Advice and Suggestions re Booking for 7

[diamond57]

I am after some advice/suggestions as to best way to book for a summer holiday - probably middle of July. There will be two families, total four adults and three children (aged 6, 8 & 9). One family, two adults and the 8 year old have Dream APs. The other family do not have APs and are unsure if they would get the chance to go again. The three children would ideally share a room - if it was up to them - and definitely the older two would want to, but this may not be practical so a nice to have not essential. We are looking at going for four nights/five days and driving.

The choices that I can think of are:-
1) stay Holiday Inn or similar, on site, if the tickets give EMH (or would we have to look at Santa Fe?) - need to book two rooms, one with tickets and one without so separate bookings and only request near by.
2) stay at the Explorers in a room with the bunk room in between (if they can do some with tickets and others without, if includes EMH).
3) off site, either Citea at Marne La Vallee in a 3 bed house (we have stayed in a two bed before so hoping that the 3 bed is just as nice) or renting a house.
4) stay on site, depending on discounts with Dream AP and shareholders?

I know that they were doing under 7s got a free AP if bought with an adults is that still working? I know that some places are doing under 7s stay and play free in the summer, if we book a package so it may be cheaper to do a package than separate tickets and accommodation. Normally when we go we stay the cheapest we can (most recently Premiere Classe), so this will be a treat for us.

 

[A Small World]

You dont get EMH at Explorers or Holiday Inn - however all dream pass holders get EMH

 

[DLPdaft]

The Holiday Inn and Explorers, although they are Disney associated, aren't classed as onsite hotels, and so you don't get EMH with them.

You could however, book either of those hotels with Expedia or the hotel's own websites, without park tickets at all, and then check out how much that would be for room only and then buying park tickets/annual passes for the family who currently don't have park access. Unless you all have Dream Passes though, staying offsite means you don't have access to EMH.

Generally the cheapest onsite hotel is the Santa Fe, so you'd be looking at 2 rooms there. You could book online for the family without tickets, so they have the whole package - room and tickets (plus EMH) included. Then you could do a separate booking over the phone for room only at the Santa Fe for the AP holder family. Its not unheard of for room only, even with Dream AP discount, to be priced at more than a room/tickets package though, so you may be just as cheap booking with tickets.

I think you are going to get a very sore and muddled head crunching all those numbers - the very best of luck with it !

 

[nobby]

We just booked and the room only was more expensive than the package. If you buy the package they give you a 'discount' on the room only price. Work this one out, lol.

But anyway, as long as at least one person in the room takes the tickets, the discounted price applies, and they deduct the cost of the park tickets from the discounted price for those not taking the package.

You may need a smart booking adviser though to understand this!

 

[angel girl]

We just booked and the room only was more expensive than the package. If you buy the package they give you a 'discount' on the room only price. Work this one out, lol.

But anyway, as long as at least one person in the room takes the tickets, the discounted price applies, and they deduct the cost of the park tickets from the discounted price for those not taking the package.

You may need a smart booking adviser though to understand this!

I tried this though and the CM didn't have a clue what I meant!

 

[nobby]

Try asking them for this:

1) Price for room only
2) Price for package for all of your party
3) Price if one of your party (per room) takes the package and the rest use their APs.

Option 3) should be the price of option 2) less the price of the park tickets for those in your party that do not book the park tickets and use their APs instead.

This way you can see the best option.

Regards