A Rough Estimate

[Joanne UK]

We're planning on visiting WDW in the next couple of years for the first time. Could you tell me roughly how many thousands we will need to save up?

2 adults
2 children
Flights
No car hire
Staying onsite at All Star Movies for 2 weeks
Evening meals but not fancy restaurants, we're all quite plain eaters.

I'm thinking about £5k just for the above, am I close!

[kristieuk]

Gosh that's tough! Do you have to go in the school holidays - do you have any idea of the time of year?

I should think £5k would cover it whatever time of year you went, but you could pay considerably less depending on when you go.

[Claire L]

What will the childrens ages be as this has an impact on basic holiday cost and park tickets. As has been said time of year can make a huge difference in prices for flights, also any preference on airline?

Claire ;)

[Goofyish]

I think £5000 should be ample, although it all depends on how old your children are, when you go, type of passes, types of meals, spending money, airline.

There are so many variables.
Start with the 'fixed' costs: flights, tickets, hotel and then decide using the WDW menus on the DIS as a guide to how much you would spend on food and snacks per day.

Menus (http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/diningmain.cfm#disneydining)

If you plan to stay onsite for the whole two weeks then you could go for at least one Annual Pass. You can then go for an Annual Pass discount on your room and apply for the Disney Dining Card to save 20% on WDW restaurants.

You could also look at the Disney Dining Plans that would fix your dining costs and save some money.

Dining Plan Info (http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=820709)

There are loads of other ways to save money and I'm sure your will find out most of them from folks on here :)

[Miffy2003]

Hi Joanne,

I think you can do it with that, except perhaps in the high season? Even then you may be able to get away with it :)

We did ASMo last December and loved it!

Cheers

Karen

[Amyrlin]

What time fo year are you thinking of going as this wil make a lot of difference. For example, in at the moment, if you get an annualpass the room rates for ASM is as low as $49 a night for the room, and then the flights will be less. But, in peak season it will be more than $100.

However, I would have thought £5,000 would do it. .

[Joanne UK]

Thanks everyone.

The children will be 8 and 6 or 9 and 7 depending on how long it takes us to save up! Re airlines, my personal choice would be Virgin but I'm flexible. I flew with them to LA and really liked the service. Unfortunately it will have to be in school holidays - our school will only authorise absence in extremely special circumstances. As it is I'm taking eldest DD out for a week this year to go to DLP, I haven't requested the absence yet but I doubt very much if it will be agreed.

It's pleased me though that I seem to have been generous having preliminarily budgeted £5k.

Goofyish mentioned differant park passes - could someone explain the differance in passes please?

Thanks very much,
Joanne

[Claire L]

With regards passes some are for a fixed number of days over a certain peiod and others are for the whole period, as many visits as you like.

Claire ;)

[Kevin Stringer]

Just a thought Joanne .... if you have flown with Virgin before .... did you join their frequent flyer programme?

If you did, the Miles Plus Money fares are excellent. The only thing is you do have to book 11 months out for the more popular seasons.
It's only 2000 miles required per person.

Kev

[JohnnySharp2]

Goofyish mentioned differant park passes - could someone explain the differance in passes please?

Thanks very much,
Joanne

The Disney Magic Your Way tickets offer many variations depending on how many days you wish to purchase, whether you want tickets that never expire (very useful if you are visiting in later years) and tickets that allow you to hop from park to park on the same day.

For Universal the 'flex ticket' is one of the more popular tickets..details of all tickets can be found on www.mapleleaftickets.com

[tartangirl]

Hi,

£5,000 should be about right unless prices shoot up. I've just checked Virgin for early July this year and a package holiday for 2 adults/2 children staying at the Disney All Stars with no car is £2,300.

Add £800 for park passes (assuming you want to do more than Disney), eating out in reasonable restaurants (and I'm including Ponderosa style restaurants as reasonable) will average out at about $150/day which should be enough for drinks/snacks through the day, call it £1200.

This leaves £700 for shopping :hyper:

Obviously there are areas where the cost could go up (e.g. if you go premium economy or visit Discovery Cove) but if you're prepared to shop around there are plenty areas where savings can be made.

Having said all that we never stay or eat in Disney and without a car you may be doing that alot so my estimate on food may be way off.

I reckon we're not much more than £5000 for the 4 of us for 3 weeks but we stay in a villa and usually only have 1 meal out per day (although we also have the cost of the car).

[Joanne UK]

Thanks ever so much everyone.

Sorry, another question! Re character meals, is it right that you have to phone and book at a certain time so many days before the meal you're booking for? If so, is there a place where the character meals are all listed together?

[Claire L]

Here are the Character meals (http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/dininglist.cfm). As for pre booking it used to be 90 days and is now 180 days, and from accounts recently seems alot easier as not so many people plan 180 days away from day of departure!

Claire ;)

[kristieuk]

You can find details of all of the character meals (and all other dining options) here:-

http://www.allearsnet.com/din/dining.htm

You do have to book character dining in advance - I think the time you can do this in has increased to 180 days out (from 90 days). There is a calculator somewhere that will tell you the earliest date you can book if you input the date you want to dine. I'll try to remember where it is, unless someone here can remember first!

[Claire L]

Hi,

£5,000 should be about right unless prices shoot up. I've just checked Virgin for early July this year and a package holiday for 2 adults/2 children staying at the Disney All Stars with no car is £2,300.



Unfortunately for Mid July to end of August the price will go up by about £600! I did a quick costing and it came to around £2900 even with 10% discount and kids for £299 each.

Claire ;)

[kristieuk]

Ooops - posted same time as Claire:flower:

[Claire L]

PS Calculator (http://pscalculator.net/pscalc.php).

Claire ;)

[Claire L]

Lol Kristie :teeth:

Claire ;)

[kristieuk]

PS Calculator (http://pscalculator.net/pscalc.php).


Claire ;)

Took the words out of my mouth!

[Soprano]

If you are so set on going with Virgin, (yeah, I went to LA with them too and they were fab!) then there are certain times of the year when they offer a FREE CHILD PLACE.

I think April/May time they can come up. I booked mine in May and got a free child place which saved £300!

Do you plan on seeing more than Disneyworld? You should if you can, Orlando has a lot more to offer.

It may even be worth buying your Disney passes now as they go up every year.

[Cyrano]

Fun isn't Joanne :)
I've been planning our 1st WDW in 2007 for a while now ;)

[Joanne UK]

Fun isn't Joanne :)
I've been planning our 1st WDW in 2007 for a while now ;)

Hopefully it will be fun once I've got a definate starting point! I was set on 2 weeks in All Star Movies now I'm thinking of 3 weeks in a villa but that will mean getting a car but also means we can be more flexible.

[Miffy2003]

Hopefully it will be fun once I've got a definate starting point! I was set on 2 weeks in All Star Movies now I'm thinking of 3 weeks in a villa but that will mean getting a car but also means we can be more flexible.

Or (I am naughty I know ;) )

How about one week onsite two weeks offsite? Best of both worlds then maybe?

I have got greedy with my Florida holidays now and I find 2 weeks just isn't quite enough :rotfl:

[Deedee]

we usually spend about £5000 but we stay off site and there are only 3 of us. It all depends on how much you want to spend on trainers clothes gifts etc it all adds up

[rpbert1]

i booked mine for July 06, and reckon i got a good deal on it, came to £4,400
flight from Belfast to london plus overnight stay was approx £400 , 1 week RPR and 2 weeks POFQ plus convertible [which i am considering changing] and insurance, so take the £400 off and got it for £4000 for 2 adults and 1 child aged 10

[Travelbug12]

You can really spend a lot more because the entire town is a little like las vegas designed to seperate you from money. The park tickets really turn out to be the most expensive thing. Disney is very expensive but goes down in price for longer stays. But what about Universal, Sea world, Discovery cove bush gardens? you have to do your research and make some decisions. You definitely have to set up sample budgets with different itineraries. I like the one week on premises and one week off...there is something special about staying at disney. Do some research because there are a lot of timeshares out by sea world that rent rooms and are great it the price is right. They have kitchens and bedrooms and range from cheap to expensive. Whatever you do, don't actually look at a time share whatever they offer you its not worth it. We stayed at the cypress harbour by marriot and it was paradise, but the price which was cheap when we went get very expensive.
Afer park tickets food is the next biggest expense, two weeks (or three) is a long time to eat! A car may help here as you can to to a grocery store. Bottled water at Disney is about $2.75 last time I checked. Just buying a case of water can save money. Cereal and milk can help too. There are a lot of modest restaurants off premises like fridays but still it would cost $40-$50 for a cheap dinner I think. I really recommend the character meals, and they all sell out. When I went every sit down meal at disney was sold out for the week-end. Of course this saved me a bundle, but if you come all this way , you want some of these meals.
A great place to stay if you decide on a car off premises is kissimee. Its actually the most common and run down of all the areas,(a bit of a dump) but it groww on you and there is a lot of money to be saved in accomodations and food.
Finally you will have your flights and accomodations. You can really save here if you do your homework. Start checking on sites like expedia, and then compare with lets say virgin if you like them. All airlines have one day crazy sales when business gets slow that are hit or miss, try to hit one by checking prices all the time, and try traveling different days of the week and at different times.
start thinking like this ...plan on the more expensive side. (I'll have to do this in dollars) $200.00 per day for food(you can do a lot less but this is for cushion), Probably $250 per day for park tickets(disney others are cheaper), $100-$200 per day for hotel plus your airfare. This is the higher end except for hotel which can be a lot more. Also, you probably won't go to a park every day. I think your estimate is fine but you see that you need to be a little careful. Start saving and have a good time.