I'm seeing the Mouse, so I'll need a House.

June 8, 2008 2:30 PM

At least 9 of my closest friends & I are planning a vacation to Florida in early 2010. We were thinking of renting a vacation house for at least a week. Have you ever dealt with Vacation rental companies? Good Experiences, Bad? Any recommendations on who to deal with in the Orlando area?

- There will be at least 10 of us.
- All of us are adults
- One of us uses a wheelchair
- We're going in February 2010 to miss most of the crowds, plus quiet a few of us work in Retail, so Feb is "off season" for us too.

We're currently leaning toward renting from these guys.

If you have ever rented a vacation home for a week, let me know how it worked out for you. Any nasty surprises? Did you like it better than a hotel?

posted by aristan to grab bag (5 comments total)

My family has always done this, and my husband and I do this now by preference, too. If we're going somewhere for a weekend, than I'm all about the hotel room but for anything longer, vacation rentals are made of win.

You can save a ton of money and have some really nice evenings cooking big group dinners; you get your own pool; you can throw your own cocktail evenings; and if not everyone wants to go out and do something every single day, the "lounge around at home in sunny Florida" option is easy to exercise in a lot more comfort than in a hotel.

I've done this in Florida, California, Vermont, Arizona, Spain, France, England and Northern Ireland and never had a bad experience. I prefer to rent directly from the owners and not through an agency, but that's just me.

Previous AskMe posts on this topic indicate that some people are made uncomfortable by the cash deposit aspect but I've always gotten my full deposit back and never had a bad rental experience.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:11 PM on June 8, 2008

I have done this several times with friends, using vrbo.com., most recently last month in Clearwater Beach, FL. It's always been excellent, properties as described and no problems with deposits etc.
posted by gaspode at 5:08 PM on June 8, 2008

This is our MO as well for group vacations with friends. We've never really had a problem with dealing with the rental companies. Frankly in situations like this you usually have more problems with getting friends to commit, pay deposits, help with planning, etc. The other sticking point can be assigning sleeping arrangements. However this all depends on your group dynamics.
posted by mmascolino at 6:33 PM on June 8, 2008

@gaspode:

Wow... the prices on VRBO seem a lot cheaper than All Star's prices... for the same homes.

This home is from VRBO at a peak season price of 290 a night. This house has the same number of bedrooms, same number of baths, and is in the same neighborhood... for $479 a night! ACK!

Thanks for letting me know about VRBO!
posted by aristan at 7:45 PM on June 8, 2008

We also rent homes in other locations, but my comments are mostly Orlando-area specific mostly. We haven't been to Orlando in some years now (our Disney lust just petered out), but when we did, we rented several times via this company. We were never disappointed. IIRC they require a cash deposit but then take the rest of the payment on credit card, which is convenient. (but check their current policies, or the policy of any company you rent from.) As an aside, it's much simpler to rent via agencies in the Orlando area, and the prices are quite similar to trying to rent from the owners directly. Plus the policies and so on (like cleaning or garbage disposal rules) are much clearer.

The drawback is that you won't feel as much part of the Magic, or whatever, as staying at an on-property hotel (Disney or Universal). However, renting a house is much nicer than piling into one of the cheaper hotels in the area. (We used to tack on a few days at an on-property hotel after a week staying at a house, for the best of both worlds.)

Most houses for rent in the area are bungalows, so your wheelchair bound person will probaby be fine, but you can always double-check that.

Some things to note about Orlando/Kissimmee area home rentals:

- The houses are okay, but nothing really special; they are quickly built and feel a bit cheap. (In other words, the descriptions are far better than the reality.) Some are also a bit lived-in, since they do belong to regular people. They work fine though, and (at least the ones we rented from Loyalty) are impeccably clean and well equipped with all your usual Middle America amenities (tv in every bedroom and living room, internet, freezing air conditioning, fridge that makes ice automatically, family sized screened-in pool.)
- Plan your trip and figure out where you will be spending most of your time, and find the estate/division that is closest to where that is. Most of the divisions are near Disney World, but some are closer to the Magic Kingdom entrance than others, and so on. Also try to get info, from the agency or by Google Mapping, where the closest supermarkets and other shopping areas are.
- If you intend to do any kind of serious cooking, you might consider bringing your own kitchen knife (not in carry-on luggage obviously) and other tools - the utensils you get are usually of the throwaway type.
- You may want to consider getting a house with a larger capacity than the number of people you have in the group. This allows people to spread out a bit and have some privacy.

Finally, you will want to avoid the President's Day week in February if possible, which is one of the busiest times of the year at the theme parks.
posted by thread_makimaki at 7:50 PM on June 8, 2008