Tips for planning to save money

W

woodstock1985

New Member
Original Poster
Greetings All,

First time post here and looking to begin planning for the family a week trip to WDW. My wife and I are rather frugal and looking for ways to save in terms of hotel and stay as well as landing passes for the parks.

Any tips or ideas on this. Should we stay at a WDW hotel or off? Where or how I can find cheapest passes?

Thanks!
 
DanielleOG

DanielleOG

Active Member
If you're flying to Orlando I suggest staying onsite at a Value Resort (Pop Century). You will have free transportation from the airport to the hotel, and from the hotel to all the parks. Pop isn't very expensive and there's almost always room and/or ticket discounts offered.
 
DfromATX

DfromATX

Well-Known Member
I agree with Danielle on staying at a value resort. Sure it may be a little higher than offsite, but you have other perks (like free transportation, 60 day fast passes, etc.) I also suggest having some groceries delivered to your resort. We will order from Safeway (drinks, snacks, and light breakfast items like fruit, donuts, etc.) Your first delivery is free and you get $25 off your first order of $100 or more. Something I just did - I went to Sam's just this morning and bought $500 gift cards at $484 each and paid off our trip. We're going in June!
 
disneyworlddad

disneyworlddad

Well-Known Member
If you are driving in then staying offsite and getting passes from a place like undercover tourist can most deff save you money. My wife and I did this twice before kids and saved a substantial amount of money. We stayed at hotel about 5 minutes from the main entrance off of 4 and only paid about $60 a night. It was the nicest but it wasn't a flea bag motel either. We only really went there to sleep and of course ate the free breakfast really early before park days. We also took food in to the parks so we only bought one meal a day. Was it fun, yes! Was it cheaper, yes! Would we go back and do it this way now that we have kids and have stayed on site, no! At least not until they want to go to universal too.
 
W

woodstock1985

New Member
Original Poster
Awesome feedback so far guys! More than likely we will be driving down from ATL. Travel still up in the air as I have rental car points and skymile points to burn.

Main concern is the cost of the hotel. I also am curious if most of the hotels offsite offer buses directly to Disney?
 
DanielleOG

DanielleOG

Active Member
The offsite shuttles aren't NEARLY as good as onsite especially if you like to head to the parks before they open. I think what makes the most sense is: Driving down? Stay offsite, and drive your car to the parks. Flying down? Onsite and use disney transportation.
 
Ricky Spanish

Ricky Spanish

Well-Known Member
We drive to WDW.
We always stay on property and bring our breakfast, snacks, and drinks.
Breakfast is usually oatmeal that we pre-pack with raisins, cinnamon and brown sugar and add diced apples when hot.
We make our breakfast at the quick serve area of the hotel where the coffee dispenser has hot water.
Super easy, great breakfast, and inexpensive.
Last trip( Thanksgiving 2017) so many people were asking where we bought our breakfast when we were eating at the food court!
We carry snacks and one drink each in our back pack.
We also try to go when they offer a free meal plan, which will be 27 "free" meals for us the next trip.
Wife and I split most meals, which helps out.
That's the way we save some $$$$$$.
 
Herdman

Herdman

Well-Known Member
DanielleOG said:
The offsite shuttles aren't NEARLY as good as onsite especially if you like to head to the parks before they open. I think what makes the most sense is: Driving down? Stay offsite, and drive your car to the parks. Flying down? Onsite and use disney transportation.
Click to expand...

I think Danielle has got it right.
 
C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
woodstock1985 said:
Greetings All,

First time post here and looking to begin planning for the family a week trip to WDW. My wife and I are rather frugal and looking for ways to save in terms of hotel and stay as well as landing passes for the parks.

Any tips or ideas on this. Should we stay at a WDW hotel or off? Where or how I can find cheapest passes?

Thanks!
Click to expand...


Also, sorry if this was already mentioned in all of the advice, but Disney Gift Cards from Wholesale Membership stores are a great way to save dollars every fifty dollars or so. It will add up as you can use them on everything owned and operated by the Disney Theme Parks including Parking, meals, resorts and activities and the tickets of course. Also, perhaps get a Disney Credit Card for the ten percent off factor when you spend certain amounts in stores on merch and goods.
 
yensid67

yensid67

Well-Known Member
Woodstock, I HAD my trip planned out...but canceled...
(3 Day Disney, Keys to the Kingdom Tour, 1 day Sea World with Penguin Tour, I Drive 360(Madame Tussaud's Coca-Cola Eye), Capone's Dinner Theatre VIP, Hamburger Mary's, Hotel 8 days, Amtrak, Rental Car)...all for about $1300 per person. The hotel(Clarion Inn Lake Buena Vista) was only $528 for 2... with Hot Buffet Breakfast each morning! Avis Rental Car was about $220.00 using BJ's Warehouse site. For DISCOUNTED tickets you can use undercovertourist, visitorlando, theofficialticketcenter.com's Undercovertoruist and theofficialticket center are the best places to go for tickets...taxes are included as well as shipping, either e-ticket or physical tickets mailed! If you want the websites I use for my hotel, private me, I will be happy to give them to you...I have 2 that I use but don't like to post them in open forum!
 
Last edited:
John park hopper

John park hopper

Well-Known Member
As Ricky Spainish posted ---We take a cooler and bring stuff for breakfast when driving to WDW and staying on site. You can fit a fair amount of stuff in the room refrigerator (milk, fruit, soda. danish etc) bring bowels and spoons for cereal. At one time you could request a microwave for your room, not sure you still can ---saves one meal a day. Bring snacks and a water bottle (refill in park) and carry a back pack into the park. Use Disney gift cards for food in the park. Staying off site many hotels charge for hotel parking and then a parking fee at the parks; I'd factor that into the benifit at staying at Disney value resort. Also you get extra hours and shuttle service to and from the parks is pretty good. Also my wife tends to not be a big eater so eating at the park resturants we share a meal.
 
Last edited:
DisneyPrincess5

DisneyPrincess5

Well-Known Member
As other posters have noted, I’d stay on property but stay somewhere inexpensive and look for deals and percentage off packages. Staying on property will save you time and I’m just biased and love being in the Disney bubble.
Finding cheap tickets is tough. What DH and I do to save a bit is we make plans to take a down day or two so it cuts the cost a bit and we plan to stay at one park per day, saving us the cost of a park hopper.
 
Clamman73

Clamman73

Well-Known Member
woodstock1985 said:
Greetings All,

First time post here and looking to begin planning for the family a week trip to WDW. My wife and I are rather frugal and looking for ways to save in terms of hotel and stay as well as landing passes for the parks.

Any tips or ideas on this. Should we stay at a WDW hotel or off? Where or how I can find cheapest passes?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
If staying onsite, you have to keep an eye out for room only discounts, but you have to be aware of when they might be offered and you can find when historicaly this happpens. Sometimes when they start, there are rooms, sometimes more rooms appear later on as part of the room only discount and you have to be persistent with checking. Also bringing some of your own food if you can, finding some tickets that offer a free day.
 
DarthVader

DarthVader

Sith Lord
Ricky Spanish said:
We also try to go when they offer a free meal plan, which will be 27 "free" meals for us the next trip.
Click to expand...
In one sense, its not really free, you have to pay for the full price of the room, i.e., you get a choice free meal program, or a discounted room. Now with that said, I found it harder and harder to find the discounted rooms in the resorts we wanted (for the time we needed) and the free meal program has been cut back so much that its very difficult to fit within the time frame, at least for my family
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom