How Do You All Do It???????

[mereg]

I have never been to WDW before and am activly trying to plan a trip for my family of 4 for next year. I see that most of you have been yearly visitors of WDW experience and am curious as to how you do it.

While checking into pricing the average cost of the famed "6 day 7 night" is no where near the price quoted on the telivision even at the value resorts and then that doesn't even figue in airfair from the midwest. All in all the way I have priced it, It will cost some major $$$$$ to get there not to mention eating and the required souvioners for my 5 and 8 year old.

WHAT AM I MISSING?? HOW DO YOU DO IT. It seems to me that even trying to save for a year will only get us transpo and room. Please help with any tricks and tips.
Thanks

 

[THECARISMINE]

Well It Depends On How Much You Are Willing To Spend. You Won't Get Away With Not Spending At Least 4000 O And Of Couare How Long Your Stay My Family And Me Go Every Year For At Least 11 Days. 14 Day If We Go To A All Star And Its Not That Nice There My Opintion Mainly Because Of The People There They Are All Just Mean,i Go With The Crowds Though. We Save All Year For It And Usally Come Back With A Suitcase More Then We Went With Lol. We Go Though Disney Mostly

 

[MouseearsDeb]

We're a family of 4 which includes a 14 yr old and a (at time of travel) 5 year old. We will be staying offsite in a rental home for around $800.00 for 7 nights. The home is about 10 minutes from the Disney parks off of 192. It has its own pool, 3 bedrooms, a pool table in the house, not the garage. We thought about staying on site but for the money, it just wasn't going to work. Last year, we found a mini-van at Thrifty for around $200.00 for 8 days. Then we got really lucky and Southwest ran a deal for $39 each way which was less than $100 pp. You do have to pay to park at WDW, but like someone else pointed out, there are a LOT of nice resteraunts off site to eat at. We usually eat a light breakfast (we're not breadfast people), split lunch at WDW, maybe chicken tenders and a sandwich. This is nice because you get to try more things off the menu.

We also save change, sold on ebay, alotted $$ weekly, etc. You'd be surprised what you can sell on ebay. My oldest DS made out nicely selling video games he no longer played, etc.

Once you go, you'll wonder how you ever managed not to!

 

[ConstanceIrene]

I have no idea. Any thing over a couple of hundered is a dent in my pocket hence "How Do You All do It". It alway seems that any time I have tried to save money for something there will always be some money munching catastophy not far behind.

Anyway, I have no idea on the ball park for the amount. In pricing I have found $2800 with out air fair and $3500 with air fair and I believe those were at moderates. At this point I am dizzy with planning info and it is all a blur.

Thanks to all who have responded the info is a great help. Also if anyone in KC, MO area have any extra tips that would be great as that is my area.
THANKS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!

Check my price quotes again on the WDW website. Your figures without airfare are much higher. It can be done for much less.

If you don't manage to go until you've saved some more $$$, don't beat yourself up. We didn't go anywhere for 15 years while we were 1) saving for a house, 2) having children, 3) improving the house, 4) etc., etc, etc. Everyone's financial situation is different and it improves with time.

 

[stankly182]

My mom saves money here and there, and I always use the money from my tax return and when I sell my books back at the end of the semester*which is usually a joke, its nice spending $500 or more on books and only getting back barely $100* but its not hard. This will be our 3rd trip since 2004, and we already have our money saved. You have to plan WAY ahead, plus even though staying at even a value resort can sometimes be more expensive than staying off property, although not all the time, you have no idea how much you really save on transportation and food. You can go back to the hotel during the day and make your own lunch and so on.

 

[mereg]

Check my price quotes again on the WDW website. Your figures without airfare are much higher. It can be done for much less.

If you don't manage to go until you've saved some more $$$, don't beat yourself up. We didn't go anywhere for 15 years while we were 1) saving for a house, 2) having children, 3) improving the house, 4) etc., etc, etc. Everyone's financial situation is different and it improves with time.

Must be the dates that I want. I really wanted to try to go next May during the week of my daughters birthday (hopefully that will earn brownie points later in life during the therapy sessions(jk) ). The prices I am going off of are for this May (07 prices not out yet) just to get a ball park figure plus hopefully the weather wouldnt be quite so miserable and the parks not so crowed as school is still in session in mid-May. Oh? Are the values OK or do you suggest the moderates?

 

[DisneyMarg]

1) Until our last trip we always stayed off property. You can find suitable accomodations much cheaper - in general - a suite type for the price of a value. That said, we'll probably always stay onsite now - but we are old and can afford it now.

2) We always ate breakfast and supper in the room and ate late lunch in the parks. You can get a very nice meal off the lunch menus. We also limited our snacks to one a day - usually in the evening.

2b) I think it's easier to eat more cheaply if you stay offsite, because the offsite restaurants have some very good deals, but you won't see them if you are staying onsite.

3) We have always had a habit of living frugally. We don't drive new cars, don't live in a fancy house, and have always dressed from Walmart and Kmart. But we do like to spend money travelling. So we can justify buying the park tickets, and are already accustomed to living cheaply so camping out in a less-than-luxury hotel room is fine with us.

4) Relative to above, it helps if day in and day out you teach your kids that they don't have to have everything they see. That is so hard when you are in the middle of it but it really pays off. On one of our trips to Disney we went with family and the kids's cousins had to have a souvenir from every stand they passed (just about). Our kids never even asked, because they just knew that we didn't buy stuff like that. However we did surprise them with the news that they could pick out one souvenir and one tshirt for the week. One kid bought the first thing she saw and was (thankfully) very happy with it all week. The other spent the week deciding and enjoyed that just as much.

.... note.... all this advice. I do sound old don't I?

5) It takes more $$ up front, but if you can possibly buy many day tickets with no expiration, do it. You can get 3 trips out of 10 day passes, and the 2nd and 3rd trips feel "free". This is probably the number one way we have "afforded" multiple trips - buying in bulk.

6) Which reminds me of another thing... if you go for a week, just go to the parks every other day. The kids will love the hotel pool, and you'll love the extra rest. Visit some free things (Old Town, that neat orange stand on 192, etc). This way you can enjoy a great trip an only use 3 or 4 days of tickets.

7) As for saving money up front... you can have a yardsale, take on extra temporary work (like a second job during the holidays), set up an automatic draft from your paycheck to save some each week, etc. We were fortunate to have jobs that paid bonuses - read that "Disney money" - each year.

As you can guess by now, value properties are just fine for us. When we finally made the leap to onsite last year (the Dining Plan just won us over) we stayed at Pop Century and loved it. But bear in mind, we are also happy at Motel 6.

 

[mereg]

Is the Dining Plan worth it?? When looking at the price it is a bit pricy to me, but as we have yet to visit WDW would the plan save a family of 4 $$$. By the way I started a new thread for this one!
Thanks.

 

[DisneyMarg]

Here's my nutshell on the dining plan:
You can eat more cheaply than the dining plan
but
You cannot eat the same quality and quantity of food more cheaply

If you eat breakfast and lunch or supper in the room, eat meals at inexpensive offsite restaurants, and limit eating in the parks or at Disney restaurants to just a few special meals, then you can feed a family of 4 more cheaply.
However, if you want to try lots of great Disney food then the Dining plan is the way to go.

 

[RAY M N.J.]

you do it for the kids its a priceless time and memory worth the money, yes i agree its not cheap.

 

[ConstanceIrene]

Must be the dates that I want. I really wanted to try to go next May during the week of my daughters birthday (hopefully that will earn brownie points later in life during the therapy sessions(jk) ). The prices I am going off of are for this May (07 prices not out yet) just to get a ball park figure plus hopefully the weather wouldnt be quite so miserable and the parks not so crowed as school is still in session in mid-May. Oh? Are the values OK or do you suggest the moderates?

I checked the May prices and got the same results. Regarding whether you stay in a value or moderate, I thought you were trying to do this on a budget? No offensive, but you've got to make up your mind how much money you can or want to spend on this and stick to it.

We have some friends who put off a trip to WDW because of price for years. They finally booked last year when the "Magic Your Way" package came out. It was a great deal. By the time they got to WDW, however, they had upgraded to Park Hopper passes, a moderate resort instead of a value, and took the meal plan. Now, they can't go back this year because of what they spent last year.

Value resorts are exactly that, good value. They aren't deluxe, but they are terrific for families with young children or those on a budget. Park hoppers allow for more flexibility, but why must you hit two parks in one day? If you've never seen WDW, there's enough in each park to keep you occupied for each full day. You have six days so you hit each park once and go back to your two favorites on the last two days. The meal plan is wonderful, but with two young daughters, you might do just as well coming back to your resort and hitting the food court so everyone can have the dinner they want for a reasonable price. Check the websites that provide the menus so you can see for yourself. I don't think there's a bad meal anywhere in Disney, table or counter service.

As somebody else posted, you do this for the kids. My girls were 6 and 9 when we finally got to WDW for the first time. Corny as it may sound, it was magical. You'll find out when your children lay eyes on the castle for the first time.

 

[Tinkershelly]

Here's my nutshell on the dining plan:
You can eat more cheaply than the dining plan
but
You cannot eat the same quality and quantity of food more cheaply

This is a great summary of the dining plan. I've spent a lot of time trying to explain to people about weighing the pros and cons, listing what we did order on the plan versus what we would have ordered if we didn't have the plan, but this sums it up perfectly!

Tink

 

[ClemsonTigger2]

It really is possible to go to WDW on a budget. DisneyMarg had some great tips. Our family has gone 3 times, every other year, with the latest being this past January/February, and here are some of our tips.

1. Stay at a Value Resort. My kids (5,6,8, and 10) love both All-Star Movies and Pop Century. We get two adjoining rooms.

2. For each of our trips, we went in value season. The first two times, our rooms were $49/night because of specials Disney was running; this time, I bought an annual pass (for me) and received the passholder's discount for those rooms during that time, which again brought the rooms down to $49/night. We stayed 6 nights this time, which saved me $360. (The difference between the ticket I would have bought and the annual pass was much less than this.)

3. AAA has some great discounts. You can get a membership then book a room-only reservation with a big discount (15 - 20%) on your room, then buy your tickets separately.( Still on the phone with WDW, but not a package. ) Or, you can call your local AAA office and book a package through them - you get a discount this way, too, which is like the one advertised on TV. I'm sure it's subject to availability, etc.

4. I thought the "1 Junior, 1 Child" meant one child between 10 and 17(?), and one between 3 and 9. My 10-year old was a "junior" on our trip, and the other 3 were labelled "child".

5. We always drive (normally about 8 1/2 hours). We call it the "party in the car" day. Worth it.

6. We take breakfast foods with us - breakfast bars, granola bars, pop tarts, cereal (milk in a small cooler in our room) - and eat as we get ready in the morning, or occasionally as we walk to the bus. We plan on a couple of special meals (1 on short trips, 2 on longer trip, like this year), then use counter service places for most other meals. The food court at Pop Century is incredibly good and diverse.

7. We give each one of our children $20- $30 to spend for the whole trip. They actually enjoy the shopping around and trying to figure out how much they can get for their money!

Hope this helps!

 

[coltow]

Tax refund is usually how we do it. It's like bonus money. We also gave up weekend ski trips, we'll go for the day but not stay over night like we would before. Everyone has their own way of saving. We save what we can and then charge the rest. We tend to charge our dinners and use cash for other meals. Then pay the as much of the bill as we can when the bill when it comes.

 

[marksniles]

DVC Man!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[LouDisney]

I agree that having an annual pass and DDE has helped me go more. I used to go once a year, now that I have an AP & DDE, I can go more than once a year.

Sometimes I drive and sometimes I fly. When I fly, I always fly Southwest, they have really cheap flights out of B'ham.

I put back a little each paycheck or when I can and believe me, it adds up. I also take my lunch to work and eat at home 95% of the time. Eating out a lot adds up over time and not spending that money really helps me save more money for things I enjoy doing, like going to WDW.

I would prefer to stay on site, even if it's at DTD, but sometimes, if I really want to go on a spur of the moment trip, (a short trip) I will check out off site hotels, they have really cheap rates sometimes and it allows me to for a few days. I usually go with friends or family and we will split the hotel cost.

I am not a big breakfast eater, so I will eat a yogurt, cereal or a pop tart in my room before heading out to the parks. I will sometimes eat a big lunch and have a small dinner, and vice versa.

Some trips I may buy a few souviners and other trips I may not buy but one thing, if anything.

Just a few things that allow me to go a lot.

 

[lkubinec]

The largest expense that you have some control over is the food. We have always stayed with a frig in the room (or plug in freezer when we drove down). We head over to the grocery store to buy food for breakfast and snacks at night. We plan one sit down meal a day and one small counter service meal a day. I find the savings of skipping breakfast at disney will add a lot to the savings. In addition I always use air travel points to get free transportation down.

 

[aj_steig]

Hello-

One of the best recommendations that I have is to check out www.mousesavers.com It is one of the best sites that helped me out with my last trip and it will save you money! Mary (the web master) posts all the current happenings and promotions going on with Disneyworld, as well as her recomendations on hotels, tickets, and even has a list of creative ways to on how to save money for the trip. I used a ticket broker that she recommendend and was able to get my park tickets for $15 off the gate price (and got free shipping!) I was also able to get my rental car from Alamo for 7 days for $90 thanks to a code that she had posted!

Another recommendation that I have is to buy food before you go. We ate breakfast in our hotel room every morning and saved a lot of money (breakfast at pop century costs at least $6 per person and can add up quickly) We also saved on bringing snacks and drinks with us.

For souvenirs, there are a lot of outlet stores near Disney that sell Disney merchandise for much cheaper than in the parks. We found a lot of good stuff at this character shop at the outlet mall for 50% less than in the parks. You could also buy souvenirs (through ebay or a good sale at the Disney store) before you go and surprise the kids with it when you arrive. Everything in the parks is alot more expensive (we paid $20 for a disposable camera because we ran out of film!) and you can save a lot buy planning ahead.

Lastly, go during the value season!! We stayed at at Pop Century this past January (10th-17th) and had a blast. The weather was nice (it didn't rain at all the entire time we were there) and the lines were very short. You can have a much nicer (and cheaper) vacation by going during the value season.

Hope this helps! Have fun!

 

[TurboCaroline]

I use the Disney Visa Card which gives you points. For every $100 you spend you get a point. I know it doesn't sound like a lot but we spend around $1100/month on it and it gives us 11 points and that would add up to 132 disney dollars a year. Last year I had $159 to use toward paying for my tickets. It really helped. Also I like to bring about $300 in cash to use just for food. That way you don't use the credit card too much.:wave:

 

[twx24me]

I got whenever Southwest Airlines are offering fares for $49 each way. Plus I am a DVC member and with the full kichens at the DVC resorts, I save tons of money on food by eating in.

 

[Nicole]

I have said it before on other post about $$. So many of us say Tax Refund Money. It drives me crazy how brainwashed we all have become to think we are getting a bonus back from Uncle Sam, when it was our money all along.

I know its hard, it takes planning (like our vacations) but if we all just kept that "tax money" in each of our paychecks and put it in a bank account or something even earning just a small % of interest instead of letting the Govt. use it the entire year with no interest we could all afford another gift from Main Street, or maybe a nice dinner out in one of the parks or God forbid if we were really good at which place we put those $$ for the year we could get an extra night during our stay! Ok off my soapbox.

Your point is well taken, but if not for the child tax credit my refund would only be about $300. Thanks to my two kids I'm getting $2300. However if I were to change my witholding I'd be in trouble next year because my DD turns 17 this summer and I lose the tax credit.

So...just because someone gets a decent sized refund doesn't mean they've been brainwashed.

Frankly the gov't needs the interest on the money more than I do. LOL