around 90 minutes from Orlando) I can thoroughly recommend a few different options:
Stand-up Paddleboarding on the Weeki Wachee River - Home Page
Some climbing/zip-line action: TreeHoppers Aerial Adventure Park
And if you fancy an airboat ride: Airboat Tours Central Florida, Airboat Rides, Swamp Tours
We have friends who live about an hour from Orlando and go regularly - we did all these last year and had a great time at each of them. All local family-run businesses, so you'll get away from the "corporate" stuff for a while. You could easily fit the SUP & Treehoppers into one day (but in that order - the climbing can really take it out of you).
Just a thought and few ideas. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Sorry to gatecrash this thread, but I've booked to go for next summer and some of the Car Hire quotes I'm getting are incredible. I paid £580 last summer through Alamo - for the same period of time they're asking for £1350....is it because I'm so early looking? Hertz is the cheapest I've found for a half-decent car and they want £850.
Have you tried skyscanner.net to check across a lot of companies?
Try and and I'll let you know if the cheap ones are any good.
What I tend to do is book something fully refundable now and keep monitoring - if it goes cheaper, cancel and rebook.
Exchange rate would have probably add about 15% to the price compared to last year as well.
Just had 3 vehicles from Sixt over there, two 8 seater Chevy Surburbans for 3 weeks & a Qashqai size Chevy 4x4. The 4x4 was something like £450 for 2 weeks. This was pre Brexit vote prices but worth a try
I just need a mid size car. Last year I paid for a Rav 4 but got a Journey upgrade. We're going for 5 weeks so really need it cheap as.