Cost of Vacation

[mrseace711]

Family of 6 we drove from Indiana, packed TONS of snacks and drinks. Booked thru Small World Vacations during the Kids Stay/Play Free promo.

Gas = $350
Extra Food = $200
1 night hotel stay = $75
4 Nights 5 Days, NO park hopping, dining plan for 5 days @ Value resort Music Family Suite =$ 1923.00
Money spent in park/Tips = $400
Souveniers/Misc = $200

I was prepared kids were so starstruck by their 1st trip that shopping for souveniers was something we forced on them the last day of the trip I also made them take time out to pick 'Ears' and lanyards for the trading pins I purchased on e-bay 50 for $40. They had a BLAST trading pins with cast members on the last 2 days of the trip. I even dragged the kids to the candy shop in Magic Kingdom because my sweet tooth was screaming lol. We are planning on going back in Sept AGAIN

 

[AmericangirlinFrance]

Well, we are going this weekend (3 days, 2 nights) and it is going to be CHEAP! This is for 2 adults.

Gas: $40 (we live 3 hrs away)
2 nights offsite hotel: $100 (includes breakfast)
2 FL resident 3-day tickets: $200
Parking: $42


$382 plus cost of food - we pack snacks/sandwiches for the park, we will probably get 2 counter service meals a day.

 

[bettymae1121]

Our vacation costs have been all over the map. Our 1st WDW as a couple was 4x the cost as our last trip this past May. It all depends on how much we have in the vacation budget at the time. Now that we have started a family, we'll be sticking to value and moderate resorts so my guestimate is $2k or so for a week if we go during free dining, but I fly for free due to my job so that saves us at least $750 in airfare for three tickets. And now that we earn Sheraton points on our CC, we may not even spend that much as we can stay at the Dolphin for free as well, if we bank enough points.

 

[debbiedana]

When it's just me and my daughter, we have it down to a cheap-o science for a six day trip:
$400 flights
$420 YES tix
$300 food
$430 room at Pop on a discount
----
$1550 for a six day trip

We travel during value season, no table service, tap water, we bring our own breakfast, no car rental, and we're lucky to fly out of Chicago, which is pretty cheap to MCO. To add a day, which is one more night at Pop, $50 food and $10 tickets, it would be about $150, so $1700 for a week for me and DD12.

 

[Sagginit]

the two years i went we spent about $2700 for two adults on site with free DDP. we went end of sept. both years.

our package for two adults, moderate, free DDP upgraded to deluxe with 6 day park hoppers was about $1800-$1900 each year.

airfare was less than $300 with all luggage fees each year. we live in NJ and fly out of Atlantic City. one year it was airtran for a crazy cheap sale they had. the next year it was spirit as my mother has a CC with them and it was one of those $7 flight deals. parking there is decently cheap too.

splurge on car service to and from airport. both years this gave us lots of extra time in the parks so its worth the $100-$150 we spend to get door to door service.

tips: about $150-$200. souvenirs : both spent about $100 at most. the second year we did MNSSHP so we had the cost of those tickets, but i have a Disney Visa and I am not factoring in the $ I save by redeeming rewards to pay for part of the trip or souvenirs when I am there.

we mostly save by getting free dining and going at the end of sept. i have priced out other times of the year and it is never cheaper. we also have no desire to stay off site. for two adult women going and not having to cook or worry about whats for dinner for an entire week is a HUGE part of the vacation. :

 

[OutOfSpace]

I've spent about $2000 on the last trip with my other half. I really hope to bring it down to atmost $1500. I need to start reserving trips earlier!

 

[dhardawa]

I voted $2100 - $4000, but it is much closer to the $2100. With three people flying, we quickly eat up about $1000 and I usually spend around $1700 on the Disney World resort and tickets and we only go with free dining.

 

[mirage0306]

I got the 50,000 free points promotion when I signed up. We booked the cheapest flights we could find ($98 each way) so it ended up being just less than 50,000 points. We had a bit of a credit from our last flight and used that on the last one to bring the fees down a bit.

That is phenomenal!! I wish our flights ever dropped that low, but $188 each way is the lowest I've ever seen them.

 

[Minnesota!]

We fly from MN, stay at value resorts, and get hoppers and the dining plan.

We usually are below $4000.

This trip will be:

Dining - Free
Hotel & tickets - $2302
Air - $1100
Extra spending $ - $ 400 - allof it gift cards earned off Mypoints.com, Discover cash back gift cards, and money we received for Christmas.

Total of $3400 (since the gift cards were "free money".).

That's for 4 people (kids are 7 and 4), for 8 nights. Pretty good, I think!

 

[Minnesota!]

We don't have value season as far as airfare just varying degrees of increases. Last trip we stayed at The Poly with the dining plan and park hopper and our airfare was 200 more than our package. Granted we paid about 675pp. This is why we cant go more than every few years. I wish there was a better way to get there from here. There are tons of families that I know that would love to spend thousands at WDW if it didn't cost so much to get there.

I think Disney should start their own airline...flies exclusively to all the parks around the world. And keep the price affordable for families.

 

[Marionnette]

On average, what does your family spend on a week long vacation at WDW?

Well, we are a family of 5. All of us are adults (youngest child is 18). It's been a while since we've gone as a family. The kids are more likely to travel with friends or each other while my husband and I travel without the kids.

And we've been to Disney so many times that we haven't stayed for a full week in over 10 years. Most trips are 3-5 nights in length.

We also prefer to stay onsite and at deluxe resorts.

And rent a car.

And we use FF miles to pay for our airfare.

But I'll use the trip that I just returned from as an example.

5 nights in a std. studio at Kidani. Sun.-Thurs. rental of DVC points (a total of 55 points) @$13/pt. = $715

Airfare fees for 3 people (9/11 fees and Earlybird check in) = $75

Dining Plan for 3 adults for 5 nights = $773

Rental Car = $104

Gas and tolls for rental car = $25

Tips (redcaps, DME, servers at table service meals) = $150

Additional groceries for breakfast in room = $63 (way overspent in this and left a lot of stuff there)

Tickets - leftover MYW hoppers, I'm not sure what the original cost was for them.

Souvenirs = $350 (we went a little crazy, or I should say that my 21 year old daughter went a little crazy)

Total = $2255 (and that was without having to pay for tickets)

 

[EclecticWAHM]

Airfare eats up SO much of the budget for us since we are in CO. It's pretty much around $400/pp for airfare, so $1600 for the family. That's why we HAVE to wait to get a really good PIN or Free Dining or something to offset that awful cost. Driving would take too long/too much time off. I hate that! And our kids are both Disney adults as far as tickets/dining plan goes.

 

[pigletto]

Airfare eats up SO much of the budget for us since we are in CO. It's pretty much around $400/pp for airfare, so $1600 for the family. That's why we HAVE to wait to get a really good PIN or Free Dining or something to offset that awful cost. Driving would take too long/too much time off. I hate that! And our kids are both Disney adults as far as tickets/dining plan goes.

Is it just that no low cost carriers fly out of CO, or limited airports? I know nothing about the state of Colorado. I am just shocked to see that we can fly sooooo much cheaper from Buffalo. I've never paid over 1000 for the four of us, and several times only 700 or 800

 

[alh921]

We book during the low-cost, low-crowd season and take the best deal they are running at the time, and we always stay in the value resorts. For 2 adults, our entire vacations have always come to total around $2000, give or take a couple hundred, including airfare, food, tickets, hotel, pet sitting, parking, etc.

Our last trip was 8 days/7 nights, Pop Century, free dining promo with 6-day park hopper.

Magic your Way hotel/tix/QS dining/magical express (no car rented): $1300 -- so right there the bulk of our vacation was covered.
Transportation to Universal Studios for 2 days: ~ $90
2-day tix to Uninversal: ~ $200
Food & Drinks outside of Disney DP: ~$100
Airport parking: $80
Dog sitting: $200
Airline tix (JetBlue): ~$300
Total: $2270

So if we wouldn't have gone to Universal, it would have cut the cost down by quite a bit.

We also went in Jan 2010:
8 nights/7 days @ Pop with 7 day park hopper, booked through Southwest Airlines so airfare included: $1441
Dog sitting: $100
Food: ~$400
We got a ride to and from the airport from family so this trip's total was $1941

 

[crisi]

We fly from MN, stay at value resorts, and get hoppers and the dining plan.

We usually are below $4000.

This trip will be:

Dining - Free
Hotel & tickets - $2302
Air - $1100
Extra spending $ - $ 400 - allof it gift cards earned off Mypoints.com, Discover cash back gift cards, and money we received for Christmas.

Total of $3400 (since the gift cards were "free money".).

That's for 4 people (kids are 7 and 4), for 8 nights. Pretty good, I think!

You got a great deal on airfare. Its been years since we've paid less than $400 per ticket out of the Twin Cities.

(To answer the earlier question - from the Twin Cities Delta has the market pretty much sewn up. There are a few alternate carriers, but pretty much the only low cost carriers are Sun Country and Airtran - and they don't tend to be that much cheaper.)

 

[AprilRenee]

I chose $1000-2000. But it's just DH and I. We stay value on site, with a dinning plan, and I usually plan on approx $800-900 each including flights.
Our trip this time is a bit more expensive cause we're doing 2 days at Universal and it's our last kid free trip so I splurged a couple of places but I know I could've/have done it cheaper.

 

[iwrbnd]

Our upcoming trip- 2 adults, 3 teens and 1 child

8 days at Animal Kingdom 2 bedroom savannah view- $1,000 (DVC dues)
Dining plan- using saved Visa Rewards- $0
Tickets- undercover tourists no hoppers- $1,500
Airfare killed us this year- 2,000 (have done it in the past for $600!)

Total is $4,500 for a family of six to stay in a two bedroom deluxe for 8 days with the dinng plan. Expensive, but not bad considering what it could be!

I put absolutely everything on our Disney Visa and pay it off every month. After a couple years we use the money and make our own DVC "free dining" promotion! (That's called "girl math" and it works for me!)

 

[jennyjinx3]

well, originally it would have been about $ 4700 with airfare (hopefully about $1500 from Buffalo), but just upgraded to the Poly today so we are looking at a about $6800 with airfare now! (10 days, MYW tickets, dining plan) for 2 adults, 3 children. (10 th anniversary celebration)

 

[neatokimmo]

I feel cheap.

I always go with someone to split room costs. Last time, DD wasn't three so she was free. The package was $1910 with tickets and free dining for 14 nights. I paid half of that. Spent about $50 in souvies and paid for half of the gas. So way under $1500.

This time we are splitting a room too. 7 nights, 6 park days. I started my own biz which ran up (and paid off) some crazy charges to my Visa. In the end, I will be paying $75 for the trip, for our share of the package. That includes bumping DD to an adult ticket so she'd have better food on the free QS dining plan. We are roadtripping it with friends so our gas will be nominal. I also have another $60ish on my rewards card to use for treats. Throw in a few souvies and we should be well under $500.

 

[jeepwreck]

for us on feb 6, it was just over 3000

that's for 6 nights a POFQ
5 day park hoppers
deluxe dinning plan