Great Family Hotels near WDW Florida on a Budget

The Holiday Inn Family Suites Resort (new in July 1999) had a really well laid out floor plan (separate room for kids and separate bedroom for adults plus living room) and nice hotel amenities (shuffleboard, ping pong, family karaoke each night in lounge). Zero depth pool was nice and 2 jacuzzis are under construction next to that pool now. Jacuzzis are already available at the other pool in the building next door. The kids liked this hotel VERY MUCH. Nintendo, CD player and TV all in their own room.

Quick Tips:

The price we paid was per night including tax (check out www.hoteldiscounts.com ) This room price includes full buffet breakfast for family. The breakfast is okay quality...but of course it doesn't begin to rank with the Embassy Suites Breakfast. It works for the price, however.

Best Way To Get Around:

We rented a car from National and used entertainment coupon to get price even lower..paid incl taxes for 10 days for full size. Free Disney shuttle is available at this hotel however for those only doing the WDW thing.

I highly recommend this resort for families. I would definitely not stay if I didn't have kids though because everything there is focused on the kids. The floor plan was great for a family of 4 or 6. I did talk to folks who crammed 8 in the rooms (I would say not a good idea) The places are not THAT BIG once 8 people are trying to share it. But 4 to 6 is optimal. The private bedroom for us parents was nice with our own TV. A 2nd TV in kids bedroom and a 3rd TV in little living room area. There were ducks to feed on site that our 12 year old daughter liked doing. And as mentioned earlier, there's the big pool with this cool snack shack next to it for snacks and smoothies. There's 2 ping pong tables and 2 shuffleboard courts that our 11 yr old son loved. It's a way of interacting with other kids. Other Orlando hotels should add these features (ping pong and shuffleboard) where they cater to family vacation crowd.

We got room for $125 incl taxes per night. I spoke to a woman that got here for $109 incl taxes through either yahoo travel or excite travel on internet. It's a real bargain when you factor the free breakfast in. And it's relatively cheap to eat at their pizza hut and A & W fast food places (kids eat free with one adult buying a combo meal). I was really delighted with this place and did a lot of research beforehand. There were lots of extra touches in the room (lighted makeup mirror, reading lamps built in for bunk beds, and the cd and Nintendo was a riot for the kids. They wanted to stay in room a lot. My friend at work went to the SunSpree and wasn't that impressed but she did the 2 family in one room thing (4 adults and 4 kids). That would ruin it for me! Anyway..it was a thumbs up for all four of us at this new resort!

This a a beautiful Vegas Style resort. It has a grand entrance in the lobby area with a huge staircase going down and a spectacular pool with waterslide. The suites have 2 tv''s, both with Disney channel. The buffet is convenient for breakfast, although it''s not the quality of the Embassy Suites breakfast. There are quite a few business people here. But overall, the staff is very friendly and the hotel is nice. The deli has good food at reasonable prices).

We were recommended to Landry's by our concierge desk at our hotel. In fact we got free drink coupons for the place. What a wonderful surprise it was. We thoroughly enjoyed the food, the service and the atmosphere! It's nice like a red lobster but has a play place in front for kids to play while you're waiting for a table. We went on a Friday night at about 7 and only waited 15 min with no reservation. They specialize in seafood and steaks. They have a great children's menu. They serve delicious garlic bread with all meals. Meals come with salad or soup and baked potato or rice. My seafood was great. My husband's steak was really good. Our kids loved their popcorn shrimp and spaghetti/meatball dishes. The atmosphere is really interesting and fun. The cost was reasonable. Put it on your must do list while in Orlando area. You won't regret it. It's our best dining experience for our 7 nights in Orlando!

Well, it's like this. Aerosmith band (holographic figures)in their studio jamming tell you they're late for a concert and need to rush across town to get there. They call us a stretch limo - a real fast car they say. Wait, it's here it's out in the alley now. Screech! The doors open and you go out into the loading area! The ride resembles a number of bat mobiles with wings on the back. It's 2 to a seat and of course you have the harness on you that fits nice and snug. This would be your clue for the loop to loops that are in the ride (only a couple). But oh my gosh, this ride thrills you over and over. We went on it 4 times. If you do nothing else at Disney MGM, do this!

Spiderman was really cool. The hologram thing was the best I've seen. Of course you always feel that he's talking to you and not the others you're with. The falling down and almost crashing feeling in the New York skyline was pretty realistic but fun. We rode on this one 3 times.

My husband and I decided to trim $130 off the $360 cost of the 2 day Universal/Islands of Adventure pass for 4 and we attended the dreaded time share presentation at the Orange Lake Resort. It was offered at our hotel (HI family suites) as an option. We had the time to spare since we were doing 6 nights in Orlando. It was worth it but yes it's kind of annoying to think of 20 ways to say no in a 90 minute period. Their final offer was $12k for a 2br condo for 1 week. After returning home, I phoned the Century 21 timeshare specialist in Florida and learned there was a 2 br listed for $5700. That would have been some nice commission had we bit the big one during our 90 minute opportunity.! Oh well.. We did get the $130 off and it was worth it!

Our family visited Kennedy Space Center on Saturday afternoon. My husband and I really enjoyed it. I was very surprised by how super classy it is. You go in motor coaches to 3 different areas on the site and the buses have these cool monitors with little video presentations while you're traveling. Also, KSC is a wildlife refuge and we actually saw 2 alligators while touring around. Our kids were so excited. I guess it's really common. We also saw a large turtle / tortoise crossing the road. Anyway, it's so neat to see how HUGE this rockets were. It's a very well done visitor center. It even has a nice lunch counter and snacks at every stop. I was very impressed. We had to cut our time short due to rushing to our hotel but my husband I decided we'll definitely go back.