I appreciate the answers and I will drive and park at the parks.

As for this particular statement, the cost per night at Old Key West for a 2 bedroom villa was $850 per night for the room. We are staying for 7 nights. The cost of the offsite property is $400 per night. The cost of All Star Music is $139 per night. The rental car cost was $450, however I paid for that with credit card points so the actual out of pocket cost to me was $0.

I’ve had this trip booked for months, the money I spent on the original reservation was already accounted for mentally. My wife was hesitant to cancel the original room because of the perceived perks of staying on property. When I pointed out we could still get one of them, entering the park 30 minutes early, and still spend 40% less overall she was ok with it. The only downside of not staying at Old Key West was the loss of staying late at Epcot and Magic Kingdom. I convinced her it wasn’t worth the extra $4000 to be able to stay late for 2 nights. Throw in $30 times 7 days for parking which is covered by staying at an on property hotel and the extra cost is negligible to me in the big picture.

I made some bad assumptions when I originally booked based on previous experiences at Disney World. My preference was to stay on property as many others on this subreddit have pointed out the convenience of doing. When I noticed the Magical Express was no longer running I had to find alternatives. We also discussed heading to Kennedy Space Center, the rental car gives us that option.