Cost of a beach vacation vs. a Disney vacation

[MinnieSweetheart]

It all depends on what type of vacation you enjoy. You CAN do a beach trip for a lot less than a Disney trip, but it's a very different type of vacation. Personally, renting a house/condo where I still have to cook most of our meals and then spending the days just hanging around on the beach is not my idea of an enjoyable week's vacation. It's boring. I'd rather save my money until I have enough for a Disney trip, even if it means not taking a real vacation some years.

You reminded me of this article from the Onion: http://www.theonion.com/article/mom-spends-beach-vacation-assuming-all-household-d-33431

 

[Dakota731]

Prorating the annual passes park tickets come out to $511 for the four of us.

That wouldn't be a fair way to compare a beach vs Disney vacation since most people would go to the parks and spend a huge sum of money on tickets. For our family, the park tix cost more than the airfare and lodging combined!

Personally, renting a house/condo where I still have to cook most of our meals and then spending the days just hanging around on the beach is not my idea of an enjoyable week's vacation. It's boring.

We just do lunch and breakfast in the beach house so making a bowl of cereal or a sandwich isn't too much effort in my opinion. And we ride bikes, swim, do nature trails and see whatever sights are near the beach we visit that year. There are hundreds of things to see and do in every part of this countrym so I never find our beach vacations boring! Seeing the beauty of creation and showing kids the majesty of nature is always a joy in our family, but to each their own.

 

[North of Mouse]

I know there are many different factors and it is not apples to apples, but just curious how much a vacation for a family of 5 to Myrtle beach or Outer Banks for a week vs. a week at Disney (let's say a value/moderate) resort? Cost should include food/lodging/entertainment costs. We cannot vacation at the beach, since my husband can only take vacation time in the winter months....which is why we love going to warm and sunny Orlando! I am sick of hearing people comment how "nice it must be to afford going to Disney" when I have the feeling that a beach vacation isn't much cheaper! Thanks!!

A beach vacation for us would be lots cheaper than Disney - it mostly consists of enjoying the beach - no tickets, and mostly fast food, or easily fixed dinners. Just as not everyone spends a ton of money at Disney, the same can be said of the beach - we all vacation differently.

 

[Sarahbelle341]

It depends.

We spend more per day on a trip to Gatlinburg TN than per day at Disney. Dinner shows and food at Pigeon and Forge and disney are comparable but each entertainment activity we do in TN cost us money. Hotel costs are comparable (Fairfield Inn vs Pop Century). Plus we drive both places but shopped more in Gatlinburg since the outlet shopping was an entertainment activity vs Disney we almost never shop since we are so busy in the parks. Cruises tend to be cheaper for s than Disney since entertainment, lodge, and food are all included on cruise and we aren't big on alcohol and aren't very interested in shopping in the ports since we want to explore. For beach vacations it depends on which beach really. Trips with extended family to Outer Banks where we hang out in the beach house and cook all our meals are dirt cheap but if we are eating out for meals, staying in a hotel, and doing activities at Myrtle Beach then it costs us more than Disney trips.

 

[tbssenterprises]

This question makes me laugh because it's been posed to me numerous times, especially by my husband. Look, a rental house down the Jersey Shore in July or August is going to run $2500 to $3000. There is NO guarantee that the weather is going to cooperate. So, let's see, spend $2500 and it rains all week. What do you do? Sit inside a moldy house, perhaps go to a movie or two. Oh, and don't forget about mini golf. Wow, imagine planning all year for a few hours at a mini golf thing. I'll take Disney any day over a beach vacation. Oh, and don't forget all the loading and unloading of stuff. Blankets, towels, sheets, beach chairs, beach umbrellas, boxed food things from Costco. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

 

[hsmamato2]

This question makes me laugh because it's been posed to me numerous times, especially by my husband. Look, a rental house down the Jersey Shore in July or August is going to run $2500 to $3000. There is NO guarantee that the weather is going to cooperate. So, let's see, spend $2500 and it rains all week. What do you do? Sit inside a moldy house, perhaps go to a movie or two. Oh, and don't forget about mini golf. Wow, imagine planning all year for a few hours at a mini golf thing. I'll take Disney any day over a beach vacation. Oh, and don't forget all the loading and unloading of stuff. Blankets, towels, sheets, beach chairs, beach umbrellas, boxed food things from Costco. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

 

[aprincessatlast]

They are both comparable and it just depends on how you do both. Here in the midwest these are the vacation options of most people, that is if they travel at all. It is once you go outside the WDW and Beach talk of travel that people start to look at you all.

 

[mickeyfanachey1999]

That wouldn't be a fair way to compare a beach vs Disney vacation since most people would go to the parks and spend a huge sum of money on tickets. For our family, the park tix cost more than the airfare and lodging combined!


At the same time it wouldn't be fair to assume that I paid 1700 for tickets all 4 trips this annual pass year either. I was just comparing a specific trip to WDW with a specific trip to the beach.

 

[eliza61]

This question makes me laugh because it's been posed to me numerous times, especially by my husband. Look, a rental house down the Jersey Shore in July or August is going to run $2500 to $3000. There is NO guarantee that the weather is going to cooperate. So, let's see, spend $2500 and it rains all week. What do you do? Sit inside a moldy house, perhaps go to a movie or two. Oh, and don't forget about mini golf. Wow, imagine planning all year for a few hours at a mini golf thing. I'll take Disney any day over a beach vacation. Oh, and don't forget all the loading and unloading of stuff. Blankets, towels, sheets, beach chairs, beach umbrellas, boxed food things from Costco. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

depends. if you rent a house right on the beach. I went to Ocean city NJ last week in July. I was off of Central ave and 12th street. In fact I'm putting a deposit down on a 3 bedroom/2 bath on West ave for 3rd week in July with 2 car parking . total price 1545.00 I'm going down for the whole week, my kids will come and go as the please throughout the week along with my sil and niece.

LOL why the heck are you lugging sheets to the beach and boxed food? or do you mean for the condo. that's no more inconvenient that packing your clothes, since I have a dvc I don't get maid service at Disney. I don't cook on vacation. not at disney not at the jersey shore. food at the shore is cheaper and usually better than at Disney. we go to the beach we have towels, beach chair and an umbrella (and for 10 bucks you don't even have to bring that).

How is unloading the stuff at your beach house any different than carrying your suitcases at Disney? Unless you get the bell service which cost money. Not getting that one. we take it from our house to the car, to the beach house.

We get off the beach and we take our towels and drape them over the balcony to dry. pretty much the same thing we do at disney when we go to the pool.

Wow, no wonder you'd rather go to wdw, you guys make going to the beach seem like climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

I live close to the Jersey shore so we go all the time and we've never had all those issues.

 

[Mpadovani2]

For us, a comparable beach vacation to a disney deluxe would have to be a waterfront property near or on the boardwalk, which means a hefty price tag in the summer season. Could be $3000 to $4000 for the week not including meals and entertainment and transportation. With DVC, we are usually around that same amount for our whole disney trip including meals and tickets. And I don't have to play mini golf at Disney...

 

[cmarsh31]

This question makes me laugh because it's been posed to me numerous times, especially by my husband. Look, a rental house down the Jersey Shore in July or August is going to run $2500 to $3000. There is NO guarantee that the weather is going to cooperate. So, let's see, spend $2500 and it rains all week. What do you do? Sit inside a moldy house, perhaps go to a movie or two. Oh, and don't forget about mini golf. Wow, imagine planning all year for a few hours at a mini golf thing. I'll take Disney any day over a beach vacation. Oh, and don't forget all the loading and unloading of stuff. Blankets, towels, sheets, beach chairs, beach umbrellas, boxed food things from Costco. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Totally agree. Disney. One bag each, on the plane and go (direct flight), hop on Disney transportation with maybe a backpack and go all day. Beach. Hours the night before to fill the minivan with sheets (house rentals, have to bring your own), chairs, umbrella, beach toys, bike rack on the back, drive ALL DAY bc no matter where you go from Upstate NY, you have to drive through NJ which is some bizarre time warp where the GPS always tells you there's 6 more hours to go, spend another 1+ hours unpacking the car, grocery shopping, meal prep, pack up beach bag & lug said chairs/umbrella/toys/food down to beach... then have to pack it all up and bring it back to the house in the evening - and this was staying three houses from the beach - even worse if you have to drive/park every day!

Yeah... DH hates the beach. I used to love it, but it's rarely relaxing. I'd rather spend the extra money and at least not have to cook and pack the car!

 

[tbssenterprises]

Yes, when you rent a house down the Jersey Shore, you HAVE to bring your own sheets and towels. And trust me, in the Lavallette or LBI area, you can't rent a house for $1500 a week, at least not during July and August and although the ocean is warm during the beginning part of September, if you have kids, they are back to school by them. Ugh, I hated the beach vacations because they were so much WORK. Thankfully, we still did Disney once a year in November (yup during Jersey week LOL!).

 

[MsMamaBear]

It'd be more at Disney for my daughter and I. At the beach, I have to either bring food and cook or eat out every meal.etc. At Disney, I don't have to. I personally look forward to vacation so I DON'T have to cook or clean. I'm very frugal, but on vacation, I'm not cooking anything. We leave in 3 days and I am sitting here thinking about how excited I am to not have to cook, clean up or start the dishwasher. (#firstworldproblems) I'd pay more not to have to straighten up a house, take the sheets off the bed, put the dishes in the dishwasher and start them before you leave. Plus I don't like driving a lot in a place I don't know, with it just being us.

 

[crisi]

It'd be more at Disney for my daughter and I. At the beach, I have to either bring food and cook or eat out every meal.etc. At Disney, I don't have to. I personally look forward to vacation so I DON'T have to cook or clean. I'm very frugal, but on vacation, I'm not cooking anything. We leave in 3 days and I am sitting here thinking about how excited I am to not have to cook, clean up or start the dishwasher. (#firstworldproblems) I'd pay more not to have to straighten up a house, take the sheets off the bed, put the dishes in the dishwasher and start them before you leave. Plus I don't like driving a lot in a place I don't know, with it just being us.

We are DVCers, so our Disney vacations involve making beds and loading a dishwasher and throwing a load of towels into the wash. We do breakfast in the room - it maximizes park time (parks don't open until 9:00, that's plenty of time to eat breakfast in the room and we definitely need coffee by then - but it isn't time to go to breakfast without getting up earlier than we want and still making rope drop). Our annual beach vacation is in a house, we have to cook, but since we do it with several families, no one person has to do a lot of cooking or cleaning - it gets divided out pretty well. And the annual beach vacation is $40 in gas, $100 in food, and $200 in house rental - and another $100 if we want to pay a housekeeper to come in after we leave so we don't need to wash sheets and mop - I can't get one person airfare to Disney for that. The activities are hiking the North Shore and hanging around.

 

[kirstenb1]

In virginia beach, they have finally gotten sensible about the towels/sheets. Way back, you had to pack your own. In the last several years, you could rent them (worth every penny to not lug them). Now they're included with the rental. A lot of the homes have boogie boards and sand toys in the closets. I pack enough groceries for the first night's dinner and breakfast next day. I grocery shop, same as DVC. Our beach trips are much cheaper than WDW, even factoring in a long paid for DVC. The tix are just a killer for a once a year trip.

 

[MsMamaBear]

We are DVCers, so our Disney vacations involve making beds and loading a dishwasher and throwing a load of towels into the wash. We do breakfast in the room - it maximizes park time (parks don't open until 9:00, that's plenty of time to eat breakfast in the room and we definitely need coffee by then - but it isn't time to go to breakfast without getting up earlier than we want and still making rope drop). Our annual beach vacation is in a house, we have to cook, but since we do it with several families, no one person has to do a lot of cooking or cleaning - it gets divided out pretty well. And the annual beach vacation is $40 in gas, $100 in food, and $200 in house rental - and another $100 if we want to pay a housekeeper to come in after we leave so we don't need to wash sheets and mop - I can't get one person airfare to Disney for that. The activities are hiking the North Shore and hanging around.

That sounds very cost effective if there are several families or more than 2 people, like my daughter and I.

 

[crisi]

That sounds very cost effective if there are several families or more than 2 people, like my daughter and I.

Its a friend's place, which makes it very cost effective, although its possible to rent houses on the North Shore for very reasonable amounts of money (I'm talking about the North Shore of Lake Superior - you won't be sunning yourself on a sandy beach or playing in the waves - even in August you may sun yourself, but the beach will be big river rocks. However, its amazingly beautiful, with waterfalls every couple of miles cascading into the lake, rocks to scramble over next to the water, huge ore boats floating by once in a while. We've seen a bear and her cub out the house window (kept the kids in for a few hours after that).)

You can do similar things with Disney - renting a very reasonable house offsite. But with Disney there is no way around park tickets no matter how reasonable you find a house to share. With the beach, for us, the attraction is the nature. Whether the North Shore or Hawaii or Mexico or Hilton Head (all beaches we've been to in the past five years - except for Hawaii, all cheaper than WDW), the beach involves watching the water, walking or hiking near the beach, swimming (not at the North Shore). Hawaii was expensive - airfare was expensive, food was expensive, and we did things like take surf lessons and go whale watching.

Also, most places in the U.S. have a beach nearby. If the only beach under consideration is the Jersey Shore, I completely understand why its so expensive. But if you live in Minnesota or Wisconsin and the beach is a lake cabin owned by family or friends - it isn't very expensive at all.

 

[eliza61]

Its a friend's place, which makes it very cost effective, although its possible to rent houses on the North Shore for very reasonable amounts of money (I'm talking about the North Shore of Lake Superior - you won't be sunning yourself on a sandy beach or playing in the waves - even in August you may sun yourself, but the beach will be big river rocks. However, its amazingly beautiful, with waterfalls every couple of miles cascading into the lake, rocks to scramble over next to the water, huge ore boats floating by once in a while. We've seen a bear and her cub out the house window (kept the kids in for a few hours after that).)

You can do similar things with Disney - renting a very reasonable house offsite. But with Disney there is no way around park tickets no matter how reasonable you find a house to share. With the beach, for us, the attraction is the nature. Whether the North Shore or Hawaii or Mexico or Hilton Head (all beaches we've been to in the past five years - except for Hawaii, all cheaper than WDW), the beach involves watching the water, walking or hiking near the beach, swimming (not at the North Shore). Hawaii was expensive - airfare was expensive, food was expensive, and we did things like take surf lessons and go whale watching.

Also, most places in the U.S. have a beach nearby. If the only beach under consideration is the Jersey Shore, I completely understand why its so expensive. But if you live in Minnesota or Wisconsin and the beach is a lake cabin owned by family or friends - it isn't very expensive at all.

Jersey shore isn't expensive Crisi, it's very much like other shore towns that yes, if you want to be dead center, on the beach its cost more. In fact every shore town also has motels, hotels and B&B's

So if someone wants to drop a few grand and bring their household with them they can BUT you can also stay at a motel, never cook, have daily maid service all for a lot cheaper.

We go darn near every other weekend in the summer, my sons and there friends go to Wildwood AND never pay more than 1000 bucks for room. they don't cook, a gazillion places to eat cheaply.

Believe me, the college students who go each and every week are not spending 2 and 3 grand.

It's like many other places, you can go luxury or modest. Cape May can be high end, Avalon dead cheap.

I love the Jersey Shore BUT I don't compare it to Disney, they are two different vacations.

 

[crisi]

I always got the impression here that any acceptable beach place on the East Coast was going to set you back a king's ransom. And acceptable meant "well, you could pay less than $500 a night, but the cockroaches might eat you while you sleep." Not being an East Coaster, I was willing to take those statements at face value.

But I do know you can do lake homes and cabins throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin for very reasonable amounts of money.

 

[MsMamaBear]

Its a friend's place, which makes it very cost effective, although its possible to rent houses on the North Shore for very reasonable amounts of money (I'm talking about the North Shore of Lake Superior - you won't be sunning yourself on a sandy beach or playing in the waves - even in August you may sun yourself, but the beach will be big river rocks. However, its amazingly beautiful, with waterfalls every couple of miles cascading into the lake, rocks to scramble over next to the water, huge ore boats floating by once in a while. We've seen a bear and her cub out the house window (kept the kids in for a few hours after that).)

You can do similar things with Disney - renting a very reasonable house offsite. But with Disney there is no way around park tickets no matter how reasonable you find a house to share. With the beach, for us, the attraction is the nature. Whether the North Shore or Hawaii or Mexico or Hilton Head (all beaches we've been to in the past five years - except for Hawaii, all cheaper than WDW), the beach involves watching the water, walking or hiking near the beach, swimming (not at the North Shore). Hawaii was expensive - airfare was expensive, food was expensive, and we did things like take surf lessons and go whale watching.

Also, most places in the U.S. have a beach nearby. If the only beach under consideration is the Jersey Shore, I completely understand why its so expensive. But if you live in Minnesota or Wisconsin and the beach is a lake cabin owned by family or friends - it isn't very expensive at all.

It does depend on how you want to stay. I'm surprised Hilton Head was cheaper, but then I haven't priced it too much, just glanced, although I did look at Myrtle Beach. I've thought about going back to St. Thomas or St. Johns, but haven't looked into it as much as I should since I was on a cruise last time and only had one fare to pay for! I feel bad since my daughter has only been to the beach once and we live 4 hrs away. LOL! I should be ashamed!