Florida April/May 2014

Hello
I was hoping for abit of advice please. We're hoping to go to Florida end of April beg of May next year and wondered what people think would be the best time to look for the best price.
It would be for 2adults 1child, direct flight for 14nights from Manchester.
Also is booking flights and accomodation seperately cheaper? We would want either a villa with private pool or a good quality hotel but not too expensive.
Anybodies advice is appreciated Rach

Hi, firstly end of April to early May is a lovely time to visit Florida I assume you are referring to a villa in the Orlando area and if so there are thousands to choose from but I would advise booking one that is near to theme parks area if that is your holiday plan. A friend of ours had a 45minutes drive in heavy traffic each day just to get to the low end theme parks, they gave up trying to negotiate the traffic up as far as the Universal theme parks.

We always do independent travelling because of choice but there are some good package deals where the flight goes into Sanford rather than MCO but that would be with charter airlines.

As far as cost is concerned, the biggest factor to take into consideration is that Easter 2014 is so late with Good Friday being April 18th. Flights will be significantly higher for this period because of school holidays. My son is already planning to make a three week holiday covering the two Easter weeks and then the first May BH.

Airline prices will not become available until end of May this year and you will find that flying direct will be much higher than doing a change at a hub airport.

Plan to go outside of school holidays if you can but if not, its going to be a very expensive time to travel to Florida but extremely enjoyable

I would take a look at thedibb.co.uk , lots of listings for villas and masses of other information on the parks etc.
We managed to find a villa only 10 mins from Animal Kingdom last year.
There are thousands as Hev60 has mentioned, you will probably end up with a short list and it'll come down to whether one has a pool table or football table, the choice is that huge
Important factors for us were, apart from the obvious requirements, things like WIFI and pool heat included.
Good luck

The easiest way to do it is to go into a travel agent and let them book it for you, for a price.

The cheapest way to do it, and the way that ensures you'll get exactly what you want, is to spend a couple of evenings on the internet surfing.

Now there are always instances where it works out differently, but I've found that:
Booking the airline and car hire directly is cheaper than booking a fly-drive holiday (however a fly-drive you'll only need a deposit rather than money up front)
Check around for dates. Avoid flying on Saturdays, try 15 or 16 nights flying out Friday returning Sunday.
Make sure you're comparing like for like, luggage allowance, meals, fully inclusive car insurance. Write it all down!
Try websites like orlandovillas.com add a few to your short list and find out what you really want (pool table, spa?)
Plot the locations of the villas on a map, travelling an extra 15 minutes each way every day does add up

So this year I found my cheapest option was Virgin Atlantic for the flights, Virgin Holidays for the car hire (rather than direct) and a villa direct with an owner, you may find something different!