Walt Disney World - Orlando

Go to disboards.com. They have a weath of informaton.

We just returned from Disney. We went for only 2 days (with taking along twin 4 yr old boys, 2 days was plenty, and we really did not want to spend our entire vacation at the theme parks). I am a total Disney budgeteer....and while I love going to Disney, the costs are getting to be astronomical, so I'm all about saving money on my Disney Vacation.

Since you are only purchasing tickets for 2 days, you will not find a lot of discounts on 2 day tickets, I looked and looked. Most discounts are for 3 days or more. Disney will give you a little bit of a discount for buying 2 Base Magic Your Way tickets (non park-hopper), but it is only about 3 dollars. Keep in mind when you are looking at ticket prices that most do not include FL tax. Do not use those ticket brokers that advertise on the side of the road, or purchase thru eBay or craigs list, because most of these are tickets that you will not be able to use. As mentioned earlier by another mom, Disney now has a fingerprint process they use with the tickets. Only purchase tickets from actual Disney ticket brokers.

Ask friends, relatives if their company offers discounted tickets. Many companies (IBM, HP, GM, etc.) have employee programs where employees can purchase tickets for theme parks at a little bit of a discount. Ask them to look into the prices and pay them the cost of the tickets and have them buy them for you ahead of time for your trip.

Since you are going just for the 2 days, get the Base tickets, and buy them at Guest Services at Downtown Disney before you go to the park, vs. waiting at the gate to purchase them. We did this and it saved us some time.

We've been to Disney many times, so I've learned a lot of tricks along the way on saving money while there. :-)

One of the best things we did this time was I purchased spiral bound notebooks that were a little larger than 4x6 size that had archival acid-free paper in them and the paper is thicker (more cardstock weight). I also took sharpie markers with us. We put the books and markers in a gallon size ziploc bag to keep them together (and keep them dry in case anything spilled on them or it rained). The twins used these for their autograph books with the characters. It worked out great, and I had each character sign on one page, and then can put the picture of them with that character on the opposite page. Plus the thicker paper is much better than the thin paper in the books that Disney sells. You can also take along a pillowcase or a white t-shirt and have characters sign those. They make great keepsakes. Just make sure you have permanent markers for them to use. Sometimes you'll luck out and get a really awesome autograph....we were in line to see Goofy in Adventureland (right inside the Pirates of the Carribean ride, Goofy dressed as a Pirate is there signing autographs and taking pictures) and no one was behind us so he drew a picture of himself and then signed it for my son. Plus he 'goofed' around with us and my son loved it!

I'm also a huge fan of the Disney Photopass. While I try to take my own pictures, I'm usually busy with the kids trying to get autograph books and get them ready and all. This is the second time we've used the Photopass and I feel it's totally worth the money. You can pre-order yours at a discount before you even go (totally worth it as otherwise it's $149!!) at their web site at www.disneyphotopass.com Take advantage of it and get photos of each of the kids with the characters, one of all of you together with the characters, some of you on mainstreet, in front of the castle, etc. etc. etc. You can easily wind up with 200 picture on your photopass CD and you can print them all when you get home through photo services like Winkflash, snapfish, walmart etc. as often as you want. You can also add borders, etc. to your pictures thru the website and do a 'save as copy' to it so you still have the original, and they will add it to your CD.

You can also take a small cooler in to the park for snacks. Take a small, soft-sided cooler and pack it with juice boxes, yogurt sticks, cheese sticks, etc. and then also take other snacks in your back-pack like granola bars, or those crackers & cheese type sandwiches, fruit snacks, etc. Whatever you like to eat. We always do this, and we eat a really good breakfast at the hotel, then eat our snacks throughout the day, and eat dinner in the park. Saves A LOT of the cost of food there. You can also take bottles of water in to the park, and then refill them at drinking fountains throughout the park and add in those crystal light flavors to your water....keeping hydrated while there is KEY, especially since you'll be there in MAY when the weather is much warmer.

Buy rain ponchos at Walmart -- they are .88 each in the camping section and folded into small pkgs. You can toss them into your backpack in case of rain and they are much cheaper.

If you have not already done so, I highly recommend www.touringplans.com to check out their itineraries and crowd calendars for best days to visit each park based on crowd levels. We've used them for years and they haven't steered us wrong yet. Totally worth the $10 premium subscription fee, and we used the itinerary for Magic Kingdom, One day with small kids ages 2-8 and we did really well with it.

Good luck and have fun! Feel free to PM me if you have any additional questions.

--K.

I went last fall and I recommend you to NOT to buy the tickets on the booths you will see on the road saying they sell Disney tickets. We bought 2 adults tickets and when we went to the park had to buy tickets over the counter beacuse Disney now have a system where they record your fingerprints specifically with your tickets. So, any tickets you buy on those booths are worthIess because usually what they do is buy multi day tickets and sell you the tickets that have unused days. But since now Disney have that system with the fingerprints those tickets can't be used again unless you are the original person. I'm glad they returned my money, no questions ask. But I guess is because we paid with Credit Card and we can make a Dispute with the Credit Card company anyway. Also, is illegal what they are doing.

bookit.com is great!!! We went July09 through them for 1650 4 nights flight, car, and hotel...and then again April 10 for 1250 5 nights for everything again...Spring is cheaper!!! We are going back 2012 :)

PM me and I'll give you a website that give you specials.

Last summer Habitat for Huminaty gave away free one day tickets for helping them out for a day.