My family of 6 is planning on going to WDW in 2010. My children will be 12, 10, 5 and 3. I need to stay in a suite, obviously. Does anyone have any suggestions of suites on disney property that are great but won't cost a small fortune?

Not sure about not costing a small fortune but we have stayed at the Boardwalk Villas. We had a studio that had a king size bed, pull out couch (the kids were 3 and 6 so no problem for them) plus a minikitchen. It was very nice. The larger suites have a full separate bedroom but I still think someone ends up on a couch.

Another option we considered were the "villas" at Fort Wilderness (not the Wilderness Lodge). Seemed like the best value, gave you some room plus outdoor space which will come in handy with the 5 and 3 year old. Plus Ft. Wilderness has lots of cute activities like the campfire with Chip and Dale.

I believe Saratoga also has one-bedrooms available. Depending on your budget, you might also consider getting adjoining rooms at one of the budget or moderate resorts; your 12- and 10-year-old can just stay next door, and you can leave the adjoining doors open if that makes you feel more comfortable.

Agree to look at renting the trailer at Fort Wilderness. Lots of room.

Also consider getting multiple connected rooms at any one of the value or midpriced hotels. You are going to get two queens in each room. You would have space for one roll away in each room. So, you could fit into two rooms. Just a question of how bonded you want your family.

We stayed at boardwalk villas and it was so nice to be able to walk to a few parks. To make it cheaper, we rented our suite by renting points through members of disney vacation club. The link for people willing to rent you their points (which can be used for a suite at a disney property) is http://www.disboards.com/forumdispla...d=29&x=16&y=12

If that link doesn't work, then just go on www.disboards.com and search for renting points. The website www.mousesavers.com does a great job at explaing how renting points works. Plus you can check it ut for other discounts. By renting points you can usually stay at a great resort (with kitchen etc.) on site for a lot less than if you booked the suite directly.

Another good source of WDW is www.allears.net.

Hope this helps, itsv

Six of us (2 kids) stayed at the Contemporary in 2 connecting rooms. It cost a small fortune, but worked out well.

The All Star Music has a family suite, which is pretty reasonable for an onsite property.

A few points:

The facilities at Fort Wilderness are called cabins.

http://allears.net/acc/faq_fw.htm

The cheapest option will be the family suites at the All-Star resorts. They're talking about family suites at Pop Century as well, another "Value" resort, as about those.

The other suies at Disney are what they call "Deluxe Villas", which are Disney Vacation Club (timeshare) properties, that are rented out like hotel rooms when available. They are adjoined to the Boardwalk, Wilderness Lodge, Beach Club, and Animal Kingdom resorts, and as standalone properties at Old Key West and Saratogo Springs resorts.

I don't know if you can get connecting rooms at any "Value" resorts (All-Stars and Pop Century). I think they have them at all of the "Moderate" resorts (Port Orleans, Caribbean Beach, and Coronado Springs) The standard rooms at the first two have two double beds, not queens. Coronado Springs has just had a renovation where all the doubles were replaced with queens.

You said "on Disney property", but I will mention the following in case you change your mind.

We are taking our family of six in December of this year and have rented a house just one mile from the Disney main entrance. The four bedroom + private pool home is only $193 per night inclusive of tax. There are many homes and condos listed on various web sites, but we felt the ones in Formosa Gardens were the nicest and the closest to the park. Here are a few we considered and I felt the owners were all pleasant in my correspondence.

http://www.villasatformosagardens.com/

http://www.fgvillas.com/

http://www.greatrentals.com/rental-property/p313108

http://www.greatrentals.com/rental-property/p138313

Good map of rental villages:
http://www.thedibb.co.uk/villa-map.php

here's another to second the idea of off-site. We've loved having lots of space, bedrooms, our own pool...

We've also stayed on-site, and there is a huge difference. For us, there was no 'downtime' to on-site => even when at the hotel, you are overwhelmed with crowds. When you stay off-site, you truly get a break from the crowds.

It depends how long the trip is ? Do you go commando style ? Do you take breaks ? Do you like to eat in or go out for all your meals ?

The on vs off property is so a "to each his own" thing! When we go to WDW, we go to be in the thick of things and would not want to stay offsite. There are pros and cons for each viewpoint, but for the very reasons that surfmom gives, I would hate to be offsite and be stuck in the park for a whole day when I can easily go back and forth from my hotel to a park. We *never* spend more than 3-4 hours at a stretch in any park w/o going back for a break and to recharge. This would be difficult to impossible if staying offsite, but as I said, to each his own.

My family stayed at Port Orleans Riverside. We had adjoining rooms with 4 full size beds, total. There were 6 of us and we had plenty of room. The restaurant area is great for a family, lots of choices, esp for breakfast. Also consider the meal plan. It worked out very well for us since kids can eat a lot!

TC and surfmom are right on, based on our experience. Twice we've rented houses from All-Star Vacation Rentals in Kissimmee and it's worked great; you get quiet time away from the crowds, everyone has room to spread out, the pool is YOURS, kids have room to move around (not stuck laying on a bed watching TV). You have 3 bathrooms. We've stayed on World and you're on the bus for long times. The car drive is literally only a few minutes to a house at places like Formosa Gardens. And it costs less per night that ONE room on World.

There are family suites now at the All Star Music Resort. We stayed in one last December and thought it was very nice. They took two of the standard rooms and rennovated them into a suite so it has two bathrooms, a separate bedroom with, I think it was a king bed. Two tvs, the furniture in the living room area makes into 3 more beds - two single, one sofa bed. Also has a kitchenette area with frig and microwave. Had the best time playing a music trivia game with my daughter around the pool one afternoon, at that time they had some activity like that every afternoon. It was a very upbeat and fun place - check it out
We frequently stay at the Ft. Wilderness cabins and they are great too. All the villa resorts have studio, one and two bedroom units, some have 3 bedroom grand villas and Saratoga Springs recently opened their treehouse villas that sleep 9 in 3 bedrooms.

We booked into the All Star Music for a family suite. We also have 4 kids. I looked into "budget" options and the ASM was the least expensive on-site option. Two adjoining rooms at the ASM was just a bit less but the suite has a fridge and microwave and that was good for us. The next best value I found for a suite was the Coronado Springs. For more money there are lots of wonderful options as posters have mentioned above. I'd love to stay in the treehouse one day!

The suite at the All-Star Music resort would be my recommendation, too. We stayed in one for the last night of our trip when they first opened (3 years ago) and it was very comfortable. Lots of space, lots of beds, separate bedroom, and 2 bathrooms is a great thing with lots of kids (makes the mornings so much easier). It's by far the least expensive way to stay on property in any sort of suite. We've also had connecting rooms at Port Orleans, but I believe they were all full-size beds. We had a queen at the ASM suite. That makes a huge difference to me, personally.

My family was just at WDW last Easter. I only have two children but one now lives on her own and is 25, the other is 17. I evaluated options and found adjoining rooms at Pop Century to be the least expensive option for us. And since WDW has extended park hours morning and night for those staying on side, one really is not in the room all that much. Some mornings we could get in at 7AM and stay in the park until 3AM that night. Lines at pretty short at those times!

The kids stayed in one room, us in the other. The rooms were small, but had two double beds each and a small table and chair area. We really liked the cafeteria at Pop Century. It is loud and crowded but service was fast, food prepared fresh and it is clean. One night we were just too tired and even found their delivery pizza to be wonderful.

Check the Disney site often, when we went they offered a food plan special. Right now I can't recall what it was, maybe my 17 year old got to eat free? I had never used the food plan before, in fact I was the type of mom that brought peanut butter and bread from home in my suitcase. But, we really enjoyed the food plan. Granted setting up dining reservations 2 months before we traveled to WDW was difficult as it made us plan which park we were going to be in which days but we really enjoyed trying all the different restaurants.

We've enjoyed our stay at Disney's Fort Wilderness - we had a 2 bedroom villa with a full kitchen. The living room had a pull out sofa, and if I remember correctly, the 2nd bedroom had bunk beds. My kids thought it was the coolest - it didn't feel at all like we were cooped up in a hotel.

We didn't really use the kitchen much except for cooking breakfast and midnight snacks. There were several activities on site that were kid-appropriate, campfires, etc. Lots of open areas for kids to play in.