Subsonic Radio

How cheap can you make a trip to WDW?
Here's what my family did:
We worked Dad's work schedule to have long periods of time off.
Trips were late January/early February or late October/early November.
We DROVE from MAINE to FLORIDA with a pop-up trailer, drive typically took 2 days.
Camped out ON PROPERTY at Fort Wilderness during the down season, paid somewhere around $30 a night.
Stayed for 30-40 DAYS.
Purchased Premium Annuals for 4.
Would then make three such trips over a year - say February 2004, October 2004, January 2005, so the pass is good for three trips - each about a month long.
All of our food would be courtesy Wal-Mart; we'd bring sandwiches into the parks. We'd eat out some, but generally not much.
Total trip cost?
Average of $4000 a trip.
I kid you not.
This happened pretty much every two years from 1998 to 2005.
We guess that now it would probably cost $6K, though, due to the price of gas.
What do you do to save money?

Good golly, 3 months in Disney World???? What did you do about school?

Most of our money saving efforts revolve around three things:
1) We buy the most tickets we can afford, with the "no-expiration" option. We then parcel those tickets out over several years of visits. So, some of our visits are very inexpensive because we don't have to buy any tickets at all.
2) We no longer fly. It is about a 15 hour drive to WDW from our home, but driving is a lot cheaper.
3) We bring food for breakfast in our room; eat cheap snacks for lunch or go back to our room for sandwiches; and usually do counter service for dinner.

Your family vacations sound awesome. I'd love to spend a month at WDW in my trailer! Alas DW is not keen to do the drive (from Ontario) and so we fly (usually on frequent flyer points).

For accommodations we typically rent points for stays at DVC resorts (less cost than moderates, usually) and switch resorts for the weekend nights to a value or moderate (DVC points are double on weekend nights).

We usually bring an extra suitcase full of breakfast-type foods so we can eat before hitting the parks in the mornings and save some time and money. At the end of the trip the suitcase is often full of souveneirs though...

We share CS meals and suppliment with snacks we bring with us. We also bring snack bags for the kids from home that they can access freely throughout the day.

We also bring our own water bottles that we reuse for the week.

Mostly little things, but added together costs can go up very quickly. It is always a fun challenge for me to figure out how to save money on each trip. I think it drives DW nuts though.

I was homeschooled. As much vacation time as I want. I just bring schoolwork to do for the drive there and back. And ... <_<_> ... Mom would count days in Epcot and Animal Kingdom as "educational" and add that time to the 80 science hours needed for a credit. Best. Field. Trip. Ever.

Oh, another tip: you know those giant popcorn buckets? Pop your own popcorn before leaving and bring it in those. It also helps finding them lying around the park, possibly partly broken. I think once we found one without a cover and then found just a cover. Wash them, and ta da!

I travel every week throughout the year for work. I cover the US and Canada. Taking anywhere from 2-10 flights a week gets me alot of frequent flyer points. I use those points for our trip to WDW each year. SO getting there is $5 each for the security fee. Throughout the year I stay at Holiday Inn hotels to accumulate Priority Club points. for 59,000 points I can get a $250 Anywhere Amex Hotel Card. This card works when paying for a Disney Package. I usually accumulate enough points for 10-13 days at Disney with 10 day magic your way tickets. This year I realized that I could also do the dining plan. In December we will be at the world for 12 days (11 nights) with 10 days of tickets with Dining as well all for $0 before souvenier money.

We also coincide my business trips to do about 4 trips to Disneyland each year of 3 days each.

I don't know what I will do when my daughter hits the age where she doesn't want to go to the parks anymore, or even worse she won't care about the character dinings anymore.

I don't even want to think about it!

cordray2643 wrote:
I don't know what I will do when my daughter hits the age where she doesn't want to go to the parks anymore, or even worse she won't care about the character dinings anymore.

I don't even want to think about it!

I don't think you should worry about that. My family would visit WDW almost every weekend from the time I was six until I moved out for school. I still haven't reached the age where I am too old to want to go to the parks. It's been twenty years! Also, WDW is one of the reasons I won't move out of Florida. I don't want to have to travel across country, I love it too much. If your daughter is anything like me, she will never outgrow it.

I have to admit, I'm not all that thrifty during a WDW vacation. I think we're more in the 'save the rest of the year(s) so that we don't have to be thrifty when we get there' category. Probably easier because there are no kids involved, though. I imagine that'd change the budgeting a heck of a lot.

agingerbugg wrote:

cordray2643 wrote:
I don't know what I will do when my daughter hits the age where she doesn't want to go to the parks anymore, or even worse she won't care about the character dinings anymore.

I don't even want to think about it!

I don't think you should worry about that. My family would visit WDW almost every weekend from the time I was six until I moved out for school. I still haven't reached the age where I am too old to want to go to the parks. It's been twenty years! Also, WDW is one of the reasons I won't move out of Florida. I don't want to have to travel across country, I love it too much. If your daughter is anything like me, she will never outgrow it.

I was going to say something similar to agingerbugg. I only visited at most once a year (not every weekend-ish), but I've made it to 30 and still haven't reached the point I don't want to go to the parks anymore. Character dining I might pass on, though.

Anyway, odds are your daughter got the Disney Gene from you. You should be safe for a long time to come.

cordray2643 wrote:
I don't know what I will do when my daughter hits the age where she doesn't want to go to the parks anymore, or even worse she won't care about the character dinings anymore.

I don't even want to think about it!

Yeah, I'm 20 and I just bought my first Annual Pass - if it's possible, I want to go more now than I did when I was a kid!

Yeah, I'm 20 and I just bought my first Annual Pass - if it's possible, I want to go more now than I did when I was a kid!

It is possible... I have been many many more time since I have become an "adult". My parents could not afford many Disney trip even though we lived in South Florida. I'm 42 now and figure I've been about 30 time since I was 18 and I think just 3 times before I was 18.

spodie wrote:
Yeah, I'm 20 and I just bought my first Annual Pass - if it's possible, I want to go more now than I did when I was a kid!

Annual Passes make you want to go more as well. We used to use them as excuses to go. I mean, when it's about to expire, you HAVE to go use it right?

Before I ever dreamed of being a CP, and I was old enough to have a life of my own, I went to UCF(central florida). Luckily my grandparents bought me an anual pass so I coulg go with other friends that had one. We went at elast once a week, brought our own food, and had a blast! Occasionaly we ate at palces in Epcot, but not to often. I would say I actually spent closer to $1,000 over a 6 month period. Thats not to bad!

Wow, that's a crazy amount of time in WDW but I am jealous!

My cheapest trip to WDW was $365.30 dollars for two whole weeks.

That included flights from UK to MCO, transfers (not Magical Express), Magic Your Way with Park Hopper and Water Park Fun and More, one week in AKL and one in POP Century for four people.

I managed this as I won a phone in comp on a local radio station answering 10 questions about Disney, but the prize was for one week. When I got my details from Disney, I asked to extend the trip to two weeks and also the Park Tickets and asked how much? I received an e-mail telling me that I could book a room at a Value Restort of my choice for $49 dollars plus tax per night and the Park tickets were complimentary!!!

Our trips normally cost us in excess of £8000 dollars. Working it all out it cost us less than $7 per day per person. Fantastic!

We've found that our family costs more to fly and stay in a room or cabin than it does to pull a trailer and camp. And since we then have all the comforts of (our) home, a great place to stay and swim and bike ... and Pluto and Goofy and Minnie (our faves) ... we'll never do it any other way.

With our APs we buy in to Disney's Dining Experience (for FL residents and AP holders). We save a ton of money on meals with this.