Holiday to Walt Disney World and price

[sampenn31]

I'm thinking about taking my Girlfriend to Walt Disney World next year for her birthday, we will both be 18 and she has always dreamed to go. I was pricing it up with Virgin and I have 3 questions:
it seems like it will be £2500 (Inc. tickets, flight + hotel(Dolphin)) overall for 2 people staying 4 nights; Does this sound a fair amount?
will $1,000 spending money be reasonable for 4 nights?
How long in advance is a good time to book?

Thanks in advance.

 

[2Tiggies]

First of all, welcome

Lucky girlfriend! I am sure she will be absolutely delighted!

To be honest, I think that's a lot of money for four nights. Where else are you thinking of going while you are in the US?

My next question: is there a particular reason you want to stay at the Dolphin? I only ask this because there is a chance that when the 2014 promotions are released in late April (which would be the best time to book for the best deal) that free dining will be offered. This is a maybe because nobody knows from one year to the next what offers Disney is going to have on the table for the next block of booking availability, but it's worth waiting to see first. If you choose the Dolphin (or the Swan) although you have the benefits of being onsite, you will not be able to take advantage of free dining and neither would you be able to use Magical Express from the airport and back again. I would think that this would be a big consideration for you if you and your girlfriend are both fairly young.

I personally find Virgin Holidays very expensive and prefer to book my hotel and tickets through Disney directly, and then choose flights when they are released which is approximately 11 months in advance of your return date. There are some package deals to be had, but you have to be very diligent (and a bit of luck is involved IMO) to find them.

Unless you want to do ridiculous amounts of shopping, $1000 would be a very nice amount of spending money if you don't have food costs to be taken out of that budget. Which brings me back to the hope for free dining .....

One more consideration for you is when you will be 18 if you aren't already. You would need to be 18 or over to book your trip as far as I know, unless you have an adult who you trust and who trusts you enough to enter into the contract for payment on your behalf in the meantime.

 

[Stefjp]

That is a lot of money - I'm sure you could get a better deal. Where are you travelling from? Florida is a long way to go for only four days if you are travelling from the UK?!

You could probably get a full week or longer at a Disney Moderate for the same price.

 

[crabbie1]

As others have said a long way to go for 4 days . A day travelling each way as well. Is there a reason why 4 days?? Your flights will be roughly the same whether u go for 4 days or 24 obviously depending when u go.
If you put a bit more info on dates airport etc then im sure we can all help a little more. Lovely thought.

 

[scoobydooby]

You can do it cheaper for sure. I would also suggest a minimum of a week because as said, flights will be the same anyway and you can only scratch the surface of WDW in four days.

 

[Lesleyluvsdisney]

Id say that's quite expensive for 4 nights. You'd also have to decide what you'd be doing as its a lot to get done in 4 days, and the last thing you'd want to feel is that you've came away and missed half of it. Id say try at least 7 nights. Your flight will be roughly the same price (sometimes cheaper) regardless of your return date.

Wonderful gift though!

 

[GirlDreamer]

I would consider going longer as well. You'll have to decide what you want to do, and then consider how long to go for. Each Disney park requires at least one day each. There's four parks, and two waterparks. So you'd need to decide if you want to do waterparks as well. Do you want to experience other things as well? Like Sea World (need about a day) or Universal (two parks, but you can do them both in a day), shopping ( I bet your GF would love a shopping day) or spend a day at the beach. There's a ton of stuff to do in Orlando, so as others have mentioned, four days is very short, especially when travelling from the UK.