Cost of Disney Family Vacation

[jennab]

That doesn't shock me. Your flights are more expensive than ours will be. I'm guessing about $250/ea for us. Plus you are staying 2 whole weeks so hotel would be double what we would pay. Here is our breakdown for 2 adults and 1 child:

Poly 7 nights plus 5 day base tickets $2400

Air $500 (assuming 1 ticket is paid for with points)

Food estimate $1000

Dog kennel $400

Souvenirs about $500

Total $4800

 

[cerph1]

..."I also read very often about no travel insurance on this board. What? A maybe 3k vacation and no insurance..that is really shocking. There are a lot of unneccessary insurance offers, but a vacation insurance is so important"

And I've heard that trip insurance companies refuse to reimburse the insured when the need arises. Friends of ours had to cancel their trip due to the sudden death of a family member. Despite presenting a copy of the death certificate to the insurance company, they still refused to pay. If such a tragedy doesn't constitute a legitimate reason for filing a claim with your insurance company and receiving compensation, I don't know what does. Best read the policy very, very carefully and be prepared for a fight if you file a claim!

 

[ProTraderColin]

I ran into a guy last time I was at Disney who told me he spends 30k per year for a 2 week club level suite at the Grand Floridian. That's the highest I've ever heard so far. He said he makes the trip from England every year with his family.

 

[pjhootch]

I ran into a guy last time I was at Disney who told me he spends 30k per year for a 2 week club level suite at the Grand Floridian. That's the highest I've ever heard so far. He said he makes the trip from England every year with his family.

Wow. Good for him if he likes to vacation that way and can afford it. I don't think I could bring myself to do it, even if I had plenty of money in the bank.

We've got 4 adults this time for a week:

Universal Hotel 650
Disney Hotel 1800
Plane 750
Disney Tickets 1252
Universal Tickets 780
Rental Car 145
Food 1500
Boarding Dogs 210

Total 7087

WAY more than I have ever spent at Disney before. And we usually have 5 adults instead of 4. I am spending more on hotels than I am normally willing to pay, and going to Universal for only 2 days at the end costs far more than just spending 2 more days at Disney parks. I have probably over budgeted for food (hopefully). I think this is the most I am willing to pay for a trip to Disney. I could have paid half the amount for hotel by staying moderate or at a value (or off-site). This may be the last family trip to Disney... in fact we already have one grown kid that couldn't go with us this time. ahhhh... it's only money, right?

 

[A State Of Autumn]

I prefer not to add ours up at the moment, we're coming from Australia and Disney is just one component of a 3.5 week vacation. I started paying for it all months ago so it isn't suck a shock to the system. All up it's probably near on 20k BUT that's inclusive of everything everywhere that we're going. If you divide the cost of our flights by the number of days that we're at disney and then add up everything else we're sitting at about $8.5k for the disney portion. That's for 2 adults.

 

[kamik86]

I would only be shocked for a min really then once I thought about it not so much. We don't spent that much in what we "count" but that is because:

* I haven't payed for a flight since 2012, I had a lot of work travel and got all the points from that. After paying for 4 one way flights from NY state to CA and 4 roundtrips from NY state to Seattle this year I'm almost out of points but haven't counted in airfare for a while since I only pay the $12.50 per person in fees.
* I have DVC and although I should count the maintenance fees at the hotel payment in my head I generally think of it as separate since its not a vacation specific cost. So when I do Disney World I don't count the cost of the hotel.

When you don't count either of those a Disney vacation is pretty cheap for the two of us. But at that point we are only counting food, souvenirs, and the $150 we give the person that watches the kitties.

 

[eliza61]

And I've heard that trip insurance companies refuse to reimburse the insured when the need arises. Friends of ours had to cancel their trip due to the sudden death of a family member. Despite presenting a copy of the death certificate to the insurance company, they still refused to pay. If such a tragedy doesn't constitute a legitimate reason for filing a claim with your insurance company and receiving compensation, I don't know what does. Best read the policy very, very carefully and be prepared for a fight if you file a claim!

Wow, that surprises me.

My dad died 2 days before I had a trip planned to Paris. I got back every dime except a 150.00 fee.
My sister also had to cancel a trip due to a health crisis with her dh, once again she had no issues getting a refund.

I will say that it took about 4 weeks to process the claim, which in today's world I think is very long.

 

[Joe'sgirl]

Not shocked especially if you stay deluxe or have a large family. We are a fam of 6 and we have not all been to Dis on our own dime since 2011. I got airfare for $900 that trip. They were not direct flights and we used card points. We only had 2 days in parks and that trip was at Pop two rooms, and one child under 3 and it was over $2000.
For our trip this Oct I found airfare for $714 using card points plus we r flying out of CT which is about a 2 hr ride. That being said parking is about $30 for the week so it made it so worth it, these are direct flights for all 6 of us. Booked at AoA which is the 2nd cheapest (2 rooms at Pop was the cheapest, and All Star Sport suite). Considering changing to CSR, it's about $300 more. Looking to see if we get rm discount or FD for our dates which will help. At present AoA with 3 day hoppers is $3315 plus the airfare plus we need to eat and we are at over $4000. We could never do deluxe - did once off in laws points - that was the only reason!

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

We are a family of three, and our daughter is two-and-a-half, which is part of the reason we are planning a trip now! Before kids, I said I wouldn't take a two-year-old to Disney, but she is such an easy kid and loves the princesses, so we're taking advantage of her "free" ticket and going now!

Our costs:

Five nights at POR in a royal guest room (yay!) with three-day base tickets: $1,675
Flights direct from Michigan to Tampa-St. Petersburg with rental car: $850
Dining: $700

The room was booked with the spring "up to 30% off" offer. We like having a rental car and flights to the smaller St. Pete airport from where we live are cheap, so that is a good value for us. Our food would be much less, but there is an Orlando restaurant we love (Roy's) and we splurge when we go there. I also plan to spent about $100 on groceries for the room (I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to shop at Publix) and also drop some dough on souvenirs, this being DD's first Disney trip. I think we did pretty well trying to keep this trip fairly cheap - we could have gone cheaper with a value, but we really love POR and the other moderates.

Spending nearly $10K for a two-week trip doesn't surprise me. I always like to play on the Disney website, putting together elaborate trips and trying to get them up to $20K, which is certainly possible!

 

[cerph1]

Wow, that surprises me.

My dad died 2 days before I had a trip planned to Paris. I got back every dime except a 150.00 fee.
My sister also had to cancel a trip due to a health crisis with her dh, once again she had no issues getting a refund.

I will say that it took about 4 weeks to process the claim, which in today's world I think is very long.

Sounds like our friends got a really poor policy. My wife read some other very negative reviews on line from folks who had similar problems with travel insurance companies that refused to pay for claims... (which was why we ended up deciding not to get trip insurance).

 

[AriesAriel]

2 adults; 2 kids (5 & 6)

8 days/7 nights
stay at BWV: $1400
7 day hopper tickets with water park & more: $1600
Southwest r/t airfare: $1000
Food: $1000
Total so far: $5000

We had $2000 cash back on our credit card saved up (we've been saving for 3+ years for this trip!). We got the SW Rapid Rewards Visa offer right before Christmas and jumped on it. That paid for our airfare. So all in all, I feel pretty good about how well we have managed to budget for this trip! For the food, I bought Disney gift cards on Sam's.com because they were offering triple points for through Rapid Rewards - so I got 3000 points for that. Made more sense than the dining plan, at least long term!

 

[eliza61]

Sounds like our friends got a really poor policy. My wife read some other very negative reviews on line from folks who had similar problems with travel insurance companies that refused to pay for claims... (which was why we ended up deciding not to get trip insurance).

That I can totally believe, one problem is that there are thousands of companies offering trip insurance so you have to weed out the good from the bad. I tend to stick with the insurance company offered via American Express

 

[isaboo]

And I've heard that trip insurance companies refuse to reimburse the insured when the need arises. Friends of ours had to cancel their trip due to the sudden death of a family member. Despite presenting a copy of the death certificate to the insurance company, they still refused to pay. If such a tragedy doesn't constitute a legitimate reason for filing a claim with your insurance company and receiving compensation, I don't know what does. Best read the policy very, very carefully and be prepared for a fight if you file a claim!

It sounds like maybe there was a pre-existing condition. Usually, if you purchase the insurance right when you book, they waive the pre-existing condition clause. I had to file a claim on our insurance back when I was in my mid-20's. I miscarried a pregnancy just a few days before we were supposed to leave. I was only about 8 weeks pregnant. We had insurance through Travel Guard and I was reimbursed 100%. It took a while...I had to provide records from my doctor but I didn't have to fight for it at all.

You can't wait until a family member is in the hospital near death then go buy the insurance policy. It doesn't work like that.

I always purchase insurance right when I book. You just never know.

From TravelGuard:
Pre-Existing Condition
Any injury or illness you have and sought medical treatment for within 60 days before your travel insurance policy becomes effective

The Insurer will not pay for any loss or expense incurred as the result of an Injury, Sickness or other condition of you, traveling companion, business partner or Immediate Family Member which, within the 60 day period immediately preceding and including your coverage effective date: first manifested itself or had symptoms which would have prompted a reasonable person to seek diagnosis, care or treatment; or for which care or treatment was given or recommended by a Physician; or required the taking of prescription drugs or medicines, unless the condition for which the drugs or medicines are taken remains controlled without any change in the prescription drugs or medicines.The Insurer will waive this exclusion if the Insured meets the following conditions:

1. You purchase the program within 15 days of making the initial Trip payment;
2. The amount of Trip

Cancellation coverage purchased at that time equals the full cost of all pre-paid non-refundable trip arrangements. The cost of any subsequent arrangement(s) added to the same Trip must be insured within 15 days of the date of payment or deposit for any subsequent Trip arrangement(s). Failure to do so may affect the pre-existing medical condition waiver coverage;

1. You must be medically able to travel when plan cost is paid; and
2. Applies to the first $50,000 of Trip cost per person

 

[Smbmoyers]

Our budget is right under 3k.
Now, we are planning on staying at Shades of Green and utilizing the Military Salute tickets
$95 a night for our room ×7= $665
$177 salute ticket ×3= $531
$140 Universal ×3=420
Total so far =$1616

Our rooms at SoG will include breakfast. So Im saying $60 for each additional meal so $120 a day (20 for adults and 10 for my 3 year old)
So food= $840

That leaves us with roughly $550 to spend on gas (split with my mom and brother) and souvenir stuff. Which I plan on buying some souvenir stuff before we ever leave home to defer costs.

Does this sound reasonable?

 

[saskdw]

Wow this thread is so old I forgot I started it!!

We've had a couple more wonderful WDW trips since this thread started. All mid December trips, last year was 16 nights in a Business Class room at CSR.

I see a lot of people quoting shorter trips for less money. For us this just isn't an option. We fly from western Canada. It takes almost an entire day to get there and one to get back. It cost $1600-$2000 for the flights. So anything shorter than 10 days makes no sense.

Value resorts don't work for me. I enjoy the big quiet spread out resorts
Like CSR. We spend a lot of time just relaxing, enjoying the resort. CSR works out good for us, the Deluxe resorts are just too much when youre there for 16 nights. Also we won't stay offsite, we enjoy on site too much and FD definitely keeps us on site as well.