All we needed to do was find a house. And to my wife's credit? She did a great job.
If you search for house rentals near Disney World, you’ll find hundreds upon hundreds of them. Near Westgate, between Formosa Gardens Blvd and Old Lake Wilson Road, there are many subdivisions with street after street of vacation rentals. All of these are very close to the Disney property, and you can get to most parks in a ten to twenty minute drive.
There are many other subdivisions around the Kissimee area. And while they all look tempting, you must remember that traffic around Disney is heavy. It can sometimes take 30 minutes to go 10 miles. And while having Interstate 4 nearby seems like an advantage? Most people avoid I-4 due to the congestion.
To make our selection, we first developed a list of everything we needed and awarded points to each item. For example, it was essential the house had four bedrooms, so that would get a high score. A fifth bedroom was nice, but not necessary, so that received a small additional score. I really wanted a breakfast nook and a front yard facing bedroom. We needed TV’s in all the bedrooms. A game room in the garage was nice. Access to a park. A private pool. Location. And of course, price. All of these received points based upon our priority. We also delivered negative scores if the location had bad reviews.
We then searched and scored the properties. Because there are so many to choose from, we only picked the properties that had a perfect score and narrowed the list down to only a dozen.
We then contacted the owners to check for availability, tried to understand the rental agreements, understood all the fees and restrictions that were involved, etc.
As we further narrowed the list, we did checks on the owner and the property to make sure the taxes were paid. As we made our final decisions, we studied all the pictures to understand the house floor plan. We looked at google maps for a satellite view of the property. For us, it was very important to set our expectations about the house – we didn’t want to walk through the door and be disappointed.
After agreeing to the rental, we paid for everything through a credit card. The use of a credit card is good because (A) it can aid us should we need to dispute the charges, and (B) we use a Disney credit card that awards us points!!
Selecting the right house was stressful. But after we arrived, we knew we had made the right decision. We had never rented a vacation house before. But now that we have been through the process? I would not hesitate to do it again.
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