Family of 8, how we ate for under $1000 over 6 days..and more tips

[TIMLEO007]

Hi everyone, I have been neglecting writing this after returning from our Jan 2014 trip as work family and life gets busy as we all know.

First of all as the title states, we are a family of eight.....yes thats right, so planning a trip to WDW, you can only imagine how much it would cost. I will try to be as detailed as possible, but remember this was almost 2 months ago now, so hard to remember specific meals etc.

Well here we go, hopefully this can help out others, not just large families. I am very budget oriented...not CHEAP, but love to get the best for the $$$.

Resort: Here is what we did. After figuring out that we would need 2 rooms at just about every resort to accommodate, I used this as leverage to sway my GF of 6yrs towards purchasing DVC( a long time dream of mine).
We have rented DVC points before as well and figured with ~$2200 to rent the points and nothing to show for afterwards, that pushed us to make the leap. We shopped DVC resales for a couple months and found the perfect contract. 289pts up front and 160pts/yr at SSR which seemed to have the best value/maint pts of the resorts, and home resort was not a big issue to us either. Our kids are 9-16yrs old so many years of DVC enjoyment to come. ~$13,000

Transportation: We live in NC so the next thing we needed to look into was transportation to FL. We have a large SUV that seats 8 of us, but no additional room for luggage and the thought of being in the car with all of us for 11hrs is not my idea of a "vacation". Flying is another option, but way too much $$$. Well unless you have the Southwest Chase Visa card and got 50,000 pts when you signed up. We had around 90,000 pts after 1yr and booked the flight the first week it was available on southwest. I would then check our flights about every other day after we booked and if the prices went down, rebooked and had the difference credited. I am not sure of the exact amount, but feel it was about 45000 pts for round trip airfare for us all!
Disney magical express for free......wow!!! not too shabby. FREE

Tickets: Tickets were the next expense. With 6 "kids" in the real world, and only one of those being Disney "child" age 3-9, we would need 7 adult tickets and 1 child ticket park hoppers of course, for 5 days. We did research and found about the Disney YES individual enrollment program and signed up for a class for us all. This did two things for us, not only the discount on the ticket which was nice, but all students, under 18 are able to get student tickets instead of adult tickets.....so only 2 adult tickets, and 6 students.....PLUS....the Physics, properties in motion class was amazing! The kids still talk about it and say how much the loved it.....~$2200

Food: Now onto the food.....we ended up staying in a 2bdrm at Beach Club Villas, which was plenty of room for us all. Everyone loved it. We planned out to eat at least one meal a day in the parks. We loaded up a suitcase with breakfast foods, cereals, breakfast bars, snacks, etc and ate breakfast in the room each morning. We bought $1000 worth of Disney gift cards using the Target red card with 5% discount ahead of time. We would charge everything to the room using the magicbands and I would go to the lobby every night or two and pat down the balance with the gift cards.
There is a disney gift card app that i had on my iphone which allows you to track the balances in real time on every card. I labelled each card with a number "1, 2, 3, .....etc" and label it as so in the app so i knew exactly which one had money left on it.
We came home with about $80 left over too, for another trip!
We also snacked a lot throughout the trip as well, just dont recall every single purchase, but we were never hunrgy either. Keep in mind as well that we were within 5 minutes walk to Epcot entrance so coming back to the room was not a big deal. Room 124 at the Beach Club Villas in case you are wondering is the closest DVC room to the entrance and was amazing!

We also gave each child a $50 gift card to use for whatever snacks they wanted in addition to the $1000....



Day 1
Arrival day we had reservations at Beaches and Cream for a late lunch and then the Electric Umbrella for dinner.
Day 2
Breakfast in the room (bought milk in the Beach Club grocery store) then ate Be Our Guest for lunch (was amazing btw). Stopped for ice cream later in the day at the Plaza and then sandwiches in our room for dinner.
Day 3
Breakfast in our room.....lunch at the Lunching Pad in MK tomorrowland, great toppings bar! and snacks in tomorrowland. Dinner was at Pecos Bills, crazy toppings bar as well!!! Very nice!
Day 4
Breakfast in our room.....lunch was frozen pizza and snacks in the room as the kids wanted to swim too. Dinner was at the Land in EPCOT, very good! Plenty of snack stops in EPCOT for schoolbread in norway, and german pretzels and beer for the adults! Caramel popcorn in Germany!
Day 5
Breakfast as above....snacked at Liberty tree snack area....lunch was the Boardwalk pizza window pizza. Dinner at Germany restaurant (not the buffet) Snacked a lot at DHS in the afternoon and everyone loved the Carrot Cake cookies!
Day 6

Breakfast at Kona cafe was great and then left to the airport afterwards.


I hope this helps at least one person! Feel free to ask anything!


thanks,
Tim

 

[jmddcj]

Looks like you travel like us!! We are a family of 6, leaving Sunday yay! We have always stayed offsite so usually end up with lunch in the parks with both breakfast and supper at our house. This time we are traveling with 14 of us, rented a house (10 mins out) 7 bdrm, 4.5 baths, game room, pool and hot tub for $89/ night. This has allowed us more $$ for extras, as we are traveling with some college aged sons and young boys we also are spending 2 days at Universal. Thanks for your post!! I love to read how others go about saving their $$

 

[wiigirl]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[mom2my3kids]

Sounds good..I wish I could buy into DVC but my husband will not buy...So I have a nice lady who I rent points off of...We plan on two rooms next june, so excited but it still seems so far away..

 

[writermommy6]

This sounds like us. Our family of 6 will grow to 9 for our upcoming trip and we are budgeting for no more than one meal out at the parks. Sounds like you guys did awesome!

 

[lovemy4sweeties]

Thanks for posting! We are also a family of 8 and I'm starting to think about our next trip. We drive from Canada (approx 22-24h). Last time we did the YES program and next time I would like to do the Homeschool days. I also try my best to work with a budget. We buy breakfast foods from the grocery store as well as snacks, fruit, milk and easy meals like sandwiches etc. We plan for one snack purchase and one meal per day in the parks, and usually a couple nights of pizza either in our room or trailer (our first trip was Fort Wilderness and our 2nd was offsite at Windsor Hills). My kids are younger (1-12) so we can still get away with sharing some meals.

 

[msquoted]

Tickets: Tickets were the next expense. With 6 "kids" in the real world, and only one of those being Disney "child" age 3-9, we would need 7 adult tickets and 1 child ticket park hoppers of course, for 5 days. We did research and found about the Disney YES individual enrollment program and signed up for a class for us all. This did two things for us, not only the discount on the ticket which was nice, but all students, under 18 are able to get student tickets instead of adult tickets.....so only 2 adult tickets, and 6 students.....PLUS....the Physics, properties in motion class was amazing! The kids still talk about it and say how much the loved it.....~$2200

Could you tell me a little bit more about this? It sounds like something my two older boys (will be going into 2nd and 8th grade would love- especially if they had any classes on Animals. I also have a soon-to-be 5-year-old - would he be able to tag-along? Or would my husband be able to accompany the two older kids while the youngest and I did something else?

Thanks!

 

[TIMLEO007]

start here

http://www.disneyyouth.com/our-prog...-enrollment/#categories-individual-enrollment

We scheduled a class that was available for older and younger kids at the same time, and they let us combine. You have to check the schedule of available times and classes.
I would look for a class that you all could do, it would be listed with the same title but older and younger suggested ages. You can always call or email them and they are very friendly and informative to see what they recommend. We were all together even though we scheduled for 2 different age groups, they allowed it.

Could you tell me a little bit more about this? It sounds like something my two older boys (will be going into 2nd and 8th grade would love- especially if they had any classes on Animals. I also have a soon-to-be 5-year-old - would he be able to tag-along? Or would my husband be able to accompany the two older kids while the youngest and I did something else?

Thanks!

 

[msquoted]

start here

http://www.disneyyouth.com/our-prog...-enrollment/#categories-individual-enrollment

We scheduled a class that was available for older and younger kids at the same time, and they let us combine. You have to check the schedule of available times and classes.
I would look for a class that you all could do, it would be listed with the same title but older and younger suggested ages. You can always call or email them and they are very friendly and informative to see what they recommend. We were all together even though we scheduled for 2 different age groups, they allowed it.

Thanks so much!

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

Awesome report! Can you explain the DVC a little more. 13k upfront and then how much per year for maintenance costs? And what year does the contract run out?

I know there is a dvc board but thought you may want to share.

 

[TIMLEO007]

We bought our resale through the timeshare store, great experience btw.....We have the maintenance fees taken out monthly, I think around $65-$70/mo. and our home reosrt is Saratoga Springs/ best price per point/maint fees in my opinion. The contract is good through 2054 as well, which is longer than several others that expire earlier. We already have one in the books, the Jan trip and another trip to hilton head island resort coming up, loving it.

 

[blessedby3]

We are a family of 7 (now with SIL) and we are going for 2 weeks this June
We are renting at Bonnet Creek and so we will eat breakfast in the room and head to the parks. We always leave midday when we go in the summer so we like to go off property and get a good meal for lunch (like Olive Garden, Cracker Barrel, etc). We can eat somewhere like that cheaper than CS places in the parks. I have been buying up gift cards to places we want to eat at over the past months. I like that it doesn't have to come out of our vacation budget once we get there :good vibes
We will take snacks, fruit and sandwiches back into the parks for the evenings when we go back or get some snacks at the parks and a sandwich or cereal when we get back to Bonnet Creek for the evening.

 

[CluelessDisFan]

We are only a family of 5 and we also have dreams of buying resale DVC at SSR for the same reason as you. Your thread has given me hope that you don't need to buy your dream home resort in order to book at another DVC resort within the 7 month window. We travel during non-peak seasons as well. So thanks, there's a lot of nay-Sayers out there. I also think SSR looks very nice, and we'd be just as happy there too.

 

[TIMLEO007]

We are only a family of 5 and we also have dreams of buying resale DVC at SSR for the same reason as you. Your thread has given me hope that you don't need to buy your dream home resort in order to book at another DVC resort within the 7 month window. We travel during non-peak seasons as well. So thanks, there's a lot of nay-Sayers out there. I also think SSR looks very nice, and we'd be just as happy there too.

Especially with our kids being in 4 different school, 2 on year round and the rest traditional calendar, we have to get creative with the times, so not always peak times..... Prefer low season anyways. I like so many of the resorts i dont mind staying at just about any of them depending on avail. Besides as the kids get older, their taste im parks they prefer changes too, they want to stay near MK next trip, VGF, VWL or BLT ..... And in several years poly DVC))))

 

[CluelessDisFan]

Absolutely! A Poly DVC would be my dream home resort.

 

[sydneysmom]

that is absolutely a well planned out trip, outstanding!!! it sounds like you had a wonderful time !!!! (BTW, Be Our Guest was our favorite too.... it was amazing!!!)

 

[It'sOffToDisneyWeGo]

Great job! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Mic]

Hi, Tim! I am a DVC member from NC, too! We have 4 children, and got tired of having to reserve 2 rooms, so DVC made sense for us, too. The ability to cook in the room is great, while still having all the on-site Disney perks. Your dining arrangement looks a lot like ours did back in the day. When we first purchased in 1999, our kids were 11,9,7, and 5. Now 2 have graduated college (1 is married, one engaged), and 2 are still in college at different schools. We started with 150 Boardwalk points...about 5 minutes later I was adding on already! We still use our points every year for a big family trip (complete with son-in-law, fiance, and friends), usually at Thanksgiving, and I rent out or donate the rest. Once I have grandchildren, I imagine we will be taking more than 1 trip a year, but I just can not afford to add-on any more points through Disney...WAY too expensive now. I do catch myself browsing the resale listings every now and then, though...

 

[TIMLEO007]

that is absolutely a well planned out trip, outstanding!!! it sounds like you had a wonderful time !!!! (BTW, Be Our Guest was our favorite too.... it was amazing!!!)

Thanks, my only regret is that we didnt book BOG more than once, the whole experience was amazing. I would have loved to have eaten once in each of the 3 rooms, they were all so different. I took pics, but with an iphone 4 they didnt come out that great, especially the dark room.

 

[hsmamato2]

sounds like a great trip