Does my budget sound about right?

[StayCool]

Don't worry about spending your max budget and trying to have the best time ever. Worry about how you're going to save money for your next trip after you fall in love. You'll still have a great time!

Check out allears.net for menus with prices.

On days I planned to eat in the park at a quick service place, I kept in mind a couple of places in each park where I might want to eat. I knew how to get there and I knew what the menu was and that my kids would be able to find something they would eat. It was helpful for staying on budget and not panicking and trying to find something last minute.

For budget purposes, I would even pack sandwiches for the trip down. My kids beg to pack their lunches and I would pitch it to them like I was allowing them to do it rather than as a money saving option.

Hopefully they will sleep most of the time while I'm driving, but in the past we have let them pick what kinds of snacks they would like to have for the drive. The longest we have been in the car is about 14-15 hours and they do fine as long as they can watch movies and play on their ipods.

To cut the cost a little as well you can go to the Disney Character Warehouse at the outlets right outside of Disney. I have always found some great treasures there for a good bargain.

Someone told me today to go to the local Walmart there too and they have a lot of stuff that the kids would like.

Has anyone flow Allegiant? All the reviews I have read are negative, but I could fly the 4 of us to Orlando direct for ~$800 plus whatever they charge for baggage. I'm just hesitant to put my faith in something that might not work out in the long run.

 

[cjbcam]

Hopefully they will sleep most of the time while I'm driving, but in the past we have let them pick what kinds of snacks they would like to have for the drive. The longest we have been in the car is about 14-15 hours and they do fine as long as they can watch movies and play on their ipods.

Someone told me today to go to the local Walmart there too and they have a lot of stuff that the kids would like.

Has anyone flow Allegiant? All the reviews I have read are negative, but I could fly the 4 of us to Orlando direct for ~$800 plus whatever they charge for baggage. I'm just hesitant to put my faith in something that might not work out in the long run.

We have flown allegiant before and never had a problem.

 

[danielle79]

I live near Binghamton so I'm almost as far south you can get before you leave NY. Do you think it would be a better idea to plan the stops and get the rooms in advance, or will finding one on the way be fine? Tentatively I'm thinking of sleeping all day on Friday, and leaving after the kids get home from school. I like to drive and won't mind taking the night shift. At daybreak, let my hubby take over and I will nap. Then stop for the night somewhere around 4-5pm. That should put us pretty close to Florida hopefully.



Hi, we have driven from the Buffalo, NY area 3 times and it has never taken us 24 hours to get to Orlando. We have 3 kids and also drive through the night while the kids sleep. The first time we did the drive in 17 hours, second and third time 18hrs (more kids) Our stops consist of cofee, bathroom and stretch legs for 5 minutes and then back in the car! We drive straight through and get a hotel outside of Disney for the night, so my husband and I can rest a little before our vacation actually starts. I have always made hotel reservations before hand and not counted on available vacancies. We leave in 15 days for next Disney vacation, can't wait!!!!

 

[hsmamato2]

Round trip gas: $500
Hotels-2 nights during travel: $250
All Star Movies for 5 nights: $554 ($400)
Tickets: 5 Days - $1200 ($720)
Memory Maker: $150
Food: $1000 (I'm going high because I'd really like to do some nice meals)
Souvies: $4-500
Total: $4154 ($3520)

Here's how I'd plan it-
If you're at the south of NYS, are you near any major airports? If so, Sign up for kayak alerts,etc. Plan to drive, but if a great airfare comes along, jump on it and save time.on vacation,time is money
- or take a pp's advice and drive FARTHER that first day, it should probably take you about 15-18 hours to get almost to the FL border(I may be wrong)
The tickets are a godd deal
The hotel is a good deal, though keep checking Orbitz,etc for deals, they frequently have them for all stars to see how low you can go-(If you snag and airfare deal, you can stay at Disney another 1-2 days and hang by the resort=fun)
IDK exactly what memorymaker is, but in such a tight budget,I'd skip it.... EVERY photopass photographer will take pics of you guys with your own camera for FREE. Just ask them.....
-You may hit that food budget,it's easy to do in WDW, but go allears.net and price out what you want..... Also be aware that a LOT of nice cs is found in WDW,for much,much less money.(tight budget here)
-Souvies...way too high! You don't "need" to spend that much on souvies, take that $$$ and spend it elsewhere in your vacation budget! Let your kids start saving their allowance money, etc etc. Yes, you could spend that much. If your budget is this tight however, it's not the wisest way to spend.... I recommend a limit for the trip on souvies- and have your kids start thinking about how they can save for extras...
- imagine this scenario...instead of all those souvenirs you spend that Money on an extra night at Allstars! (or 2) and extend your trip experience......
- I disagree with some pp's...don't buy junk ahead of time and bring it along as 'souvenirs'.....that falls pretty flat with bigger kids,and it wastes your time and money. One cute t-shirt ,chosen while at Disney is usually valued more than a pile of disney store stuff bought at the local mall.....
Overall your plan sounds pretty good though!

 

[stsomewhere]

We live in Michigan. It is 1200 miles. We drive straight through the night. You could save on two nights of hotel.

We have left WDW at 6am and made it home at 2am.

$500 is a lot of stuff to buy. We like to buy a christmas ornament. The rest is trying new food at Epcot.

 

[stacecakes]

I'm not familiar with the military salute tickets, but one of the earlier posts indicated that they include the water parks option etc. If you have a 4 day salute ticket, would you be able to use the four park days to do MK, EP, HS, and AK then use the 5th day to do a water park and disney quest? I feel like you could easily fill a fifth day that way. When my family does the waterpark/fun option on a shorter trip we'll save money by dropping a park day and using the "fun" options to fill out a day. Works well if we're doing a long weekend trip or something. I believe the "fun option" stuff is good for the 14 days from the ticket activiation so they're still there even after you finish the park days.

 

[StayCool]

Here's how I'd plan it-
If you're at the south of NYS, are you near any major airports? If so, Sign up for kayak alerts,etc. Plan to drive, but if a great airfare comes along, jump on it and save time.on vacation,time is money
- or take a pp's advice and drive FARTHER that first day, it should probably take you about 15-18 hours to get almost to the FL border(I may be wrong)
The tickets are a godd deal
The hotel is a good deal, though keep checking Orbitz,etc for deals, they frequently have them for all stars to see how low you can go-(If you snag and airfare deal, you can stay at Disney another 1-2 days and hang by the resort=fun)
IDK exactly what memorymaker is, but in such a tight budget,I'd skip it.... EVERY photopass photographer will take pics of you guys with your own camera for FREE. Just ask them.....
-You may hit that food budget,it's easy to do in WDW, but go allears.net and price out what you want..... Also be aware that a LOT of nice cs is found in WDW,for much,much less money.(tight budget here)
-Souvies...way too high! You don't "need" to spend that much on souvies, take that $$$ and spend it elsewhere in your vacation budget! Let your kids start saving their allowance money, etc etc. Yes, you could spend that much. If your budget is this tight however, it's not the wisest way to spend.... I recommend a limit for the trip on souvies- and have your kids start thinking about how they can save for extras...
- imagine this scenario...instead of all those souvenirs you spend that Money on an extra night at Allstars! (or 2) and extend your trip experience......
- I disagree with some pp's...don't buy junk ahead of time and bring it along as 'souvenirs'.....that falls pretty flat with bigger kids,and it wastes your time and money. One cute t-shirt ,chosen while at Disney is usually valued more than a pile of disney store stuff bought at the local mall.....
Overall your plan sounds pretty good though!

I probably will cut back on souvies. I live 1 1/2 hrs from the nearest major airport. That one has JetBlue. SouthWest is about 3 hrs away. The memory maker I would like to have because I don't know if I will get to go back and I would like some Disney "bling" on some photos.

We live in Michigan. It is 1200 miles. We drive straight through the night. You could save on two nights of hotel.

We have left WDW at 6am and made it home at 2am.

$500 is a lot of stuff to buy. We like to buy a christmas ornament. The rest is trying new food at Epcot.

I agree it is a lot for stuff. But I know how my husband is on vacation and let me tell you, it is not pretty if he can't spend $$. Idk why he is like that, but he is. I'm not sure if I could drive straight through and still function when I get there. Maybe. I just don't want to start out exhausted.

I'm not familiar with the military salute tickets, but one of the earlier posts indicated that they include the water parks option etc. If you have a 4 day salute ticket, would you be able to use the four park days to do MK, EP, HS, and AK then use the 5th day to do a water park and disney quest? I feel like you could easily fill a fifth day that way. When my family does the waterpark/fun option on a shorter trip we'll save money by dropping a park day and using the "fun" options to fill out a day. Works well if we're doing a long weekend trip or something. I believe the "fun option" stuff is good for the 14 days from the ticket activiation so they're still there even after you finish the park days.

That's exactly what I was thinking. It gives us 1 day per park, plus a day to go to Downtown Disney and the kids can do Disney Quest to their hearts content. Plus I wouldn't mind time to just enjoy the resort as well. I don't want to be exhausted from my vacation! Plus I would love it if the Food and Wine festival was during my trip. That would be my idea of a good time!

As far as food, the $1000 is just a round about number. I need to figure out where I *really* want to eat and then work around that. I'd like to do 2-3 nice dinners if possible. My kids aren't big eaters anyway.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

I agree since the price to drive is so close to the price to fly I would fly. You will get there in 3 1/2 hours verses 2 days. You will save the wear and tear on your vehicle. Not to mention recently I just read two completed trip reports where they drove and had car trouble. One was an accident and they had and had only been on the road and hour! So they had to fill out the police report, contact Ins Co. and have car towed then rent a car to complete their trip.
The other was car trouble resulting in finding a mechanic they trusted and waitng a day for parts to arrive to fix the issue.

Just think you will spend 4 days of your trip just traveling.

You have lot of time to watch the flight deals. I would sign up for the SWA emails deals. They usually have a good deals twice a month. You get to take 2 pieces of luggage for free and that is per person! If you book a flight and the price drops, you can go online and change your reservation to the cheaper price and you don't pay a change fee!!!! The difference in the flight price will be in the form of travel funds for your next trip.

If you do decide to drive here is a great link. You can plug in your vehicle info and your starting address and ending address and it will tell you based on today's gas prices, what it will cost you. It even tell you when you will need to fuel up and where the nearest gas station is and what the current gas price is there.

http://www.gasbuddy.com/Trip_Calculator.aspx

 

[hsmamato2]

ok. I've driven 1-2 hours many times to get an airfare deal,I think you should keep watching, deals pop up all the time...sign up for notices from the airports nearest you, if you can travel for approx. the same $$ and be there in 8 hours vs. 2 days,imagine how that opens up your vacation....
I am speaking from a multiple visits perspective here but 150.00 is a LOT of money for photos that you can do yourself for a miminal amount (your own camera,take them to CVS,put them in a cutesy disney frame,etc)
It's kind of fun to have the package, but not if the budget is as tight as you say,IMHO.
I understand about keeping the DH happy..... so set aside his amount so he's happy....and then work with the rest....
Imagine this scenario...... (what I would dream of doing in your case)
Find discount airfare, drive to airport the night before an a.m. flight using a drive/park/fly deal- arrive in WDW within a few hours of takeoff, take ME to the hotel...and start having fun. I'd extend my stay to a solid 7 nites (b/c I'm flying) and keep the current ticket options- doesn't the tix+wp&more = 10 days of choices? (5 big parks, 5 days water parks or dq) Plus just relaxing at the hotel is a much overlooked joy at WDW......
Stay onsite, and eat mostly cs (allears) with 1 or 2 nice lunches(cheaper) thrown in..... take ME back to airport-
The only major difference I see is get rid of the photo thing,and some of the souvie budget,and apply that to airfare/extra nights at Allstars-
From experience,4 people flying,with a lot of time to search,can usually fly for 750-1000 .....
So for about the same amount of $$$ you get a much fuller vacation experience without all the rush and driving..... but again,to each his own....

 

[loveshak22]

I agree it is a lot for stuff. But I know how my husband is on vacation and let me tell you, it is not pretty if he can't spend $$. Idk why he is like that, but he is. I'm not sure if I could drive straight through and still function when I get there. Maybe. I just don't want to start out exhausted.

As far as food, the $1000 is just a round about number. I need to figure out where I *really* want to eat and then work around that. I'd like to do 2-3 nice dinners if possible. My kids aren't big eaters anyway.

I actually understand your DH's mentality. Being on vacation is a break from the "real world" and then it's O.K. to spend money because we worry about money every other day of our life. Of course, I agree with you that's not the best mentality for when you get home and have to pay the bills!

I love eating at WDW. I think 2-3 nice meals is good because there are so many options! However, it's expensive so you can blow through $1,000 easily with a family of four. Good things the kids aren't big eaters!

 

[tzeitel]

If the military discounts do not apply I would go through Ebates. Through their site you get cash back - right now it is 10% for buying tickets on Orbitz and 6.5% for booking hotels on Travelocity. Orbitz sometimes has a buy 3 days get 2 for free and Travelocity usually has a good coupon code for hotels that gets the room cheaper than booking directly through Disney. Last year I got a $193 Paypal payment from Ebates all from our Disney trip

We usually budget $100 a day for food (there are 3 of us, includes a snack in the parks and a TS meal per day). DH & I are not breakfast people and I did pack some breakfast stuff and snacks in our bags, so that gives us a little padding for the other meals. We went for 10 days so what I did was buy $1000 worth of gift cards at Target with our 5% off - every little bit helps!

if you have time you should look into joining a reward site or two - some have cards you could use at WDW. MyPoints and Swagbucks have Starbucks (we are not Starbucks people but used it for sodas and snacks) and Landry's (Yak & Yeti at AK plus TRex and Rainforest Café) cards.

 

[StayCool]

I agree since the price to drive is so close to the price to fly I would fly. You will get there in 3 1/2 hours verses 2 days. You will save the wear and tear on your vehicle. Not to mention recently I just read two completed trip reports where they drove and had car trouble. One was an accident and they had and had only been on the road and hour! So they had to fill out the police report, contact Ins Co. and have car towed then rent a car to complete their trip.
The other was car trouble resulting in finding a mechanic they trusted and waitng a day for parts to arrive to fix the issue.

Just think you will spend 4 days of your trip just traveling.

You have lot of time to watch the flight deals. I would sign up for the SWA emails deals. They usually have a good deals twice a month. You get to take 2 pieces of luggage for free and that is per person! If you book a flight and the price drops, you can go online and change your reservation to the cheaper price and you don't pay a change fee!!!! The difference in the flight price will be in the form of travel funds for your next trip.

If you do decide to drive here is a great link. You can plug in your vehicle info and your starting address and ending address and it will tell you based on today's gas prices, what it will cost you. It even tell you when you will need to fuel up and where the nearest gas station is and what the current gas price is there.

http://www.gasbuddy.com/Trip_Calculator.aspx

The closest decent sized airport is 1 1/2 hrs, the rest are about 3 hours away. I am willing to drive to them if I can get a good deal. I will just keep checking the airlines. JetBlue and SouthWest don't have dates open for my timeframe yet anyway (October).

ok. I've driven 1-2 hours many times to get an airfare deal,I think you should keep watching, deals pop up all the time...sign up for notices from the airports nearest you, if you can travel for approx. the same $$ and be there in 8 hours vs. 2 days,imagine how that opens up your vacation....
I am speaking from a multiple visits perspective here but 150.00 is a LOT of money for photos that you can do yourself for a miminal amount (your own camera,take them to CVS,put them in a cutesy disney frame,etc)
It's kind of fun to have the package, but not if the budget is as tight as you say,IMHO.
I understand about keeping the DH happy..... so set aside his amount so he's happy....and then work with the rest....
Imagine this scenario...... (what I would dream of doing in your case)
Find discount airfare, drive to airport the night before an a.m. flight using a drive/park/fly deal- arrive in WDW within a few hours of takeoff, take ME to the hotel...and start having fun. I'd extend my stay to a solid 7 nites (b/c I'm flying) and keep the current ticket options- doesn't the tix+wp&more = 10 days of choices? (5 big parks, 5 days water parks or dq) Plus just relaxing at the hotel is a much overlooked joy at WDW......
Stay onsite, and eat mostly cs (allears) with 1 or 2 nice lunches(cheaper) thrown in..... take ME back to airport-
The only major difference I see is get rid of the photo thing,and some of the souvie budget,and apply that to airfare/extra nights at Allstars-
From experience,4 people flying,with a lot of time to search,can usually fly for 750-1000 .....
So for about the same amount of $$$ you get a much fuller vacation experience without all the rush and driving..... but again,to each his own....

I think what I will do is give hubby his own and the rest of us about $50. All I want is an ornament, a shot glass (do they have them? I collect them from all my trips) and a sweatshirt. I really want this to be more about the experience truly. I will probably cut out the memory maker...

I actually understand your DH's mentality. Being on vacation is a break from the "real world" and then it's O.K. to spend money because we worry about money every other day of our life. Of course, I agree with you that's not the best mentality for when you get home and have to pay the bills!

I love eating at WDW. I think 2-3 nice meals is good because there are so many options! However, it's expensive so you can blow through $1,000 easily with a family of four. Good things the kids aren't big eaters!

Exactly. He loves to cut loose and one of his favorite past times is shopping. I am not such a fan. lol The food budget may be less because it will all depend on how many sit down meals we do. I haven't gotten that detailed yet. If we do get to fly, I will probably have some stuff delivered anyway - breakfast foods/snacks/water, just to trim the budget some more.

Thank you everyone for the advice. It really helps to have objective eyes on my budget. I'm a bit emotionally attaching to the *ultimate* trip in my head. I know I will have a great time no matter what!

 

[kiramay]

We packed breakfast and a ton of snacks, plus juice boxes and water bottles. Each kid had their own drawstring backpack to carry their stuff. The two days we had dinner reservations, we did have to buy a CS lunch. The other days we had late lunch reservations, and the kids were good with snacks before and after.

We also gave the kids a gift card for souvenirs, and we also told them a few times that we'd be about to go back to get something (hopper passes) at the end of the trip, once they were sure what they wanted. Both twins ended up with puppets and candy from the Epcot. Our next trip I'll give them $50 gc.

Have fun!

 

[StayCool]

Okay, here is the original budget:
Dates: October 5-10
Round trip gas: $500
Hotels-2 nights during travel: $250
All Star Movies for 5 nights: $554 ($400)
Tickets: 5 Days - $1200 ($720)
Memory Maker: $150
Food: $1000 (I'm going high because I'd really like to do some nice meals)
Souvies: $4-500

Total: $4154 ($3520)

Potential revised budget:
Dates: October 5-12
All Star Movies x 7 nights: $900 ($600)
Tickets: 5 days - $1200 ($720)
Food: $1000
Souvies: $~300ish (I'm thinking I will ask ppl to get me gift certs for this...)
Flights: $1000

Total: $4400 ($3620)

More time there, less stressful and time to chill in the room and enjoy rather than run the parks all day. I can ask my parents to give us all gift certificates we can apply to the trip and that will cut back on my expenses too.

 

[joeyvt]

Okay, here is the original budget:
Dates: October 5-10
Round trip gas: $500
Hotels-2 nights during travel: $250
All Star Movies for 5 nights: $554 ($400)
Tickets: 5 Days - $1200 ($720)
Memory Maker: $150
Food: $1000 (I'm going high because I'd really like to do some nice meals)
Souvies: $4-500

Total: $4154 ($3520)

Potential revised budget:
Dates: October 5-12
All Star Movies x 7 nights: $900 ($600)
Tickets: 5 days - $1200 ($720)
Food: $1000
Souvies: $~300ish (I'm thinking I will ask ppl to get me gift certs for this...)
Flights: $1000

Total: $4400 ($3620)

More time there, less stressful and time to chill in the room and enjoy rather than run the parks all day. I can ask my parents to give us all gift certificates we can apply to the trip and that will cut back on my expenses too.

Flew Allegiant just last week to Orlando and had a great experience already booked my tickets for my next flight down in May. We cut out some expenses by packing back packs for the personal item they let you carry on free and only taking one suit case then using the washers at All Star Sports during the week. On the allegiant though the only issue is the trip from Sanford to the resort we looked at doing a shuttle service, a cab, a private transport, and rental car and found a deal with dollar rental car we were able to get the whole week in a full size rental for $155 including taxes and fees. That was easily the cheapest transport we could find. If you have a car there is a little strip of restaurants right outside the disney gates on State Route 535 that has pretty much every chain imaginable we ended up going there and saving a lot of money on our food budget. Also near there is the Character express you can get your tee shirts and some merchandise for basically half price. Your food guess may be slightly high especially if you have a rental car I think we spent around $650 for food and that included a $115 character breakfast at Cape Mays on our last day.

 

[StayCool]

Flew Allegiant just last week to Orlando and had a great experience already booked my tickets for my next flight down in May. We cut out some expenses by packing back packs for the personal item they let you carry on free and only taking one suit case then using the washers at All Star Sports during the week. On the allegiant though the only issue is the trip from Sanford to the resort we looked at doing a shuttle service, a cab, a private transport, and rental car and found a deal with dollar rental car we were able to get the whole week in a full size rental for $155 including taxes and fees. That was easily the cheapest transport we could find. If you have a car there is a little strip of restaurants right outside the disney gates on State Route 535 that has pretty much every chain imaginable we ended up going there and saving a lot of money on our food budget. Also near there is the Character express you can get your tee shirts and some merchandise for basically half price. Your food guess may be slightly high especially if you have a rental car I think we spent around $650 for food and that included a $115 character breakfast at Cape Mays on our last day.

I've looked at Allegiant and by far they beat anyone else's prices near me right now. I could get the 4 of us tickets for $800 and that includes tax. Does not include choosing seats (kids will be 11 and 13 and have never flown) or luggage (hubby packs like he will never be home again! ). As SouthWest and JetBlue release their schedules for October I will compare the 3 and see what works out the best.

 

[StayCool]

Just bought my first Disney gift cards at Target with my Red Card. Woohoo!! Lol. It's the little things.

 

[loveshak22]

Just bought my first Disney gift cards at Target with my Red Card. Woohoo!! Lol. It's the little things.

Every GC bought between now and October is just more fun you get to have on your trip!!

 

[LeeLee'sMom]

Fly, fly, fly. Keep watching the airlines websites. Usually Southwest & Jetblue have lowest fares. Plus you get to stay at Disney longer we do the military tx & hotel discount every year so far, can't beat it! HOpefully they will extend your tx dates through October. Yes the waterpark and Downtown Disney will fill up a day, plus we always just do a resort day. Enjoy!

 

[lisaross]

souvies for 500 - thats ALOT - maybe give the kids $50 each??

Ok, so I've been wanting to do a Disney trip with my family before my kids get too old for a loooong time, but for various reasons it just hasn't worked out. So now I'm lowering my expectations and trying to work with what I have rather than trying to do an all out crazy trip. We are going to drive from NY instead of fly for example.

My husband is a military veteran so the numbers in parentheses will be the potential discounts. There are 4 of us and we are all considered Disney adults.

This is what I have so far:

Dates: October 5-10
Round trip gas: $500
Hotels-2 nights during travel: $250
All Star Movies for 5 nights: $554 ($400)
Tickets: 5 Days - $1200 ($720)
Memory Maker: $150
Food: $1000 (I'm going high because I'd really like to do some nice meals)
Souvies: $4-500

Total: $4154 ($3520)