Home Away from Home

We have always been die hard fans of staying on property for our WDW vacations. This year we started to look at options for our pre cruise stay and since the plan was to see more of Orlando than just WDW (gasp) we decided to look off site.

This was somewhat anxiety provoking for me. As someone who feels pretty confident about my knowledge of Disney this was a whole new experience. This led to the Trip Advisor obsession through much of the month of May. Not kidding I looked at reviews for at least 200 + hotels in the Orlando/Kissimmee area.

I stumbled across a thread on my favourite Disney info site disboards.com talking about house and condo rentals. Soon someone on my cruise group also started talking about their condo stay. I was intrigued, but not convinced. I mean I was already looking at an off property hotel, but this was still a vacation and a vacation to me means someone makes my bed and brings me new towels, doing my own chores and laundry just didn’t hold any appeal for me.

I finally agreed to take a look. This is what I found

 

I don’t know about you, but that looks like a vacation destination to me.

I started to do some research. This gated community is called Windsor Hills, it is one of many house/condo communities where the majority of owners rent their properties through out the year.

To make a rental inquire you can either contact an owner directly or inquire through some property management websites. I did a bit of both and started to get back some quotes.

I decided on a 3 bedroom condo. I liked it because it was one of the few places that wouldn’t charge an $80 cleaning fee for a stay of less than 7 days, the price was good approx $400 plus tax for 5 nights and the condo had been purchased and redone in the last year.

I started to look at the website for this condo, for anyone who wants to check it out the site is http://www.disneycondoforrent.com

A few things stood out for me; not only could I put the kids to bed and then stay up with a glass of wine, I could put them to sleep in separate bedrooms where they wouldn’t try to kill each other. I could do laundry not because I have to, but so that I didn’t have to pack dirty clothes for the cruise.

We’d have access to a great pool and clubhouse and while we didn’t have to cook or grocery shop we did have the option for quick breakfasts or snacks.

I have to say that this hotel girl has been converted.

My communication with the owner has been great, he is also Canadian and the 3 bedroom condo in priced on par with most of the hotels we were looking at. This reformed hotel girl is super excited for her home away from home this vacation.