Which is cheapest?
While you would think the package deal would be cheapest this is not always the case. Packages may add in other charges that you don't really want or need. Then again, there may be a special deal so a package may be cheaper.
Overall price depends on many factors including time of year (high or low season), how early you book, any specials - either from Disney or from airlines, your personal needs, etc.
I recommend that you price both options out. Compare the prices to book separately versus the price of a package.
Below you'll see a step-by-step walk through of places where you can compare booking separately vs booking a package. You can still look further, but at least these will give you a fair idea of prices and which way is cheaper for you:
Booking Separately:
1) Air/Flights
You can book flights to Orlando fairly cheaply if you know where to look. Some of my favorite places to get flight prices are:
Both of these online discount travel sites have some of the lowest rates around and they make it easy to compare flight prices.
For example, as of this writing flights from Buffalo to Orlando gave pretty much the same range of prices - with the lowest rate being the same - $123 at each site.
2) Hotels
This depends if you want to stay at a Disney Resort or at a standard Orlando hotel. Note that not all online travel agencies offer Disney resort reservations. Here are a couple that offer both Orlando hotels and Disney Resort hotels:
A) Expedia - You can compare hotels near Disney as well as Disney Resort hotels (the best way to find the resort hotels is to use their search feature and choose to search near an attraction and then type in 'Disney World' - and the Disney resort hotels will come up.)
Another advantage to Expedia is that you can read tons of customer reviews before you decide on your resort.
B) Travelocity - You can compare hotels near Disney as well as Disney Resort hotels. (Type 'Disney word' into their hotel search feature to get their Resort hotels)
As of this writing, I found that Expedia had overall lower prices on resort hotels as well as a bit more in terms of room options.
3) Park Tickets
Many people choose to buy tickets from discount sellers - and this can save you money. However you have to be careful.
Make sure the seller is an authorized Disney ticket seller - don't buy at an auction site and don't buy used tickets. There's no way to really be sure these are legitimate tickets. If you buy a dud ticket, Disney won't honor it and you'll be out the money.
One of the most organized, cheapest discount Disney ticket sellers I've found is DWtickets.com.
They're a Walt Disney World Resort authorized ticket agency and a member of the Better Business Bureau. Plus they've been in the business for years and have a solid reputation for discount tickets.
Booking A Package:
Some package deals include air and hotel, some include air, hotel and Theme park tickets. Make sure you have a good idea of what you want before you book a package so you're not paying for any extras that you really don't need.
There are a few online travel agencies that offer discount Disney packages. The two most popular are:
B) Travelocity Disney Packages - Again very easy to get resort/air packages - just type in 'Disney world' into the search box. You'll also get non-Disney hotel packages mixed in for comparison.
So those are some places you can go to compare Disney vacation packages. Unlike some fly-by-night operations all of the recommendations above have years of experience, secure ordering and trusted names.
By comparing prices between booking separately and booking a package you'll get a good idea of which option is the most economical.
