Disneyland realistic on our budget?

[bangzoom6877]

Know it's still a long time away, but DH and I are considering a Disneyland/Southern California trip for our July 2015 vacation with our 2 sons. We live in NYC and we go to WDW every other year but we have never been to California. I'm not crazy about flying but will do it if I have to (we always drive to WDW from NY!).

The last couple of years our vacation budget has been around $6,000. Is it realistic to do a Southern California trip including Disneyland with that budget with everything included (airfare, hotel, tickets, food, etc.) when all is said and done? We'd stay a week (or up to 10 days if possible on that budget) and would like to spend 3 days going to the two Disneyland parks (park hopper), go to the San Diego Zoo, even possibly split the trip with 4 nights at a hotel within walking distance of DL and 3 nights in San Diego. In that case we would need a car rental for getting to San Diego and then return it to the airport when we leave. There are also so many things to do in Southern California I don't even know where to begin planning! I could definitely use some advice for that as well. Thanks in advance!

 

[Mugglemama]

My guess is that you could probably swing a *budget* DLR trip for 6K, including air fare. I wouldn't expect you to be able to stay on-site or do a ton of character meals, etc. I also wouldn't expect you to be able to include Sea World on that budget.

You'll have to do a lot of homework on the internet to figure it out for sure (and, you'll have to take into consideration that tix for DLR will increase in price at least a few times between then and now).

In 2010, we treated 10 people (6 adult tickets, 4 child tickets) to 5 days in the parks (our own family plus DH's parents plus our 2 nieces). We did it for $3K, but we stayed at the Super 8 motel on Disneyland Drive (2 rooms @ $85 per night each) and had a very limited food budget and spent about $400 on gas (included in our total budget). Ticket prices have risen quite a bit since then.

The pics in my siggie are from that 2010 "budget" trip. And as you can see...everyone still had a fantastic time despite the fact that we were bringing in our own sandwiches and those mickey-head pops were the only park-bought treats they got. It made those treats that much more special (they were so happy and appreciative to get them - which I find is the case on our budget trips, frankly...everyone is just grateful to have been able to go, and *any* extras are really appreciated). Each of the kids were given a souvenir budget of about $15...and again, they were *thrilled* to get it, and they still have those souvies and love them.

 

[nordey]

I think the deciding factor for is going to be airfare. If I were you I'd start researching what ticket prices run for NYC to LAX during the month you plan to travel and go from there.

You won't be able to afford to stay at a Disney owned hotel on that budget, but there are some great budget hotels within walking distance to Disneyland. you can do a lot of meals cheap if you get a room with a mini fridge, car rentals can be affordable if you shop around, so the less you can spend on airfare, the more spending money you'll have.

If you're planning to go to San Diego I'd plan on a day at the beach. I love San Diego beaches!

 

[Geemo]

Your time frame is what I consider a long ways out. Starting now is a smart idea. With planning I really feel you can do this.

One thing you might play with right now is timing. By this I mean look in to the cost of a trip for July 2014. See what the costs are. This will give you an idea of what it will be for July 2015. Once you have pretend reservations for airfare, rental car and hotel, check each day and see if the rates go up or DOWN. Begin watching the trends for costs.

I booked our 10-26-2013 trip in July. So far by checking daily, I have reduced the airfare by $92 and I have saved $250 on our room.

Look up CityPass for SoCal. It has a ticket with 3 day hoppers + Universal Studios + SeaWorld and I think it's about $320. If you want more days at Disney, you can upgrade that portion of the ticket.
http://www.citypass.com/southern-california/disneyland

Do a search for places to stay at Disneyland. When I was working we stayed on site. Now I'm retired and in order to go once every year we stay in a place on Harbour Blvd. From a search you will see there are popular places on Harbour. Desert Inn and Suites, Best Western Park Place Inn, Tropicana, HoJo's, Fairfield Inn, you'll see.

Here's a map of accommodations http://www.accommodationsneardisney.com/Disneyland/Default.asp

Rental cars are less when you pick-up and return at the same location. I'm learning this one the hard way on our next trip. The rates fluctuate so drastically from day to day and even minute to minute. This is one thing I check often through out the day.

One more thing to think about is when you'll be going in July. Look at HydroGuys http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2291124 info at this link.

Walking distance info. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2796786&highlight=walking+distance+hotels

Area around Disney
http://anaheim411.com/2008_mapFRONT_xl.jpg

Another Hydroguy's link
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1199862

For airfare check JetBlue. Get on their email list, they run specials from time to time. Thye can have some great airfares!

As you find special information, save it in a bookmark/favorites folder for easy access.

You have the pleasure of time for planning. It's good you are starting now.
Good luck
Geemo

 

[whoever]

Doubtful. Park hoppers alone will kill $1k, figure airfare is going to be $2k, which leaves you $3k for lodging/food/other activities, etc.

DLR is about $1k/day for us including the cost of driving from AZ.

 

[bangzoom6877]

Your time frame is what I consider a long ways out. Starting now is a smart idea. With planning I really feel you can do this. One thing you might play with right now is timing. By this I mean look in to the cost of a trip for July 2014. See what the costs are. This will give you an idea of what it will be for July 2015. Once you have pretend reservations for airfare, rental car and hotel, check each day and see if the rates go up or DOWN. Begin watching the trends for costs. I booked our 10-26-2013 trip in July. So far by checking daily, I have reduced the airfare by $92 and I have saved $250 on our room. Look up CityPass for SoCal. It has a ticket with 3 day hoppers + Universal Studios + SeaWorld and I think it's about $320. If you want more days at Disney, you can upgrade that portion of the ticket. http://www.citypass.com/southern-california/disneyland Do a search for places to stay at Disneyland. When I was working we stayed on site. Now I'm retired and in order to go once every year we stay in a place on Harbour Blvd. From a search you will see there are popular places on Harbour. Desert Inn and Suites, Best Western Park Place Inn, Tropicana, HoJo's, Fairfield Inn, you'll see. Here's a map of accommodations http://www.accommodationsneardisney.com/Disneyland/Default.asp Rental cars are less when you pick-up and return at the same location. I'm learning this one the hard way on our next trip. The rates fluctuate so drastically from day to day and even minute to minute. This is one thing I check often through out the day. One more thing to think about is when you'll be going in July. Look at HydroGuys http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2291124 info at this link. Walking distance info. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2796786&highlight=walking+distance+hotels Area around Disney http://anaheim411.com/2008_mapFRONT_xl.jpg Another Hydroguy's link http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1199862 For airfare check JetBlue. Get on their email list, they run specials from time to time. Thye can have some great airfares! As you find special information, save it in a bookmark/favorites folder for easy access. You have the pleasure of time for planning. It's good you are starting now. Good luck Geemo

Wow thanks so much for all those links! I'm going to check out all of them. Good thing I enjoy planning vacations so much!

I did look at expedia for airfares for July 2014 and it looks like round trip from NYC will run us around $1500 for the 4 of us. I don't even know if this is a good price for airfare for 4 people because the last time I flew was in the year 2000! I will also check out Jet Blue.

We're not interested in sea world or universal, so the city pass is probably not for us but I will do some more research on that in case we change our minds.

Thanks again for all the info!

 

[sheetz]

You might also look into various hotel or airline branded credit cards offers. For instance I think Southwest Airlines has an offer for 50,000 Southwest Reward points with their credit card if you meet certain spending requirements. Also Marriott and Intercontinental have cards which give cardholders a free hotel night every year. So if both you and your spouse obtained cards you might be able to save quite lot of money on airfare and lodging.

 

[Geemo]

Doubtful. Park hoppers alone will kill $1k, figure airfare is going to be $2k, which leaves you $3k for lodging/food/other activities, etc.

DLR is about $1k/day for us including the cost of driving from AZ.

Whowwww I'd love to have a budget of $1K/day.

There are options for all budgets. When airfare is in the mix, it can make for a challenge though.

Doing a little research to reach a goal is very rewarding.....

I know you said Universal isn't on your list, but check with Costco for other ticket options. Maybe they'll have Disney tickets again. Right now they have Universal Studios 2 days for $69.99. At the gate it's $85 for one day. I've found Costco is the best rate for a rate for a rental car.

AAA show your card program can save too. You can get into Knott's with an AAA card for about $44. AAA can also save on accommodations.

There are ways to make this trip work.... Keep planning and have fun!

Geemo

 

[jitterbug]

Like others mentioned, being this far out allows extra time for the legwork in finding really great deals. The hard part is seeing good stuff come and go, as you're not able to book yet.

For airfares, don't forget to look at flying out and into different airports. I don't know how accurate it is, but have you taken a look at faremeasure.com yet? It gives options of 'nearby' airports and gives you comparisons of estimated pricing. Maybe that'll give you ideas of which airports to consider. Another thing to look at is flying into one area and out of another. For our trip in November, we are flying into San Diego with a few nights there, then using a car service to Anaheim, staying for a few nights at DLR, and flying out of LAX so that we don't have to back track. If you use the same airlines, and price it out as a multi-stop trip, it's usually cheaper pricing than one-ways.

Like Geemo mentioned, one-way car rentals really increase the cost of your rental. To avoid this, we are renting and returning our car at San Diego airport, and getting a driver from San Diego to Anaheim. Because we are travelling with another family, it priced out better to get a ride (via limos.com) than trying to do Amtrak with all our luggage and kiddos. We figure once we get to DLR, we won't need a car, and we booked Disneyland Resort Express back to LAX. If it's just the 4 of you (and your boys are older than my kids), maybe it'll be fun on the Amtrak?

I'm guessing prices will be higher in July 2015 than in November 2013, but for our airfare (Hawaii to SD / LAX to Hawaii), hotels (3 nights in SD / 3 nights at GCH), ground transportation (rental in SD / van from SD to DLR / DRE to LAX), and attraction tickets (2ad & 2ch for LEGOLAND / SD Zoo / 4-day parkhoppers) we are currently under $5000. There's no food in that total yet, though.

You will find some great deals and plan a great trip for your family! Best of luck travel planning!

 

[lotrisneat]

Absolutely it's possible. We are leaving in two weeks to spend a week at Disneyland. Here's our budget for a family of five:

Airfare for 5 from SLC to LGB with JetBlue: $1100
Six nights at Embassy Suites Anaheim North: $890
Five 5-day one park per day DLR tickets: $1262
Rental car: $250
Parking: $80

So total for airfare, hotel, car, parking, and tickets is about $3500.

We get free breakfast at our hotel. Most of our meals will be counter service, so we feel that $100 a day on food is entirely doable. And we're giving our kids Disney gift cards for them to buy souvenirs so that budget doesn't get out of control.

I definitely think planning ahead is a good start. I checked our flight recently and the price has gone up quite a bit already. Sign up for deal alerts from the various travel websites.

 

[taaren]

One thing I noticed; your signature has Boardwalk Villas on it, which means you're a DVC owner? Were you planning on using your DVC membership for the hotel? Or were your points spoken for on another trip that year?

While getting the VGC at 7 months is tough, it can be do-able (alternately you could try transferring in some VGC points then renting your own BWV points to cover it).

If your 6K budget does NOT need to cover your hotel for at least part of the trip, then making your trip happen just got a lot easier ... and San Diego hotels can be gotten reasonably priced. I hate driving in SoCal so usually take Amtrak down to SD from Anaheim, then use free hotel shuttles to the various SD attractions.

You should be able to fly RT for 4 people for $2K, give or take since its summer (we fly off season and can go coast-to-coast for $350/person). Can you potentially use miles/sign up for an airline credit card? It helps a lot.

Park tickets will probably be in the $1200 range by then. Most of the food at DLR is a lot less pricey than WDW, simply because CS here out West rocks by comparison, so most of your meals will be delicious even if it comes on paper plates on a tray ...

 

[lalasmama]

I think it's totally possible!

I just looked at prices for airfare--buying for a March trip, they are about $190/each person/one way during the week. Just used March as an arbitrary time. So, that's about $1600 in airfare.

I'm a fan of hotels across the street from the entrance of DL. At DL, many hotels "off-site" are actually closer to the main gates than their own on-site hotels. Desert Inn & Suites often has rooms for under $100 when booked early, sometimes a little more during summer. Let's say you get a room there for $120/night. Let's say 8 days, just for a nice, round idea somewhere in the amount of time you want to stay, so a hotel would be $960. Hotel + Airfare = $2560

5-day Park Hopper tickets will run about $280-300 per person, based on age. I like to over budget, so lets say everyone is over the age of 9, and will need adult tickets. If you're staying 8 days, you'd need a 5-day and a 3-day per person. Those 3-days are $260 per adult (a little less for kids 9 and under, but like I said, I tend to over-budget ). Remember, these are for 4 adult park hopper tickets. Children 9 and under are less expensive, or 1-park-per-day tickets (which would be totally reasonable in your case, I think, since you will have plenty of time in each park; 1-day-per-park tickets would lower this by about $140). There are other ways to lower ticket prices too. But, I over-budget, so, let's plan on tickets costing $560 per person (but could be a bit lower). That would be $2240. Airfare + Hotel + Tickets= $4800.

That would then allow $1200 for 8 days of food, souvenirs, etc.

Many hotels have free breakfasts. For a family of 4, that would be part of my plan to eat for free at the hotel each morning. Corn dogs and hot dogs at DL are a family favorite that we have every day or every other day for lunch. That's about $10 for a HUGE corn or hot dog, chips or apples, and a drink per person. So, I'd plan on $40/day for lunch. For dinner, I'd expect more like $15-20 per person. That should allow a little extra for a snack or such. Let's say $40 for lunch, $80 for dinner each day. That's $120/day, give or take, for food. That's about $960 for food.

That still leaves $240 for other fun stuff.

A stuffed animal per child, maybe a pin or two, and you'd still be well within your budget, you'd have thrilled kids (well, at least mine would be!), and you'd have spent 8 days exploring Walt's original park, and California Adventure.

Some other thoughts: a beach day or exploring Hollywood would mean a day or two less in the parks, but would lower DL ticket prices too. (But, would increase things like price for a rental car or tour bus.) Other ways for discount tickets include using military salute tickets if you qualify, or way.com, orbitz.com, Costco, etc. You could cut your hotel prices in half by staying a little farther away. You'd need a rental car, then, depending on how far away you are (which would then mean you'd pay for parking).

So, I think it's totally doable. And $200 per ticket each way seems to be a good price. Heck, it's $120 from Portland, Oregon, so for an additional $80 to get across the whole country!?! Seems like a HUGE value to me! LOL!

 

[bangzoom6877]

One thing I noticed; your signature has Boardwalk Villas on it, which means you're a DVC owner? Were you planning on using your DVC membership for the hotel? Or were your points spoken for on another trip that year? While getting the VGC at 7 months is tough, it can be do-able (alternately you could try transferring in some VGC points then renting your own BWV points to cover it). If your 6K budget does NOT need to cover your hotel, then making your trip happen just got a lot easier ... You should be able to fly RT for 4 people for $2K, give or take since its summer (we fly off season and can go coast-to-coast for $350/person). Can you potentially use miles/sign up for an airline credit card? It helps a lot. Park tickets will probably be in the $1200 range by then. Most of the food at DLR is a lot less pricey than WDW, simply because CS here out West rocks by comparison, so most of your meals will be delicious even if it comes on paper plates on a tray ...

Yes, we are DVC members with BWV as our home resort, but we will not be using points for the DL trip. Our points are taken up every other year for our WDW trip. We bought just enough for that in 2008. So we would be paying cash for hotel. I wonder how much it would cost though to pay a DVC member to transfer their VGC points to me. But I'm guessing that would cost a lot more than a hotel would.

As far as food, the one thing that concerns me is that DS8 has food allergies (tree nuts, peanuts and shellfish) and we do a lot more TS meals at WDW than CS meals because it's a lot easier to accommodate him that way. So while we're not against eating CS at the parks, I'm just wondering how limited he will be at CS vs. TS.

We would definitely stay at a hotel where breakfast is included. Continental is fine for us, it's what we do in our DVC villa when we're at WDW (we buy groceries and eat in the villa most mornings to save time and money). My favorite chain hotel is Embassy Suites and it would be great to stay at one of those, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. I think we will need the space though, it's what we are used to and a week in one small hotel room gets a little hairy for us...I know I sound like a snob but we like our space!

 

[nordey]

Embassy suites is my favorite hotel chain too, but I've found the Anaheim ES to be over priced. Try the Residence Inn by Mariott. The last Disney trip we took we got a 2-bedroom apartment, with a FULL KITCHEN for the same price as a standard Embassy Suite. The RI breakfast is not as good as the ES, but the extra space and full kitchen more than make up for it.

 

[CallieMar]

We like Ramada Plaza Anaheim on Katella and Harbor (NOT the regular Ramada which gets generally poor reviews). It's usually less than 120/night, has free parking and a full hot breakfast. It's also about a 10-15 minute walk to the parks so you don't have to pay for parking. I find that the motels at the crosswalk tend to be a little more expensive, some charge for parking and only offer continental breakfast if they have one at all. Hot breakfast at the hotel is our biggest budget helper as we can usually had a very light lunch or just snack til dinner.

 

[taaren]

Yes, we are DVC members with BWV as our home resort, but we will not be using points for the DL trip. Our points are taken up every other year for our WDW trip. We bought just enough for that in 2008. So we would be paying cash for hotel. I wonder how much it would cost though to pay a DVC member to transfer their VGC points to me. But I'm guessing that would cost a lot more than a hotel would.

As far as food, the one thing that concerns me is that DS8 has food allergies (tree nuts, peanuts and shellfish) and we do a lot more TS meals at WDW than CS meals because it's a lot easier to accommodate him that way. So while we're not against eating CS at the parks, I'm just wondering how limited he will be at CS vs. TS.

We would definitely stay at a hotel where breakfast is included. Continental is fine for us, it's what we do in our DVC villa when we're at WDW (we buy groceries and eat in the villa most mornings to save time and money). My favorite chain hotel is Embassy Suites and it would be great to stay at one of those, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. I think we will need the space though, it's what we are used to and a week in one small hotel room gets a little hairy for us...I know I sound like a snob but we like our space!

Once you get used to timesharing, its hard to go back to hotel-sized rooms, its a snobbery all of us time-sharers have in common.

Yeah, transferring in extra points for VGC when you're needing 26 points for a weeknight in July isn't as do-able as a hotel across the street ... at $13/point you're looking at $338/night (still much cheaper than a cash rate but definitely not budget).

There are some very reasonable hotels across on Harbor, and most are a substantially shorter walk than even BLT to MK. Of those, if you want space the Residence Inn will be the roomiest though Best Western Park Place Inn will be the closest with the shortest walk.

As others have said, that timeframe is peak season so everything other than your park tickets is going to be at a premium, unfortunately. I'd still recommend attempting to get some type of airline rewards card for points even if it only gets you one or two of your tickets, it defrays that much of the cost.

 

[CarrieR]

If you are willing to do it on a budget, I think it's totally do-able. Right now I see airfare for next July at $358 = 1400. You can probably get a basic hotel for $100/night = $700 ($2100.) I budget $45/day for food at WDW - did the same at DLR & ended up with some left over. Dining is not the same event there! But even so - $45x4x7 = $1200 (3300.) $300pp for tix = 1200 (4500.) That leaves $1500 for car rental, incidentals & souvenirs.

ETA: That food budget, for us, includes 99% food purchased at the parks. We carry very few things in. We generally eat TS, ordering enough to have leftovers, and supplement with snacks and light CS. We have allergies too... totally get that. We ate offsite at DLR a few times, and grocery delivery is an option, too.

Also, airfare - we got it for $320pp (vs budgeted $500) on a Southwest sale. So keeping an eye out definitely pays off.

 

[msmama]

I think it's doable.

I'm pricing a trip for my son and I that sounds somewhat similar (granted, I'm looking off season). Pricing Grand Californian for 4 days (plus PH tix), Legoland hotel for 3 days (plus tix) and flights, I'm looking at about $3750.

You could certainly half (if not more) my GC price by staying at a reasonable hotel. Legoland is even more expensive than disney apparently!!

For my time frame (Jan 2014) flights from JFK to LAX are $150 one way on SW!! And I don't actually plan on paying for that since I'm going to use my SW CC miles. Southwest has a promo sometimes where you get 50,000 bonus miles after spending $2000. So really, that'd take $800 of my total.

Add another couple hundred for rental car. I've heard sometimes Costco has ticket deals and you have plenty of time to look for those.

 

[Tasscrapper]

You could also have a look at getawaytoday.com for deals on tickets and hotel. They often seem to have hotels with free nights and you don't have to book tickets or airfare with them if you don't want to. I'm not sure if they have those deals during the summer but it could be worth a look.

 

[luulu1999]

We are planning a trip next July, and ours is going to be 10 days (we are getting deluxe AP's) we don't fly we drive but in all actuality could fly for what it cost to rent a van and gas, we are doing some beach stuff but no San Diego stuff and before we decided to do the Deluxe Ap's $6000 was gonna be for everything including $1500 spending money so I think its def do able there are tons of hotels that can fit into any kind of budget....Have a wonderful time planning....you may check into GetAwayToday.com I have found they have really good prices and you can get tickets hotels and I THINK even city passes on there!!