First Visit for 9 Years

Just arrived back after first visit for 9 years and now with kids ( 3 & 5 ). 2 Weeks of WOW.:)[8D]
WOW does not do it justice, new parks, still cheap, great weather. We flew with Virgin, had a 1.5 hour delay but other than that no problems or complaints. Hired from Dollar nice an easy as in the airport.

Immigration as happy:( as i remembered, security tighter than a noose, Son ( 3 ) screamed the palce down when Bunny ( his cuddly toy ) had to be xrayed but the staff where nice about it. First time ive had me shoes xrayed!!!!!

We had rented a villa via the internet and i am happy to say it was all we had been told. First class instructions on how to get to it and a home from home when we arrived. Pool was great, we had it heated and it was a nice 92F, BLISS.

Visited

Magic Kingdom, first day it was PACKED, other days was quieter. Pooh bear ride SHUT which was a shame for the kids. Firweworks where nice as was the parades. Fastpass is a great idea and works.

Animal Kingdom, Brill kids loved the animal safari, got wet on river rapids.

MGM, Great Movie tour closed but rest was superb, great to visit at weekend as StarWars characters there, Me and Darth Vader what a picture. Backlot tour closes from 10th for refurb, don't know how long for. Met Sully from Monsters Inc. youngest got shock of his life when he moved, oh the tears of laughter from us.

Typhoon Lagoon, kids had a whale of a time so we went twice, advised by lots of people there againt Blizzard Beach as kids are still young. Wave was fun.

Universal, great time, shame that Shrek opens on the 13th June but the rest was great, Jaws scared the whatsit out of the kids as they was Shark side, made us laugh though, as well as everyone else on the boat!!. Did not have time to do Island of Adventure but looked good.

Sea World, still my fave, Kraken was awesome, Journey to atlantis was closed first and due to open on 12th but was open when we went back on the 6th and we got soaked.
Shamu show out of this world, what a feeling of pride the trainers must have working with the animals.

Security was evident bag searched everywhere but they have it down to a fine art so does not hold you up much, actually compared to this country most things are!

We also did a Character Breakfast, Chef Mickey at the Contemporary was excellent had a 11:15 sitting and it was packed when we got there but at 12 o'clock there was just us and another family left, all the characters stood around with nothing to do so the kids got to spend 15 minutes on their own with Mickey, Minne, Pluto, Goof, Chip & Dale you just had to be there to see their faces having all these characters to themsleves, food was good as well. Well worth a visit.

Went to Pirate Show food was rubbish & service was wosre, first time i have refused to tip, maybe she had an off night. Show was OK but sound was a bit rough. Got dragged into the show as a bit part had to carry a sack, made the wife laugh.

Did some of meals in villa but also went out, tried Ponderosa and Golden Corral buffets, went back to Golden Corral as great value,Pondersa was not as good. Eat in some of the parks but was a bit pricey. Also did some picnics but Seaworld would not let us take food or cooler in, had a moan about that but they said it was for the animals health?.

Petrol!!!!! what can you say but rip off Britain.

Flight home nice n easy, kids slept all the way.

Have decided to look into a rental property ourselves as two weeks is not enough and kids want to go every year.

Great trip report - glad you had a good time. I have always been meaning to go to the Pirate Show but I guess I might give it a miss after your review.

Angela

Hi MRKW

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to file your trip report, so pleased that you had such fun. Don't leave it another 9 years next time though.

If you are interested in buying a villa, check out the advice on this site and if you have any questions are experts are always on hand to advise.

Sarah

I'm pleased that the villa you rented lived up to your expectations and will hopefully lead more people to booking direct with the owner.

MKRW

Sounds great, we go in 5 weeks and have hired from Dollar as well. Decided to get a seven
seater thingy so the kids can sit apart. We also plan to go back to Treasure Island, thats
where we spent our honeymoon all those years ago.

Kids want to do all the parks, but we have decided to do one day out, next day lazy. Well thats
the plan.

Chris

Bummer I gotta wait 6 months, good part of it is just imagining a whole month in sunny Florida a world apart from frigid Alaska!

Have decided that we can't wait[8D] another nine years so of we go in 2004, want to go 27th May - 10th June, have confirmed flights ( I hope ) and have made some general enquires but if anybody reads this and has a villa available for that period drop me a line as i have not confirmed a villa yet ( Fingers Crossed )

Counting the Days minutes & seconds.:D

Hi, we as villa owners are not allowed to answer your request through the forums.

Best bet would to decide which size of villa you require and then put out a request for that particular size. All homeowners who have availability will then reply to you.

Your problem will then be deciding which lovely OV home is best for you. :D:D

Good luck.

Sorry :( didn't mean to do something wrong, i have now sent a general query for all you villa owners out there, sorry if i have already enquired with some of you!!

It's getting nearer[8D]

Blimey, posted a request got 107 answeres, i am now trawling through them,i apologise[:I] in advance to all those i do not reply to but thank you all for taking the time to respond

Kevin & Lisa Wright

Well, you at least can't say you were ignored! ;) Happy picking.

"posted a request got 107 answeres" - a serious point is it would be helpful to have a more sophisticated request system. When I posted a request I had a similar level of responce and it took days to wade through them all. Some replies offered alternative dates to the ones I had requested, and some were for 3 beds when we wanted 4. If you only got replies from relevent properties you could open the site up to more members (property owners).

We've visited this subject many time Chris7 and the main upshot is that the overwhelming majority of enquirers LOVE the choice they get when enquiring through out sites - something they just do not get elsewhere.

It's a tricky one as we will never please all of the people all of the time and have to go with what the majority tell us :).

We do not want to take on any more properties as we feel we have got the levels about right.

There is a problem with some owners responding to enquiries that they really should not respond to (e.g. if they do not have the dates) - we have an Owners Reply To Enquiries Code Of Conduct which sets all this out for owners and is linked to extensively so there can be no excuse for not following it. Unfortunately, as with everything else in life, there are always going to be a minortity of owners who do not follow the rules for one reason or another.

When ive made an enquiry its been great, Yes I had a few that offered other dates, but
these were only 1 day out which at the planning stage is ok. Never had that many responses
though, that does seem high

My wife did a search this time and was (so she told me) quite specific about what she wanted
and got replies from villa owners that met the critea she had requested. See Women seem to
do things right according to her. I think to be honest she has moved our holiday dates by
one day, so we can have the villa she decided upon. So in this case it worked out great for
the Villa owner and Us

I agree with the above, you cant please everyone all the time and thats the same in normal
life as well. The other hard part is to actually pick one of the Villa's as all the owners
have taken a lot of time/effort and money to make them lovely.

I must say that of the 107 replies 10 did not have avialability, but it is nice to know that if i could change my dates they may have been able to help. I have finally managed to whittle it down to about 10 and i am now bombarding them with questions about the villa & location.

I must say how impressed i have been with the quality, time & effort the owners have put into trying to rent a villa.

Sorry i have to dissapoint all but one of you[V]

I agree that it is comforting to know that availability is good. When planning the holiday I was faced with the "chicken & egg" question - "do I book the flights or the villa first?" .

From the response I got, I knew I was safe to book the flights and be sure to get a reasonable villa (even if we couldn't get our first choice). I know I'm probably in a minority of one, but life is complicated enough without having to try and differentiate between 100 villas when probably most would be OK and there isn't much to choose between them.

I would say though that all the responces I had were very polite and friendly, and even those I sent a "no thanks" to were kind enough to wish us a good time anyway:D

We always book the flight first, the way I look at this is there are more Villa's than
flights and so once the flight is sorted you can then concentrate on the villa.

I agree the responses were great even when we have had to say no, being civil costs nothing

It does make sense to look at flights first but unless they are on a special offer prices do not differ too much within a season and within the same airline such as BA.Assuming some flexibility in dates and what your requirements are it can help to look at the Villas first as the Villa you really like may be a couple of days out on your dates which cant be changed if you have already booked the flight.
It really depends on whether you are after something special in which case choose your villa first and sort out flights later,most owners will hold your dates for a couple of days while you arrange them.Otherwise you can only choose from villas which have availability which may not have all that you wanted.Kevin,you probably got so many replies as you completed a general enquiry for three of four bedrooms rather than selecting which one,nothing wrong with that but could explain the torrent(no I wasnt one of the replies-5 bedrooms in mine)

Lesley

Lesley

"Kevin,you probably got so many replies as you completed a general enquiry for three of four bedrooms rather than selecting which one" - Ah but Lesley, I took great trouble to only contact owners who had villas with locations/specs I was interested in. Unfortunately the "referral" system means that any villa owner who didn't have availability put my details onto the board and it was "open season" from people who didn't have the benefit of knowing exactly what I was looking for.

I know there is no easy solution, but I think it's helpful for owners to see it from the other side of the fence too;)

I'd agree there Chris - your points have been taken.

Quote:

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quote:I know there is no easy solution, but I think it's helpful for owners to see it from the other side of the fence too;)

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There are problems with every system of course, but at least the prospective guests have a wide selection of wonderful villas to choose from on this site.

I would caution those looking at the popular dates because they get booked up very quickly. (For example I find Easter is fully booked at least 12 months in advance, and usually Christmas and most of the school summer holidays and October half terms as well.) As Lesley says we are usually happy to hold the dates for a couple of days while flights get booked and shift round if necessary, if our villa is the one wanted.

However I do not respond to general enquiries unless I can match the dates and specification, although if I match the specification and am out by a day or two I will then reply!

Fiona

Thats what the villa owner did with my wife, they were 1 day out and sent thier details to my wife, as
a result we changed our holiday by a day so we could rent the villa. In this case we have booked the
villa before the flights. We can be flexible with flights etc as we have friends in florida that we could
fly in earlier and stay with them for a day if we had to.

Hi Chris7
My comments about the general enquiry generating so many responses was aimed at mkrw and was not a critiscism,I received the general enquiry from him even though my home is 5 bedrooms and this isnt what he was after.In the comments box he had requested 3 or 4 bedrooms but owners of other sizes may have answered as well anyway, hence the amount of responses.Personally I have not replied to any that I could not meet the exact spec and exact dates but interesting that I may have missed a booking or two if I had suggested they change their dates.

Lesley

Hi Lesley,

I wasn't suggesting that it was a critiscism[:I], only that the referal system (IMHO) is a bit daft if the original lead has been generated through this site. If I've found my way here and made contact with some owners on this site, I don't see the sense in having some of them "refer me" on to others on this site. If I wanted to, I could contact those owners very easily for myself. [}:)]

Sure If you get leads from your own sites/advertising etc which you can't meet then offer to refer them (most owners do this too!)

Also, I think a better "filter" than number of bedrooms required would be number of guests. In my case there are 3 adults and 2 kids (both girls). We could very easily have taken a 3 bed, but opted to have a 4 bed for the extra comfort (and I would have considered a 5 bed if we couldn't find a suitable 4 bed).(we have a 7 seater car for the same reason)

I really feel that owners undersell their property (which I appreciate is easy to say when you don't own one;)) The villa cost of a 2 week holiday in Orlando is about 20% of the total cost. Sure I'll shop arround for the best ticket prices and forex rates, because I'm buying a comodity. A Disney ticket gets you in whether is cost £250 or £199, but why compromise to save £100 on the cost of the villa. (about 2%)?

Hi Chris7
I agree with you that owners should not post referrals on the forum that will already have been sent out to appropriate owners,actually I hadnt realised that any were duplicates and will check carefully before responding to those posted on the forum now I am aware.
It would appear though that there may be no perfect answer to where the general enquiries get sent though as even with a 5 bedroom all my bookings have been for four or five people so would prefer that size of property was not used as a criteria,in fact my latest query is for three people! I can only see using what the enquirer has stipulated as their requirements as being the only decider i.e. if they want Lindfields only then only forward to Lindfields owners etc but I guess the admin involved would be massive to keep selective lists of email addresses for each configuration.
I am concerned that I am following the rules of the reply instructions but possibly losing bookings whereas others dont follow them and make a gain,I also wonder if the amount of replies,many not appropriate, put potential bookers off making another enquiry when they return at a later date.
I would prefer not to take the "if you cant beat em join em" line but without enforcement of the rules (and feeling like a newbie sucker) I am questioning my methods.
Lesley

Lesley, there is no easy answer to this. I know John & Roger do not want to add to many boxes for guests requesting details to have to answer, but on one of the other sites we are with one of the questions is "Are you flexible with your dates" and they can enter either yes or no.
John/Roger would this be possible to add as it is very easy to reply to and would be of help to guests and villa owners alike?

I think Karen's idea of a "flexible with dates" box is a good one. Clearly anyone who has booked flights would have to say no and that would save both the renter and the owner's time.

Lesley said "all my bookings have been for four or five people so would prefer that size of property was not used as a criteria" that also agrees with the point I was making. There isn't much difference between a 3 bed and a 5 bed (in comparison to the total cost of the holiday). The idea of having 10 of my nearest and dearest in a 4 bed for 2 weeks is too scary for words;)

With regard to allowing renters to select specific communities, there is no reason this couldn't be done. When a renter searches for a villa, they can select (one at a time) the communities they are interested in. I did this and drew up my short list. Unfortunately the referral system meant that the "chosen" replies were swamped by the replies I received through the referal system (whose villas I didn't want because they were in the wrong place!)

So how do people whittle down that list? - the problem os that they will have more criteria than you can ever cover. For example I wouldn't have taken yours Lesley (this time) because we will have my mother with us and she would find a single storey home easier.

Oh my good i stirred up a hornets nest, at no point was i critising anyhting about the number of responses, quite the opposite. With regard to if an owner should or should not reply i think all who have avialability near to the dates requested should respond. Although we requested 3 or 4 beds this was down to assumed cost, in fact some 5 bed homes are the same as 4 bed. My initial queries were for a date that i then changed due to cost of flights as going after 24th may was cheaper!!!.

Thank you to all who replied, i think i have narrowed it down a bit more unless another villa turns up.

A the end og the day you cannot please all of the people all of the time but i think the current system serves the majority, hey i have used it twice now.

I don't think it was a hornets nest[:I] probably the best featre of this site is that the contributors are all very helpful and considerate. I'm sure they take constructive coments as an oportunity to improve their business/hobby.

In fact, now I think about it, this is the only BB (on any subject) where I haved never seen any "bitchy" comments (although we came close with the interloper from a certain travel company;)

Chris7,

I can't help but concur with your comments about the positive nature of these boards, and I think that this is reflected in the number of thanking comments, made by other posters to the positive responses received. I think most people on the boards, MRKW, take the attitude to get the topic dicussed openly and fairly, and to always respect other poster's opinions.

I have once posted a request for a villa using the OV site, and I was overwhelmed by the response, in saying that I only received about thirty responses. I guess part of the problem is reading a lot of responses that are similar and in our case our dates wouldn't have been flexible, so it was frustrating that we were having to wade through responses that couldn't meet our basic criteria.

Could there be a parallel search route designed to cater for both markets using the advanced search criteria. this could work along the following path: Andvanced Search -> Exact Criteria or Flexible Criteria -> Exact Criteria would then generate a very exact search; the flexible criteria could have the same questions with a radio box beside them asking for a selection of unflexible, mixed, flexible. All though this may take a wee bit of work to get quite right, it would at least give villa owners a better idea of what the renter's are looking for. I think that this may both improve the success rate of responses to searches v's bookings gained and guest's booking experience.

I hope you can kind of see what I am getting at.

What you sugest Euan shouldn't be too hard to do. The airlines already allow a +/- days either saide of your selected date, and as Lesley says if the only info the owners get is what is entered on that form, it would help them avoid wasting their time in chasing leads which could never come off.

Hi Euan ,Chris and mkrw
I like the idea of a + - box ,and maybe size of home flexible,yes no.I think that would be a great benefit,and should reduce the amount of replies guests receive that dont match their request.Presumably this would be fairly simple to add as it only needs to be a box that renters could fill in with the amount of days either side rather than being a full search engine like the BA one.
Discussions like this are beneficial and I for one think it is great that we have the opportunity as owners to hear from renters how they feel about the site and the responses they receive so thanks mkrw for the opportunity.

Lesley

Have finally made a decission on a Villa, on Eagle Point ( Sue Greenhalgh's ) Sorry to all the other villa owners i had to turn down this time

Thank you all for your time

Kevin

I browsed through the villas first, then put out an enquiry. I got a lot of response, which was great but a tad overwhelming when you've never done this sort of thing before! I browsed some more, found one that everyone in the party liked (had all the features we were looking for) and enquired about it. Alas, it was booked for our dates (we had very little flexibility due to my partner's work commitments and my son's school commitments!). So, I browsed some more but was much more focused, as I knew exactly what I was looking for. I found a villa with practically identical features/extras to my first 'find', found out about availability and booked it. And boy, am I looking forward to going!! My Mum, my 6 year old and I are having a competition to see who can get the most excited, I think.......

Elaine

6 Weeks to the day until we go for two weeks of FUN!!!!

Can't wait.:D:D

This year it's soooooo much cheaper then last year thank you the US Dollar:)