Frugal Vacation Tips for WDW?

[jthorn1995]

We are going on Dec 1-6 to POP and have ended up with free Dining! YAY! I know I would have caught the deal myself, but we use The Magic for Less Travel (2nd time!) and they actually catch the deals and book all their existing reservations so no one misses out on the Free dining- or whatever special- at the resort they are originally booked at! SAVED ME $450 or more! I did pay about $40 to upgrade to regular dining, and they make all the ressies I want--I just tell them where and the time frame I want that day. You NEVER pay an agent- ANYTHING! I love it!

and In my little money-saving folder I have:
$50 Visa-Debit card from Suntrust Reward points (Spending money for DD9)

$25 Rainforest Cafe Gift Card earned by reading Mypoints! (PM me for a referral! I have been doing it since 1998!)
I also have the coupons from the webpage that will reduce the amounts of feeding the kiddos!

$30 Gift Cert from O'Charley's (for doing a mystery shop that only cost me $14 the first time!)

$6.50 Child's ticket to Titanic the Experience (Normally $12.95) purchased for HALF OFF at Half-off depot.com!

$BOGO coupon for the Adult admission to the Titanic the Experience from the Orlando Entertainment Book--NO WAY did I buy the book-
I checked on Ebay and someone was selling 2 of these BOGO for only $3.50! Normally the admission for an adult is about $19.
We are getting in for a total of $19 + 6.50= 25.50
It could have cost us $19+$19+$13= $41!

I saw a posting on my Yahoo Group "The Mouse for Less" of a poster that was pregnant and was having to sell her MVMCP tickets that just HAPPENED to be for our first day/ night in the MK! She had 3, we needed 3. At $50 each, we saved about $4-8 on each ticket! YAY!!!

I pay the trip down every couple of months- after the $200 deposit- we have til 45 days out to pay it off if you stay onsite! We just tell the TA when to make a payment!

After that- any extra cash is for GAS and spending and tips!--My goal is $500, as our gas will be about $200.

I am doing mystery shops and have found that the fall festivals are neat ways to make some quick cash--$2 a head adds up quick when you are spraying kiddos hair in all kinds of funky colors!! They LOVE it!

We also did the Give a Day, Get a Day and have free tix into the parks for one day.--gonna use that for an evening at DHS instead of paying for hoppers.




I LOVE reading these things!



Jen in GA

 

[rubato]

We bring a suitcase with snacks and breakfasty items.

Free water in the parks.

Value season.

Little to no souvenirs. We just bring them with us from the last trip.

Use Disney transportation. It's free.

Don't do the extras, like Disney Quest, La Nouba, etc...

We share 2 CS meals between the 3 of us for lunch. Use the 1 extra for my hubby and son to share a breakfast. I don't eat breakfast, so that works. Or, they eat breakfst in the room.

We say NO a lot to our child.

 

[irisesareblue]

We always take our own bottled water to the parks, then refill the bottles from the water fountains. Last year in August, it was so HOT in the parks that we asked for ice water from the Counter Service restaurants and got cups full of nice cold water (the Florida water doesn't taste so bad when it's cold).

We always go to Walmart and buy groceries/snacks and we eat breakfast in our room - we usually then have snacks and lunch in the parks, then have and a light evening meal in our room (we always try to get a room with a fridge).

I usually use priceline or stay in a private rental villa (depending on how many are coming along with me!). I know that Disney transport is great when staying onsite but I always rent a car so that I can get back and forth to the airport and to grocery stores, etc. (although if you are staying onsite you won't need a car because of Magical Express). I have an Annual Pass so we get free parking. (only one person in your party needs to have an AP to get discounts on the restaurants & shopping or Disney rooms or free parking).

Hubby and I always share meals - the portion sizes at Disney and at chain restaurants are huge!

I LOVE this thread!

 

[princess isabella]

I can't send PM messages yet. Can you tell me how to do the my points. I would love a gift cert for rainforest.

Thanks
Jen

 

[DisneyFansInLINY]

I know that the kid's menu is for guests under 9 years of age but at the quick service locations no one ever asks to see the kid so we have ordered from there for a quick and cheap meal/snack. I especially love the kid's grilled cheese at the Poly.

 

[dfchelbay]

I have seen posts where people pack lunchs and bring them into the park with them..

We visit our local dollar store and buy glow in the dark stuff that comes out of my bag during parades etc.

instead of souviner shoping, we souviner SNAP... we take turns picking things to "snap" photos of and those pictures go into the digital photo frame in my son's room to help us "remember" the trip... works much better than normal souvineer's

I'm totally going to steal your souvenier snap idea. I do something similar at home. When we declutter and get rid of things, I take photos of things I felt attached to or thought fondly of before they go off to Good Will. A digital card, photo cd, or printed photos take up far less room than the actual thing which is the subject of the photo.

 

[baby1disney]

I know that the kid's menu is for guests under 9 years of age but at the quick service locations no one ever asks to see the kid so we have ordered from there for a quick and cheap meal/snack. I especially love the kid's grilled cheese at the Poly.

I have never thought about doing that!! I could order from the kids menu and save a lot more money!!!

 

[torinsmom]

**Get free ice water. We bring flavor packets. Saves money and calories.

**Buy kids meals. They don't care at the CS places(I asked) Its plenty for me and even for DS16.

**Give kids a set amount of money for souvenirs and when its gone, its gone.

**Eat offsite for some meals.

**Stay offsite. Last June we got a 3 bedroom EI condo for $490/wk after all the taxes. It was great!

**Bring in snacks, like cookies and fruit snacks. We get one snack each at the parks each day.

**Get YES tickets when possible. Those were almost 1/2 the price!

I can have fun and save money at the same time. I am a great multi-tasker, LOL

 

[crazelion]

join rewards programs like quickrewards.net , mypoints.com , simplegpt , irazo, zoombucks , etc . I paid for my whole trip this year with rewards programs.

Here list of gift cards I had:
Marriott gift cards paid for the hotel in full. Caught a great deal for Residance Inn for 49.00 a night.

Gas cards from mypoints

Restuants cards from Chili's, Applebees, Burger King, Cracker Barrel

Visa cards from mypoints for emergency

Free tickets US from mycokerewards.com

Did mention I paying for Christmas this year with rewards programs.

 

[HS3kids]

Just wanted to add that gardengrocer.com has a $40 minimum purchase, plus a $12 delivery charge. Still well worth it to have a case of water, some breakfast foods, milk, fruit, etc. We also brought a box of granola bars and some single serving bags of nuts as well from home.

Like a PP we also got glow sticks, wands, swords, bracelets from the dollar store for night time activities, and brought our own rain ponchos ( 88 cents each at walmart- of course it didn't rain even once on our trip, because I was prepared for once but I am not complaining!)

Getting some good ideas from this thread- keep them coming!

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Bring your own snacks and drinks into the park.

 

[Brandi1leigh]

I haven't seen this tip. Sorry if I just missed it.

Shop restaurant.com for low price gift certificates to restaurants. While actual Disney restaurants aren't on their site, The Swan and Dolphin restaurants, DTD, and lots of places on I-drive are there. You can pay 10 for a 25 certificate. And sometimes they even run specials, where you can get them even cheaper.

 

[Puget Peach]

I use my Discover points for Olive Garden Restaurant gift cards. They are good at any of the Darden owned restaurants that include Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, and Longhorn Steakhouse. There are many of these close to the Disney property.

IF you plan to visit once a year, buy annual passes. It's about the price of purchasing two 7 day tickets with no additional options and you get to hop! If you stay two weeks each trip, you can visit parks EVERY day (max regular tickets are 10 days). My favorite is to take a lazy day at the resort pool and then visit just for the parade and fireworks. Much better than tired feet at the end of a long day to enjoy these activities.

You also get FREE PARKING and some shopping and dining discounts.

The trick is to plan the second trip just prior to the expiration date of the passes.

And If you get the chance to do a last minute unplanned trip, you don't have to budget extra for park tickets!

 

[Stan Solo]

After a long flight getting up at 3:00am to catch our first flight we just want to take it easy the first day.

I plan to bus from POR to DD walk to Hess Mart and get a case of water and some snacks for the week. I figure since this is our first trip we'll get used to how the bus system works, stretch our legs, explore and save a bit on bottled water and snacks.

 

[jjsmom]

We purchase our own park tickets (no magic your way) to have at least 1 "down day". We catch up on sleep and at a leisurly pace we use WDW transportation and tour other resorts. We may window shop at the fancier stores, but rarely purchase anything. Maybe we'll have a drink at the GF or BC cabana. It makes us feel rich. Sometimes we just sit around and people watch and then go back to our value, or back to paren'ts place in Kissimmee and go to the pool. This restful day helps us enjoy the rest of the vacation and resort amenities. And it's cheap fun

-If staying onsite, a light breakfast in room, then early lunch at a counter service (this also saves time, since around 11 oclock, the crowds are light).

-ask for cups of water in parks, free, and a lot cheaper than 2.50 for bottled. No vending machine rule, always our own snacks in room. Frankly, I haven't been able to make the refillable mug thing work for me. I just don't use the fountain enough. I guess if it's part of a package/free it would be worth it.

-rewards programs and restaurant.com for dining out.

-order items alacarte at counter service and share the sides. Order kids meals (although some restaurants caught on and began just offering those flat pb & j things, yuck, I want real food!).

-we always gave our daughter a budget for souveniers. When it's gone it was gone (we would help her with the math of course )

 

[MapleGirl]

I'm working on our budget trip(s) for 2014. Last night DH and I were talking about getting an AP and squeezing in 3 trips for the year!!! (Big news since we're currently abstaining from Disney... our last trip was January 2010. It seems like a lifetime ago.) Here are our money saving plans:


~ We're using our Disney Visa card for all purchases from now until the trip (and paying it off in full every month) so we can get Disney dollars to help pay for the AP's.

~ We have a couple of unused 1-day passes from a previous trip when we had AP's but had to buy passes to get Free Dining. We will be using these to get into the park then immediately upgrading them to our new AP's.

~ We will either stay at a Value resort if there is a good discount or use a government employee discount website to rent a timeshare for a week at a reduced rate. (Right now the Wyndham Bonnet Creek is listed on getravelop.com for $369/week. I'm hoping to see this again for our trip! )

~ We'll go to Super Walmart or Target and get groceries for breakfast, snacks and dinner to have in the room.

~ We will have a good breakfast in the room before we leave for the parks. Probably egg and bacon sandwiches. These keep us going for hours. It's all about the mix of protein and fat, baby!

~ We will likely not have any sit down dinners in WDW and very few dinners out.

~ We will share beverages when we get something besides free glasses of water and will share counter services lunches.

~ I like getting the double bacon cheese burgers and sharing but will probably bring an english muffin rather than asking for an extra bun. The buns WDW uses are not very good.

~ Rather than buying shirt I'll make our own using iron on decals at home before we go.

~ We'll choose one airline to fly for all our foreseeable trips so we can bank frequent flier points and earn a free flight in the future.

~ We'll have a budget for souvies and likely know in advance what we want to get. (2 coffee mugs, a pen, some mouse ears, etc...)

~ I'll use mousesavers and also look for government discounts to find a good deal on a rental car.

 

[DawnM]

We stay off site for under $200/wk including taxes for a 2 bedroom condo through SkyAuction

We take our own food into the parks most days with a backpack cooler

We only eat Disney food with our Disney rewards dollars, otherwise it is our food, and typically the kids prefer to take our own food in and save the Disney rewards for places like T-Rex. Oh, and T-Rex and Rainforest both had kids' meal coupons for .99 each.

We hire a neighbor teen to watch the dogs.

We drive instead of fly

We get YES tickets for $150 that include 5 hoppers and 4 vouchers to waterparks and Quest OR we do APs and go more often.

 

[jm-mom]

One thing we have done that saves a bit of money is to guage hunger rather than just order a meal for everyone at an appointed meal time. Our kids will get hot and tired and this zaps their appetite and they simply don't eat all of what we've paid for. Now we often order less food than we have people and we all share. This has helped us stretch our free dining too. Also don't forget ice water. In the Florida heat it's the best refreshing beverage for everyone. You can get ice many places in the parks for free. We have found we save money on souvenirs by waiting until the end of the trip to buy. By then the kids have gotten over the idea of wanting everything they see and are more able to make reasonable choices. I also bring a small jar of peanut buter from home and will buy bread at the resorts for quck, protein rich, breakfast sandwiches ore late night snacks. Bagels also travel well so you could bring those from home. Disney is expensive, no doubt, but there are simple ways to save at least a few dollars.

 

[mom2t]

We went in Jan. '08 for my son's first trip. I bought alot of things before hand on clearance through the online Disney store. I found super deals on Christmas Eve day - sweatshirt, tshirt, hat, pins, toys ect. Mickey Mouse "sent" my son a box ( I ran home one day before I picked him up at daycare and put it on our front porch) and letter telling him how excited he was to be seeing him soon at Disney. We even used some of the things again when we returned this Jan.

We also saw alot of people carrying in food this year. We stayed at OKW and also did it several days after paying $30 for lunch 1 day.

 

[ginna74]

am bumping because I want to see more ideas. We are going on a vacation <not Disney > and dont want to pay 15 dollars a day for a fridge for 5 days. We would have only needed it for milk in the morning so we are going to fill the sink with ice then put the milk in then cover it till the morning, problem solved.