Florida · Walt Disney World
Four parks across forty square miles, and a set of decisions Disneyland Paris never asks you to make. Where you stay, how long your ticket runs and whether you hire a car change the cost of this holiday more than the hotel's star rating does.
The short version
Walt Disney World is the size of a city. Where you sleep decides how much of your holiday you spend travelling to and from it.
There are four theme parks — Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom — plus two water parks and Disney Springs. The resort covers roughly forty square miles, so nothing is walkable from anything else.
Staying at a Disney resort hotel gets you free transport across the resort, early entry to the parks each morning, and extended evening hours at selected parks on selected nights. Staying off-site is cheaper — often much cheaper — but you drive, park and queue at the gates like everyone else. For a fortnight with young children that difference is real.
Getting there
Disney's free airport coach ended in 2022. Getting from the airport to your hotel is now your problem to solve.
Direct flights to Orlando run around nine hours from the UK. Once you land, the options are a hire car, a paid shuttle, or a taxi. Mears Connect runs to the Disney resorts for a fraction of a taxi fare, and we book them with your holiday.
Do you need a car? If you are staying on-site and never leaving Disney property, no — the buses, boats and monorail cover everything. If you want the Gulf beaches, Universal, the Kennedy Space Center or a supermarket, yes.
Tickets and queues
Park tickets are only the start of it, and the extras are where budgets slip.
When to go
The quietest weeks are also the ones with the shortest opening hours.
Best months: late April to early June, and September to early November. Warm rather than punishing, and the parks are open longer than in the deep off-season.
Avoid if you can: July and August. Daily temperatures in the mid-thirties with high humidity, and an afternoon thunderstorm most days that closes the outdoor rides for an hour. It is also hurricane season from June to November, peaking in September.
Christmas and New Year is spectacular and the busiest, dearest fortnight of the year. Magic Kingdom regularly reaches capacity and closes its gates.
Four parks across forty square miles, and the Florida around them.
The Partners statue, with the castle behind it
Main Street Station — the first thing you walk under
Park architecture on an ordinary busy morning
Walt and Mickey, close up
Orlando outside the parks — palms and sub-tropical light
Flights, hotel and park tickets as one booking. Every one can be reshaped — add a Gulf beach week, swap to a villa, or split the stay between Disney and Universal.
Guide prices, per person, based on two adults sharing, including return flights, accommodation and and park tickets as stated. They indicate what a holiday of this type has typically cost and are not an offer or a quotation. Your price depends on dates, party, ticket type and availability, and is confirmed in writing before any payment is taken.
The ones that come up before every Disney booking.
On-site gets you free transport across the resort, early entry to the parks each morning and extended evening hours at selected parks on selected nights. Off-site is cheaper, often much cheaper, but you drive, park and queue at the gates like everyone else. For a fortnight with young children that difference is real.
If you are staying on-site and never leaving Disney property, no — the buses, boats and monorail cover everything. If you want the Gulf beaches, Universal, the Kennedy Space Center or a supermarket, yes.
Disney's free Magical Express coach ended in 2022, so it is a hire car, a paid shuttle or a taxi. Mears Connect runs to the Disney resorts for a fraction of a taxi fare, and we book it with your holiday rather than leaving you to sort it at midnight.
If you are going for two weeks, it is not close. A fourteen-day ticket costs little more than a seven-day one, so the daily rate falls sharply. Ticket length changes the maths more than almost anything else on the trip.
July and August — daily temperatures in the mid-thirties with high humidity, and an afternoon thunderstorm most days that closes the outdoor rides for an hour. It is also hurricane season from June to November, peaking in September. Late April to early June and September to early November are the better windows.
With young children, usually not — one park a day is plenty, and they will be tired before you are. With teenagers it usually is. It is a separate add-on either way, so decide before you book rather than at the gate.
We'll price on-site against off-site properly, work out the ticket length that actually suits your trip, and tell you what Lightning Lane will add.