Future WDW trip budget help

[Charitycase20]

I am planning a WDW trip for the week of January 7-14, 2012. It will be DH, myself, DD, DS, DN, FIL, MIL, Mommy and StepDad. I am planning on staying off-site (looking at pool villas now). We will eat most of our meals there. I am looking at purchasing only 4 day tickets for WDW, maybe SeaWorld oneday/maybe not. Anyway, we (as in DH & I) will pay for the house, tickets, groceries and airfare for MIL & FIL from OKC to ORL. I am thinking about $5000. Too much, too little?! Whaddaya think?

I just thought the wise DISbudgeteers could steer me in the right direction.

Charity

 

[CowboyCO]

Are you flying from MD to ORL?

I usually budget $250 pp for airfare and then scour SW and travelocity until I find the deal I want. If it's within the budget, I book it early to get the flights I want.

Park passes you can do the math on. The big question mark is how much you will pay for the Villa. There should be some Smokin deals out there. Check VRBO.com

You could also check craigslist, but just check and make sure that the person you are renting from is registered with the state of Florida.

Good luck!

 

[PrncesKMW]

Costco has some great deals on Sheraton Vistana Villas. Also, All Star Vacation homes is GREAT! We stayed there 3 (or was it 4) years ago and had a 3 bedroom villa with a small pool for under $140 tonight. It was - and I am not kidding - 10 minutes from the house to the gate of WDW, even in traffic. Neighborhood had nice community pool as well. I know that the allearsnet site talks about these homes, and I believe MouseSvers may as well - good luck!

 

[torinsmom]

They may have open enrollment in January for the Youth Education Series program. It is a program where one or more kids in your party go to a 2-3 hour class in a Disney park one morning. Everyone in your party gets discounted tickets, about 60% of the regular price! Here is the thread about it.....

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2332767

If you could get those tickets, you could pay around $1350 for all the tickets.

We are checking out of 3 bedroom condo at Emerald Island tomorrow morning. We got it for $450 for the week and I would imagine January would be an even cheaper time to stay. Obviously, you would need a bigger place, but I bet you could find one for less than $1000/week.

Can't help with the airfare, except to say make sure you download Southwest's DING feature to get their specials.

I think you could do it for $5000

Marsha

 

[Glenn]

Since youll be there for a week check out the price difference for a 5 day ticket. It might not cost a fortune for 1 more day. Also register at mousesavers for info & discounts. You can save some by buying tickets thru 1of their brokers. On the way in you may want to stop at 1 of the Disney outlets if you want a shirt or other stuff. Last idea would be to look for sales on memorie cards during the holidays so you can have lots of photos. A friend of mine always uses several smaller cards instead of 1 large incase anything would happen to it. Good luck planning & enjoy the trip.

 

[torinsmom]

There is flea market called the Visitors Flea Market in Kissimmee that has lots of shirts and other souvenirs for great prices. They had a better selection and better prices for Disney watches than the parks. You might want to do souvenir shopping there or at the Character Premier Outlet at the Orlando outlet mall. We also got some Disney stuffed animals at the Kissimmee Walmart.

I agree that you could get more days on tickets for a few dollars more. At regular prices, a 4 day ticket is $239.63, 5 day $242.82, 6 day $246.02 and 7 day $249.21. It would be cheaper to do more days than to get a park hopper. You could only do one park per day, but you could do more than one day in the parks you enjoy.

I honestly would not bother with Sea World if you are only there for a week. I would do Disney and enjoy your pool villa.

Marsha

 

[Charitycase20]

Are you flying from MD to ORL?

Thank you for all the great advice so far!
My FIL & MIL will be the only folks flying, my parents and my little family will be driving down from MD, its about a 13-14 hour trip. I am budgeting around $1000 for airfare for the in-laws round trip (am I am bad person if I hope they fight me on their flight and want to pay for it themselves? ). I went to SW.com yesterday and priced flights for this coming January, hoping they will keep it in the same ballpark for 2012, they were running $162 each way. I have found several villas for under $1500 all included, just because we could all fit in a condo, but it would be tight and uncomfortable since we plan on "veggin" at the house on alternate days. Hence, only the 4 days of tickets, no hoppers. One day per park, chill at the house, in the pool, maybe do some either Non-Disney stuff or free Disney stuff (like DTD). I don't want the kids and everyone else to be worn out when we get back home, I want a relaxing kind of trip. Is that possible at Disney?
Anyway, any tips you all have for saving a little bit of money here and there will be greatly appreciated!

 

[brymolmom]

Thank you for all the great advice so far!
My FIL & MIL will be the only folks flying, my parents and my little family will be driving down from MD, its about a 13-14 hour trip. I am budgeting around $1000 for airfare for the in-laws round trip (am I am bad person if I hope they fight me on their flight and want to pay for it themselves? ). I went to SW.com yesterday and priced flights for this coming January, hoping they will keep it in the same ballpark for 2012, they were running $162 each way. I have found several villas for under $1500 all included, just because we could all fit in a condo, but it would be tight and uncomfortable since we plan on "veggin" at the house on alternate days. Hence, only the 4 days of tickets, no hoppers. One day per park, chill at the house, in the pool, maybe do some either Non-Disney stuff or free Disney stuff (like DTD). I don't want the kids and everyone else to be worn out when we get back home, I want a relaxing kind of trip. Is that possible at Disney?
Anyway, any tips you all have for saving a little bit of money here and there will be greatly appreciated!

I get that you want to relax and not do parks all day every day, but IMO it will be a MORE relaxing vacation if you add on a day or two of park tickets (IF it is within your budget desires) - the reason is this....depending on the personalities and touring styles...I am GUESSING that if you go for 4 days it'll be FULL, FULL days/nights. Very exhausting....If you add one day on, for example, you could hand at your villa all day long, relaxing, take a nap...then head to MK JUST to catch the spectro and wishes OR to EPCOT to watch Illuminations. That way when you go to those parks during the day you won't feel pressured to stay for 12 hours so you can see the nighttime show. For the few dollars more that it is - To ME it is worth it to just go and hang out at the park for 2- 3 hours at night so that I don't have to worry about wanting to stay to see it when we get to the park at rope drop. This might also be dependent on the ages of the kids - my kids get CRANKY if we try to do 12 hour days at the parks - so it is a MUCH more enjoyable, relaxing time if we do the nighttime shows by themselves after a day of swimming, etc. Anyway - just thought I would mention that even if you get an extra day or two - you don't have to think of it as WHOLE DAYS.

Since you're staying offsite and will have a car - my best budget saver is to bring food to the parks with you - fill up a soft sided cooler (or two - since you ahve a big party) with drinks, fruit, chips, sandwiches, snacks. You can rent a locker to keep it all in if you don't have a stroller. By far the BIGGEST savings, IMO.

For the 'free' day/days - you could consider taking a monorail trip around to all the resorts that it hits - checking out the resorts and maybe grabbing a meal at one of them.

DTD - is a good option - but IMO, not budget friendly as we always spend too much there.

Have you checked out houses at Windsor Hills? We rented a very large house there and had 13 people in it - it had it's own pool. I THINK we paid around $1600 for it total. Very good community to stay in. I recommend it.

 

[Charitycase20]

Thank you brymolmom for the tips! I understand what you are saying with the tickets, even if we had 3 days we wouldn't do 12 hour days. In January it shouldn't be too too busy (we hope) and this isn't going to be a once a lifetime visit. When the kids are a tad older we'll do it again just the four of us to "DO" Disney. I'm kinda feeling this trip to be a family retreat with Mickey and the Princesses thrown in.
Also, I'm afraid that if we had 5 or 6 day tickets (which would really cut into my budget) we would definitely go everyday to get our money's worth. Make any sense?

 

[Charitycase20]

Good morning!

Anyone else have some good ideas to help? I've got a quote on a 6B/4BA pool villa in Windsor Hills for less than $1300, does that sound like a good deal to you?

 

[hercamore]

One more thought, in January the parks close at 6 and 7 p.m.

We always had full days at the parks in January because of early closing.