Disney is crazy expensive

[BigRedDad]

We are in our early phase of planning a Summer 2017 trip. I remember just a few (less than 5) years ago when you could go to Disney for $2,000 for a week. Now, with the ticket prices and nickel/diming, it is well over $3,000. Yes, there are places you can cut corners, but you are still impacted by the ticket prices.

We are currently running on the numbers. Since we will have not gone in 2 years, we are deciding to buy Annual Passes. This is due to the resort hotels going to insane prices, get free parking, and free Memory Maker. We just have to plan multiple trips in that AP year. We will also choose to stay offsite simply because the value of staying on property is no longer there. EMH is not much benefit because we usually avoid those parks anyway.

They cheapest of resorts is $1,200 for our initial week visit without a discount. This is at the All Star resorts. If a discount came out, it would still be $1,000. This puts us at $2,100 without food. Since there are no facilities at any of the non-DVC rooms, you are going to have to eat there. We bring our own breakfast foods and snacks. There is not enough space or easy way of having stuff for lunch, but lets assume you can. That means there is no additional cost for breakfast, lunch, and snacks since you have to eat at home anyway. That means dinners out. Going all out Mr Cheapskate, I could go for $2,500 for the most miserable trip possible to Disney World. That is cutting out all possible corners.

Yes, I know they have the "free dining" times, but most people with kids can't do it. Even then, you are still at rack rates on rooms and tickets.

 

[21stamps]

That's crazy talk, or you're not shopping very hard for your plane tickets. I live further from you and we can almost always get to and from WDW for about $200 pp round trip, so $1,000 for your family of five example. Parking is like $50 and it's not hard to fit a week's worth of Florida clothes (shorts and t-shirts) in a carry-on bag.

I would have agreed with you 4 years ago. Now with where I live, and how horrible our "international airport" is, I can't agree with your pricing examples.

The most inexpensive flight I can find for our upcoming trip is $388 per person, plus our 4 bags..and that's leaving at 5am bc of the price.

 

[Disney.Mike]

That's crazy talk, or you're not shopping very hard for your plane tickets. I live further from you and we can almost always get to and from WDW for about $200 pp round trip, so $1,000 for your family of five example. Parking is like $50 and it's not hard to fit a week's worth of Florida clothes (shorts and t-shirts) in a carry-on bag.

I live in the Shreveport, La area. My choices are to fly out of Shreveport, at approx 450 per person, drive 3 1/2 hours to Dallas Ft. Worth, drive 5 1/2 hours to New Orleans, or drive 4 1/2 hours to Baton Rouge or 5+ hours to Houston

Those are just the transit times to those airports, not counting extra time to actually get checked in and all.

Shreveport is a small regional airport and quite expensive and the transit times to the larger airports for a more reasonable fare, negate the entire purpose of flying.

 

[21stamps]

I live in the Shreveport, La area. My choices are to fly out of Shreveport, at approx 450 per person, drive 3 1/2 hours to Dallas Ft. Worth, drive 5 1/2 hours to New Orleans, or drive 4 1/2 hours to Baton Rouge.

Those are just the transit times to those airports, not counting extra time to actually get checked in and all.

Shreveport is a small regional airport and quite expensive.

I live in Cincinnati. Delta has screwed us completely. It makes me sick every time I travel. Oh I miss flying out of FLL, PBI, and even the horrible MIA.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I would have agreed with you 4 years ago. Now with where I live, and how horrible our "international airport" is, I can't agree with your pricing examples.

The most inexpensive flight I can find for our upcoming trip is $388 per person, plus our 4 bags..and that's leaving at 5am bc of the price.

Hm, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess I'm spoiled because we have so many options. I could fly out of Hartford, Providence, Boston, or Manchester in a pinch so there's always one of them that has one-ways around $100.

 

[21stamps]

Hm, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess I'm spoiled because we have so many options. I could fly out of Hartford, Providence, Boston, or Manchester in a pinch so there's always one of them that has one-ways around $100.

It's a huge problem here. Delta won't let anyone else in. I would give anything to get those kind of deals again!

I am actually debating spending a night in Chicago and flying out of O'hare when we go to Alaska this summer.

 

[Disney.Mike]

Fortunately, northwest LA is in major expansion/ economic growth mode, and part of this push is to get more affordable carriers into the Shreveport airport. Hopefully there will be low cost carriers coming here that fly to Orlando, as they already have brought in carriers that offer affordable routes to Dallas, Vegas, and New Orleans.

 

[Kevin_W]

I live in Cincinnati. Delta has screwed us completely. It makes me sick every time I travel. Oh I miss flying out of FLL, PBI, and even the horrible MIA.

Southwest has direct flights from Dayton to Orlando. That's not a far drive from Cinci, so you might want to check it out. (Even the direct flights form Columbus might be worthwhile.)

 

[21stamps]

Southwest has direct flights from Dayton to Orlando. That's not a far drive from Cinci, so you might want to check it out. (Even the direct flights form Columbus might be worthwhile.)

I am more than willing to drive to Dayton if I find a great deal! It's a little more than an hour drive for me, Columbus airport is around 3 hours.

I could fly out of Dayton this trip and save a little more than $200 between the 2 flights, but once I add in parking and how early we would have to leave, plus the fact that it is not a direct flight (which I do have now and a layover with a cranky 6 year old isn't my idea of a fun time unless saving a large amount), totally negates any savings.

 

[21stamps]

Here's Southwest.. Look at the travel times!! 7 hours from Dayton, OH to Orlando, Florida?!?!?! That's crazy.

 

[21stamps]

CVG SUCKS. Hate it. Hopefully it will improve someday.. Sooner rather than later.

Why we don't have Jet Blue or Southwest is just mind boggling.

 

[SSH]

"The only benefit I miss out on is EMH. Over the Summer that benefit is only for morning EMH"
There's also the 60 vs 30 day FP+ window. Not sure if that's even important to you or not - it's not that big a deal to me. But it is an onsite benefit many people seem to value highly.

 

[TXDisney]

You just completely made me have a flashback.. To a time when there was still such a thing as disposable income in my life.

Excuse me for a moment while I savor that memory..

I completely get that everyone has a different financial situation. I have a good financial situation but nothing incredible to where I can go to WDW whenever I want. But if WDW means a lot to you, you will save to go, you'll find a way. I choose to go every year so I save accordingly. But if saving still didn't allow me to go once a year, I'd still save to go, just not as often. I wouldn't sacrifice the quality of my trip.

 

[BigRedDad]

I stopped flying when Southwest stopped offering great rates. It is about $125-$150 round trip in gas to drive vs $600-$750 for plane tickets. Add in the cost to park and it gets higher. On the way down, we usually stay at a cheap hotel about 2-3 hours away. I get it on Priceline for about $40 for the 6-8 hours we are there. Having our car saves us at least another $300-$500 on food, drinks, and snacks.

The way I see it time wise is like this: Have to arrive 2 hours before flight means I have to leave my house 2.5 hours early to park and get check-in, then through security. The flight is almost 2 hours (now we are at 4.5 hours). Gate to DME, wait for DME, and DME drop off at resort is about 1.5-2 hours (now we are at 6 hours). The total time it saves me is 3.5 hours each way assuming that we can get a direct flight. Is the 7 hour time savings (for RT) worth $500? I know I don't make $70 an hour after tax. If I did, I wouldn't be worrying about $600 plane tickets.

Outside of the AP Colonic, we are going to have a "cheap" 10 day trip this coming summer. 7 nights for $500 at WBC. We have not decided where the other 4 nights are. We were leaning to stay onsite, but I can't see spending $500-$900 for a Value resort. I can get Gaylord Palms or similar for less than that through Priceline. I can also get another WBC 4 night stay for about $400. We will go DVC on the next trip because the only real expense we will have is the room.

 

[TheMouseFan]

Southwest has direct flights from Dayton to Orlando. That's not a far drive from Cinci, so you might want to check it out. (Even the direct flights form Columbus might be worthwhile.)

Unfortunately, there are no longer direct flights from Dayton to MCO offered. They route everything through Chicago now. That really upsets me because now we have to drive an hour to Columbus instead of 15 minutes to the Dayton airport to fly direct to MCO. Not to mention that the departure times were getting later and later in the day when they did still offer direct flights from Dayton.

 

[21stamps]

Unfortunately, there are no longer direct flights from Dayton to MCO offered. They route everything through Chicago now. That really upsets me because now we have to drive an hour to Columbus instead of 15 minutes to the Dayton airport to fly direct to MCO. Not to mention that the departure times were getting later and later in the day when they did still offer direct flights from Dayton.

I was shocked when I looked up Southwest out of Dayton. I can't imagine who would be buying tickets with 6-7 hour travel time.

 

[DarthVader]

Another vote, affirming the crazy prices, and what's a kick in the pants is Disney cutting back on incentives/promotions.

I was blessed to have a great Disney vacation last April, I saved up for 2 years to afford this. Because we stayed at the contemporary, our vacation came in just under 10,000 dollars (including our flight). That's just crazy.

The wife and I were kicking around the idea of going to WDW fall of 2017 and some quick and dirty numbers have a 7 night 6 day trip coming in over 5,000 for the resort (Art of Animation), 5 day non-park hopper tickets and meal estimates (including shows such as the hoopty doo) and estimated flight costs.

We are seriously considering to take a pass on this possible trip given the excessive price.

 

[BigRedDad]

The wife and I were kicking around the idea of going to WDW fall of 2017 and some quick and dirty numbers have a 7 night 6 day trip coming in over 5,000 for the resort (Art of Animation), 5 day non-park hopper tickets and meal estimates (including shows such as the hoopty doo) and estimated flight costs.

Discounts aren't out for that time frame, so it is hard to gauge a little. But I know exactly what you are talking about. This is why we have decided with the Annual Passes + offsite option for our Summer trip. We will have 2 more trips that we can splurge a little more on. I suspect those times will be a more value season and I can get DVC rentals at a much lower point total. The time we are going, the DVC points are the 2nd highest. Also in slower times, those RCI exchanges offer serious value.

 

[21stamps]

Another vote, affirming the crazy prices, and what's a kick in the pants is Disney cutting back on incentives/promotions.

I was blessed to have a great Disney vacation last April, I saved up for 2 years to afford this. Because we stayed at the contemporary, our vacation came in just under 10,000 dollars (including our flight). That's just crazy.

The wife and I were kicking around the idea of going to WDW fall of 2017 and some quick and dirty numbers have a 7 night 6 day trip coming in over 5,000 for the resort (Art of Animation), 5 day non-park hopper tickets and meal estimates (including shows such as the hoopty doo) and estimated flight costs.

We are seriously considering to take a pass on this possible trip given the excessive price.

Wow, How many people are in your family? Those numbers are very high.

 

[Kevin_W]

Unfortunately, there are no longer direct flights from Dayton to MCO offered. They route everything through Chicago now. That really upsets me because now we have to drive an hour to Columbus instead of 15 minutes to the Dayton airport to fly direct to MCO. Not to mention that the departure times were getting later and later in the day when they did still offer direct flights from Dayton.

I didn't realize they had stopped the direct flight. Those were originally Airtran flights from Dayton, so perhaps they are finally consolidating the two airlines. SW from Columbus has also gotten more expensive over the past couple years, which is disappointing. Particularly once my daughter started school and we go around the school schedule.

 

[DarthVader]

Wow, How many people are in your family? Those numbers are very high.

4 people 2 kids (well adults if you use Disney's definition of adults ) and my wife and I.