Disney on an extreme budget, is it possible?

[Emteach]

Hello Dis-ers!
We have a question. We recently came back from Disney (end of the summer) and it had been a trip we have been saving up for, for some time. We were a party of 5 and stayed at the Poly. We didnt think we would be going back to Disney ANY time soon so made the most of it.
Fast forward 3 months and we find out the my brothers dance studio is going to dance nationals (and they are in Orlando, fantastic ). We are from Ontario, Canada so quite a hike! Walking is apparently not an option.

It will most likely be 4 of us and will be mid July 2013. We were thinking, just thinking, about whether we could extend the trip since we are already there by 3 or 4 days. Is Disney possible on a pretty serious budget? I know it may not be but just thought I would ask for some advice. Again, our last trip was planned literally 3 years in advance so no clue if its even possible (and didnt involve 6 nights prior at another hotel lol).

Thanks!

 

[Handbag Lady]

Hello Dis-ers!
We have a question. We recently came back from Disney (end of the summer) and it had been a trip we have been saving up for, for some time. We were a party of 5 and stayed at the Poly. We didnt think we would be going back to Disney ANY time soon so made the most of it.
Fast forward 3 months and we find out the my brothers dance studio is going to dance nationals (and they are in Orlando, fantastic ). We are from Ontario, Canada so quite a hike! Walking is apparently not an option.

It will most likely be 4 of us and will be mid July 2013. We were thinking, just thinking, about whether we could extend the trip since we are already there by 3 or 4 days. Is Disney possible on a pretty serious budget? I know it may not be but just thought I would ask for some advice. Again, our last trip was planned literally 3 years in advance so no clue if its even possible (and didnt involve 6 nights prior at another hotel lol).

Thanks!

Of course it is possible. Look into off-site weekly rentals, and maybe spreading your park days out so that you don't go to the parks every day (maybe have a pool day at the condo/home you rent or a DTD day.)

You can cook most of your meals where you stay and since you just went, you don't need to buy the junk they sell in the parks.

 

[Marionnette]

Hello Dis-ers!
We have a question. We recently came back from Disney (end of the summer) and it had been a trip we have been saving up for, for some time. We were a party of 5 and stayed at the Poly. We didnt think we would be going back to Disney ANY time soon so made the most of it.
Fast forward 3 months and we find out the my brothers dance studio is going to dance nationals (and they are in Orlando, fantastic ). We are from Ontario, Canada so quite a hike! Walking is apparently not an option.

It will most likely be 4 of us and will be mid July 2013. We were thinking, just thinking, about whether we could extend the trip since we are already there by 3 or 4 days. Is Disney possible on a pretty serious budget? I know it may not be but just thought I would ask for some advice. Again, our last trip was planned literally 3 years in advance so no clue if its even possible (and didnt involve 6 nights prior at another hotel lol).

Thanks!

So much is dependent on what you consider to be a "pretty serious budget". Are you talking $1000? $2000? $5000?

And then it will also depend on whether you can get pricing "at par", considering that the Canadian dollar is not trading above the US dollar.

Are you willing to drive? Stay offsite? Limit the number of days in the parks? Cook your own meals? Pack lunches for the parks? Skip souvenirs?

I think that you should start by pricing out a package on Disney's website. Then go to a airfare search engine to see what it will cost to fly 4 of you to Orlando. It will give you a ballpark figure. Of course, you could also look at offsite condos and tickets from a reseller for comparison.

But without any indication from you as to what amount of money you think you'll have for a trip, it's impossible to say whether it's possible.

 

[danygirl]

It all depends on what you think is cheap lol.

You can stay super cheap off site if you stay pretty far away, but I wouldn't do that - you don't want to spend your whole day in traffic. But you can get a decent rate in an offsite condo and eat breakfast in your condo each day - which is a great time saver. You can pack your lunches. Last trip I budgeted only $50 per day for eating out, and we ate only one meal in the park each day. Yeah, we would have liked to eat in the parks more but it just wasn;t in the budget.

Daytona Beach is a fun day if you want to see something besides the parks, you are in Florida after all. That would be a freebie day if you have a car.

Don't park hop, you can save $$ that way.

If you love water parks, the Disney ones are awesome. One trip we went to both, which was included in our park hopper and more ticket, which stretched our 5 Disney days to 7, And those days we just ordered pizza at the condo for dinner, so we ate cheap (packed a cooler for lunch and had breakfast in the condo)

I would say you have to figure out what you can't do without on the trip.....and then build your trip from that.

 

[stayhomemom77]

I was born and raised in Ontario and have taken 3 budget (ish) trips from there to Disney. I consider myself a pro!!

I can help you calculate what you would need. It would be my pleasure to help! Since we now live in B.C. budget trips to Orlando no longer exist so it'll be a few years before I am able to return.

So, to start...we need to calculate expenses by each category, such as:

Food
Transportation--I'm not going to include this really since you are already going to be there for the dance competition
Lodgings
Spending
Tickets

The tickets is the one area where you can't really cut back much. Of course, the amount of days and type of tickets save you money and by buying from someone other than Disney you can save a bit, but not a ton.

2 day base passes will cost $724.20 USD for 2 adults and 2 kids
3 day base passes will cost $996.84 USD for 2 adults and 2 kids

It's after 4 days that you really begin to see the savings but on such a short extention, you'll have the above totals to work with.

All other areas have wiggle room depending on your choices.

Lodgings

Lots of ways to save here. One thing to consider though is that if you stay off site you have to have a way to get to the parks. If you rely on the hotels own shuttles (if they have them) they aren't always at the most convenient times and you often do a lot of waiting. A LOT. However, if you have your own car...you can come and go as you please but you WILL have to pay $15 a day (or more if they've raised it) for parking. But oftentimes the deals you can get offsite more than makes up for this cost.

FYI...3 nights at a value hotel onsite with 3 day base tickets will run you about $1500 USD...depending on dates (I plugged in July 24-27 in a standard room at POP Century). But if a deal comes up between now and then you might be able to save some money. (It would be about $1265 if you only got 2 day base tickets at "regular" price for the same amount of nights.)

You can priceline hotels (or use expedia or whatever) to get an idea of how much it would cost a night for an offsite hotel you'd be willing to stay in. We stayed offsite our first trip and booked through priceline and paid a mere $35 USD a night for a 3 star resort. Do watch for resort fees though...some of them charge for that and it ups the total room cost per night.

So hotel costs will vary, but let's put down $400 ($100 a night for 4 nights) just to be safe. Again, you can get rooms for cheaper than this with a little reserach.

That leaves food and spending.

If you pack lots of snacks (granola bars, juice boxes, nuts, fruit etc) and eat breakfast in your room, you can really eat on the cheap. But if you're only moderately careful...it's possible to eat lunch and dinner in the parks for about $100 a day (2 adults and 2 kids with average appetites). If you eat offsite, you can cut that back even further.

Since spending is rather personal...it's tough for me to calculate but we've gone down with $100 each and found that for a week that was more than. We've also gone down with a mere $50 each and that was enough for a couple of souveniers each and no one had any complaints.

So, to recap (based on 3 park days and 3 nights and the "max" amounts in each area to give us a baseline) you're looking at:

Food-$300
Lodgings-$300
Spending-$200
Tickets-$1000

So a total of about $1800 or less.

Staying at a value resort onsite would be $1500 plus food and spending.

OR (for 2 nights, 2 day base tickets)

Food-$200
Lodgings-$200
Spending-$200
Tickets-$725

Total of about $1325 or less.

Staying at a value resort onsite would be $1055 plus food and spending.

Check out this thread for idea on how to eat cheap at Disney:

If I only had $50 a day to spend on food at Disney!

HTH!! Good luck on fitting Disney into your budget!

 

[Nayan]

Mid July is not only a really busy time but it's also very hot and considered peak, meaning everything could be priced higher. I also believe it was June last year that Disney raised the ticket prices and if they decide to do it that early again this year it could put a big crimp in your budget. If you do decide to hit Disney at that time I would suggest you buy tickets ASAP. Even if you don't get to spend the time there this year you will have them for next time.

 

[livsmom04]

We went to Disney World last July and it was more expensive than it was to go in April and August.

 

[Emteach]

Thanks to everyone for the tips and advice, much appreciated. I will take a look at Disney website and try to price it out. Ideally we are hoping around 1600 (not including the flight since we will already be there). We would likely try the value resorts since they are much more budget friendly plus transportation would be included. We would definately not be eating park food more than once or twice, as we know how much it is! Our last trip we thankfully had the free dining plan.
Had forgotten though it is peak time... hmm. Peak busyness/ peak pricing Have definately given me some food for thought!
Thanks again

 

[eliza61]

also for me there comes a time where I have to look at the cheapness/enjoyability ratio. for example I could go to disney and cook all my meals to save money but I would be miserable for having to cook every day. So when I do extreme budgets I'm always concious of at what point will my cost cutting, cut into my enjoyment.

 

[Elleshoodat]

also for me there cumes a time where I have to look at the cheapness/enjoyability ratio. for example I could go to disney and cook all my meals to save money but I would be miserable for having to cook every day. So when I do extreme budgets I'm always concious of at what point will my cost cutting, cut into my enjoyment.

This was my initial thought. An extremely budgeted trip doesn't sound like much of a vacation to me, but OP -- if you're fine with it and can pull it off, go for it!

 

[TnTWalter]

I'm a huge fan of Bonnet Creek. It's really hard to get die-hard 'on-site' people there, but once they go.....

It is ON Walt Disney Property [you can view fireworks from Epcot at night if high enough parking lot view building 4 and 5].

Slow cooker meals are great and there are grills....we cooked all breakfasts [easy] and about 2 dinners while on the last WDW vacation.

Check out Bonnet Creek here.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2114303&highlight=wyndham+bonnet
and here
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2951974

I got Spring Break Week last year for $599 total 2 bedroom.

Trish

 

[furb & dez]

Of course it is possible, but...

also for me there cumes a time where I have to look at the cheapness/enjoyability ratio. for example I could go to disney and cook all my meals to save money but I would be miserable for having to cook every day. So when I do extreme budgets I'm always concious of at what point will my cost cutting, cut into my enjoyment.

This.

Also, if one is on an "extreme" budget, it stands to reason that they have trouble with basic living expenses. Is it really wise for such people to go on vacation? Particularly to a luxury vacation destination?

"Well, we can't pay the water or gas this month, or feed our kids, but we've got our six week trip to Europe paid off!"

 

[4kids4karen]

Is your brother's dance studio going to do a group booking for a hotel for all the dancers and their families? If so, are you going to stay with them?

We are a competitive cheer family and often when we travel out of state (we are in Tampa so Orlando is a local competition for us) it is mandatory that all of the cheerleaders pay for a room in the hotel selected by the gym for the group booking. This is because the gym owners get a overall discount or deal for guaranteeing reservations of 150 rooms. They also group book at a hotel that has a conference room reserved just for our gym to hold practices. Some gyms will opt not to get a conference room but rent out a local nearby gym for practice with the spring floors. Some families do get upset because this mandatory rule prevents the parents from using hotel points or other discounts. Sometimes the mandatory room price is more than just the room price included. The conference room is not always thrown in free, so that price is sub-divided to each room. So if the room price is $100 per night, another $10 per family might be added to split the conference room price. One thing families do to cut costs is to leave the dads and brothers behind and just a mom/daughter combo go and share a room with another mom/daughter. I was in Korea for two years so my husband had to attend all competitions so he couldn't share a standard room with another mom/daughter. What they did was ended up going into villas. One of our most common villas to stay for the two-day Orlando competitions is Westgate Lakes in a 3-bedroom. Hubby got his own bedroom and most of the time daughter decided to share a bed with one of her cheer friends (she is 9) so DH would have the king bedroom all to himself. LOL. Those 3-bedroom villas sleep like 12, plus we are not beyong bringing a couple extra air mattresses and the girls will all camp out together in the living room anyways, giving the beds to the moms. This was great because my husband can not do "cheer hair" so being in the same villa with the other moms who did daughters hair was good. In standard hotel rooms he would just have to send daughter over to get her hair done so being in the same hotel was great. It takes about 30-mintues per girl to do cheer hair and there are only 2/3 moms that do all of the girls heads!

We have also chartered buses and everyone has traveled together. This is not always mandatory, they have people sign up who want the buses then figure out what size to rent and how much per person.

So I think the first step it to confirm with your brother what the plans are for the dance studio and if you are included in that number.

 

[punkin]

Of course it is possible, but...


This.

Also, if one is on an "extreme" budget, it stands to reason that they have trouble with basic living expenses. Is it really wise for such people to go on vacation? Particularly to a luxury vacation destination?

"Well, we can't pay the water or gas this month, or feed our kids, but we've got our six week trip to Europe paid off!"

Not at all. I have done very budget trips with "found" money that were not budgeted for. That does not mean I am living hand to mouth the rest of the year.

 

[MrEVILdrPorkchop2u]

Not at all. I have done very budget trips with "found" money that were not budgeted for. That does not mean I am living hand to mouth the rest of the year.

I agree with this.

 

[RitaE]

Of course it is possible, but...


This.

Also, if one is on an "extreme" budget, it stands to reason that they have trouble with basic living expenses. Is it really wise for such people to go on vacation? Particularly to a luxury vacation destination?

"Well, we can't pay the water or gas this month, or feed our kids, but we've got our six week trip to Europe paid off!"

In what world does that "stand to reason?"

We just did a 4 day extreme budget trip to Chicago using hotel points and reward programs and I can assure you that we do quite well financially. Unable to pay the gas bill and not feeding the kids? Good grief.

 

[Marionnette]

Thanks to everyone for the tips and advice, much appreciated. I will take a look at Disney website and try to price it out. Ideally we are hoping around 1600 (not including the flight since we will already be there). We would likely try the value resorts since they are much more budget friendly plus transportation would be included. We would definately not be eating park food more than once or twice, as we know how much it is! Our last trip we thankfully had the free dining plan.
Had forgotten though it is peak time... hmm. Peak busyness/ peak pricing Have definately given me some food for thought!
Thanks again

It's going to be difficult to "not eat park food" when you don't have access to a car to eat offsite. And you won't have a kitchen in order to cook something in your room. It's not impossible if you want to live off of cold foods for the extra 3-4 days that you're there. The temptation to chuck the plan and grab something at a QS location will be very strong.

Without a discount, you're looking at spending around $1600 for just the room and tickets. If a discount comes out, you might be able to shave a few dollars off of that amount. It will just depend on how much it will come down and whether you can feed the family with the amount of money that you save.

 

[Marionnette]

Of course it is possible, but...


This.

Also, if one is on an "extreme" budget, it stands to reason that they have trouble with basic living expenses. Is it really wise for such people to go on vacation? Particularly to a luxury vacation destination?

"Well, we can't pay the water or gas this month, or feed our kids, but we've got our six week trip to Europe paid off!"

Wow! That's quite a leap that you took there!

An extreme budget trip is not my idea of a great vacation but people do it all of the time. It's quite possible that the reason that they are going "extreme budget" on this trip is because they do keep up with their bills and spend responsibly. The OP is under a time constraint to save the money up this time around.

 

[4kids4karen]

Is your brother's dance studio going to do a group booking for a hotel for all the dancers and their families? If so, are you going to stay with them?

We are a competitive cheer family and often when we travel out of state (we are in Tampa so Orlando is a local competition for us) it is mandatory that all of the cheerleaders pay for a room in the hotel selected by the gym for the group booking. This is because the gym owners get a overall discount or deal for guaranteeing reservations of 150 rooms. They also group book at a hotel that has a conference room reserved just for our gym to hold practices. Some gyms will opt not to get a conference room but rent out a local nearby gym for practice with the spring floors. Some families do get upset because this mandatory rule prevents the parents from using hotel points or other discounts. Sometimes the mandatory room price is more than just the room price included. The conference room is not always thrown in free, so that price is sub-divided to each room. So if the room price is $100 per night, another $10 per family might be added to split the conference room price. One thing families do to cut costs is to leave the dads and brothers behind and just a mom/daughter combo go and share a room with another mom/daughter. I was in Korea for two years so my husband had to attend all competitions so he couldn't share a standard room with another mom/daughter. What they did was ended up going into villas. One of our most common villas to stay for the two-day Orlando competitions is Westgate Lakes in a 3-bedroom. Hubby got his own bedroom and most of the time daughter decided to share a bed with one of her cheer friends (she is 9) so DH would have the king bedroom all to himself. LOL. Those 3-bedroom villas sleep like 12, plus we are not beyong bringing a couple extra air mattresses and the girls will all camp out together in the living room anyways, giving the beds to the moms. This was great because my husband can not do "cheer hair" so being in the same villa with the other moms who did daughters hair was good. In standard hotel rooms he would just have to send daughter over to get her hair done so being in the same hotel was great. It takes about 30-mintues per girl to do cheer hair and there are only 2/3 moms that do all of the girls heads!

We have also chartered buses and everyone has traveled together. This is not always mandatory, they have people sign up who want the buses then figure out what size to rent and how much per person.

So I think the first step it to confirm with your brother what the plans are for the dance studio and if you are included in that number.

Oh just ignore my post. LOL. I re-read and saw you mentioned staying a few days after the comp at a different hotel and a value resort at that.

I do agree with others on the food situation. Are you planning on eating offsite since a value resort isn't equipped with a kitchen? Pizza delivery every night?

We don't like to eat in the parks very often. We would eat a cold breakfast in our room, take or buy a light lunch, then eat dinner off property. But my kids would rather eat at Uno's pizza than inside the park. Harder to do without a car. That is going to be a challenge for you.

 

[RitaE]

I'd agree with looking at Bonnet Creek. It is likey going to be cheaper or just as cheap as the Disney Budget hotels and then you have the kitchen facilities to cut down on food cost and you have the shuttle service.

Even still, $1600 is going to be really tight but if you can find a way to increase that up to $1900 or $2000 I think it is quite doable.