Florida and its cash sucking parks

pastajoy

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Me and my family are due to travel to Florida in a bout a months time, we are getting married in Sarasota but staying around the parks in Kissimmee. We have booked everything separate to save money, Villa & flights sorted, 2 cars sorted and wedding sorted. Now its time to sort out the park tickets, I was unaware they where so many parks in Florida!!
We are taking a 3 kids 9, 7 and 3 and obviously want to do the Magical kingdom.
Looking at some of the prices of tickets 14 day passes ect ect, it would cost more than our entire holiday not including wedding, The prices for the 5 of us are looking around £2500 WOW. Makes me wonder how they manage to get people through the gates at that money!
Im pretty sure we dont need 14 day passes for the parks and now am looking to cherry pick the places we would like to go, Magic Kingdom, Lego Land up to now. Universal was on our wish list but it does not look like it is aimed for Kids around the ages of mine.
Could any of you guys make any recommendations for places to visit. Here in the UK we are constantly bombarded with 2 for 1 tickets and free park tickets that come in all forms for UK Parks, i'e petrol stations, cereal boxes and national newspaper offers. Does anything like this exist around that area? as we would much rather pay for single tickets to the places we want to see but obviously the day tickets are not very cost effective.
Any advice is appreciated.
Cheers
 
Do an online search for "cheap Disney Tickets" and you can find some deals. Of course, just like in forex, there can be scams with tickets, so do a little research before giving up your cash (or credit card number).

14 days might be overkill, but a multi-day multi-park pass may be a reasonable option.
 
There is a cool circus museum right in Sarasota. The Ringling Brothers museum. There's cool stuff in there for kids. The edge of the property lets out into the gulf and that property was in the movie "Great Expectations" with Gweneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke. Might see the movie with the kids, then go to the museum and property.

Florida has a lot of under water tunnels. I took a row boat for maybe $15 onto a stream created by underwater tunnels and saw some alligators. You can get the kids hyped up about it and make them take turns rowing the boat. I can't find the link but you can search for it. You can also travel in a boat just north of Orlando and see live alligators here too.
http://www.orlandolaketours.com/

This is an airboat tour. The kids will love this.
http://www.spiritoftheswamp.com/

Take the kids indoor rock climbing. This one is in orlando but there's gyms all over the state. You can make a day of it, it's not that expenesive and kids usually have such a good strength to weight ration, they do really well at this,especially the 9 year old. Kids that age are like apes. It's safe but exciting to be that high and introduces them to a really cool hobby they might take to.
http://rwc.sdes.ucf.edu/facilities/climbing-tower

See dophins. Lots of boat tours.
 
If you want the best roller coaster collection in the state, my pick would be Busch Gardens in Tampa. Then again, with kids at the ages you mentioned, maybe save that for the next trip.

Kennedy Space Center is cool, but they got greedy and threw up a fence around museums originally created with taxpayer money and let some private company pretend it's another theme park.
 
When you go to Disney, the best thing to do is to buy a package with everything included that you can buy the services yourself
 
I went through a similar experience, then I understood that depending on the season it costs less or more
 
You can save on Disney tickets up to 50% if you are willing to sit through a two hour long timeshare pitch which is borderline legal.. you can see the ads driving south on 95. A guy takes you into a 'back door' - really creepy. But, if you're willing to sit through it, they will give you the discounted tickets. Be careful!
 
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