Disneymoon on a budget

[VMK_Princess_Chloe]

I haven't been on here in forever.. I went to disney world a couple of summers ago, but now my fiance and I are planning a disneymoon. It will be on a budget for sure. We want to stay on resort... and really aren't concerned with which room we stay in.. even if it's a value.. although one of the moderate would probably be nice.. but we would love any tips or advice to make this a great trip for as little money as possible. I really can't remember all the ways I saved last time. I do remember getting my park tickets on a different website and I got that website from disboards.. but I can't remember for the life of me what that website was... I'd probably know it if I heard it. It was a reputable discount ticket place online, so we would also love it if you could help us with that. Our wedding is going to be June 26th, 2010..

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas..

Thanks!
Heather

 

[SandrA9810]

Usually if you book now, you can call back later to apply a discount code if one is released.

Disney offers a HoneyMoon gift card. You can go to thier website and select different things you would like to do while at Disney, and then they purchase it and you use the gift card to do it.

And the favorite discount ticket is go to mousesaver.com and click on the undercover tourist link. Some one said they saved 28$ for a 7 day ticket.

 

[WDWAurora]

We stayed at Pop Century on our honeymoon in 2005, and had a great time! Definitely budget for the bride & groom ears, though! Those definitely added to our fun. I got our tickets from AAA (4 day single park expiring tickets) and ordered Disney Quest tickets (thought DH would enjoy it) and we bought tickets for a water park when we got there. We split meals for lunches, and drank a lot of water. Soda is expensive-tap water is free.

Have a great time! It's a great place to honeymoon.

 

[Indiana Rose Lee]

Why not look at renting points at AKL.http://www.wdwinfo.com/disney-vacation-club/AK-Points.htm . The cost might be less than a moderate, you'd have a bed and couch, small fridge and microwave.

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

Your biggest expenses for any WDW trip will be:

• 
  
  [*]Transportation
  [*]Accommodations
  [*]Tickets
  [*]Food​

Those are the areas that you'll end up saving big if you do your homework ahead of time.

June is a beautiful month for a wedding. Unfortunately it's not a great month for discounts at Disney. In the past 3 years, there has only been one general public discount code and that was 2009. OTOH, there have always been discounts for AP holders and AAA members. There's no telling what kind of discounts there will be for 2010. If the economy improves, I wouldn't expect anything more than the AAA and AP discounts. If it stagnates or declines further, I'd expect something similar to what we saw this year.

So, after saying that where can you save?

First, by choosing a value resort. They rooms are smaller than the moderates and deluxes but there are only the two of you so it will be less of an issue than it would be for a family of 2A/2C/1 infant. Most rooms have 2 double beds but there are some kings. Requests for kings are not guaranteed at values. If a king bed is important, then you can get a guaranteed king by booking a moderate resort king room.

Like you said, you can get a discount on tickets by getting them from a reseller like Undercovertourist.com or Ticketmania.com. But if you have tickets, then you won't need to get a package. And sometimes those packages are pretty attractive. For that reason, I wouldn't rush to purchase tickets until I knew for sure that there wasn't a great package discount for June.

I like kayak.com for airfare searches. It will not only search for your local airport, it will also search for nearby airports as well. I also like Bing.com's airfare search engine. Both will show you dates with cheaper airfares in your area. If SWA flies out of your local airport to MCO, download their Ding Tool to you computer and also sign up for their email offers. They can come out with some pretty good rates that the general public may not be aware of.

And finally food...
This is probably the area where you will have the most control. You can go ultra-budget and bring breakfast foods, packable lunches and cases of water so that you spend almost nothing on meals. Or you can get a package with one of the dining plans so that you have you meals paid for before you even set foot in WDW. You can let the word slip out that you wouldn't mind getting a few Disney gift cards for birthdays, holidays or even for shower presents. The GCs could help to defray the cost of a very nice honeymoon meal at CG, Citrico's or Narcoose's.

Have fun planning and keep your eyes peeled for those discounts! They'll be coming in some form or another (but probably not until May)!

 

[VMK_Princess_Chloe]

thanks for the advice! Undercover tourist is what I used last time!! Thank you for helping me remember that. I tried to see if I still had the old confirmation emails but I didn't. I like the idea of asking for gift cards for different things, that's a great idea. For Christmas and showers and everything.

 

[chell]

thanks for the advice! Undercover tourist is what I used last time!! Thank you for helping me remember that. I tried to see if I still had the old confirmation emails but I didn't. I like the idea of asking for gift cards for different things, that's a great idea. For Christmas and showers and everything.

Congratulations!

Instead of asking for multiple gift cards register on the WDW Honeymoon Registry website. People can go there and give towards your Honeymoon. That way you will only have one gift card to keep up with. Also, as soon as you get your gift card make a copy of the back of the card. This way if it gets lost or stolen you can report it to Disney for a replacement. This is also a great way to "protect" your funds just like traveler's checks.

Another thing that we did (our Disneymoon as last December) was when I had extra money I would add it to the card too. It was very simple to do. Their website is very easy for anyone to use.

 

[VMK_Princess_Chloe]

We stayed at Pop Century on our honeymoon in 2005, and had a great time! Definitely budget for the bride & groom ears, though! Those definitely added to our fun. I got our tickets from AAA (4 day single park expiring tickets) and ordered Disney Quest tickets (thought DH would enjoy it) and we bought tickets for a water park when we got there. We split meals for lunches, and drank a lot of water. Soda is expensive-tap water is free.

Have a great time! It's a great place to honeymoon.

Thanks for the advice everyone! We appreciate it so much! I am curious now though, is there any place we can get the bride and groom ears, so we can have them before we go?

 

[stitchfan18]

I second the idea of renting points to stay at one of the DVC resorts. We did it on our honeymoon and have been hooked ever since. We usually pay the same price we would pay to stay at a mod, but get to stay at a deluxe resort!

I would order some food and drinks to be delivered to the room so you can eat something in your room in the mornings and have water and/or the soda you like without having the pay $2.50+ for them in the park. Also, bring your own snacks to the parks. There are some snacks we have to have when we are at disney, but if we just want to munch, its nice to have something already with you. When we're not on the DDP, we eat our sit down meals at lunch and try to do them as a later sitting time so we only need a snack in the evening.

There are tons of other great tips all over these boards. Make sure you get your bridal ears before you leave, and wear your just married pins! Check ebay for the ears, or buy them once you get to your resort.

 

[Smile4Me]

Start a change jar! We saved close to $400 in a year just by throwing in everything we had left over, large and small bill and all change! Never take out!
You can get free water at any counter service location as long as you wait in line and just ask. So that will save you some money on bottled water...and if you don't like the taste bring some flavor packets!
Some advice on food whether you go on the dining plan or not-there are quite a few counter service locations that have meals large enough to split like Cosmic Rays Cafe at Magic Kingdom- they have a half chicken and ribs combo that comes with mashed potatos and beans plus dessert and a drink, way too much food for one person. Sunshine Seasons at Epcot has a great food court with lots of combos, easy to share there. Animal Kingdom has Flame Tree Barbeque , which features half chicken meals and rib meals that come with two sides, and each could be shared. Hollywood Studios is the hardest cause they don't have a ton of options but Pizza Planet has always been good enough for us.
Congratulations!!

 

[chell]

One little thing to do in the parks to save a little money is to order one drink without ice since the drinks come out cold anyway. This was one I found out completely by accident simply because I don't like their water or the ice. It isn't a lot of money it saves, but any little bit helps.

Keep a check on the online Disney Store for the Mickey ears. Right now I see the Bride's ears but not the Groom's. Maybe it has been way too long of a day for me, but I'm not seeing the Groom's.

Like someone else said, don't forget to wear the pins!

 

[Evi]

I'd say search for all the discounts you can.

Join mypoints and start earning those gift cards you can use them to pay for little things along the way you can probably earn upwards of 200 each if you both sign up for them and work on it now through the summer.

Thats 400$ right there for gift cards like cvs, starbucks, rainforest cafe etc.

look into any discounts you may qualify for with disney or that you can purchase tickets through:

-are either of you in the armed forces if so go to affvc
-are you students some student life offices have travel dept or offer discounts on vacation.
-aaa memberships
-do you know anyone who owns a dvc can you buy off of them for a discount
-check out sites like skyauctions
-consider staying offsite

when registering for your wedding add disney store for disney dollars

look at other places to squeeze money from compare rates for your auto insurance (I just did this and actually saves like 600 for the year by switching to geico and getting exact same coverage plus a few extras)

do you have stuff you dont need anymore ebay and save the money.

Do you have extra time run a few odd jobs for some extra cash it sounds lame but I bet a friend has a kid they would love someone to babysit for or a dog that needs sitting while there on vacation its little stuff but it can add up over the course of a year and not take alot of your time.

make some minor lifestyle changes

example: not saying you do any of these but if you do you can save a serious chunk of change over one year doing any of these

dont buy coffee out in morning

limit how often you buy lunch during work week

Carpool

give up car and take public transit you don't have to sell the car just garage it you'll save money on gas insurance and get killer thighs from all the walking. I had a much better figure when I didn't' have a car lol

eat in more often keep dinner out special and make dinner in special

I just saw a posting today for cokerewards that you can earn universal park tickets keep eye out for stuff like that

have a joint yard sale if you haven't moved in together yet Im sure there's tons of stuff your not going to need in new house together and if you have well Im sure you accumulated some stuff you'd like to get rid of.

Either way your off to a good start asking for advice and honestly I hope something helped I remember first big trip to disney and it was expensive but you should weigh your options well like maybe you stay onsite but dont rent a car and use disney transportation then you save on gas and rental or stay offsite and rent a car and you'll save on the room. Just definitely check out the boards and call around to work numbers out.

Regardless I'm sure you'll have a wonderful honeymoon and congratulations on your engagement =)

remember to do all the free romantic stuff like watch fireworks from poly beach i know theres lots of postings about stuff like that =)

 

[skier_pete]

Don't know what your budget is, but here's a thought to get yourself a little deluxe while keeping the price low:

As part of your trip, Spend 2 nights at a deluxe resort to start your trip. (renting DVC points is the way to keep that reasonable) For those first couple days, forget about the parks and wind down from the wedding...enjoy a little romance. Then you could switch to a value and hit the parks hard-core.

Check out the resorts threads for ways to sign up to possibly get PIN codes sent to you. These are typically the best discounts out there. Also, watch mousesavers.

Just because you've booked a room / discount doesn't mean you can't change it if a better one comes along. Keep your eye on the DIS and mousesavers.

One warning, if you go right after your wedding, you are going at high season - the week leading into July 4th. Hotel rates and dining rates (some restaurant charge "seasonal" pricing for food...I know it sucks!) will be high then and parks will be very crowded.

SkierPete

 

[girli565]

Renting DVC points is a great way to stay in a Deluxe hotel while paying Mod prices. There's a board here that deals with renting/trading DVC points, take a look there, you could find some great deals. I plan on renting DVC when I get married at WDW I plan on renting DVC points. It much more economical than staying at GF for a week at xmas.

 

[chell]

We got married in July but didn't take our Disneymoon until December. I know that isn't for everyone but it was a necessity for us. I can't do the heat because of medical reasons. But it was great for us because the rates were also cheaper. Is that an option for you?