Breakdown of expenses for a Disneyland trip?

[todzwife]

Would anyone care to share? I'm trying to save every extra penny for a Nov. 2010 trip and I'd love some numbers to shoot for.

Last Nov. We did a pretty cheap trip. I know that not all of the price cuts will be available next November so I'm trying to get an average.

Here's what we spent last year:

Hotel (Hojo's- Ent. rate+ regular rate for 1 night) $402 for 5 nights.
Tickets (2 adults, 1 child) about $500
Food $600
Gas to get there (we drove from New Mexico) $250
Other: $200

 

[wvnative]

I think mine breaks down very close to yours.

We do the HOJO at the ENT rate as well. We usually only do a 4 day trip though so only stay 3 nights.

It's about $100 in gas for us from Phoenix.

We take food with us. Breakfasts, snacks. water, gatorade and a few lunches to take in the park. We normally do dinner in the park. We'll budget a little higher on our next trip as we plan to try some new places. Still, I think our food bill (there are 2 of us and we can share some meals) comes in at just under $200.

We'll be buying 4 day hoppers and upgrading to DAP's on our last day. 4 day hoppers are currently $194 and are rumored to go up in price next month.

We don't do a lot of shopping while we're there. We do usually pick up a new ornament and a new set of ears but that's about it. Oh, and I easily spend $50 on goodies to bring home to my extended family. I keep hoping that if I entice my mom with yummy Disney stuff she may eventually give up and visit. I highly doubt it, but a girl can dream right?

 

[andee2000]

Would anyone care to share? I'm trying to save every extra penny for a Nov. 2010 trip and I'd love some numbers to shoot for.

Last Nov. We did a pretty cheap trip. I know that not all of the price cuts will be available next November so I'm trying to get an average.

Here's what we spent last year:

Hotel (Hojo's- Ent. rate+ regular rate for 1 night) $402 for 5 nights.
Tickets (2 adults, 1 child) about $500
Food $600
Gas to get there (we drove from New Mexico) $250
Other: $200

Here is our trip last year (btw I'm in NM too).

Amtrak Abq to Lax round trip for 4 people $373
Car Rental 5 days $411 (we are not renting a car for the entire time next year. It just sat in the HoJo parking lot for most of the trip.)
HoJo for three nights (I didn't know about the ENT rate back then) $522
So Cal City Pass $782

The above was DL. We also went to San Diego and Redondo Beach, but I didn't add those.

Summer 2010 should look like this:
Amtrak Abq to Lax for 4 people $373
Hojo 8 night (if we get ENT rate) $821 <-- I doubt we'll get ENT all 8 nights but here's to hoping!
DL Tickets $750 (guessing)

We are looking at about $1936 if I get the discounts I want. Full price for everything would be about $2,820.

I need to add a car in for 3 days only so we can go to the beaches and American Girl on our non-Disney days. I'm still not sure if we are going to change hotels.

My goal this year is to

 

[todzwife]

I wish I lived close enough to drive down in 1 day. For us though, it's a good 16 hours and we split it up last year. There is a small airline that flies straight from here to Ontario for $119 (non refundable) per way, but with 4 of us, it's still $1000. I was trying to see if I could sneak in a few days trip in December this year, but it costs almost as much for a 2 day as a 5 day!

Hojo even has the ent. rate for the 13-15th so our total hotel stay would be $204 with tax! It's that "getting there" part that keeps shooting me down.

 

[Brady's Mom]

This is the breakdown for our Nov. 2009 trip -

HoJo - 6 nights $474 (5 at the Ent. Rate $69, one at AP rate)
Drive - under $200, but I will budget for $200
Food - $600 (we have 5 in our family - 3 bigs and 2 littles) - this figure is HIGH for us.
We will take some of our own breakfast stuff and/or get some stuff at the grocery store there - we will also take some lunch stuff for sandwiches and fruit and carrot/celery sticks. We never seem to eat enough vegies when we are at DLR and at home we eat a ton of fruits and vegies. DH and I frequently share a meal and then add a house salad or 2 depending on how hungry we are, this gives us some extra vegies and variety, too.

Tickets - 0 (we have AP's, this will be the third time DH and I will have used ours, the 2nd time for our kids.

I am saving $200 every 2 weeks and will have $1600 by the time we leave. I am pretty sure I will come home with money, since we don't do a lot of souvie shopping. If we want some stuff we usually go to the WalMart on Euclid (it is really close) and pick up t-shirts and sweatshirts there for a lot cheaper than at DLR. T-shirts run about $5-10 and sweatshirts from about $15-20. They usually have a pretty good selection and we can buy a few each and still only spend about $100.

We tried the Character Warehouse a couple of weeks ago and they didn't have anything that appealed to me - but I live in a house of boys and they don't like Hannah Montana and Camp Rock and High School Musical.

HTH - Shannon

 

[nunzia]

I'm in NM too! We also do AMTRAK from ALB into Fullerton. Very reasonable and kids travel 1/2 price plus they have a good AAA discount. We blow the budget at the Grand, but no more since it is now points. When we go In Sept we paid for all the tickets (3 ad + 2 kids) for the buy 3 get 2 special, so it was 845 I think. Then the Fantasmic dessert will be alot and the Princess breakfast. BUT our room is free (developer points) and we will have a free meal at Rainforest (MyPoints GC) and eat in the Concierge Lounge., so actual cash on site will be low since we tend to snack and get kid's meals at CS and don't buy souveniers.
We used to stay cheaply at the Tropicana (beware the doughnut nazi) brought alot of breakfast and snack food (another benefit of driving or train is that you can bring alot of your own food easily). Tickets are the biggest expense IMO..everything else can really be done cheaply. Don't forget you can get free ice water at CS..no need to waste money on water.