Carpe Diem Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 I know we should spend our money on more important things, but yet I would love to go. Any tips? We don't have a super big budget. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 We usually do Disneyland. It is in close proximity to my mom, so it is a nice side trip. One of those since-we're-already-there trips.:D If you do DL check into RideMax. They do not have the service at DW. It is an itenerary that schedules around your ride preferences. (You can make several different plans.) We tried it over Christmas one year and did not wait more than 5 to 10 minutes a ride. It was awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa in NC Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Here are some site on how to do Disney and they have money saving tips. http://www.allearsnet.com/index.html http://www.mousesavers.com/ I am having the struggle about spending the money but they are at a prime age to visit Disney. So I am building memories for my old age and spending their inheritance. :p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Only me Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 I also agree about going to Mousesavers.com. They often have great deals plus that have different ideas on the website about how to save money. I'm not sure if you were thinking about staying onsite or not but if not I would recommend staying at a condo or townhouse offsite. We stayed at a townhouse last year in May. I think we spent about $100 per night. It was 3 bedrooms with 3 baths, full kitchen, living room and a small pool. It was great. It helped a lot because we have 5 people in our family and it is difficult to find a hotel room that fits 5 people. We could have fit 8 people in the home if we needed to. We had a king size bed, one room had a queen size bed, another 2 twin beds and then there was a queen size sofa bed in the living room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer in MI Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 You can definately do Disney on a budget!! Allears is wonderful. So are the Dis boards (do a search!). There are people there who have been to Disney two and three times a year!!!! There is a Disney on a budget category on both those sites. How many kids do you have and where do you live? We just went with four kids and stayed on site and got the meal plan. This was our splurge trip! But, we stayed within our budget. Some things we did: 1. Drive. We drove down and stayed off property at a cheap motel the night before our reservation started there. We checked in to our hotel at Disney by 9 am, so we had a full day at Disney without having to pay for the night before. Then when we left, we checked out of our hotel on the last day and stayed at the parks that entire day and left that night. It gave us two more days on our vacation without the expensive nights at Disney. 2. Plan to spend a couple "free" days at Disney where you don't go to the parks. There's so much else to do - Downtown Disney, Disney Quest (this was included in our tickets as a deal Disney was running when I booked), Boardwalk, bike rentals, horseback riding, etc. 3. We saved for a year. Dh and I set up a separate Disney account. In this account, we put what we budgeted for our vacation. Then, we sat down with the kids and talked with them about how they could help. We set a budget on our electric/gas/water bills. Any amount we were under went straight into our vacation account. I've never seen my kids turning off lights and water like they did that year! We opened a Disney credit card. Dh uses it for work expenses. We got Disney bucks on that. I have a card with cash rewards. All of the rewards went to our trip. Any "extra" money we got went into the account - birthday (not the kids), Christmas (dh's Christmas bonus), any money I got from selling things on line, etc. I watched our food budget VERY carefully. We bought only used clothes. (Interestingly enough, we all decided that this was just the way we should be living and have completely changed our lifestyle!!) We had such a good time (and that was with kids and dh getting sick while there - dh missed half our days at the parks!!), we've just booked another vacation on Disney Cruise Line. We'll do the same thing we did last year in terms of budgeting. We do have other things the money could be spent on too. We just moved to a new house. Everything works, but I'd like to update. We decided to spread out the updates in order to take vacations! Dh and I love to travel and now we LOVE Disney!!! Have fun planning!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elisabeth in IL Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Jennifer, would you mind telling me approx. how much you spent? Like did you spend 3000 to 3500, not including spending money? Where did you stay on-site? I have 3 kids and want to go to Disney this year or early next year if at all possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karenciavo Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Jennifer, would you mind telling me approx. how much you spent? Like did you spend 3000 to 3500, not including spending money? Where did you stay on-site? I have 3 kids and want to go to Disney this year or early next year if at all possible. Hi Elisabeth, We go to Disney almost every year (probably not this year though :() The best time to go price-wise and low-crowd-wise is September. I have three children and here is what we've spent in the last few years: October 2003 - we stayed at the Polynesian (sleeps 5), hotel and park tickets for 7 nights/8 days were $2800 and we budgeted $150 a day for food and souvenirs. September 2004 - we rented points from someone at the DIS boards and stayed at the Beach Club Villas (sleeps 5), hotel and park tickets for 7 nights/6 days were $2300 and we budgeted $150 a day for food and souvenirs. September 2005 - we stayed at the cabins at Fort Wilderness (sleeps 6), hotel, park tickets and food for 6 nights/7 days were $2500 (free dining plan has been offered in September since 2005, but may not be offered this year) and we budgeted $50 a day for extras. The cabins have full-sized kitchens (and an outside grill) so if you want, and I didn't :D, you could cook here and save money. May 2007 - we stayed at the Polynesian (sleeps 5), hotel, park tickets, and food for 8 nights/7 days were $5500 (see how much cheaper September is!) and we budgeted $50 a day for food and souvenirs. We like to stay at the Deluxe hotels, you could do Disney cheaper if you stay at Port Orleans - Riverside (sleeps 5) which is a "moderate" hotel or you could rent 2 connecting rooms at one of the value resorts. We stayed at All-Star Movies once and liked it a lot, but it's hard to go back after staying at the Deluxes :o, especially the Poly for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tess in the Burbs Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 and we stayed in a timeshare resort less than a mile from the entrance. It was huge and the resort had so many activities even in winter! We spent ~ $3000 for the entire week not counting the timeshare(since we already pay that every year anyway). Tickets for DW and Seaworld were a little over $1000 themselves. We drove 12.5 hours to save money. We did stay in a hotel on the way down(I was sick). We ate lunch in the park daily(max $40) and ate breakfast and dinner in the condo. Each kid had $20 daily to spend. We had a small amount for us each too. We had a fantastic time and spent way less than friends who went before us did. We even had lunch at the Shark restaurant at SeaWorld and spent $100!!! So we could have done it a little cheaper(less stuff for kids/us) but we wanted to enjoy ourselves and we did. We saved for 6 months to go. have fuN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer in MI Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside. It was actually cheaper for us to do that than stay at one of the Value resorts because we have a family of 6 (well, according to Disney, 5, because we had a baby at the time). The Value resorts don't fit 5, so we woud've had to stay in one of the suites which was more expensive than one room at POR. We also got the Deluxe Dining plan because I wanted three meals/day and I thought we needed more than the regular dining plan. I also didn't want to be thinking about which types of meals I ate (sit down vs. table). So, we really splurged on food!! It was WAY too much food for our family!! Next time we'll get the cheaper plan. January is one of the cheapest months to go! (Our cruise next January would've cost us double to go in July!!) Anyway, all that to say, we spent $4200 on our package. I think $1500 of that was on food though, so it could've been a lot cheaper!! We ended up with a bill for souveniers/medicine/etc. for $500. But, $260 was for prescription drugs we needed while there and we'll be reimbursed! My point is that if you get one of the packages with food, you really don't need to spend much more than that once on property (but the temptation was really hard to resist!!). We did Disney in 1999 too. We stayed off property in one of those houses and spent about $79/night. It included kitchen, laundry, 2 bedrooms and our own pool. It was definately cheaper to do it this way! So, if you're on a cheaper budget, this would be the way to go. But, after having stayed on property, I think I'd rather save so that we can stay on property again! (JMHO!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elisabeth in IL Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Thank you so much Jennifer for your detailed reply. Did you ever worry about hurricanes or bad weather in September? My husband was thinking that the Fall might be a better time for us and by your comparison, I think that I agree!!! Again, thanks so much for all the details! Opps, I see it was Karen who gave the first details and Jennifer secondly. Thanks both of you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Another Jen Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Elizabeth, We've taken our kids to Disney a few times. The first time we rented a RV, drove down, and stayed at Fort Wilderness. It cost us $3000 to have the RV for 18 days. That was in the long ago time of $1 a gallon gas (2000). So we spent $5000 for everything (tickets,gas,food,stuff) We were there for Halloween. We then discovered that we were good campers and bought a pop-up camper. Our most economical trips have been with the camper. We always go in the Fall-Oct/Nov, the parks are empty the Disney prices are not in the "holiday" rates yet and we get a nice break from the cold fall weather here. HTH Jen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carpe Diem Posted February 6, 2008 Author Share Posted February 6, 2008 I never thought about going in the fall but maybe we should think that option over. Not sure I would have the money now anyway but I do have free plane tickets. Thanks for the links, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kari C in SC Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 I guess I am coming in a bit late. I hope this new board moves this up so you can see it. Anyway, the BEST websites I have ever used for planning trips to Disney World are www.wdwig.com and www.disboards.com . The first one has menus, schedules, pictures, etc. Just about everything you could ever want. The second one is a message board, much like this one. There is so much info there. If you can possibly go when they offer a free or discounted meal plan - that is awesome. We lived in Florida and had resident passes twice. We went for 5 or 6 days at a time and had the best time. I loved planning! Let's see - try to see all the nighttime shows because they are just the best. Oh and my best money saving tip is ask for ice water at any place to eat. They have to give it to you and it tastes fine. Don't spent $3 on a bottle of water. Oh, I sure wish we were going back soon. Hope you have a great trip and check out those websites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carpe Diem Posted February 20, 2008 Author Share Posted February 20, 2008 I just checked my old threads and saw that you had replied. I'm off to check the links you provided. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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