Frequent Visitors

[BadPinkTink]

Im a frequent visitor to Disneyland California, every June for the last 9 years, with a visit to Disneyland Paris every 3 years. Im a solo traveller for Ireland and my biggest cost is actually the transatlantic flights. I stay in a budget motel, this year Motel 6, and do 3 days max in the parks as part of a 2 week California vacation.

Im by no means in a well paying job, BUT I economise throughput the year and put money by a little at a time. Im very good at managing my money, lol.

Also in Europe we get 24 days of paid vacation, no matter the job, from the minimum wage burger flipper in McDonalds to the CEO of a multinational earning a telephone number wage. This means I can spend 10 to 12 days in California in June every year and still have paid vacation days through out the rest of the year.

 

[AngiTN]

We must be related somehow lol.
No decorating here, last time new furniture was purchased was in 2008 prior to that was before I was born lol, my dad uses a truck and a station wagon from the early 80's and their newest car is from 2010. They got xm radio for the life of the car and we all joke that the company doesn't realize how long that life will be. Unless something drastic happens to that car I'd say they still have another 10 years lol.
We also do all our own yard work mowing, shoveling... and my dad has "a guy" for house projects.
BTW this is the first time I've seen you on here in a while.
I know you were going to WDW. Did you have a great time?

LOL... yeah, we had a great time. I love how we get to stretch out on our longer trips. Less rushing/commando pushing in the parks, lots of pool and resort time with DGD. Having fun now trying to plan our CA trip for Christmas.

 

[AngiTN]

Rental car - for convenience as I said. It's clearly a luxury; car's already and after we get out bags we're on our way. If we stayed where the Disney transportation got our bags on took us to the World, we'd rethink that. But the bus system at Disney CAN be inconvenient, especially with small kids. And 350 only gets us so many Uber or Minnie-van rides.

Character meals - debatable topic obviously. Again, very small children who right now are very into Disney. Goin in July. We're going to eat anyway. I think it's a luxury that has a value given overall convenience.

And Disney is VERY smart in pricing. I'm a statistical analyst by profession and I admire their use of data. $1500 for two APs versus $1000 for 2 5 day hoppers. Obviously it pays to to do two trips in less than 365 days. Just like added days to the hopper gets to be about $10-$15 after I think the 4th or 5th day.


I appreciate all the diversity of responses here. Always love hearing from Disney fans!

A lot of folks do that, plan 2 trips about 350 days apart, buying AP every other year. Plus you get AP discounts on rooms, TiW cards, AP discounts on merch.

And somehow I missed you had littles. I thought you were adult only group. Littles do make character meals a bit different

 

[luvsJack]

I think, OP, that all of it depends on what makes you enjoy a WDW trip.

For me, I want a resort on property but it doesn’t have to be more than a value unless need be because of party size.

But, we are not going to eat mostly counter service. We like table service and we want at least one a day. We like character meals so we may do several of those. We like having park hoppers and we use them.

These are the things that make a Disney trip for us. For someone else, it may be more important to forego some of these things so they can afford another trip in a shorter amount of time. I want to enjoy the one I am on to the fullest and maybe not go back for awhile—not saying that those that don’t travel the way we do aren’t enjoying their trip, just that for us to enjoy our trip, we need to do it our way.

Same with any vacation destination really. We go to the Florida panhandle a lot. We want a room ON the beach. Not across the road, not down the street. I want to get up, get coffee and drink it on the beach, steps away from my room. So we would rather pay for that. Someone else may prefer to pay less for their room to have the money for something else. Neither is right or wrong.

I agree that Disney has gotten expensive. And what we paid when we first started going will not come close to pay for the same trip today even with less in the party or half the number.

I also agree with you on the character meals. To me, I would rather dgds be able to meet the characters while eating than stand in line for them. But again, it may not be worth it to someone else.

 

[NH-to-FL]

Anyway, my point (and I DO have one) is wondering if I'm just wistfully exaggerating how many people here go so very frequently. Am I a "weird" one on the boards who "only" have been once every 3-4 years on average?

I don't think it is outlandish to say that the active members on this board are most likely Disney fanatics who visit frequently. So it might not be an exaggeration that many here go frequently. That said I have seen many posts from people who are in the 'every x years' club. So you are by no means "a weird one".

I was blessed to have had a job that paid me well and since I worked for almost all of my career for one company I enjoyed quite a bit of vacation time. Though I didn't discover vacationing at WDW until a bit later in life once we started we were hooked. DW and I made yearly one week visits to the Boardwalk for many years which then turned into two trips trips per year. Three years ago I retired and we became Disney snowbirds with resident AP's. We have settled into visiting the parks about twice a week, except during the holidays.

Anyway - Disney is expensive.

No argument here. While we enjoyed deluxe accommodations for our trips we were frugal in a few places. We did rent a car, starting well before MDE existed, but saved significantly with a large discount through my employer. We are not foodies so we used our car to keep the room stocked with basic food items and only ate QS in the parks. We are also not into memorabilia so the gift shops had no attraction for us. My round number was around $3000 per trip which rose a bit as the years went by. But our "one week" visits slipped from 7 to 6 nights to adjust.

Yes, this is a huge thing too
We drive our cars for ages. We buy new mind you but then we keep them till the wheels fall off.
We don't get new furniture or have decorated house.
We do most of our own home improvement work, yard work, painting, etc. It's fun for us.
So all our "play money" goes to Disney. Others put theirs in different places. But that's because others prefer different priorities.

Yes! This sounds like us too!
We did get some new furniture when we moved to NH but that was back in '84.
So we saved in some areas to be able to spend at Disney.