Disney or Bust
Normally, I ignore the majority of the press releases that come through my inbox, but I thought this one might be interesting to parents who are planning to travel for the very official and oh-so-expensive Spring Break! Yeah, baby!
finding Dulcinea has put together a web guide
for how to do your Disney vacations on a budget. Here is
a link to the web guide for how to get your mouse ears... and not lose your tail in the process. On our site, we have included
the ten best children's activities to do in Disney.
I am sure that many parents have made their pilgrimage to Disney so I am curious how you saved money on this vacation? Do you have any Disney tips or tricks that you are willing to share with our readers? We would love to hear them!
Labels: Travel
9Comments:
MamaGeek
"We haven't hit this milestone (YET) but I'm already anxious for it. Am going to check these OUT."
Classics and Country
"Wow thanks for the info! I'm going to have to consider a vacation like this sometime soon. I deserve and terribly need it.
Stavroulla"
Sheila
"We're actually planning a Disney trip for Christmas this year. I'd recommend mousesavers.com for budget travel tips (check out the extensive list of park menus to plan eating expenses). If you sign up for the newsletter you can get monthly tips for saving at Disney. wdwinfo.com is a good place to ask questions of other travelers on their forums.
This year we're not going so much on the cheap, but we're saving money by renting a four bedroom villa at windsor hills resort. It's much less expensive than staying at a Disney resort and it's a home away from home. Our villa will sleep ten for $200 a night with a night thrown in for free. www.windsorhillsrent.com is the website to go and request a quote from villa/condo owners. Some of the 3 bedrood condos can be had for $99 a night.
We've travelled in the past using priceline to book our rooms. biddingforless.com is a good site to check out before bidding on priceline rooms. I've gotten rooms for $30-$50 a night. It's different than staying on-site but most of the area hotels have shuttles to Disney and many have free breakfast. We saved money too by taking a mid-afternoon break and hitting Golden Corral a couple of nights. Eating in the parks doesn't have to break the budget though if you plan smart. Eating at counter service in the park and taking snacks and water helps cut expenses. Buying souveniers before the trip (dollar stores and disney store clearance) is another way to save bucks. We pack the kids a care package for the car trip and give them those up front. A couple of good park souveniers are the pressed pennies and inexpensive autograph books for the disney characters to sign, and of course a scrapbook of pics when you return home.
Disney tickets are expensive! Universal tickets (if you don't have your heart set on the mouse!) are very reasonable. Under $100 for a week at all the Universal parks."
"I took a Disney trip this past Thanksgiving. We had a good time, but it was stressful. My first tip is to plan, plan, plan. This is very important because Disney in so big and it can be very overwhelming and very expensive, but if go in with a plan of attack then you should be able to get your moneys worth.
My next tip is to go to allearsnet.com. This website is great. It has so much information, but what seemed to help me the most was all of the tips it had from parents that wrote in.
My last tip is that on the official Disney website you can make a customized map. This is a free service and you can only do it once every six months. It is an awesome keepsake, you can pick out all the places or rides you want to see or go on for each park. It comes in a treasure chest. I did not take these maps with us, I went and made color copies of them and laminated them so I could keep the originals as (free) souvenirs.
I hope that helps and have fun"
Mimi
"We have never gone to Disney world, but we have gone to disney land many times. Be sure and wear super comfortable shoes, because you will spend at least half of the time waiting in line. Also, if you have young children, even 6 and 7 year olds, either take a stroller or wagon or rent one. Our kids and relatives have fallen asleep or been too tired to walk and it is a LONG way to parking, even longer carrying a child! It's a lot of fun but plan on working it."
Momma Hen
"I know some frugal mommas say credit cards are a "no-no", but that is exactly how we made our Disney dreams come true this past December.
Now - before you call for my head :) I must say that we didn't charge the trip...
Actually - our Disney Visa PAID for our trip. We have been using our Disney Rewards Visa and faithfully paying the balance in full every month for over 4 years. We use our Visa for everything and managed to rack up quite a few Rewards Dollars (we did make two China adoption trips in those four years - and paid for airfare on the Visa, so that helped).
We were able to park hop, stay in a Disney resort (value resort), get the Meal Plan (highly recommend for big savings) and even grab a *few* overpriced souveniers - all on Visa. Our only out of pocket costs were travel costs.
Amazing.
And - by the way - we are a family of 6 and we stayed at Disney for 4 nights"
Laura Smith
"We have gone with our very young children three times and feel that to get the most for our money to go when it isn't hot or crowded. You will all enjoy it a lot more if you can go on rides without standing in huge lines and aren't sweating all day.
My other advice is to take an extra suitcase with snacks, waterbottles and favorite foods. Use them up in the park (you can take food and drinks into Disneyland)and when your trip is over you have an empty suitcase to pack all your fun, new souveniers."
"We just got back from Disney and had a blast. We brought our own strollers and it was worth it. We saved money by not having to rent one, and having strollers outside the park. We stayed on Disney property and didn't have the rental car expense. Disney picks you up from the airport and takes you back and has their own bus transportation from the hotels to the parks. I also shipped myself a care package of diapers, wipes, toiletries, and nonperishable snacks to the hotel we stayed at."
Kim
"Go in Sept during the free dining promotion. 2 adults and a toddler can go for 10 days for $1600 (hotel, tickets, food and gas). Cheap!
You can buy costumes for the kids to wear in the parks on Ebay. Today I bought a deluxe Tinkerbell costume for $25 shipped, this exact one is still $49.95 plus shipping and tax on the disneyshopping site."
