When we decided to do the DVC, we committed to vacations with our girls, for sure! I appreciate that about my DH! Our girls aren't going to be little forever! Neither of us had many family vacations to reflect on and we want that for our girls!
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What is the secret
- Thread starter tinkerbellandeyor
- Start date
When we decided to do the DVC, we committed to vacations with our girls, for sure! I appreciate that about my DH! Our girls aren't going to be little forever! Neither of us had many family vacations to reflect on and we want that for our girls!
DreamBound23
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2011
Ditto! Same here...no vacation memories growing up. Sometimes you need to stop and smell the ocean!
Susanpensacola
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2008
Simple, Suggest it to the grandparents and they will pick up the tab.
Dec6
Addicted to DCL...
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2011
I don't know if this is a trick....but I hold the reservation with a deposit...and then pay it off before the due date. I'm hooked on DCL...and since my first cruise, I've cruised with them every year...I make sure it's in my vacation budget...
Disney Cruise is the "family vacation"....
Disney Cruise is the "family vacation"....
We also use our DVC points to cruise and WDW. We bought DVC for vacations not as an investment. I have used points, points and cash and cash only to book our family vacations. We are going to WDW and 5 night criuse on the Dream in June with 7 people. I too think DVC has more then paid for itself since purchased in 1998.
I don't believe there is one true "secret". There are some great suggestions & ideas of how people can get creative enough to afford a trip on this thread.
I am lucky enough to receive a discount because I work in the travel industry. As a family of 4, we do not go every year, but have been on 4 DCL cruises & 3 WDW trips in 10 years.
It is all about priorities, & family memories beats "stuff" any day!
I am lucky enough to receive a discount because I work in the travel industry. As a family of 4, we do not go every year, but have been on 4 DCL cruises & 3 WDW trips in 10 years.
It is all about priorities, & family memories beats "stuff" any day!
drewmer
Wondering why I moved back to Indiana instead of s
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2007
I wish there was a "Like" button on the DIS. This is a great answer. Smart A** but great. We use teh same cost savings as you do!
speicher46
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2007
You should look into Disney Vacation Club. We joined in 1997 and have taken a vacation every year. This includes six seven night cruises and an upcoming 14 night transatlantic. We also have been to Disney World six times since joining spending at least ten nights each time in a 2 bedroom vacation home.
It is a wonderful investment and basically assures that you will be able to take great vacations for the rest of your life.
It is a wonderful investment and basically assures that you will be able to take great vacations for the rest of your life.
momx2princecharmings
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2011
I have a question about rebooking while on your cruise. We are going on our first cruise this May and want to rebook for next year. What is the deal that they offer?
valbob89
Registered
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2010
We couldn't always afford to take a cruise with anyone and yes DCL is more expensive then some other cruises. However, we do a couple of things to make the DCL cruise more affordable. It allows us to get a verandah room and not count our pennies on the cruise. However, we do cut expenses without cutting enjoyment. I'll use our next cruise, 10-30-11 Wonder to give an example:
1 Booked onboard to take advantage of the 10% discount, and OBC of $275. (We originally had a dummy booking which I moved, along with the discount and OBC, to this cruise.)
2 Moved the booking to a TA who was offering an additional $100 OBC.
The OBC will pay for the tips for the cruise.
3. Will bring our own wine aboard and water (doesn't stop us from getting a drink at the pool if we want, but usually bring a glass with us to the shows and before dinner and it is something we know we like).
4. We have enjoyed the Cove Cafe without feeling the need to buy the expensive coffee. We do love our strong coffee that just isn't served in the dining rooms but at $4 a cup, even with the 5th free, a hand-brewed specialty is something we choose not to buy- it really is all about choices, if it mattered that much to use we would buy them.
5. Ask for a receipt for each purchase and get a copy of our room charges midway through the cruise and the day before the end of the cruise. We have never found an error but I know of people how have. This gives us a mental check of how much we are spending midway through the cruise, plus if there are any questions we can talk with Guest Services without waiting in a long que the last morning (our first cruise our statement was too big to slip under our door, don't want a repeat of that!!)
6. When having pictures taken by the shutters photographer, ask them to take one with your camera. Usually they are more then happy to. We usually buy a few of the pictures but have the ones on our camera so we don't feel we need as many of the expensive ones. After all, how many are you really going to frame and how many do your friends want to see?
7. In ports we feel comfortable in, we book our own excursions, sometimes from home after reading references on Cruise Critic and sometimes we pick something at the port. Especially in Alaska, you can book with the same tourguides the cruise lines uses at a much lower cost. Also, in Alaska you can buy 2 for 1 coupon books.
8. We have enjoyed visiting ports without paying for excursions by reading up on the area beforehand and being our own tour guides. We also don't feel we have to tour every port, particularly if we have been there before. DCL has so much to do on the ship that even if it is not a sea day, we sometimes pretend it is.
9. A couple times a week in the months before departure, I check the price of our cruise. If the price drops I ask our TA to request DCL recalculate our price. They will only do this if you ask. Also remember to ask if you will lose any of your OBC if you reprice before agreeing to the recalculation.
10. Lastly, we use the Chase Visa Disney Rewards Card for everything. We have had a card with them since they started Disney Rewards years ago. All our bills are on automatic payment to the credit card and then the credit card is auto paid from our checking account. I never have to worry about late payments or bills coming in when we are on our cruises. We never pay cash but use the DRC to pay for every little thing. We pay this card off in-full every month so not to incur the interest rate which is greater then some other cards. But there is no annual fee and we get 1% in rewards dollars, which we use toward our cruise by just calling them to put our rewards on a Disney Rewards card. My TA tells DCL we are paying with our rewards card and we let guest services know we are putting room charges on our rewards card. It couldn't be easier. Often, promotions offer more then 1% -- 3% or 5% return for certain type of charges if you call in and register for the offer (don't know why they do it that way unless they hope we'll think it's a done deal and not read the fine print). After 2 years, I have enough to pay for our October cruise in full. Also of importance, Chase Disney Rewards has been wonderful to work with. When someone stole our card number and used it for gas and Amazon purchases they were helpful and responsive, immediately reversing the charges with no delay. They cancelled the card and immediately sent me a new one and assisted me in notifying all my accounts of the number change. Whenever I call they are a pleasure to work without the endless voicemail and know-nothing 'service' agents I have dealt with at other banks.
1 Booked onboard to take advantage of the 10% discount, and OBC of $275. (We originally had a dummy booking which I moved, along with the discount and OBC, to this cruise.)
2 Moved the booking to a TA who was offering an additional $100 OBC.
The OBC will pay for the tips for the cruise.
3. Will bring our own wine aboard and water (doesn't stop us from getting a drink at the pool if we want, but usually bring a glass with us to the shows and before dinner and it is something we know we like).
4. We have enjoyed the Cove Cafe without feeling the need to buy the expensive coffee. We do love our strong coffee that just isn't served in the dining rooms but at $4 a cup, even with the 5th free, a hand-brewed specialty is something we choose not to buy- it really is all about choices, if it mattered that much to use we would buy them.
5. Ask for a receipt for each purchase and get a copy of our room charges midway through the cruise and the day before the end of the cruise. We have never found an error but I know of people how have. This gives us a mental check of how much we are spending midway through the cruise, plus if there are any questions we can talk with Guest Services without waiting in a long que the last morning (our first cruise our statement was too big to slip under our door, don't want a repeat of that!!)
6. When having pictures taken by the shutters photographer, ask them to take one with your camera. Usually they are more then happy to. We usually buy a few of the pictures but have the ones on our camera so we don't feel we need as many of the expensive ones. After all, how many are you really going to frame and how many do your friends want to see?
7. In ports we feel comfortable in, we book our own excursions, sometimes from home after reading references on Cruise Critic and sometimes we pick something at the port. Especially in Alaska, you can book with the same tourguides the cruise lines uses at a much lower cost. Also, in Alaska you can buy 2 for 1 coupon books.
8. We have enjoyed visiting ports without paying for excursions by reading up on the area beforehand and being our own tour guides. We also don't feel we have to tour every port, particularly if we have been there before. DCL has so much to do on the ship that even if it is not a sea day, we sometimes pretend it is.
9. A couple times a week in the months before departure, I check the price of our cruise. If the price drops I ask our TA to request DCL recalculate our price. They will only do this if you ask. Also remember to ask if you will lose any of your OBC if you reprice before agreeing to the recalculation.
10. Lastly, we use the Chase Visa Disney Rewards Card for everything. We have had a card with them since they started Disney Rewards years ago. All our bills are on automatic payment to the credit card and then the credit card is auto paid from our checking account. I never have to worry about late payments or bills coming in when we are on our cruises. We never pay cash but use the DRC to pay for every little thing. We pay this card off in-full every month so not to incur the interest rate which is greater then some other cards. But there is no annual fee and we get 1% in rewards dollars, which we use toward our cruise by just calling them to put our rewards on a Disney Rewards card. My TA tells DCL we are paying with our rewards card and we let guest services know we are putting room charges on our rewards card. It couldn't be easier. Often, promotions offer more then 1% -- 3% or 5% return for certain type of charges if you call in and register for the offer (don't know why they do it that way unless they hope we'll think it's a done deal and not read the fine print). After 2 years, I have enough to pay for our October cruise in full. Also of importance, Chase Disney Rewards has been wonderful to work with. When someone stole our card number and used it for gas and Amazon purchases they were helpful and responsive, immediately reversing the charges with no delay. They cancelled the card and immediately sent me a new one and assisted me in notifying all my accounts of the number change. Whenever I call they are a pleasure to work without the endless voicemail and know-nothing 'service' agents I have dealt with at other banks.
lmhall2000
May the road rise to meet you....May God hold you
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2002
A quick look at our 'expenditures' on miscellaneous and food was out of control....made us make changes..we now feed our family on $500 or less each month!! We are saving $800-$1000 EACH MONTH!! We now buy our kids jeans at thrift stores (jeans years ago used more cotton and last longer than the junk they try to sell now) we have become very crafty in saving money..
We traded in our 2006 Tundra for a Prius...it is saving us $5,000 a year in gas!!! We gave up buying sodas/eating out...that saves us $2000 a year....
We just put those savings into a vacation and still have money left over!
oh...and we ONLY go on Disney when they offer kids sail free...we homeschool so we can travel any time of the year, that helps, too!
Tara
We traded in our 2006 Tundra for a Prius...it is saving us $5,000 a year in gas!!! We gave up buying sodas/eating out...that saves us $2000 a year....
We just put those savings into a vacation and still have money left over!
oh...and we ONLY go on Disney when they offer kids sail free...we homeschool so we can travel any time of the year, that helps, too!
Tara
We have decided to homeschool our girls as well. An additional perk to doing it!
Ware a family of five. This is what we did.
1. We were passholders for eight years. We didnt renew this year.
2. Disney visa chase rewards. Pay off every month. Invaluable.
3. We bought a 5 gallon water bottle. Every change we had or found, we automatically put it in the bottle. You would truly be amazed how much you can save. And if you can do it, do dollar bills too.
4. My favorite: every time the kids wanted something or do something, I simply said "sorry kids, we can't afford that, we have to save for the cruise." No argument every time. Probably paid for about 20% of the cruise. Sigh, I'm going to miss using that.
1. We were passholders for eight years. We didnt renew this year.
2. Disney visa chase rewards. Pay off every month. Invaluable.
3. We bought a 5 gallon water bottle. Every change we had or found, we automatically put it in the bottle. You would truly be amazed how much you can save. And if you can do it, do dollar bills too.
4. My favorite: every time the kids wanted something or do something, I simply said "sorry kids, we can't afford that, we have to save for the cruise." No argument every time. Probably paid for about 20% of the cruise. Sigh, I'm going to miss using that.
BlackFrank
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2011
Max out the credit cards and make the minimum monthly payments. I can't be the only one that does this...
tinkerbellandeyor
God holds my heart as well as my family and friend
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2010
Thanks for all the ideas especially the saving and rebooking on board
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