It's that time of year again where everyone is planning their family vacations! My Husband and I sat one night discussing what we would like to do as a family this year and decided to head back down to Florida! We absolutely love it there and have always played with the idea of moving there. We will not be going to Disney World again this year, but we will do Seaworld, Universal, Wet N Wild and maybe some others.
We started checking out prices on priceline.com and some other sites as well. Then we checked out the prices on vrbo.com to see if renting a condo would be cheaper than a hotel. They were about the same price. I decided to try the new "name your own price" on priceline.com. I just wanted to test it out and see how it worked so I put a 3 1/2 star - 4 star hotel and put a bid in for $35. I thought there was no way I would get it...sure enough I got a message congratulating me on the hotel I just bid on! I was shocked! I called my Husband and said well, looks like we will be heading to FL on these dates for sure! lol. He was like WHAT? Then when he saw the hotel we got and the price he was like oh wow! :-) The only downside to using the name your own price is that you have no way of knowing what hotel you will get until after your big is accepted and there is no backing out. Which I admit is a bit scary, but I have to tell you that as long as you put down a 2 star or more you should be fine. We are staying in 4 different hotels for our trip and the highest we had to pay was $45/night for one of them! They are all excellent hotels with great amenities. I highly suggest trying this out if you are planning a trip!
We are also driving down again. We were playing with the idea of flying but adding the cost of a rental car it is still cheaper to drive. We made sure to book a room in N. Carolina this time which is 1/2 way! Again we did the name your own price and it was $38/night normally $76/night. And they are suites which is nice to have with small children that way you can keep a little milk or juice in the fridge.
We are hitting up Orlando first we got a 3 1/2 star hotel for $35/night which was normally $100+/night! Orlando you can get really good deals because they have sooo many hotels! I don't know if you remember back during the Superbowl there was a giveaway promo for the first 100,000 people to sign up on the Universal website won a FREE 7 day 2 park pass unlimited admission. Well I won that! So I will be getting into Universal Studios and Universal Islands of Adventure for FREE! Which also helps with the cost of the trip!
Then we are hitting up some other parts of FL to check out the neighborhoods. In all for 11 nights it is costing us $518 in hotels which is an insanely good price!
And again if you are considering going to any of the attractions in FL sign up for Mousesavers.com they send you a newsletter with some great tips, but they also send you a link in those newsletters to purchase tickets on undercovertourist.com for even MORE of a discount than their discounted tickets if you can believe it!
4 comments:
We are heading to FL soon also for vacation. Everyone thinks we are nuts to go there because of the heat. But here in new england, the weather has been so cold and rainy, florida will be a nice change. hope you have a great trip!
Thank you! We are heading there at the beginning of Sept. I am so sick of this weather too!! Then it is going to go straight to HOT, we didn't get any spring!
I have been a big Priceline fan for probably 9 years. This past April, we were headed to DC to visit friends. The night before, their kids came down with 104 fevers. I tried calling a few hotels, but they were either sold out or only had $375 rooms. On Priceline I scored a night at a Hilton a block from a Metro Stop in Rockville for $79. PRICELINE ROCKS! You should consider renting a car through them too - it is a recessionista's dream come true!
We actually did the name your own price on air and car rental, but it was still cheaper to drive our van down. I guess it's better anyway because with two small children under 3 you have a LOT of crap you need to bring with you! lol.
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