ave you ever stayed in a single hotel room as a family of 4 or more? There is one television to cater for all 4 tastes, one bathroom so you must organise a rota to get washed and dressed. If you are lucky you may be allowed to pay extra to rent a fridge – failing that you may just need to buy everyone in your party a cool drink from the hotel as and when they require one – a cost which can mount up for a family of 4 over say a two week stay. Is there a better way to holiday?
We believe so – rent an Orlando vacation home! These homes range from 3 bedrooms upwards. A 3 bedroom villa could have 2 or 3 bathrooms, thus everyone can shower and get ready at their leisure. Usually a T.V. is situated in EVERY bedroom so everyone can suit himself or herself as to what to watch, without having to compromise. With your Orlando vacation home having a fully equipped kitchen, the choice is always yours if you want to eat out or thoroughly relax at home or by the pool with a bite to eat.
The options for food in Orlando are endless – close to your rental villa will be an abundance of food options. There are plenty of supermarket styled shops where you can buy ready made hot meals which you can take back to your beautiful rental home to enjoy with your family or you can buy the ingredients to cook the meal of your choice. Alternatively there are plenty of carry out / take away restaurants so you can bring your food home to eat or even phone and have your meal delivered straight to your door, thus really making your rental villa a true home from home.
Relax in your own private swimming pool
Unlike hotels, there is no longer a need to pack a bag full of everything you might need just to make a trip to the pool, since at your vacation rental villa everything you require is only an arm’s length away whether it be more suntan lotion or a lovely cool drink or ice cream as you continue to enjoy that lovely Floridian sunshine.
Want to wear your favourite outfit to meet Mickey & Minnie? Not a problem – you can wear it as often as you like since laundry facilities are supplied in your holiday rental villa at NO extra cost. No more buying tokens or saving up quarters for washing machines in selected hotels! This is all included in your rental price for your vacation villa.
Why vacation anywhere else!
With a private pool at your vacation home, anyone in your party can have a dip before breakfast or before turning in at night. Many homes’ pools are enclosed with a net to keep insects out, allowing you absolute freedom to swim day or night. A swim or soak in the spa is particularly appealing after a long day at the attractions .
Peter Kenny has been travelling to Florida for the last 20 years. You can find more articles on renting and buying private vacation homes here http://www.windsorpalmsflorida.com/ and http://www.reunionresort.us.com/
Pete
So what do villas offer that you can’t get in a hotel? For starters, family villa holidays present the opportunity to break away from the crowds and have your own private space.
Both hotels and luxury villas have their advantages and there’s nothing wrong with a holiday in a hotel so long as you choose the right one; but you may find that the size of the hotel and the sheer number of travellers that you share with might mean losing some independence and compromising on peace and quiet.
Why share a swimming pool with scores of eager children or compete for the best spot in the sun when the majority of modern holiday villa rentals will have a private pool where you can enjoy the privacy of your own back garden. Your children will love having their own pool.
Often hotels will tie you in to a certain number of meals in a restaurant; with villa holidays your family can eat in a different restaurant every night, and experience what the local area is all about in terms of culture and cuisine, you even have the choice of heading to a local market and cooking yourself should you wish.
You might usually book one room for the adults and another for the kids; of course, this is exactly what you’d expect to get as standard from a luxury villa. So what about the services that a hotel offers? It’s good to know that many of the best holiday villa rentals have a maid visit once or twice during the week; you should check the details of this before you book. What’s more you can book luxury villas equipped with appliances such as a washing machine, dishwasher and microwave. (You’ll also find many have extras like a DVD player and satellite TV) Hopefully, this means you can fend for yourself without the morning interruptions of someone trying to clean your room when you’ve decided to sleep in.
Perhaps you feel that there’s a social aspect to large hotels that villa holidays might not be able to offer. In fact, there are a number of holiday villa rentals built with as many as four rooms, or that are large enough to accommodate eight holiday makers or more. With that kind of capacity, you can combine your family villa holidays with those of another family, so you can enjoy the company of your friends from home. One example among many suitable luxury villas is the Villa Galina, set in the fresh pine woodland of Cephalonia. With five bedrooms and four bathrooms it has space for between two and ten people to stay. It has an eight metre long pool from which you and your friends can take in an amazing elevated view of the Ionian Sea.
There are plenty of exciting Mediterranean destinations where you can find quality holiday villa rentals. Other prime resorts include the Algarve, Mallorca, Crete, and Cyprus.
Holiday makers are coming to realise that family villa holidays can deliver ‘a home away from home’ in a sunny climate with beautiful countryside or a beach nearby.
Lorri
A group of friends (let’s say 13 adults, 9 kids aged 3 – 9) living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, have over the years gone on 3 wonderful week long vacations together. We have visited
1. A villa in Tuscany
2. A resort in Costa Rica
3. A huge beach house in Hawaii
We would like recommendations for other places we could go as a group. A perfect place for us would be a huge house on a beach with a swimming pool, a huge kitchen, and dining room table that would seat 13 adults. We really like a great shared community space. However, we are flexible. If you know a place on the beach in Belize that comes with its own cook we would certainly be interested. Specific recommendations and descriptions of what you like about the place would be appreciated. We are currently thinking about Thailand or Vietnam, but are open to ideas. For example, a recommendation for a villa on the island of Lamu might also be interesting to dream about even if we could not afford it.
Raul
The rise in direct booking websites has seen a boom in owners advertising their own properties, and as a result holiday makers are seeing a similar rise in villa holiday nightmares.
With the huge amount of concrete gone into building villas in Europe in the last 10 years competition is fierce for holiday rental income and owners have decided to take matters into their own hands to get bookings.
Very often they will be available for a cheaper weekly rental than similar properties with professional management companies or letting agencies. The disadvantage to booking direct however is you have no guarantees of the standard on arrival or indeed how professional the owner maybe.
We are hearing more and more horror stories of people being let down by owners as their holidays draw closer. Only last week I spoke with a lady who was due to travel to Quinta do Lago in the Algarve within the next 3 weeks – she had contacted the owner to confirm her booking and lo and behold – he’d only gone and sold it!!
So she had flights booked, deposits paid and no accommodation. Fortunately the villa owner was honest enough to return her deposit but she was still left with no accommodation and the peak season about to begin and availability limited.
We have heard of people arriving at villas to find the gas and electricity cut off as the owner had not paid the bills to the management company. Not to mention the villas still under construction
One of the more unusual stories I heard last year was the villa with pool in Spain – everything about the villa was fine, the pool was perfect – except for one minor detail – the lack of water in the swimming pool!
Booking direct is a useful way to save some of the cost but it does carry risk. A professional rentals agency will reduce that risk by ensuring that properties are professionally managed and cleaned, both on arrival and during your stay.
The another advantage of the lettings agency is if problems occur a professional lettings agency will be able to help put things right – for example if the person in the neighbouring villa decides on the Monday after your arrival that he wants to install a swimming pool a professional agency should be able to get you alternative accommodation.
A professional letting agency should also know the resort they are selling so will be able to assist you with any questions you might have while on holiday – such as which are the best restaurants, most popular golf etc.
Booking direct can be a money saver, but as more and more people are finding out, it can sometimes be a false economy.
Tibor
I’m going on holiday to a villa in Cyprus with my family in May. Because its a villa there is a private pool, and it says the pool is 1.00 – 1.65m. I would just like to know how deep this is? Shallow, deep, not too shallow, etc.
Meggy
I’m Looking for a special place to take the kids on holiday. Would prefer a villa/gite with large garden so there’s plenty of space for the kids to run around. If not we would consider staying on a holiday complex (lodges, apartments, chalets, bungalow) (not caravans or tents) as long as it’s surrounded by woods/greenery and activities for the kids ie, horse riding, biking, theme park, football, trampolining, beach, swimming pool etc.
Any suggestion please. Thankyou
Krier