How do you fund your cruise?

[cruisecrasher]

Just wondering, because I'd always assumed that people felt/planned like we did until our last cruise. You know what they say about assumptions, though!

So where do you fall on the spectrum?

 

[Anal Annie]

BIG planner.

We can only afford to cruise about once every 3 years...so we do a lot of saving & planning inbetween. First, we rebook onboard for the extra OBC and 10% discount and the smaller deposits and we give it straight to Dreams to get their onboard credit too. I have a bank account that I use strictly for vacation funds. I stash a portion of our tax refunds every year and whenever I come in under budget at the grocery store I buy a $25 Disney gift card to support our Disney habits. They can be used at the parks in the US or on the ship. I will also deposit "found money" in the vaca account like if I get birthday money or money for Christmas or something. I have a jar in the kitchen for loose change or singles from when I get change for something and whenever it gets full I deposit that. It might be $80 or so at a time but I save it all.

 

[TinkerKat]

Great question We usually use tax refund to book. But as for "spending money" I "siphon" funds from our paychecks one or twice a month and get a Disney gift card that I keep reloading all year long. 12 months @ $100 per month is $1200 come cruise time! Magical!

 

[cruisecrasher]

I'd always felt a bit like I snuck into my first cruise because we weren't done paying for our house (scrimped and saved so we could keep up on the house and still pay it before our booking windows opened, only to find some of our fellow cruisers were up to their eyeballs in financial troubles but still do Disney at least twice a year.
And some more extreme examples.
Was curious how DISers felt.

 

[Melcatfish]

We fall in options 2 & 3. We are debt free apart from our house but we still scrimp and save to pay for the cruise and spending money before we leave.

We have a couple of credit cards but hardly ever use them, so everything is paid before hand.

I am a compulsive planner of the vacations themselves but also how to fund them. I have a spread sheet where I list all the sources of income which may contribute to the cruise cost and I budget for everything before we leave. I then work out how many days extra supply teaching or how many scrapbook classes I need to teach to make it happen!

Mel
x

 

[redheadtove]

I'm a huge PLANNER...I don't borrow money to go on vacations because I hate debt. ( I hate having a mortgage payment but I need to live somewhere) So I have set up an account that is strictly for vacations. Every month money goes from my check account to my vacation account. When the vacation account has reached a certain amount , I know it is time to book a vacation. We are going on our second DCL in December ( I booked this one while one our first one in February) and I know that this will be our last DCL for a long time. I want to take my girls to WDW durning the Christmas season and DL durning Halloween. Plus their are other places in the world I would like to travel to. My motto is " You only live once, live each day to it's fullest"

 

[wilma-bride]

My DH is not Disney-mad (or vacation mad) like me and, therefore, he insists that any vacations we take are saved for and paid for before we take them. If we can't afford it, we don't have it. It has taken me a long time to cope with his approach to it but it does feel good when we pay the vacation/cruis off and I know that we don't have any nasty surprises or big bills to come home to.

 

[stargazertechie]

Blood money.

Ok, seriously though- DH and I donate plasma to pay for our travel habit. Our house and car is 100% paid in full, but we each have some consumer debt from before the marriage.

 

[DVCconvert]

100% I prepay for as much as possible...I even buy gift cards to cover on board expenses. Vacations are a treat, not a need and by making sure the costs of those are met in advance without lacking for our needs (plus saving for the future) we wouldn't cruise.

 

[Angelic Jennifer]

We are planners. We know exactly how much of each paycheck is going to go into our vacation budget. For our cruise next month, we paid it off a few days before our PIF date, paid off our dog's boarding, paid our tips, and have money set aside for parking. We also have a gift card going for our onboard expenses/excursions. We have always done Disney this way, so we don't have to go "out of pocket" while on the trip .. Cruising will be no different.

 

[Maddies Mama]

I chose 100% debt free except the house, though we don't have a house payment. We're 100% debt free except for my student loan. So, while not a huge amount of debt, it's still a debt.

We are long-time cruisers, but first-time Disney cruisers and our upcoming Dream trip is being funded by a deployment. If we decide to do another Disney cruise, it will either be funded by a deployment or income taxes. Otherwise, it would take to long to regularly save for and I am too impatient to wait.

 

[macm525]

I usually book while onboard and then pay it off each month

 

[pdwimmer]

We are of the Dave Ramsey variety, We're Debt Free!!!!!! We haven't been on a cruise for over 8 years. This is a splurge for us. Beans and Rice, Rice and Beans....

We have gone on vacation every year, but with points for hotels and airline and what not, and only within budget. We of course have no points for Disney Cruises so it's all cash.

 

[malacajo]

We usually plan way more in advance what exactly we're doing. Went to Disney in 2010, so knew that 2011 was out for a "big" vacation. Got a wild hair one day and called a TA about "regular" cruises (Carnival, etc.) and Disney cruises-knowing that we could probably never afford DCL. She pretty much refused to give me DCL prices and pushed Carnival down my throat. Well that doesn't go well with me, I became determined at that point. I eventually talked to our current agency and they played around with months and prices and turns out, we CAN afford DCL if we don't go in the summer months! Long story short-my friend had a Gold Party and I had lots of gold!! This was our deposit on our Disney Cruise, so no $$ "officially" left our accounts! We never charge vacations, or borrow so we will put a large portion on our cruise from tax refunds and just save the rest, if we do use a credit card at all while on board, I can guarantee it'll be paid for as soon as we return. I hate debt!!! Gosh I wish I had more gold though.....my husband and I saw how much I got, and we started looking down at our wedding rings...LOL I swear I'm just kidding on that last part!!! All of that leftover gold jewelry that I had from the 80's just paid off....

 

[AmandaRG]

We went for 7 years without a vacation, and worked to pay down debt. Now we are taking a few vacations, but will be buckling back down to get the rest of it gone (including the house).

Everyone handles things differently. I am not a fan of seeing all our $$ go out to bills every payday. We quit buying all the fun toys and going out to eat constantly. We live well below our means and I plan to keep it that way. Now to pay off all the dumb stuff we did in our younger years.

 

[MinnesotaMouseketeers]

I voted debt free (except house(except for us it's cars not house))

We save until we have enough and than book. And we have booked all of our cruises over a year out when the new year comes out, pretty much guaranteeing the cheapest price.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

We've been obsessive budgeters for the last 13 or so years. We put everything on a credt card and it gets paid a couple of times a week so we get the airline miles and a lot of our flights end up being free.

Mr. DisneyFreaks (who first started this account and always gives me a hard time about stealing it ) is also a CPA and in Finance, so he plans a lot of it out.

 

[com_op_2000]

All my cruises are paid off before I book them. I use DVC points for most of my cruises.

 

[onecoolpilot]

After watching the show, I may take up Extreme Couponing to cover my future cruises.

 

[amyren]

We are debt free (except for the house) and DH's income covers our bills so my income falls into the "fun money" / "savings" category. Since cruising is WAY more fun than saving we choose to vacation about twice a year.