Im looking to go next spring. I have no money so where do I find the best deals? It will be me, my wife, 6 yr old and 4 year old by then. Looking to go to the magic kingdom and seaworld. Any help, tips, advice on how to get what I want without spending too much or paying for things I wont use.

Thanks for any advice.

Williemon,

My suggestion is that you stay at one of the All Star Resorts. That way, you are on property, they are not that expensive, you can take their shuttles to and from the parks. With the ages of your children, you will need that. You can go to the park for a few hours, come back to the hotel, go in the pool, eat dinner, relax, whatever, and then go back and watch the fireworks.

You can get prices between $59 - $99 / night in the off season for a room with 2 double beds. Summers are hot and humid here, and not my idea of going to a park and stand in line.

Check AAA if you are a member, disney.com, kayak.com.

Good Luck!

I'll also be there in the spring and the best money saving tip I can give is to let your parents pay for you flights, rent the villa and car for you.

I assume you're going to drive down? That's not an overly long drive.

Spend some time on Mousesavers.com and disboards.com. When we went a few years back got lots of ideas from these.

Micechat.com is another great info site for Disney.

My good friend is a travel agent that specializes in Disney World. If you want his contact info, I'd be happy to share it with you.

He knows how to do Disney cheap... (well, relatively speaking)

We stayed at the nick hotel http://www.nickhotel.com/, much cheaper than Disney for a suite. If it was up to the kids we would have spent more time at the hotel pool. We had a 5 day park hopper which let you in all the disney main parks and 2 days to the water park and the interactive disney in downtown disney. By the time we got thru that, the trip to Sea World was a waste of time. The kids got overloaded and worn out.

Thanks for the info.
yes, I will be driving there from where I live. Im looking at mousesavers now. Lots of really good info. I will look into all the listed links in the next few days. Thanks all for those links.

One thing Im trying to do is to not overload. Im thinking to focus on what the kids are into right now, and a few years down the road, do this trip again and focus on other things. So seeing Mickey, Minnie, peterpan, pirate and Cinderella stuff are a must right now. I will skip the water parks and animal kingdom and epcot for now. Those will be for a second trip on down the road. Im not so sure of Seaworld, but my wife and 5 year old talk about it a bit so I think we can work that in.

How long will you be there? A little more expensive but Park Hopper passes allow you to hit any of the parks on any day. Even though Animal Kingdom and Epcot aren't as "kid'ish" as Magic Kingdom there are certain attractions I'd highly recommend. For example, the fireworks/laser show at Epcot is great.

Since you will be "into" the characters this trip, do a character meal at places like Goofy's Kitchen.

The characters come right up to your table during your (usually buffet style) meal. One on one time with them and they will gladly sign your autograph books and take a pic with the kids.

Enjoy!

Hotbyte is correct the fireworks/laser show at Epcot is great. FYI, what we did the day we went to see the Epcot show and the night show at the magic kingdom was sneak back to the hotel for some down time from 4 to 6 then when back about 1.5 hours before the show. The kids will not be so tired after their nap and it gives dad and mom a nap too:)

A coworker with 2 younger kids did a character breakfast...wasn't nearly as expensive as the suppers.

One of my employers real estate holdings is the Dolphin and Swan resort. As an employee, I receive a fairly substantial discount. Both of these properties are located just of the Disney Boardwalk and within eyesight of Epcot. I highly recommend either hotel for both the convenience and amenities. Rates can be pricey but there are some deals to be had if you call and ask.

We just got back from a few days at Universal Studios Orlando. Stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel. Expensive but you get a few priviledges as a guest of the Universal property Hotels. One of which is being able to skip the regular line as often as you like on any of the attractions by showing your room key.

Also, you get some additional discounts and priority seating at the City Walk restaurants. There was over a 2 hour wait at Margaritaville and we were seated in 20 minutes.

We have done the Disney thing in the past but our kids are now in their teens and Universal was more attractive to them.

BTW - the Mummy ride at Universal is simply the coolest. We rode this back to back four times. My daughter wanted to go a fifth round but my stomach said no way!

Go to the Cirque show. It's great.

my sister got us all a great deal down there with LOTS of things to do and meeting the characters etc...totally cool!!!
she booked it through disney.com or something. I could get you her email if you want it. she would be more then willing to help. she is pretty frugal so money savings is big with her and they have been there a few times since we all went...

let me know and I will get you her email and ler her know that you need info...