How do you save?

[StellaMoosh]

My husband and i have been going to disney for many, many, many years.
We would go at LEAST 2 times a year and most commonly stay at the Contemporary with our kids(2 teenagers and 1 toddler/child). The contemporary is our favorite, despite being closest to my least favorite park. We havent traveled with our older girls since 2007 because they are in mid-twenties now. Although we have a 13 year old daughter to take
Its not that we dont have the money for the hotel rooms, but we think the deluxe resort's prices are insane If we are seriously going to spend THAT much money on a trip, we might as well go on a cruise
Ok, lets cut to the chase! We've stayed at the dolphin since 2008 and now we miss our contemporary!
How do you guys save on your deluxe hotel rooms?

 

[Sue M]

We go during value season, and get decent discounts on the WDW resorts.
If i were to stay at CR, I'd probably look at the Garden Wing to save $. But CR doesn't appeal to me.
If You don't enjoy MK, why not stay at an Epcot resort? BC/YC are great resorts, walking distance to Epcot.

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

AP discounts

 

[Wiley Coyote]

My wife and I were going to stay at the CR in April. Then, we saw the 30% discount come out and after reading some great reviews about the WL, we switched. We saved $2,400! WOW! We are still in the heart of Disney, have the option to hop on the monorail from the CR, can take the boat to MK and also have the bus option. For us, it was a no brainer. Try a different deluxe, the CR is really expensive if you stay in the tower. The garden wing is a good idea too.

 

[Mrs K]

We have three kids and have stayed deluxe since the third was born. I am always on the lookout for a discount code or special deal. I've been known to book and cancel and then re-book several times if I can get a better deal. We don't do the character meals anymore, and opt for more CS meals. We pick two or three TS meals during the trip. I haven't paid rack rates since the 90's!

 

[Belle83]

I've only stayed at the moderates and the Dolphin. We got a great deal at the Dolphin, but it was a non-refundable prepaid rate through Travelocity.

We are hoping for a room discount or free dining code for our next stay (we want to stay at Wilderness Lodge).

 

[francie57]

We love the Epcot Resorts and will be going back in Aug. Since there are no type of discounts available for our timeframe yet (if at all since Disney has said they are cutting way back on discounts), we booked through AAA and got a room discount with them. I saved over $800 so far and will change if a better deal comes out.

 

[Kimi313]

I agree strongly with the OPs, don't pay rack rates, try and find a resort with a good discount. We really wanted to stay at CR this year in the tower but with just a 5% discount we just couldn't do it so we opted for BC. We have gone almost every year since DD was born so what we have tried to do is stay big, then not so big, then big again. Sometimes with discounts plus going off season we have gotten to go big two or more years in a row. Hope this helps and have a great time!

 

[rentayenta]

DVC.

 

[my2lovedisney]

Not trying to hijack, I came to read what others were saying b/c I am interested. Please tell me what "AP Discounts" are??

AP discounts

 

[Kim1964]

Annual Passholder discounts.

 

[pmaurer74]

40% off pin codes is the only way we can "afford" it.

 

[kinggoofy]

Discount codes for us also. Whethers its for a mod or deluxe. its ALWAYS with a discount code.

Also, we pay off our room monthly. We always budget for a monthly hotel payment because we like have the trip PIF before we get there instead of balance due at check in.

By paying it monthly, it kind of keeps us "disciplined" in our spending for the month. Instead of wasting money on buying "stupid" stuff that 90% of the time we dont need anyways, we put it towards our vacation.

Also, me and DW are on opposite pay weeks. Usually every week we keep out $200 from our checks as "house" money.

Its only the 2 of us. So that money is used for food and our saturday night "date night" dinners out. What ever money is left over, it goes into a kitty..NOT TO BE USED.

We start our kitty right after we come back from our previous trip. So we started this kitty in September 2011 and at last check we have about $575.00 in the kitty.

For xmas and birthdays, people usually get me SWA gift cards or Visa gifts cards. At this point in my life i really dont want anyone to get me anything for xmas and birthdays...save it for the kids.

But they do anyways and they give me those gift cards which really do help out alot.

 

[Antonia]

We bought DVC because we enjoy staying at Wilderness Lodge and now that we have our son and daughter-in-law and two grandchildren there is no way we are going to pay for two WL rooms. So from now on we'll be staying in a DVC villa. And saving even more money by being able to prepare some of our meals.

 

[pepe of ohio]

We have always gone deluxe.......always in value seasons when rates are the lowest....always with a code, either AP, general public, pin, AAA etc....we always book room only for the bigger discount and never do the dining plan.whichever has the biggest discount we go it...might have to change our travel dates..but it's always value season......

We save more by eating OOP at CS and QS we like (don't care for the food now offered at the TS restaurants) we slit most meals are they are huge....and packages are not a money saver....room discounts interests us more and we don't like all the extras offered on a package that we'll never use nor want...we just want our preferred resort room, tickets and that's it...

Like an above poster said, WL, the secret to deluxe....on the lakes, under one roof in the MK area with boat access to the MK, FW and CR.....I know it's only good for families of 4+ one under 3 but those are the breaks....

Booking special views can run up the room cost too, how long will you actually sit and look out the slider or stay on a balcony...if we're going to do that, might as well be outside at the pool....we'll skip the expensive views....we rather stay standard, cheapest room value and make our stay longer...the secret to our WDW vacations and been the length...9-12 nights makes touring relaxing and ample free time to enjoy all of WDW other than just cramming in parks everyday....

 

[natfrac]

We rent DVC points, so we can stay at BWV. It's the only way we can afford to spend two weeks at our favorite resort.

 

[Karabee]

As others have said - we always go value season. It's the best for crowds and for prices. Last year we were able to stay in a Deluxe but spend what we would have on a moderate - that's worth it to me!

 

[tink_n_pooh]

This is exactly why we purchased DVC

 

[DisFanJen]

I don't want to turn this into an advert but as others on the thread have done, we drunk the Disney Cool Aid and bought into Disney's worst *ahem* I mean best kept secret and bought DVC.

Then we set up an account with Suntrust specifically for vacations and paid our dues and transfered cash into it to cover things like APs, TIW, Uni and Seaworld Tix, etc.

We just set up the DVC on monthly payments and pump the cash in each payday.

Use those points at OKW in the value season (though remember value for DVC is slightly different than for regular Disney rooms) and those points can really stretch!

 

[karmomof3]

My first time at Disney was Aug of 2010. We wanted to go last summer but did not have enough money saved so we saved for 2 years and we will be staying at the Poly this Aug. My DH is military and in training and won't be joining us. My niece who is 28 is joining us to help with the 3 year old. I have the military discount on the hotel and my neice will be paying for about 1/4 of the hotel cost since she will be staying with us and DH will not be coming.

So with saving for two years, military discount, neice paying 1/4 of hotel and airline tickets for $214 per person, I got a good deal. If we go next year, we will stay in a value hotel of off property.