You will most likely be paying more to stay on the Disney World property and at one of the official Disney resort hotels. But in addition to being closer to the park, it comes with a number of perks that may make the price difference very worthwhile.
- Free complimentary standard parking at the Theme Parks, the Water Parks and the Disney Springs Area
- Early Access to FastPass+ Planning
- Extra Magic Hours
- Complimentary Transportation to and from the Orlando airport and use of the Skyliner
- Use of MagicBands
The first four are all real benefits to most families with young kids and toddlers.
You can’t even put a price to some of the benefits such as the extra Magic Hour at the beginning of the day when there are shorter lineups.
And don’t forget if your child still needs a nap during the day, it is super important to be able to dash back to your resort room in the middle of the afternoon.
And if your family has a wide age range (from young kids to teens to maybe even seniors), staying on Disney World property will give another benefit. You now have more options for your schedule including splitting up the group for that afternoon nap. And not everyone in the party has to leave the park at the same time when it’s past the bedtime for tired little ones.
The MagicBands is also a good convenience bonus but it would not weigh too much in my choice for a hotel.
So if it’s up to me as long as I can find something within my budget, I would rather go with an official Disney World resort. With 25 options and counting (ok, it’s actually a few less than that as the campsites will not really work for our family), do not miss our rundown and ranking of the Disney Resorts here.
Check out:
Best Disney Resorts for Kids (2020) Guide: Family Edition
Disney Value Resorts Guide (2020) – Family Edition
Disney World and other Disney map central 
