We've gone twice for 2 weeks for under 3,000 each trip. We drive, one time stayed at a private condo with pool offiste with our dogs. One time in our RV at the Fort. Although I sometimes plan a budget trip, alot of ours naturally end up being "budget" trips. we homeschool so we don't have time restrictions, and I like the drive and stop along the way. Because we are vegetarians, I don't want to eat the same junk over and over and I don't really enjoy eating out somewhere fancy with the little kids, I tend to make food. I tend to like the more space you can get offsite, (even our rv feels like more room than some onsite places, because we have a private queen sized bedroom, and each kid has their own bunk and space for their stuff) and want a kitchen too since I'm cooking. I think if I were going with just the hubs, or when trips are shorter due to kids being back in school, I may feel different. I've have also determined that my crew does better when I take a day or two off from the parks every few days and just enjoy the pools etc. explore the hotels etc. so we get cheaper tickets... I certainly don't feel deprived by our less costly experience, we try to do one special experience each time and if there was something we wanted to do , I would make sure it was in the budget, but for me getting there or wherever we are going and having fun and making memories with the kids is the important part. We just got back from a trip to san antonio where we went to six flags, the zoo, the alamo, a wildlife ranch etc and I asked my kids what was the best part. The three year old said "the elevator" , the 8 year old said eating a picnic on the floor, and my 11 year old liked just playing in the pool (the kids swim so they aren't used to just playing in a pool) in the hotel and taking pictures of a REAL cactus. For me it was just being together without a big to do list, and my dh was just happy to have us there, if we had skipped all the other stuff we all would have still had our favorite memory from the trip.