Disney World ~ How Do You Parents Afford This?

Heres a great blog couponingtodisney.com She helps you find ways to save money for anything, but she saves her money for WDW.

I am a Disney vacation planner, and would love to help you plan an affordable Disney vacation. Disney just released a new promotion. Feel free to send me an email (____@____.com) for a FREE, no-obligation quote. My services are free to you. I get paid by Disney. :)

We drove to Florida from Dallas - made it a road trip. We stayed at inexpensive hotels - did not do the resorts or the ones right next to the parks. We had a 10 day vacation that included a night in New Orleans, one in Orlando + Universal Studios (1 day pass) and 5 nights (in a nice hotel, 2 room suite, on the beach w/ ocean view) in Clearwater Beach. There were a couple of other travel nights that we stayed at a Motel 6. For a family of 4 it was $3200.00 (including gas, food and souvenirs). We decided in May we wanted to go and left June 10th - I spent 3 weeks planning this vacation. Best vacation ever!

If you're getting your numbers on the computer by plugging your info into the DisneyWorld web site, I would highly suggest you telephone their customer service line and get a quote on your dates, resort choice, etc. When we did this last year, we found the cost by phone was tremendously less than what came up on their web site. Don't really know why such a difference, but we were super excited and were able to book one of the deluxe resorts by phone. We book room only and buy our park tickets at the local Disney store. Here are some other ways we saved money.

Going out to a grocery store the first night and bought simple breakfast foods to have in our hotel room.

Not getting park hopper option. Plenty enough for us to see and do, with a rest break in between, to keep it to one park per day.

Not getting the meal plan because we did the math, and it would not be a savings they way my family is all over the board on eating habits. Some people will save money WITH the meal plan or free dining plan, it depends on your family.

Fly mid week when fares are lower.

Try to go during value or moderate season. You'll pay a premium for spring break and holidays.

Used mousesavers to find a reasonable car rental rate.

our family drove from mass to florida.. wont do that again lol... but we stayed at the nickelodeon resort 5 mins from disney and the hotel was a blast!!! and as mentioned earlier we went to the walmart right down the street and made our own foods and packed a cooler of pb&j's for the day in the parks.. we also went to the local target and got the mickey ear hats, tees, and postcards with out buying them in the park!
GOOD LUCK!

When are you planning to go? Make reservations far in advance or you'll pay a fortune for airfare. Are you getting package quotes with hotel, park tickets and maybe a meal plan included? Three or four people for a week or five days -$3K sounds about right. If it's airfare alone-waaaayyy too much! Don't wait until close to trip time to get airfare. Disney is expensive! Many families save for a long time to go. If you are working and start a savings account, you can probably save $3000 faster than you think. Some people use credit cards, but I don't advocate that unless you are 100% sure you'll pay it off as soon as you return. Don't forget about extras and food. Look into the meal plans if you haven't already, and also look into driving. We recently took a long trip, and even with two hotel nights and the high price of gas, we saved almost $1000 by driving instead of flying!

1) financial Planning!
2) Travel Agent

My husband and I started planning our trip for three to Disney in March of last year. We are taking our trip during Thanksgiving break this year. We will be going for 6 days and 5 nights. We are staying on property at a Value Resort. We have the meal plan. We have reservations at the Bippity Boppity Boutique for our 8 yr old daughter (full treatment!). Dinner with Cinderella at her royal table, Reserved seats for the big fireworks display, and at least 5 other "character" meals. The whole trip cost us $3037.45 and it is paid for! We had to pay our airfare upfront: $943.20 but the rest of the trip $ 2094.25 we made payment on with our travel agent. We have also been putting a bit of money aside each paycheck so that we will have extra money for spending.

My husband and I are students of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University (7 years now). His program has taught us how to manage our money and pay off our bills so that we CAN afford to do fun stuff.

I just looked it up on Expedia.

One week stay at BEST WESTERN Airport Inn and Suites including air is $1082.22 for FOUR people.

Flight
Wed, Aug 24 Depart:
Arrive: 06:15am
09:40am Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to
Orlando International Airport (MCO)
American Airlines - Nonstop
Flight 1434
Wed, Aug 31 Depart:
Arrive: 07:40pm
09:20pm Orlando International Airport (MCO) to
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) American Airlines - Nonstop
Flight 897

You'll have to look up you Disney World tickets. You can sometimes get them cheaper on Craig's List.

Hope you have a lot of fun. Good luck to you and yours.

Not sure if anybody said this yet....but rent a house. Google "vacation rental disney." We found a 5 bedroom 4 bath house, with a pool, in a beautiful community 10 miles from disney......for 165 a night. Then place was beautiful!! Furniture was nice, kitchen had basic supplies, they had a game room with pool tables and foose ball.....seriously, I could not believe how nice it was and how CHEAP it was

Check the disneyworld website. They offer different specials depending on what time of year you go. We went in February and got the kids stay and play free offer so two of our kids were free....except for the dining package. We drove from Texas....we have four kids it was just too expensive to fly...it wasnt nearly as bad a drive as I had anticipated.

I would check out allears.net. There are lots of ways of doing Disney. We go fairly often and probably go middle of the road in terms of lodging, meals, etc.

First, look for the Disney promos - discounted hotel, free dinning plan, etc. We generally go off peak times. When you purchase a package through Disney, you can do it way in advance and pay over time so that by the time the trip arives, it's already paid for.

I always do fligts on my own and do quite a bit of shopping around. I think we generally spend around $3K - $3500 for a week (this includes DH, my, 5 and 2 year old).

You have to decide what is important to you... for example, you can stay offsite in a condo/house and make your meals - thus saving on money.

While DH and I can afford regular Disney trips, we don't stay at the Grand Floridian/$400 a night places. We've done Saratoga, All Stars, etc so we can have more room by getting a suite. I know all star starts at $80/night (not for their suites though). We always use Amex points to cover a rental car and get rooms with a fridge. This allows us to get some staple items - yogurt, milk , cereal even though we generally also do the dinning plan (1 quick serve, 1 sit down meal).

Jennifer I am a Travel Agent in Flower Mound and a Disney Specialist. I will be happy to help you with Disney. Disney bases all its prices on the ages of the kids and how long your tickets are for. At certain times of the year they offer free dining and things like that. Right now from the end of August to the end of September they are running speicials. If you will get in contact with me I will get you some prices. It does not cost anything for me to help you. For 2 adults and 2 kids it should be about $2000 for a 4-5 day vacation with air,disney hotel,tickets,and dining if we are talking kids 8 and under.
Thanks,
N. Cox
We All Need Vacations
###-###-####
____@____.com

Well Disney is fun and expensive! We usually go 2-3 times a year and we actually got married on the Disney cruise. I have a few tips or suggestions: if u book this far out you can pay it out in payments just has to be paid like 45 days prior to your arrival. Also, we LOVE the dining plans NOT a waste of money. And there are a few options to choose, we tend to do the deluxe because you get 3 meals and 2 snacks per person per day- however u do not have to use them that way- some meals are 2 credits- u can eat one meal a day if u want. Loads of options the only thing to keep in mind is tips are NOT included & 6 or more in ur party is automatic 18% gratuity. If at the end of ur stay u have meals left, u can buy other people's or exchange for snacks that u can pack and take home- like suckers or somethig as a gift for a kid. We book thru disney and have stayed anywhere from the least expensive to a deluxe. The all stars are not bad it's the transportation that's not great to and from parks they over crowd them. It's best to stay on property to get free transportation to and from airport and the parks. When looking check out the Disney website for deals they put new ones out every so often. I will tell u the best time I have found to go is in october not so hot or crowded, but ur looking for next summer, so I would go as soon as school let out! DO NOT GO IN JULY!!! we just went the 19-27 it was miserable and crowded! Worst than we have ever seen!
So anyways if u need more tips or have any questions just let me know! Good luck

Even with gas prices the way they are, it is cheaper to drive. We drove and packed our own food. We did not stay at a Disney resort, we stayed at a villa that was a time share of my SIL. The resort was only a couple miles from DW. My FIL got the adult tickets (military discount) and we just paid for our 2 kids. You can buy your park tickets to get in at any Disney store, just fyi. Total for 10 days gone, two hotel stays, food and whatever, we spent just over $1,000. Look online for discounts and such. If you stay somewhere that has a kitchen, you won't have to go out.

We bought a 5day Disney pack but we were only there for 4 days. We were able to sell back the one day ticket to one of the agencies down the street. They in turn sell the one day ticket at a discount to the public. We had 4 of them.
Had I known that, I would have purchased a couple of tickets to see other attractions, like Universal Studios,Harry Potter, Sea World,...etc.
Don't know if this helps but thought I'd give you the info.

WE flew all 5 of us round trip for $800.oo. We flew on Spirit airline. We found a reasonable place to stay at travel advisory.com. Also we found Disney quite expensive but if you stay more then 3 days it gets crazy cheap. We ended up purchasing 7 dys tickets for 2 of us. 5 dys tickets for 2 of us and 1 4 day ticket. It was $5 a day I believe after the third day. We visited Disney this past June 17-30. We purchased our tickets in advance back in November. Hope this helps.

It is expensive. We have a Disney Visa card and we put everything on it. Over the course of a year we have several hundred dollars to apply to our trip. Last year we used our Disney rewards and took just under $800 off our hotel bill! We also have AAA and they have discounted park ticket deals we have taken advantage of.

I apologize for typo at the end. I tried to go back and edit but my phone is not letting me see my message in it's entirety. Have a great trip!

Plan carefully. We've been 8+ times. We always flew from DFW. You can get great airfares when you plan in advance. I only deal directly with American or southwest.

Do not go into debt for a vacation. It's not worth it.

When we went we went first class as we do on any vacation. First class does not mean wasting $$. I only dealt directly with Disney for the best deals that fit our family.

We only stayed at the Polynesian at most of those times at the Concierge building. A lot of food/ drink is provided ad well as extra perks such ad private safari and other perks. Talk to Disney reps to get the info.

Plan character male in advance. You don't need that many. Chef Mickey at the Contemporary is good, o'Hana breakfast at Polynesian is great, the Polynesian luau is great.

We never purchased meal plans, it was a waste for us. We always stayed at the Polynesian which is on the monorail line and most of those times, stayed in tge C

http://www.mousesavers.com/disneyland.html

As someone else mentioned, some people use the disney credit card. I got one 5 years ago and then used the "points" for our trip to disneyland last year. It did not pay for the airfare, but it covered two days at disneyland + all food (no hotel though). But, it took 4 years for me to get that many points. I'm now working on accummulating points for disneyworld. But, I am not advocating charging. I pay my balance every month.

Good luck!
L.

It's not easy! Our family of 6 went to Disneyland just a couple of weeks ago, and we went to Disneyworld in 2003 and again in 2006.

We always book an off-property hotel that is one of the Disney "Good Neighor" hotels; this easily saved us almost $1,000 on our most recent trip vs. staying at the cheapest Disney hotel. And although I used AAA to book the hotel and park-hopper passes (comes with a few AAA perks and about a 10% discount on the overall cost), I booked the airfare separately and really lucked out with getting R/T for under $300 per person (of course then you have to add in the luggage fee of $50 per person R/T). If you book on Southwest you'll avoid luggage fees but you'll have to deal with connecting flights . . . still, they offer the best rates. But driving is a real possibility; we considered it. We've taken road trip 1/2 way across the country before so we're used to it.

I live less than 2 hours away from Disney World... and I too, wonder how so many families are able to afford the obscene ticket prices AND still be able to stay at a Disney resort. The only time I was able to take my daughter was because my parents paid for the tickets (cheaper thru the military base) and paid for lodging while we were there. Only thing I had to pay for was for the electric rental scooter and any souvenirs. We all brought tons of food and packed our lunches, snacks and drinks.

I could not imagine having to pay Disney prices AND airfare!! OMGoodness!!!

We did it once and it was 7000 for a family of 4 in 1997. Now that did include gas, hotels, a weekend cruise, and the money I lost being closed in my daycare, tickets etc.. We were gone 2 weeks.

Now days it would cost way more for the same trip.

I'm not clear exactly what you are after... How long are/were you planning on spending on this trip? Is airfare the only issue? Maybe you could drive instead. Even if you spent 4 days on the road (2 days each way) and a hotel stop on the way, it would cost less than $3000 airfare. It looks like approx 1200 miles (20 hours). Might not be fun, but if your kids are old enough, it could be the adventure of a lifetime! ;)

But honestly, that sounds pretty high for airfare, to me. There should be direct flights from DFW to Orlando pretty cheap. I just checked Orbitz and you can get flights this month direct from DFW to ORL for around $225 roundtrip on AirTran. Have you actually checked with the airlines?

I am thinking you have some miscommunication going on... like maybe the $3000 was quoted for the entire trip.

If you're planning on going tomorrow, then the airfares would be outrageous, but if you have enough time, you should be able to do it for around $1000-1500 round trip for all 4 of you. Check the expedia.com, etc., southwest. If you're a member of AAA travel, try them too. :)

Basically there are two secrets: 1) charge if to a credit card and pay it off; 2) save up for the trip and pay cash. Now that you know it's going to take about $3000, you can save $100/month and take the trip in 2.5 years.

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN!!! It is NOT a cheap vacation, but we plan to do it every other year with mini-trips in between. It costs about $5000 for a week! But, if you have access to military stuff it makes it a lot cheaper. We use the AFVC for hotel ($500 for a week at a condo), the military tickets (under $700) for all 5 of us, and we will have $3000 to spend while we are there (including gas, food, stuff, etc.) So you really just need to plan really well! My parents took me and my 4 siblings ALL THE TIME growing up. We only lived in FL twice, and neither time was right by Orlando...so it was always a trip.