new and confused

[swcw4]

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Hi new here although I have been reading the board for about a month.
We finally decided on our dates and I emailed some home owners. The only problem is they are all sooo nice and all reasonably priced how do I choose. You are all so helpful I don&#39;t think I can go wrong with any of your homes. So thankyou for all your info. April 2005 can&#39;t come soon enough.

[Ana]

Fab isn't it - I wish this site had existed when i started renting....

[Ruth]

I am glad this site is being so useful to you in your hunt for a villa for your vacation. I know it is hard, but you have to choose one villa to stay in! Make a short list of the ones you like best, then try and choose your first choice. April is peak season and it would be a shame to get to the one you like best only to find it is now booked, so I would not delay in making your choice;)

[Ray&Sarah]

Welcome to the forum, hope you have a wonderful holiday in Florida. You are certainly making a good decision by deciding to rent a villa. :)

[chrisj]

As above, we made a list of the 'Must haves' and nice to haves and matched this to
the Villa's. Trouble is most matched the list. Some werent avaialble for our dates and
in the end. We sat down one evening and made the choice we have

[bellaepovera]

The right decision I am sure will come to you. Look at each home and decide what will be best for you and your family. I am sure whichever home you pick will be the right one. All the homes on this site are very nice and maintained so should be no problem on that part.

[blott]

One great thing about the home owners advertising on this site (the ones with the link to their adverts under their name on this forum and also via an enquiry with any of the three sites at the top of each forum page) is that whichever one you choose, you'll know that they're verified regularly. That way you can be sure that the home is owned by the person advertising it.

Oh and ask us anything you want, answering questions about Florida is what we're all here for! [msnwink]

[pigletsplace2003]

My friend just booked with a Travel Agent for staying in a hotel on International drive for £7000 ( 3 weeks ) , yes thats right £7000, he said he prefered a hotel to a villa , Dont worry i told him he was Braindead !!![msnscared][msnscared]

[TonyBlenk]

Hi swcw4,

If you areuncertain, you could always ask the villa owner to provide you with additional pictures and testimonials from past guests.
Failing that, in the past I've considered..
a) how many master suites
b) the direction the pool & spa faces
c) closeness to Disney

Good luck in your search!
Tony.

[steph_goodrum]

As the others have said half the fun of the holiday planning when going it alone rather than through a travel agent is that YOU get to choose which villa is best suited to your family arrangements instead of them picking it for you. The travel agents often dont know the areas where the villas are located and at best are guessing what facilities may be available where. Dont be afraid to ask as many questions as you like to find the best for your well earned holiday.

[Mr G]

I've had my fill of so called "4 star hotels". My family rented a colleagues villa a few Years back and have never looked back.
Gone are the doubts of where you are staying, is it clean ?, what facilities are there? and will they be working!!.
As Blott says, all these Villas are verified, also the owners are all personnaly involved in their homes and quite rightly take pride in them. This enables guests to experience the Florida lifestyle without the worry about accomodation.
I believe this is why so many guests become owners,due to the standard of home they stay in and the fact they would like to have a similar standard of home for themselves(price rises permitting!)
We tried Spain again, in between our Florida Holidays, a nice 5 star Hotel, with childrens clubs etc, this was a holiday for our children as we believed they may be missing the large Hotels, clubs, community pools. Boy were we wrong, they hated it. communal pools,other unsupervised children running wild,Adults running wild !.We all agreed, back to a fantastic Villa. The children always manage to find some local friends, the homes are fantastic, and you can come and go as you please. We loved the lifestyle..... so we bought a home!.
*****
Pass the TRAVEL AGENTS best kept secret onto your friends, booking direct is better value,more personal,not difficult and makes the holiday truly individual.YOU pick location, home, facilities, car and what you want to do.
*****

[chris c]

We started having self catering holiday in Spain many years ago, because we had 4 young children and couldn't risk being in seperate rooms in an hotel. Certainly didn't fancy 6 of us all crammed into one room! The main problem was that it was not much of a holiday for me - the facilites were somewhat basic!

About 16 years ago we decided to visit Florida and have never looked back. The quality of the villas we have rented has always been first class. We could eat what we liked, when we liked. We could visit the parks or shops or just have a lazy day in the villa. In fact, when our youngest daughter was about 6, it was a real struggle to go out for the day as she was perfectly happy playing around in the pool.

For a large family, I would think that villa rental was a must - the laundry facilities, being able to keep ice creams and drinks in the fridge/freezer, the space to spread out.

[sandra777]

You wont go wrong renting a villa and all the ones on this site are regularly verified. You've done the right thing looking now for a villa in April next year. April is a busy month and many people leave it far too late then have problems finding what they hoped for. We stayed in hotels for all our vacations until we rented a villa in 1999, we loved it so much we decided to buy our own. Although we've stayed in some very comfortable 5* hotels I would always rent a villa for future vacations.