Ideas for Saving Some Money While at Disney

[KramerTM]

Hey everyone,

New here, but am very happy I stumbled on these message boards.

My wife and I were really looking to sneak in a Disney World trip this year because it's been almost 6 years since we last went, and it suddenly dawned on us that this may be the last chance we have to go before we have kids!

That said, our budget is super tight this year and we weren't really sure if we could justify going. I travel a lot for work, so we already planned on cutting a ton of expenses out by using hotel points and Amex points. But I was wondering if anyone else had any tips from experience about how to avoid some pitfalls while in Disney to save a buck here and there (while not spoling the whole Disney experience, of coruse!)

Our plans thus far:

5 nights at the Dolphin - free (Starwood points)
2 roundtrip flights to/from NY - free (Amex points)

Thanks everyone! :wave:

 

[Dwarful]

Well, I'd say your off to a good start! For me it is the little things that add up. I tend to give in to impulse buys with the kids esp. and myself occasionally. If you stick to cash money on a WDW gift card you will be better able to control some of that spending.

 

[KramerTM]

Thanks for the suggestion. Not a bad idea!

Just for sanity... I was budgeting about $55/day/person for food. I'd like to have at least one or two "nice, higher-end" sitdown meals, so I figured across the five days, we could get away with $15 for lunch and $40 for dinner (per person). For breakfast, I figured a granola bar or something on the run would do.

It's been a while since I've been to WDW... are my estimates just WAY off? :veryconfu

 

[TomHendricks]

If you can get a room with a refrigerator, buy milk and cereal. You can save a lot of money on Breakfast by eating in your room before heading out. You can also get bread, peanut butter and jelly and make PB&J sandwiches.

Thats we normally do, so you can use money for lunch in the park and dinner where you want to eat.

 

[kbmum]

You might want to check out MouseSavers.com. If you go here and scroll down to "Meals, Snacks & Drinks," you'll find lots of great tips about saving on food.

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

 

[bigkidz895]

Best wishes on your trip. I know what you mean about a tight budget and that's why I had to chime in too. We're headed down there this March. Knowing that the food cost can be rather high, we set ground rules. For instance, when it comes to lunch, we each get a sandwich and drink, but will split the fries. If you're still hungry after its all gone, then by all means, get something else to eat. Granted, this only saves a couple of bucks for one meal, but you do this sort of thing for each meal and the savings over the course of a week adds up! I think we saved about $40 for the week when we did this last.

I'd be interested in other ideas!

 

[Jay & Sue]

Water from the drinking fountains in WDW isn't very tasty. Instead of buying expensive bottled water in the park you go to any fast food counter and they will give you all the free ice water that you can drink. Enjoy!! :animwink:

 

[dizzney]

We just got back and with 6 of us including two hungry teenagers we saved money at lunch by splitting lunches, was able to spend about $30-35 total at lunch by doing that which went into our dinner budget, we ate at nice restaurants each night - used our Tables in Wonderland card there.

But to us lunch is the saver, DH handled lunch one day and it ws 65, I did it from then on, and for the next 8 days saved by doing that

Good luck and have fun

 

[partyoffour]

Thanks for the suggestion. Not a bad idea!

Just for sanity... I was budgeting about $55/day/person for food. I'd like to have at least one or two "nice, higher-end" sitdown meals, so I figured across the five days, we could get away with $15 for lunch and $40 for dinner (per person). For breakfast, I figured a granola bar or something on the run would do.

It's been a while since I've been to WDW... are my estimates just WAY off? :veryconfu

the disney dining plan if u purchase with your trip is less than 55 a day per person. I would look into doing that. I think it is 40 a day ?? then u get one quick and one table and a snack u wont have to buy food at all.

 

[mousefan1972]

the disney dining plan if u purchase with your trip is less than 55 a day per person. I would look into doing that. I think it is 40 a day ?? then u get one quick and one table and a snack u wont have to buy food at all.

They are staying at the Dolphin, so they are not able to purchase the dining plan.

 

[BigRedDad]

Free room, free flights, that is half the trip right there. You cannot avoid the tickets, so no go there. That leaves food. There are lots of ways to save money on food. Bring breakfast items and snacks with you, share counter service meals, avoid table service meals, drink water (you can get free ice and cup at any of the CS locations).

 

[wdwwdeagle]

Regarding a table service meal....

One thing we have done is schedule our big fancy meal in the late afternoon. Eat breakfast in your room, have a snack around lunchtime to tide you over (pretzel, mickey ice cream bar, popcorn, etc.). Then eat your one big TS meal around 3:30 or 4pm. It's generally around 5pm by the time you're done and you are good and full as you leave the restaurant. Then, you won't have to eat another meal the rest of the evening, and you can just have a bowl of cereal when you get back to the room at night before you go to sleep.

This works better if you don't have kids with you, as adults can generally deal w/ a little hunger better than kids. I wouldn't try it with young kids, but we were able to do it with our pre-teen and teen kids this past trip and they handled it pretty well.

 

[kbmum]

If you're interested in any of the buffets, you can book the latest breakfast sitting, around 11:00 or so. Have a granola bar or Pop Tart for breakfast, then have the buffet as an early lunch. You probably won't need a big meal for dinner.

 

[disneynut4u]

Since you're not doing the dining plan, there are a lot of ways you can cut out on meals. At counter service restaurants, order kids meals instead of adult entrees. At table services places, split the entrees. There is always too much for one person to eat it all. It can easily be split between 2 people. Even at SciFi, my son & I split a cheeseburger & fries, and we were both full. Most places are like that. We even ate at Coral Reef for cheap. We had picky eaters in our party, but we wanted to eat inside Coral Reef. We asked at the check-in podium if we could order from the kids menu. We were allowed to, so it never hurts to ask!!!

 

[disneychic71]

Sharing dinners is a great suggestion. We do this a lot. Most restaurants will add an upcharge for sharing, but it is much less than two entire meals. We always pack breakfast food and snacks for the trip so we never buy breakfast. On our last trip, we used a grocery delivery service to get bottled water, soda and some snack food that doesn't travel well (chips, etc.). It was MUCH cheaper than buying bottled water/soda etc. at the world! We freeze one or two bottles of water and take them into the park; they melt over the day and provide nice, ice-cold water when we need it!

As for souveniers and other non-essentials, we scour the house for change and turn it in before the trip, then divide it among the four of us for those impulse buys!

 

[swimmom]

As mentioned before by others bring breakfast/granola bars for breakfast from home. We did this on our last trip, which saved on our food budget. It also left room in our luggage for souvenirs going home.

Also start saving your change. We average $10-$15 per week in change. It really adds up and you don't really miss it. We use our change money for souvenirs.

 

[tink65]

Water from the drinking fountains in WDW isn't very tasty. Instead of buying expensive bottled water in the park you go to any fast food counter and they will give you all the free ice water that you can drink. Enjoy!! :animwink:

One thing we do is take the little Crytal Light drink mixes. You can fill a water bottle from the fountain and add the drink mix. That way you don't get the yucky water taste!

 

[pixiesteno]

At the Sunshine Seasons in The Land DH and I will get a counter service chicken meal to split and a bowl of soup and we are stuffed. Total for lunch is around $15 bucks and it's a really nice meal. We find that spliting breakfast and lunch still saves. Because you are flying it would curtail how much food you can pack into your luggage but cereal bars, granola bars, dry oatmeal packs, etc can be packed in large ziplock bags and they are fairly flat to pack.
We also try to wait on purchases of things in the parks. They usually don't run out of the items. You can also take down a description, the sku number, location, etc and then you can call later if you really want to purchase it. This is also good for those items you wouldn't want to try to fly for fear of damage. I try to think about, "can I live without this or do I really, really want to take it home?" Now, my down-fall is trying not to take everything I see home for the grandkids
Get as many opportunities with photopass as possible and then make some keepsakes from your photopass shots when you get home. I have made a photopass DVD for two different trips and we love them. Disney adds special touches and music and it is a wonderful keepsake.

 

[spacebaby]

To help keep hunger at bay as well as keep the meal costs down I tend to use the fast food locations which have the toppings bar that way I can get a cheap entree and max the food content with luttuce, tomato and mushrooms from the toppings bay, it's almost like a free salad - I know I'm far from the norm but when I'm at WDW I spend around $8 per day on food as I just have the one meal late afternoon and stick to free water all day. There's too much to do so I don't want to lose time eating which is why I only have the one meal per day - you can top up with snacks you can get from supermarkets etc rather than paying Disney prices.

 

[MickeyPalNick]

Saving

Someone mentioned grocery delivery. I agree with this. We had Garden Grocer deliver cases of water, snacks, milk for the kids and bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. Even with $12 delivery fee it was a lot cheaper (especially for the water) then buying in the parks.

Just make sure you order enough water for the week. 2 adults can drink 3 to 4 water bottles each/day x 5 days and you end up with close to 40 bottles.