Honestly, we've tried most of the money pinching tips out there - and many are not REALLY worth doing. There is often a hidden penalty. Remember time is money! If I spend half my vacation cooking and cleaning - then I'm not really having a vacation; I'm working.
If you have DDP, refillable mugs are included in 2012. In the parks, you can drink free water. Otherwise, I find carrying lots of liquid to be a HUGE hassle. Liquid is very heavy. The only way it's practical to carry liquid is if you have a stroller. (*Except one water bottle per person. We almost always do that, esp if WDW is above 75degrees. You can refill a water bottle.)
Some folks have had success by carrying dry drink mix pouches in single serve packets, but they are rather chemical-heavy.
Drinking water has a hidden value; staying properly hydrated will keep your vacation on track in many ways.
The most effective thing I've found is actually to do what I can BEFORE I go to WDW to save money. Cutting back on eating out is an easy one. You can also have a tag sale (donating may also work to save on taxes and is low effort). We like to do things like WDW gift cards for gifts - or just flat out saying, even though we aren't going to WDW on Christmas/Valentine's Day/etc - it our Xmas/birthday/other holiday gift to each other.
The new dining policy may flip things - but if you stay offsite you have to pay for parking and potentially a rental car. PLus you often lose quite a bit of vacation time. Many rental houses are 20+min from WDW. So much of the 'savings' you are losing in lost vacation time, and quality of vaction time (getting stuck in traffic is a REAL hassle, IMO.)
Driving, in our case, really doesn't save much over flying when we consider wear and tear on your car (Indeed, we find that if we choose to drive,we're better off renting a car locally. Then you are guarenteed a new car, and effectively roadside assistance). But how you get to WDW is a big consideration when it comes to cost. Flying to WDW and renting a car might not be a money saver at all.
Another big way I save money is to shop around for vaction discounts. Run the numbers. Find the biggest discounts. There are discounts on every part of a WDW trip. Pick your dates carefully for one. Avoid peak vacation weeks. However, don't expect to find a low budget, ideal weather week. (there are always trade offs with weather and crowds) you may find it helpful to slightly plan what you'll eat- so long as you don't drive yourself nuts.
On my last trip - I THOUGHT we'd save money doing a combo of DDP and non-DDP. (some of us are small eaters/grazers). But nearly every night getting the bill correct was a HUGE hassle. Half the TS meals it took 15+ minutes to get the bill correct, or we just paid the extra few $$ of the mistake. (They typically would put the wrong guest or wrong food item as being in DDP) It was such a hassle it just wasn't worth the headache involved.
You CAN do a grocery store run. You CAN eat breakfast in your room. You CAN carry an extra ten pounds of liquid around with you all day - but there is a price for all that. Often the best 'discount' I've found is to maximize my vacation time: pack in an organzied way, arrive well-rested, have a 'recovery' day after we get back (if I can), etc.
You
can eat offsite, but again you lose much park time. Though under the new ADR system I'm tempted to go back to more offsite dining. I'd certainly suggest you avoid the nasty new cancel fee! The one time we have historically foound offsite dining to work is on your arrival and departure day - IF you have a car.
Another thing you can do - is to stay on the cheap on your arrival and or departure days if you are not alreeady staying at a value resort the entire trip. But agian, there's time price everytime you move resorts. Once is doable. Onsite resorts are kept quite spotless - offsite cheap and you run the real risk of getting a lousy room and BEDBUGS/roaches!
Another way to save is to go for less days. Your transportation costs (airfare) are fixed. You can only get those SO low. (It often pays to fly on a weekday - like Thursday) So it may not make all that much sense to make the trip too short - but maybe going from ten days down to six or five is worthwhile. It depends a little on what your transportation costs are.
One big savings tip that works or us when we don't have DDP is to share food. Somehow we usually want our TS dinners, but the QS portions are often quite large. You also can't 'share' at buffets.
There's also some difference in
what you eat. Protein holds you longer than empty calorie starches. So eat fruit, whole grains, meat, eggs. (that's one more side to eating breakfast in your room. BF in your room is likely to be pure starch.)
The 'gift' shop in all WDW resorts sell food. Don't expect rock bottom prices, but buying a half gallon of OJ in the gift shop may be a better deal than getting five tiny juice bottles in the food court. OR doing a grocery store run just to get OJ. I haven't done the fC trick in a while but that used to be an easy way to reduce costs. Sometimes it's even faster than waiting in food court lines. A grocery store run will cost you upwards of an hour of your vacation. Also there's a problem of keeping perishable food. The WDW room firdges are not cold enough to keep food 'safe.' They also can't keep large quantities of food cold. The more food,the less it will be cold.
It might be worth bringing some food from home - but only if you don't have to pay baggage fees. some folks have packages shipped tothe resort - but some resorts charge a fee for that. Plus shipping is not free.
I DO often save some by not doing hopping or the water parks. Basic tickets offer plenty of fun.
There's also lots of freebies, or near freebies in the parks. While things like t-shirts are kind of outragous these days, if you just want a souvie - WDW still has pressed penny machines and other small items for under $10.
If you really want to shop - there's an outlet mall near WDW that has a Disney shop. It's sort of like a Disney Marshall's - the outlet sells the stuff that didn't sel inthe parks. It's very hit or miss - and like I said, any offsite shopping takes time. But I like that outlet mall in general. Behind the outlet mall is avery large Publix grocery store. The better outlet mall is just off I-Drive and has a Gap. You can see it from I-Drive.
If you are going to be staying in the I-Drive/Sand Lake Rd area. There's a gorgeous Whole Foods. Whole Foods isn't any kind of bargain place to shop - but they do offer high quality foods. If you compare the quality - and you are driving by - it is worth a stop. The place has in store juicing, brick oven pizza, cooked seafood. The food is so high quality, I actually prefer it to some of the onsite restaurant food. In that sense you can save a little money eating there. (One example: for $2 I bought get a high quality organic yogurt. At the resort, you may pay $2.50 for a cheap brand of yogurt laden with corn syrup.) At WDw, a high quality beer will run upwards of $8 each. at WF, you can get them for more like $2 each.
Oh - alcohol. Getting drinks in bar at WDW is steep. You can buy some six packs of beer in the gift shops for kind of high prices (but less then the bar). If you want to have a drink (or more than one per person) every day though - then a shopping trip might be worth doing. Or you can skip/limit the alcohol.
On the other end, there's Super Wamart near 192. The trouble I found at
Walmart was not only the time involved, but much of what they sell is LARGE boxes. If you only eat half that giant box of cereal - then you really didn't save much. That Walmart DOES sell some inexpensive souvies. It is also the busiest Walmart in the USA. Expect it to be packed if you go on a Saturday. Even when we stayed at an offsite place and ate breakfast inteh room every day, witha large group - we STILL ended up throwing out WAY too much food. We just couldn't eat a jumbo box of Cheerios! So we didn't end up saving anything eating in the room.
If you do decide on a grocery stop - Publix is a nice mix. They aren't super cheap either, but the quality is good; they sell beer and wine; they sell some prepared foods; they sell normal and travel sized items. So it kind of works as a one stop place. The Publix near the outlet mall is also surrounded by some decent chain restaurants. You COULD eat lunch offsite and kind of round out you time that way.
There's a good thread on offsite dining on the DIS. Much of what's in Orladno is chains - but some are good - and sometimes you can use coupons.
You can find some offsite places on restaurant.com. Again, I found in a way it didn't end up saving us much money- but it depends where you plan to dine. Sometimes you can get the R.Com coupons for like $2 each - and they give you $25 off your meal. sometimes the places at the Swan are included as well as some places in DTD. Going to Downtown Orlando is quite far from WDW - so make sure you kow where youa re going. There are LOTS of traffic lights surrounding WDW - so even going someplace 'close' like Celebration can be quite time consuming! You MIGHT also use the coupons at home before you go as a way to eat out and save a few $$. That's where I got the best value from those coupons.
Some of these tips are applicable if you are goiing to go to Universal, but that also adds quite abit to the trip. Disney has priced vacations so you are best going only to WDW.
