Orlando Villas

corm500

We are planning to travel to Orlando in March. I have been looking at different villas on the web and am a bit overwhelmed with the amount of them spread across the Orlando area. I am not so familiar with Orlando. We will be hiring a car, but don't want to be too far from Disney/Universal. Any tips or advice on what and where I should be looking for would be appreciated so I can whittle them down.

Rashers72

We hired one just off I92, close the Medieval Times, and a huge Walmart. Near Bass Lakes, a lot of villas in that area, so all good prices. Based in Lake Buena Vista area. Sorry don't have a link, but anywhere around that area is great. We hired a large villa via American Holidays one year, but we were a huge distance from all the parks, so make sure you know the estate.

naughtysmurf

Rolling Hills, Indian Creek, Sunset Lakes, Emerald Island, Oak Island Cove, Lindfields & Windsor Hills are all in the Formosa Gardens area, these are the closest villa communities to WDW with easy access to Disney, supermarkets, restaurants & I4 for getting to Universal & Busch Gardens Tampa, shopping Malls, it's the area we stay in

orlandovillas.com, we use for both villa & car hire, tried & trusted, tripadvisor, VRBO, ownersdirect, homeaway are others you can look at but we don't tend to look further than those communities

davo10

Op, we stayed here with our 2 kids a few years ago. Nice big villas, great pool area, bar, supermarket, some restaurants, pubs and petrol garage within 5 min walk.

Disney is a 15 min drive.

https://www.regalpalms.com/

Ilovelucy

You won't get a villa near Universal as it's not zoned for villas. You'll find plenty near Disney though. Check out The dibb forum for advertisers. We stay in a condo on Idrive which suits us. We stayed down at Regal Palms the first year we went and we spent a lot of time in traffic on the 27.

This is a good map to show you where the different communities are:

http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/villa-map.php

davo10

Ilovelucy wrote: »

You won't get a villa near Universal as it's not zoned for villas. You'll find plenty near Disney though. Check out The dibb forum for advertisers. We stay in a condo on Idrive which suits us. We stayed down at Regal Palms the first year we went and we spent a lot of time in traffic on the 27.

This is a good map to show you where the different communities are:

http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/villa-map.php

Now that you mention it, there was a lot of delay on the road the time we were there 3 years ago, but they were doing a huge job on the road at the Davenport end, I'd say that is sorted now.

Just a note op, we rented out villa from a private owner and it was lovely, the reviews for the resort owned villas do not seem to be as good.

Ilovelucy

Even with the upgraded road it's def not just 15 mins to Disney.

davo10

Ilovelucy wrote: »

Even with the upgraded road it's def not just 15 mins to Disney.

Depends on whether you drive like Miss Daisy, ok it could be 18mins, buts it's close enough not be be far from Disney (9 miles/13 mins google maps).

Ilovelucy

No need to be so rude.

corm500

A couple of villas caught our eye, one in Weston Hills and one in High Grove Resort. Are these places recommended? They seem to be at the west end of I92.

naughtysmurf

corm500 wrote: »

A couple of villas caught our eye, one in Weston Hills and one in High Grove Resort. Are these places recommended? They seem to be at the west end of I92.

Weston Hills is on Highway 27 a few miles north of 192 which you will travel on probably every day , depending on the time of year, it can be a busy stretch of road, lots of traffic lights also, High Grove is at the end of 192 so three miles closer

There are a lot of villa communities on 27 both north & south of its intersection with 192 (too far west for us) & plenty just off 192 as you travel west, you have to figure out if you want a gated resort, we've never bothered, villa with a monitored alarm was grand for us, if your happy with just a villa with private pool or you want a resort with other facilities & location

We go for location first, much of a muchness between villas, all should have WIFI, pool and all the usual stuff, usually knackered after a day at the parks so after dinner just chill in the pool , you won't spend a huge amount of time in the villa anyway but the space is great to return to in the evening

corm500

naughtysmurf wrote: »

Weston Hills is on Highway 27 a few miles north of 192 which you will travel on probably every day , depending on the time of year, it can be a busy stretch of road, lots of traffic lights also, High Grove is at the end of 192 so three miles closer

There are a lot of villa communities on 27 both north & south of its intersection with 192 (too far west for us) & plenty just off 192 as you travel west, you have to figure out if you want a gated resort, we've never bothered, villa with a monitored alarm was grand for us, if your happy with just a villa with private pool or you want a resort with other facilities & location

We go for location first, much of a muchness between villas, all should have WIFI, pool and all the usual stuff, usually knackered after a day at the parks so after dinner just chill in the pool , you won't spend a huge amount of time in the villa anyway but the space is great to return to in the evening

Thats great information, thanks. We are planing on mostly visiting the Universal parks. Would that much of a difference on where to rent our villa?

naughtysmurf

corm500 wrote: »

Thats great information, thanks. We are planing on mostly visiting the Universal parks. Would that much of a difference on where to rent our villa?

As previously mentioned, no villa rentals near Universal, you could have a look at Vista Cay though, it's a condo resort, if you opt for a villa in one of the locations in my earlier post, you are about 30mins straight drive to Universal & SeaWorld, 10mins to Disney's Animal kingdom, 15mins to Disney Springs, 20mins(ish) to the other Disney parks

You will have Universal done easily in 3 days if that influences where you stay

dave2pvd

I'd suggest not searching for 'villas'. It's not a commonly used term.
Go on airbnb or vrbo and look for houses. Might find more search hits.

naughtysmurf

dave2pvd wrote: »

I'd suggest not searching for 'villas'. It's not a commonly used term.
Go on airbnb or vrbo and look for houses. Might find more search hits.

As regards Orlando, Villas, Villa Community, Vacation Villa & Pool Home would be commonly used, not house

dave2pvd

I think the larger sites and property leasing companies have figured out that Europeans use the term 'villas' and have made sure their search engines can work with this. But its still not a commonly used term over here. In any case, might not be too relevant when you can do filtered searches on sites like vrbo.

naughtysmurf

dave2pvd wrote: »

I think the larger sites and property leasing companies have figured out that Europeans use the term 'villas' and have made sure their search engines can work with this. But its still not a commonly used term over here. In any case, might not be too relevant when you can do filtered searches on sites like vrbo.

The terminology is definitely aimed at visitors that stay for longer than five days, this tends to be the rest of the world, American visitors to WDW often visit for only five days and tend to stay in hotels or suite hotels although villas are starting to become more popular with them, villas are great $ value especially for larger groups & stays of a week or more

InTheTrees

dave2pvd wrote: »

I'd suggest not searching for 'villas'. It's not a commonly used term.
Go on airbnb or vrbo and look for houses. Might find more search hits.

Its a good point. The average American would have no idea what you're on about if you start asking about renting a "villa".

They use the term "vacation rental".

If you use that in a search you'll get additional choices.

InTheTrees

naughtysmurf wrote: »

The terminology is definitely aimed at visitors that stay for longer than five days, this tends to be the rest of the world, American visitors to WDW often visit for only five days and tend to stay in hotels or suite hotels although villas are starting to become more popular with them, villas are great $ value especially for larger groups & stays of a week or more

I think his point was that Americans do rent houses on vacation they just dont call them "villas" and that if you use the american name you'll open up more possibilities rather than confining yourself to companies that deal with uk and Ireland.

corm500

Well, after all the tooing and frowing with villas (or houses) we ended up with a 2 bedroom suite in Enclave suites just off of the Idrive. I just came to figure that we were too far away from Universal and we would be spending a lot of our time in traffic getting to and from there.
The Enclave has a free shuttle bus and ,even though we will still rent a car, it means that we can go to universal city walk in the evenings and have a drink or two. Or even go out around International drive for something to eat and a few glasses of wine. Thanks everyone for your advice.