Which is better, WDW or Disneyland?

I think I spent an average of about $75/per person for a day at DL a couple of years ago. Not bad. Its easy to see how people could spend the kind of sums I hear about there.

Ed

The scary thing is that some of the prices I have seen for hotels in Disney are 200 and 300+ a night!
We are not those kinda people! We are peasants! he he! I guess I could splurge for about 3 night max! I think that is all I could stand of a Disney park anyway! If I go to WDW I will probably run away to the coast afterwards to recuperate form the Disney experience!

What do you mean by early and late summer? I mean does the early part end the end of June or some time in July and does the late part start in early or late August or the last coupla days of Sept (probably not the latter, due to the huge holiday of LAbor day).

So, going around the 12th of April to Disney Land for 3 or 4 nights, would be crazily crowded? That was a tentative plan and it was gonna be around 2000 bucks or less, I think, from Portland and staying at Paradise Peir, for my child and myself. I did not know if that was reasonable or not or a good or bad time to go so I did not make the reservation. It did include a character breakfast with Lilo and Stitch and possible other Disney characters.

Although it would be interesting to see, we do not wanna go to Seaworld because we think it is mean to capture wild sea animals and make them live in, essentially, swimming pools and perform tricks to amuse humans.

When we are in Florida some time, we will just take dolphin and manatee tours. We took a dolphin tour once and it was fine.

I have a friend here on LP who told me that you can actually swim at the sandy beachy lakes at the Florida WDW resort. Which resorts, spefically, would allow that?

For some reason, I find the idea of Florida much more interesting than Cali but Cali would be ok for just a short, hopefully cheap (yeah, right!) excursion and then I would just head home.

As I said earlier,if I head to Orlando in the summer (I know I will die from the humidity) I will only be there for maybe 3 days and then head to the coast. Been to Fort Myers beach (this last Thanks Giving) and the beach was gorgeous but the ocean water was stinky and murky. Lotsa shells though! If I go to the beach I want gorgeous sand and wide beach like in Fort Myers Beach and quiet and uncrowded like it was there (I was not in downtown area) but also with nice water and affordable place to stay on the beach!

I do thank everyone for their input and hope for lots more!

I have been a Thorntree nut for about 9 years or so, I think, and I love it!

Depending on things like wind direction, red tides, etc, the water at the Gulf beaches around Ft Myers and Sarasota can be lovely. Not to mention that the barrier islands have a number of splendid state parks and "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Also, terrific birdwatching.

Intercot.com, "info central" states that the weeks before and after Easter are "extremely crowded," whereas the end of April is "a good time to go." So April 12 might be a few days too early, since the Easter crowd will still be on hand.

If I were staying on a Disney property and trying to keep costs down, I would go for a moderate, namely, Port Orleans Resort- French Quarter. It's consistently the highest ranking Disney hotel in Orlando on TripAdvisor. This is owing to its reasonable cost (compared to the deluxes), nice rooms and grounds, and convenient transpo to the parks. Imo, the value resorts are just a little too much of a step down for the amount of savings they offer.

Yes, there is swimming at the beach at the Grand Floridian, although I'm not sure what the admission policy is. Having stayed at Deluxe hotels a few times, I can tell you that no one seems to bother you once you're on the premises. Might have to tell them you're having lunch there to get past the gate keeper in parking, but that's not a problem. We like having lunch outside at the beach bar at the Grand Floridian (sandwiches).

Definately make lots of meal reservations in advance. You can always call and cancel. Otoh, if it's busy, getting last minute ressies can be tough. If your 11 y/o likes meeting the characters, I recommend dinner at the Crystal Palace. Cheers.