villas to hire

[heathercobbett]

Always,always,always put together your own package when going to Florida.
As you say it is the holiday of a lifetime and you are gambling a major part of it.
Clearly the named houses will have been selected already and you will almost certainly be allocated from what nobody else wanted.
I am sure it will be o.k. but you could have had fantastic ,exactly where you wanted with all the facilities you desire and then some.
You can see by dipping into all the O.V. sites that the owners have lavished a lot of time care (and cash) on their houses and continue to do so year on year. Other owners take no interesr after purchase and leave it to the m.c.
I believe that a lot of travel companies strike a deal with the agents for the less nice properties so they make more profit. The owners on these sites (o.v) do not need to take these low rates as their houses sell themselves and get high referrals and rebookings.
This then gives them the income to keep the houses up to a very high standard.We ourselves are just going out to spend $5000 and we have already spent a similar amount this year.
My mother always used to say do not spoil the ship foe a haporth of tar!
We are on an extremely nice community,but it does not mean all the houses are kept up to the same standard;we had guests recently who got friendly with a lot of the neighbouring holidaymakers. They showed them round our house and they were gobsmacked.
We have stayed in a house)on the gulf coast)where the loo was backed up blinds were broken bathroom door broken and several things did not work.Not even proper arrangements to get things put right.I do not think this will happen yo you but it shows it is possible.

[Matt]

I have to agree with everyone else on this subject Andy.

One of the other problems experienced when using letting agents of this type is that you have to visit their offices when you arrive in Orlando, and it is there that you are allocated a home.

There have been instances where flights arrive late and then guests turn up at the offices to find them 'closed', or no villas available as the agent has over booked.

Obviously these are selective 'horror' stories and most certainly doesn't relate to all letting agents.

In my opinion, get yourself a decent priced flight and car hire, and then check this site further for the home that you want and speak with the owner directly to find out exactly what you are going to get for your money.

Best of luck
Matt

[Jill]

Andy If you put out a general enquiry on this site any owner with the dates free you are looking for will contact you. This way you will be able to chose which villa and community you like the look of. You will also have a contact person who can give you us much information about their villa, the community it is on and the facilities, the surrounding area and any other help you might need.

All the villa owners on this site have to verify to the site owners twice a year that they actually own the villa they are advertising, which makes it a safe site to hire a villa from.

[cherry]

My MC asked me yesterday if I was interested in last minute bookings from a tour company who had contacted him,They are offering up to $60 a night for a 3 bed villa,no prizes for guessing the answer to that one .He said he will not accept any for silly money like that.Just how much are the tour operators charging the clients per night ?.
Book direct with a villa owner it costs less than a tour operator any day.

[ravtino]

Have a good look at all the villas and then ask questions like how close to the next villa is it etc, I spent ages looking for our villa and were quite pleased when we went, we like you wanted a quite location, which people told me not to expect in Florida but it can be found!Good hunting

[jminmaine]

I would just like to add that while there are excellent companies which rent only very high quality villas (you can find these recommended on the best nonofficial WDW websites such as [website link edited] and [website link edited]), in our search for a rental villa for March 05 we found that these homes are priced a good 25% higher than renting directly from the owner, and, as everyone has pointed out, you do not know exactly which villa you will get, the issue in these cases being not that you might get a subpar villa, but that you may not get one with the exact features you would like. I strongly recommend using websites like those featured here to find a villa direct from owner.