Did your beach vacation cost more than your Disney vacation

[lovedonald]

Hello

We have a large family and we like to take vacations every 1 to 2 years. I like to budget every cent of our vacation. Last year we went to the beach and I added it up. 1 night at the holiday inn at the beach in June of last year was $220 dollars. This June we are staying at a Disney value resort and the room in June is $140. Per night. I also added up food, boardwalk rides, and fun activities that we did last year. This year we have the dining plan and 8 day park tickets. After adding up a week at the beach and a week at disney.......disney is coming up several hundred dollars cheaper!!! I wonder if that is why we are seeing more crowds at disney. Has anyone else found that disney is now cheaper or costing the same for your family versus other destinations?

 

[kevschickee]

We go to the beach every year and yes it could be more expensive than a Disney trip. The only thing that saves me is we camp so our site us only $60 a night. If we were to stay in a hotel it would be $200 or more a night.

 

[hsmamato2]

nope- we camp near the beach for 20.00 per night....so it's always cheaper before we camped, we stayed at motels near the beach in shoulder season....saved a bundle that way....sometimes it was chilly,but we had fun

 

[blessedby3]

Hello

We have a large family and we like to take vacations every 1 to 2 years. I like to budget every cent of our vacation. Last year we went to the beach and I added it up. 1 night at the holiday inn at the beach in June of last year was $220 dollars. This June we are staying at a Disney value resort and the room in June is $140. Per night. I also added up food, boardwalk rides, and fun activities that we did last year. This year we have the dining plan and 8 day park tickets. After adding up a week at the beach and a week at disney.......disney is coming up several hundred dollars cheaper!!! I wonder if that is why we are seeing more crowds at disney. Has anyone else found that disney is now cheaper or costing the same for your family versus other destinations?

We go to WDW every 12-18 mos, and go to the beach as well every other year.
The last time we went to WDW, we stayed at Bonnet Creek for the week ($837) and got YES tickets ($900ish if I remember correctly). We paid OOP for meals and got some groceries. If we had stayed on property, this would have been much more.
Our beach rental for this August at Hilton Head is $1300 (2 BR condo). We will need groceries and eat a few meals out, maybe do putt-putt. The beach for us is mainly relaxing time which doesnt cost much
We still come out cheaper at the beach...but I love Disney so much more

 

[kirstenb1]

Nope!! We rent a beach house with our family in Virginia Beach. We cook our meals there, it has a pool, so we don't really spend much once we're there.

The park tix alone at WDW are a budget buster. We have season passes to Busch Gardens, which we use for free admission to SEa World, Aquatica, and Busch Gardens Tampa, so we're skipping WDW while in Orlando this year.

 

[HM]

No, we also rent houses at the beach. And we try to go offseason for better rates. A beach vacation costs us a LOT less.

 

[HeatherC]

Our beach vacations are always cheaper. I can definitely see, however, how it could be more.

I think the "trick" is to NOT stay in hotels...particularly with larger families.
Renting a villa or condo allows you the opportunity to have a full kitchen and multiple bathrooms. Even if you don't want to cook on vacation, you can order take out, pick up pre made food like rotisseries chicken and bagged salad for A LOT less than eating out EVERY meal.

We LOVE to vacation and do it A LOT! But..we are pretty much a one income family (I work pt. time as a sub.) so I have found ways to make it happen without blowing the budget.

A few things that have saved us money without sacrificing on our trips is...

Rack up credit card points and redeem for restaurant gift certificates or hotels.
Use SkyAuction, GovArm, HomeAway, VRBO to rent places.
Book flights as soon as a deal pops up...or drive more often.
Consider a destination in the off or shoulder season when rates are low. (We just spent a week on Cape Cod for Spring break in a three bedroom house for $800. Same house in July is $3000 a week.

Lots of ways to travel affordably...just takes some leg work and maybe more planning. Hard I know, because our lives are so busy. But so worth it when I am walking on a beach!

 

[lovedonald]

It looks like we need to go camping or get a house at the beach. I think the hotel is making our cost go up. Sadly we can only travel in the summer. We are both in the education field. It is sad how much hotels cost! We will definitely look into a house next time. Thanks for the tips! I know we all still love disney!!

 

[HeatherC]

OP..I gave up camping a while ago....too much work for mom. But if you love resorts, another place to rent from (forgot to mention in last post) is myresortnetwork.com. They are timeshare rentals throughthe owners. Great deals at beautiful places. Rented several times at Disney...Bonnet Creek for $110 a night including all taxes! Definitely way to go!!

Hope this helps! Now you may just have tobook another tip soon.

 

[queenofthehive]

For us, beach vacations are always cheaper. Accommodations run about the same (condo or house). Gas is a bit less (Hilton head / Edisto Island) are closer. We always have a full kitchen so I cook most meals. We rent bikes for the week and that is pretty cheap. It is pool and beach all week for so no park ticket costs.. Yep, beach is usually cheaper.

 

[Lees3rwe]

Nope!! We rent a beach house with our family in Virginia Beach. We cook our meals there, it has a pool, so we don't really spend much once we're there.

The park tix alone at WDW are a budget buster. We have season passes to Busch Gardens, which we use for free admission to SEa World, Aquatica, and Busch Gardens Tampa, so we're skipping WDW while in Orlando this year.

I should have checked into this before we bought Kings Dominion Season Passes... had no idea that the Busch Gardens Williamsburg pass was good for all of those other places!

 

[DizMe]

I'm from the west coast, so it's probably a little different.

However: dh and I often remark on the fact that it is cheaper for us to take our family to Hawaii and stay in a nice hotel or condo than it is for us to go to Disneyland. We live in CA but DL is still about an 8-hour drive or 1 1/2 hr flight away. Hawaii is a 4 1/2-5 hr flight. DL is expensive!!!

If we stay here in CA, we can stay in a very nice beach property for a week for about what we spend at DL in 3 days.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I'm from the west coast, so it's probably a little different.

However: dh and I often remark on the fact that it is cheaper for us to take our family to Hawaii and stay in a nice hotel or condo than it is for us to go to Disneyland. We live in CA but DL is still about an 8-hour drive or 1 1/2 hr flight away. Hawaii is a 4 1/2-5 hr flight. DL is expensive!!!

If we stay here in CA, we can stay in a very nice beach property for a week for about what we spend at DL in 3 days.

I have a relative who lives in WA state. Last year she was going to take her family to DL for a vacation because they had free admission tickets for one day, but Hawaii was much cheaper (they rented a condo), so they went there instead (and had a great trip).

 

[gillenkl]

We go to the beach every year and yes it could be more expensive than a Disney trip. The only thing that saves me is we camp so our site us only $60 a night. If we were to stay in a hotel it would be $200 or more a night.

We do the same thing! I'd like to know what beach campgrounds you like - we like trying new places!

 

[gillenkl]

It looks like we need to go camping or get a house at the beach. I think the hotel is making our cost go up. Sadly we can only travel in the summer. We are both in the education field. It is sad how much hotels cost! We will definitely look into a house next time. Thanks for the tips! I know we all still love disney!!

Try Cape Hatteras koa - they have cottages with kitchens and beds - short walk to the beach and they have a nice pool, mini golf etc...on property.

 

[kevschickee]

We do the same thing! I'd like to know what beach campgrounds you like - we like trying new places!

We stay at a KOA I like how it's always clean, well taken care of, a bunch of kids activities, best pancakes ever and they have a trolly to the beach. We go to Old Orchard Beach in Maine.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

We pay more to stay on the beach than we do for offsite at Disney. But everything else is so much cheaper it winds up being cheaper overall. Of course part of that is also the fact that 4-5 nights at the beach is more than enough for us.

 

[kevschickee]

We actually booked our site a couple of weeks ago. We go every year the week after 4th of July. So we will be going July 8th and coming home the 13th. We like this week it isn't as busy and they still have fireworks at night on the beach.

 

[emsstacey]

We are much cheaper at the beach. We eat most breakfasts in the condo and eat out every other night. LEftovers for lunch a lot. Our condo is $950 for a week... much cheaper than we are paying for POR this fall. (Unless we get a promo code!)

 

[mistysue]

What I'm noticing everybody compare is the lodging cost. I think what you really need to look at is what your family wants to do. If I rented a campsite and tried to get my kids to hang out in the forest and on the beach for a week we would be miserable after the first hour.

Our disney vacations are significantly cheaper than our other trips because we have to keep finding things to do. My kids won't even go on a beach because the sand creeps them out. Then we end up going to putt putt golf, looking for entertainment places, going shopping, and doing tons of crap that adds up fast and doesn't last long. My family has a cottage on a beach and we spend more THERE staying for free than we do per day at Disney. The per day cost of entertainment at Disney saves us money because we like to go for long periods... Short trips just aren't worth the hassle for us.
Then my son has a bunch of allergies so we really have trouble even finding places to eat out if we aren't at Disney.