Budget for Sept. trip

[heatherleigh]

I'm starting to do the budget for our trip, now that I have an idea for our dates on our trip in Sept.

I just wanted to run this by and see if anyone had any suggestions on where I can go to save a few more $. We are AAA and Costco members. I have never gone through another agency besides Disney Vacation, so I don't know where to begin.

This is what I've priced out so far:
DLH + tix for 2 adults and 4 kids for 6 nights: $2,767.50. We are also doing LL and SW for the very first time.
West Inn hotel for 3 nights and 2 day LL park hoppers: $820.00.
SeaWorld single day tix: $315. SW dolphin encounter for my son: $45. Rental car for 3 days w/ Thrifty (minivan) $470. The car itself is only $60 per day, but the taxes and fees bring it up.

The total is now, $4,417.50.
SWA airfare for 6 rt: $1016.20.
Hotel in DEN for one night, I'm going to estimate at $150.

This brings the total up to approximately: $5,700. I now need to factor in food & souvenirs. I'm trying to estimate everything on the high end, as I do not plan on using any credit cards on this trip. I'd like to have everything paid for in advance. For some reason, these prices seem very high to me, which is why I'm wondering if anyone knows of some secret place I can go to save a few more $. It just seems rather high....

My thoughts are to put aside $1,500 for food and $1K for souvenirs, but I'm not sure if that will be enough. I am also hoping for a pin code deal to come out this summer, which will save even more on the hotel.

Wanted to add one more thing. We only want to budget for one character meal at Goofy's kitchen. I'd like to be free to do as many sit-down meals as we feel like, but we won't be doing them for the majority of meals. Carnation Cafe at least a couple times, along w/ some DTD restaurants definitely need to be budgeted in there. I plan on bringing food to SW on the one day we go and eating at the picnic area outside the park. We will also buy drinks for the room like capri suns, water, and cokes. I know it isn't a huge savings, but every bit helps. I also plan on taking my 3-yr old to the BBB for a makeover (not the full one, just the $50 one).

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

Costco Travel and AAA are ultimately through Disney Travel. And Costco gives a free premium character meal with their packages, plus a $20 Disney gift card.

Costco Travel to DLR

Also check out allears.net for DLR menus and prices to help budget for food. It helped us out a lot. DL Menus

 

[tholczer]

Another option is to get one annual pass so you can take advantage of the 10%-20% discounts (depending on the pass you purchase). The annual pass will give you discounts on the DH as well. Although they don't have Sept. dates posted yet. They are also offering a $100 Disney gift card to annual passholders who apply for the Disney Visa.

Does the $2,767.50 cover two rooms and five day hoppers? I'm assuming so because of your party size. If it does, it's a great deal. If not, you might do better with the AP rates.

Tracy

 

[heatherleigh]

One standard room (the possible 6th person is a baby) w/ 6-day park hoppers. They are regular rates though, so I hope I will actually pay much less after the specials come out.

 

[Amy and kids]

Last Minute Travel has park hoppers for much, much cheaper than anywhere else that you could find. I have heard great things about them and no one so far has had any issues, definitely worth the savings, we got our tickets through them and saved over $100 total!

There is also a membership through Brickmaster that you can get to save money on LL tickets since they are soooo costly. If you look up top under Southern California Theme Parks that you can learn more about how to save money on your LL tickets. I know there is a buy 1 get 1 coupon that you can even purchase on E-bay that could you save you quite a bit of money.

 

[heatherleigh]

Thanks so much, Amy, I will go to last minute and check on the tickets. I need to price them out w/ Disney singly too so I know what our actual tickets are costing. They don't break it down for you when you do the pkg. I will look into the LL as well. This could potentially save us several hundred dollars, since we have so many in our party.

Which LMT is it? I did a Google search, and a couple different ones came up. There's lastminuteusvacations, Lastminute.travelocity, and lastminute.com.

 

[LavenderPeach]

I just want to make sure I read this right. Did you say you're budgeting $1000 for souvenirs? Imo, you could cut that way down, if you wanted to. I realize this is all personal preference but if you're looking to save money that would be one way. You could give each person a set amount of spending money to use for souvenirs. For example, if you gave everyone $50 (which seems like plenty to me, but again, i know everyone is different) then that would only be $300 for souvenirs.

Also, I've never done this but I was just reading another thread where someone recommended getting the car rental from priceline. I can't remember how much they said it was (i want to say $27/day?) but it seemed like they got a good deal.

Seaworld sometimes has deals on their tickets. I often see deals in the summer for everyone pay the kids price but not sure if that extends into september or not.

I agree with PP that getting an AP might be worth it for you, especially for the DLH discount. And only one person would have to have the AP if you just wanted it for the discounts. You should do the math and see if an AP would be worth it.

To budget for food you can go to allears.net and look at the menus and prices. We also always order water with our meals (tap water, not bottled water) which saves us a lot of money. And think about splitting some meals. DH and I often do this and there's usually plenty of food to fill us both up. If we get hungry later we can get a snack. It's cheaper for us to share a meal and each get a snack later than to buy 2 meals.

Hope this helps. Sounds like it will be a fun trip!

 

[Amy and kids]

It's lastminutetravel.com, sorry about not putting that in there to begin with.

I also was one who mentioned Priceline for the rental car, we got a full size car for only $18 a day, our total with taxes and fees was only $179 for an entire week! We also found out that our insurance company has a contract with Hertz and Enterprise so we don't need to buy the rental company's insurance which saved us over $100!

 

[Amy and kids]

Oh yeah, we are doing $50 per child for souvenirs. We are actually going to get Disney gift cards to put in their Easter baskets. When the money on their card is gone then they are done buying, I figured that would prevent them from asking for everything in sight.

 

[Leofoenget]

Oh yeah, we are doing $50 per child for souvenirs. We are actually going to get Disney gift cards to put in their Easter baskets. When the money on their card is gone then they are done buying, I figured that would prevent them from asking for everything in sight.

$50 for 4 kids is $200 how did you get it to $1000? $50 a day? Lucky kids. My guess is you could really cut that down. IMO $100 per kid for the whole trip for a savings of $600

 

[LuLusApple]

In regard to souvenir money we did 100$ per kid on our "big" April trip last year. I have to say they had a hard time spending 100$ each. Lol they all got tshirts, ears, leather bracelets, pins and still had $ leftover. DD13 even couldn't spend all of her birthday fun card from last October she just got it all spent last month. I am not trying to say DL is cheap
just that's a ton of money for souvies. Next time I'll just get em all 50$ gift cards.

 

[kailuagirl]

For your rental car, keep checking prices, every day, different companies, I notice they change all the time and the sooner your book it out the cheaper it is. If you belong to costco, you can get a discount by renting through their web site.

I'd keep checking prices for your hotel package too, I agree that seems high for just one room.

Sounds like you are getting your ducks in a row!!! Have fun

 

[Brady's Mom]

Are you absolutely sold on staying at the DLH? If you want a bigger space you could check out the HoJo Pirate Kid's suites. There is a king bed in one room and bunk beds and a fold out in the other room. That way mom and dad can have their own room. It could make 6 days rather heavenly IMO. If you get an AP for some of the other cost savings you also get 20% to 50% off at the HoJo. Their AP code is lnap on their website if you want to price things out separately.


I did a package deal the first couple of times we went to DLR and after that I have done everything separately. It saves us a bunch of money and I am happy knowing I have gotten the best deal.


There are other hotels close by that also have suites - BWPPI, Tropicana (I think), that would also be cheaper than the DLH.

 

[Amy and kids]

$50 for 4 kids is $200 how did you get it to $1000? $50 a day? Lucky kids. My guess is you could really cut that down. IMO $100 per kid for the whole trip for a savings of $600

I wasn't the pp who said $1000 for souvenirs, my 3 kids are each getting ONE $50 gc.

 

[Dobie]

I think your food budget and souvenier budgets are really high.

You can go to the allears website and get current menus for all the DLR restaurants, and get a sense of how much it would cost. I budget $120 a day for three adults, and we take shorter trips and eat table service every night. With a trip this long, you might not want a table service meal every day--that is a lot of food

And for souveniers--I budget about 75 dollars for myself, 150 for DH (he teaches a special ed class so he buys a lot of Disney T shirts to wear to work) and 150 for DD, (she is spoiled completely, totally rotten!!!) You can easily get nice souveniers for four for $300.

 

[bumbershoot]

That's hugely expensive!

Definitely write everything down; get a notebook so you know exactly what each company is offering and charging.

Make sure to go through and check going a la carte vs package. Of course also include $13.80 (I think...12 plus 15% hotel tax) per day when booking disney hotels as a room-only...the Resort Fee is included with packages, but must be paid separately without a package.

As someone mentioned, Costco Travel includes the one character breakfast!


We have only budgeted $100 per day total, for food and souvies, but we don't/can't (vegetarian + ingredient issues in most snack/"kid" foods) snack on much besides fruit, don't drink sodas, and DH and I generally share meals, plus there are only 3 of us.

 

[bumbershoot]

With Legoland and Seaworld, I personally would make that a completely separate part of the vacation. Even if you come back to Disney, I would still take a night or two and do the San Diego area on its own. LL is on the way down, so you could leave Anaheim early, have a nice time at LL, then get down to San Diego proper for the evening. Spend one or two nights at a hotel, and spend one or two days at SeaWorld.

I haven't generally seen discounted one-day tickets to SW, but they often have "buy one get two" tickets for SW. Just to see all the shows you want to see, without doing a commando touring plan, can take the whole day (and DO DO DO fit in "Pets Rule" show, b/c it's pretty much the best one without the utter total cheesiness of the Shamu show or the nonsense at the beginning of the dolphin show...I haven't seen the Clyde show, though!). And that's without visiting the Clydesdales, riding Atlantis, etc etc etc.

So I would definitely do that entirely separately.

 

[LavenderPeach]

I haven't generally seen discounted one-day tickets to SW, but they often have "buy one get two" tickets for SW.

You're right, when we went it was buy one day, get the second free but they were also doing adults pay the kid's price. So we got 2 days for the price of one kid's ticket. You wouldn't have to use the 2nd day if you didn't want to. We went 2 years ago but I thought I remembered seeing this same deal last year.

 

[heatherleigh]

I am definitely over-estimating w/ the souvenirs and everything. The main souvenirs that we will buy that will be expensive are the Disney castle playset, or the monorail, or Disney Express. The kids do play with these things, and even though they aren't the best quality, they do get lots of use.

Since we are dead set against using a credit card, it makes me a little nervous not to have the back-up. I suppose I could take one for peace of mind, but the agreement w/ husband is not to use one at all.

The first trip we took to DL we did on a budget, and even though it was fun, it was stressful. One of the main things I remember on that trip was having a showdown w/ my husband over a pack of $5 french fries I bought from a McDonalds cart. He threw a mini tantrum that I spent $5, when we didn't have the money lol. In fact, on the next trip he made a comment like, "and you can buy as many french fries as you want" lol! The second trip of ours was great- we didn't scrimp and we didn't put much on our credit card. I decided after the first trip, that if we had to be that cheap, I'd rather wait another yr or two to go and buy whatever.

Those prices do seem awfully high to me, which is why I wanted to put it out there and find out if there's something I'm not seeing or checking. Those are the regular priced standard rooms, so I'm sure there will be pin code offers later which will bring it down. As far as the aP, I need to look into that option as well. I remember considering it on the last trip.

Bumbersh, we plan on starting out in SD, and staying there for three nights. I actually had everything all figured out until we threw that into the mix, and all of a sudden the price skyrocketed. I'm going to start hunting for these coupons & deals asap. I should also pay for our airfare now, because that is a great rate, and I cannot see that one getting any cheaper the longer I wait.

 

[Leofoenget]

It's funny what we all think is "too expensive" I would NEVER spend $5 on french fries, but think nothing of spending $5 on coffee. (well NOW I think about it) but that was before I got my own espresso machine on craigslist and now I make my own for about .75c