How much do you spend on your vacation?

[bwvBound]

But, this last vacation cost $4700

Yep, that is pretty close to our pattern as well.

• $500 airfare for two (usually $240pp r/t)
• $3600 to $4200 in conference registration (~$2000/pp includes sessions, special events and most meals for 5 days; we search hard for discounted registration when/where offered)
• $650 Animal boarding (two parrots left "at home" with their vet)
• $140 Auto parking (1 car left in airport parking in San Diego; often we can avoid this by parking the car at my folks' house and sweetly asking them for a ride to/from the airport)
• $300 additional food budget (for the pre- and post-conference gatherings)

This year, we couldn't afford to send both of us to the conference ... so we bought a "full fare" ticket for DH and a "1 day only" pass for me. Of course, that left a whole lot of free time on my hands ... so I also upgraded my "free b'day" Park Pass to a DVC AP and had to spend a few dollars on food as I wasn't eating on the conference. We saved about $900 doing this ... but I hated the "1 day" access to the conference ... and felt "left out" the entire time. Not sure how we'll play this next year.

 

[Anal Annie]

OK, so I purchased DVC in the hopes of having a wonderful resort, great room, and great vacations. I thought we could afford to go once a year. But, this last vacation cost $4700 We even had groceries delivered. Now I'm trying to look ahead again for next year, but the airline prices have doubled. With tickets, airfare, and food, I can see we will again spend way more than I hope to. Believe me, it wasn't an extravagent vacation at all. The airfare for all of us and tickets for our two girls were $1500 alone (we had purchased AP's last year). I'm just wondering if everyone is spending this kind of money or if I'm not cutting back on something. I hear about people coming more than once a year and I don't know how you can do it!

It IS amazing how quickly it all adds up isn't it?!?! Just be glad that your accomodations are covered now and you don't have to add that on top of this amount!!! That does sound a little high tho...I'm sure you can do a little better than $1,500 for airfare if you set up some fare alerts and don't buy until the price is right. I always set up fare alerts on kayak.com and have a good feel for how low I think it can go and I don't purchase unless I'm pretty confident it's a good deal. I think when the low cost carriers (SW, Air Tran, Jet Blue etc.) release their schedules the bigger guys play a littler harder ball and prices fluctuate a lot. I watch constantly and keep the alerts "on" so I can be sure ours doesn't go down after I purchase it. They often seem to be at their lowest right when the schedules are released. (Farecompare.com is supposed to be another good site but I haven't used them because I love Kayak so much.)

We are lucky in that we live in the DC metro area so technically we have 3 international airports to fly from, although we never use National, only BWI & Dulles. We DO bounce around trip to trip from airport to airport & airline to airline for the best deal as long as we're in & out of the same airport on the same trip. It's about an hours drive for us to either BWI or Dulles so we bounce around as long as the price is right, the flights are direct and we can deal with the flight times. Parking is cheaper at BWI and we don't have to cross "the" bridge into VA so that helps with traffic a little bit. ANYWAY, we've most recently used SW, Jet Blue and Air Tran. Between my fare alerts and watching threads on the DIS Transportation board I was able to catch $129 pp round trip for both of our trips that we currently have planned. NOW, we DID have to make some compromises for our May trip over Memorial Day weekend in order to get that $129 price. I originally wanted to go down on Friday night and return on Monday night. That itinerary was going to cost us $199 pp or another $210. So we compromised and extended by a day. This trip is a surprise for DS's birthday so we figured since it was a special trip why not. It's only 2 weeks before the end of school, he makes the honor roll and has only missed 2 sick days all year. So I wrote a letter to the principal to ask for an excused absence for the 1 1/2 days that he will have to miss and got it approved.

OK, so back to money. This is what I figure we will end up spending this year:

May trip - 4 nights - using DME (free) and eating breakfasts in the villa (cereal & bagels which I will pack from home). Getting a case of water delivered from Costco for $6.97. Have not figured out our adult beverages yet. Might just have to suck it up & pay whatever Disney charges for this trip. Thank goodness it's a short one! I am also packing our own park snacks (some of those Lance vending machine type crackers - $2 for an 8 pack at Walmart). We will buy our AP's on this trip so that cost will be done ($1,179 for the 3 of us). We have 2 TS ADR's booked (1 for DS's birthday) so I am budgeting $450 for spending money for the whole 4 n / 3 days. We avg. about $30 per CS meal and I figure we will eat 5 of them so that's $150 + the 2 TS meals which could run $100 each with drinks. One thing I will also say is that now that we go more often we don't buy as many souvies. Maybe a new Tshirt or ballcap or something...but overall we don't tend to spend as much any more on junk.
May trip = $1,179 AP's + $387 airfare + $450 spending money = $2,016.

In August we're spending 7 nights at BCV then are going to Vero Beach for 3 nights. I have been pricing rental cars & I think we will likely use DME, get a grocery delivery and then just rent a car for the 3 nights we need it to go to VB. Unless something changes it's looking like that will run us about $200! I am budgeting $1,200 spending money for the 10 nights on this trip. We had a credit coming to us from Air Tran so I was able to deduct $112 from those flights.
August trip = $1,200 spending money + $275 airfare + $200 rental car = $1,675.

Total for our 14 nights is $3,691. We may very well try to plan for another quick trip on the AP's too for next spring before they expire. I am actually pretty happy with this amount compared to the damage we did LAST year!! We did 3 trips including back-to-back DCL's on the Wonder (4 n on points & 3 n on cash). Also, we were out of points 'cuz we did the DCL so we did 2 of our park trips with the DVC cash discount!! We bought Premium AP's and I honestly didn't keep track, but it wouldn't surprise me if we spent $11-12,000 by the time you add in excursions on the DCL's and everything else associated with these 3 trips!!!!

I just signed up for an Owners Locker this week to start for our May trip! I am hoping, hoping, hoping we can mostly travel in carry-ons. Now that most of the airlines are charging for every checked bag we just must. That's crazy. I KNOW we can do it for these quickie extended weekend trips and anticipate having to check 1 large 30" shared duffle for our longer trip in August. We USED to only travel with 1 carry-on for the whole family and we checked 1 large bag pp. But that crap's got to stop! I refuse to get a good deal on my seat but then have to pay for my bag to go with me!!

 

[Cyndibear]

Lets see......

We go 3 times a year, just myself and DH. Stay 8-9 nights.

Airfare from PHL to MCO using Southwest $278.40 round trip for both of us. Love it when the fare gets cheaper so we can receive a credit and apply it to next trip!!

Use ME, no rental car $0

2 AP's over 3 trips, $147

Grocery Delivery - $70.00

Dining - Breakfast in room, sometimes counter service for lunch, and sit down resturant for dinner - we budget around $550-600. We have a Tables in Wonderland card, so that helps. Snacks are usually $8-$10 a day, so $80. Total of $680.

The only souvenir we get are the cels from DHS, they come out about every 6-7 mths so we get one once a year at 125.00. If we want a tee shirt or something, we'll use the discounts for AP's & DVC. So, I budget around $100 for us (including splitting the cel over 3 trips)

So our total would be $1275.40 for each trip. Total of $3826 for a year.

We also have 2 Owner Lockers so that would be $248/year so, $82.67 per trip. Sounds like a lot but we have it stuffed so we only need carry-ons so it saves time packing.

We also have a Disney Visa, so our points that accumulate throughout the year ends up paying some of our dining each trip. My Mom also has a Disney Visa and is kind enough to let us use her points. It's not as much as ours but it atleast pays for one meal or so.

We collect a change jar which we cash in just before we leave so that gives us $100-150 to put toward the trip. Any extra cash we earn between trips, (rebates, tips - DH is a plumber so sometimes he gets tips, Pinecone checks, Bday money, goes toward our trips too.


Cyndi

 

[tink'smom2B]

Thanks for all the wonderful replies! I can see that we are spending money that we don't need to. We definitely won't rent a car next time. We only used it for one trip to Wal-Mart I think we should have used TIW, but I wasn't sure if we could use it at all the restaurants and during Easter week. Does anyone know if it was valid during that time? Also, is the Dining Plan good during Easter week? We only go that week because the winters in WI are horrible and that's the only time the kids have off If I don't get out of WI I will go bananas! (It snowed here again yesterday!) I will check out kayak.com and other low fare sites to see what I can get. Some of you are getting incredible airfare deals! I'm already planning our trip next year and really needed the input! Thanks!!

 

[Misty89]

our last trip to WDW was this past February, we stayed 9 nights ( offsite timeshare) but it will be about the same when we travel with our DVC.


Flight ( 4 R/T tickets) $970
Food ( $75/day) $750 for 10 days of food
car rental $200 ( will be put toward MVMCP/MNSSHP when we own - we will use ME, no rental car)
Tickets ( 4 x 3 day passes, we don't "do" parks every day) $960
Sovies $300 ( we love, love love to shop)
Groceries $30 ( drinks, breakfast items)
$3,3210

1)we eat all breakfast in room ( no matter in state or out of state vacations)
2) in WDW, we only eat counter service ( or made in room on non-park days)

that number for us will go down slowly, when it is just DH & I or the DD's and & I, the bottom line will be smaller.
I also would like to take a few trips that we do not visit any parks, just enjoy the resort and property

ETA: I wanted to note, that this is how my family travels now - in 10 years from now it might be different.

 

[Tara]

1 night trip in March for me: effectively -$200
I went for a girlfriends' weekend Fri-Sun and airfare was going to be $350, but by waiting until Monday to go home, I was able to get free airfare. Since my girlfriends were leaving, I didn't want to pay for a room on my own (we stayed at the Gaylord Palms, my room share was $160 for the weekend), so used developer points for studio. I had AP already (our 3 APs x total days use for the year comes to $26.70 per person per day), ate a few counter service meals and bought a few souvenirs.

May 10-16
Me, DH, DS
Airfare - $430 (1 tix free)
Car rental - $250 (ouch!)
APs ~$540
Cinderella's $113 I think
Hoop Dee Doo $150ish?
Groceries ~$100
Gas ~$20
Other meals out ~$500
TIW $21 (getting 20 days out of that, or $3 per day...or was the card $65? I don't remember...)
Water park admission ~$105
Airport valet park & fly ~$30 (I should have enough frequent user points for about 3 of the days)

So that's $2250 before souvenirs, snacks and tips. The nice thing is that the airfare was paid for ages ago, as were the APs and TIW, plus Cinderella's and HDDR. So out-of-pocket when we arrive will be about $1000. The funny thing is that the only total my husband ever remembers is the amount on the check out bill.

 

[M5ward]

I don't think you can use TiW on Easter, but I don't know if that just means Easter Sunday. In October, we packed oatmeal packets, pop tarts, juice, and cereal in our luggage (properly bagged, of course) so that our grandson's could eat breakfast at the hotel (OKW, 2 bdrm). I also had ordered in some items from the grocery list; although this could probably have been done cheaper through gardengrocer.com. We do have APs and the TiW card. We eat a lot of TS meals which usually include adult beverages for me (DH doesn't drink..he is my designated walker), so the amount we spend on food is pretty significant. I always buy little (which turns into a lot) things for my grandkids; but I think I've bought everything they have by now, so I'll cut down on that next trip. I always check EVERYWHERE to see if there is a DVC/AP/DisneyVisa discount...most of the shops and restaurants do honor these. We always use ME and Disney transportation except for a few occasions when we have taken a cab.
Your airfare does seem high to me. I like to get all my plans together as far out as possible. I know I could get less expensive airfare if I waited, but that would stress me out. Even so, we are going in October, and our fares for 4 adults (one lap baby) with seat and luggage fees and travel insurance is about $900 r/t. I wish I had some really constructive suggestions for you but I can only say that we do spend less with DVC that we did when we went down and paid the full freight.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

Here's our land/sea dvc May trip expenses: airfare for 3 adults @$54/each way approx. $340, $95 booking fee for cruising on points, $230 3rd person cruise fee, cruiseline bus before and after cruise, CS dining plan for 3, paid with Disney rewards dollars (so free),cruise and 3 nights at VWL all paid with points, segway tour $230 for 3, $100 cruise tips and $130 Hyatt regency the night before the cruise. Grand total for 7 day trip for 3 $1125.

 

[Entropy]

We're looking at about $5200 for 10 days.
This inclused 8-day park passes, dining plan, Kennedy Space Center, La Noube, House of Bluse Gospel Brunch, 3 day car rental, a pre-DVC hotel night and air fare from and to OAK. I haven't factored in souveniers, non plan food and tips yet.
We only do this every two years so I don't feel bad about spending this.

 

[Entropy]

It IS amazing how quickly it all adds up isn't it?!?! Just be glad that your accomodations are covered now and you don't have to add that on top of this amount!!! That does sound a little high tho...I'm sure you can do a little better than $1,500 for airfare if you set up some fare alerts and don't buy until the price is right. I always set up fare alerts on kayak.com and have a good feel for how low I think it can go and I don't purchase unless I'm pretty confident it's a good deal. I think when the low cost carriers (SW, Air Tran, Jet Blue etc.) release their schedules the bigger guys play a littler harder ball and prices fluctuate a lot. I watch constantly and keep the alerts "on" so I can be sure ours doesn't go down after I purchase it. They often seem to be at their lowest right when the schedules are released. (Farecompare.com is supposed to be another good site but I haven't used them because I love Kayak so much.)

Southwest has released their fares past Aug 14th as of a couple of days ago.

 

[jco_direwolf]

We tend to go at least 3 or 4 times a year for 3-5 days. Mid Oct, Week after thanksgiving, end of may (wedding anniversary) and often times once more in the Feb/March time frame.

I watch the costs pretty closely, after 4 years (not including our wedding) I've got some good numbers about what each trip costs, and averages. I do factor out the presents (birthday, christmas, etc...) Just on transportation (rental, and airfare) we can keep it to around $500 for 2. We normally board our puppy (which has made the last few trips more economical to drive and take him with us, he gets free boarding visiting with grandparents in Gainesville) but that is $30/day @petsmart. Then food, about $100 at target/publix, and $50/day (mostly table service DDE/TiW, so you could call it $60.) Then APs for 2 at DVC renewal rates, first year they where "Free" because of the wedding.

It's the food costs that I think kill most people. This is where you really end up using your kitchen at DVC. We get water, soda, coffee, yogurt, some fruit and some other snack food (like packaged trailmix.) We eat breakfast at "home", carry drinks and snacks with us. Eat a table service at midday (making it our "big meal", also lunch menus are often same as dinner, just not as much) and then maybe get a snack in the park later or when we go back "home." And on two occasions we have canceled dinner out, to watch some TV and eat at the resort, a box of chicken and fix'ns from Publix.

To be honest we started out doing two table service meals per day. And that was just TOO much food. Some days we skip the table service all together and just do counter service (typically Cosmic Ray's, or Fish and Chips @England.)

I would suggest that you save your receipts (or pull out the credit card statements) figure out where your $4k went, and see what you could have done better. As you go you'll figure out what works for you and what doesn't.

Discounts are HUGE. There are discounts if you have Disney Visa, TiW, DVC and APs. I know up till Y&Y opened in AK, DDE got your discount at the COUNTER SERVICE places. So when ever I pay for anything at WDW I always ask "Discounts for Visa, DVC, AP?" often I get the answer "which one?" "Any I have all 3."

Bottom line 3 nights at DVC (or 2 full days and 2 half days at the park), is right around $1200 for 2 coming from Boston/Logan. Before factoring in room, which has been running us a bit more (ty. a 2 bedroom v. studio/1br because we'll have guests.) But that would be about $600 per trip (figuring 100pts for 3 nights and $6 per point [$100/50 = $2 buy-in, and $4/pt MF.) So that kicks up up to about $1800 for the whole thing.

johno

 

[Crystal_27]

I'm just reading through some of your replies about your airfare and it makes me so depressed that you all (living across the country) can fly into MCO much cheaper than we can, and we are in ATLANTA!! We always end up driving to Orlando (only about an 8 hour drive) but I've not been able to find tickets any cheaper than $89 each way. It's not that I mind driving (it is convenient to have our car) but I wouldn't mind the option of flying once in a while either. Anyway, koodos to you guys for getting such great rates on your airfare.

To answer the OP's question, for a typical 7-day trip we spend about:

$200 for gas
$200 for souveniers (we typically pick out one thing each to bring home)
$900 for park tickets (obviously, our next trip we will have APs)
$700 for the DDP

We always use our Disney Visa rewards to pay for the tips but our total runs about $2,000. However, since we typically stay on the monorail, we would have to add in another $2,000 for a hotel stay, which I'm happy to say we won't ever have to pay again.

 

[Tara]

Tax Refund pays for the APs.

I wish I could say that! I just paid out much MORE than the average WDW trip costs me!!!

 

[HayGan]

I think this thread helps disprove a common misconception that many people have of DVC owners. While there is a wide range of income levels represented in DVC ownership, many DVC owners are also looking to keep their costs to a minimum and have nice yet budget vacations as well. In our case (as I believe with many others) we look at DVC as a way to have those great vacations at an affordable price.

I think that is what is great about Disney in general (not just DVC). You can have a fantastic vacation experience on a limited budget as well as a non-existent one!

 

[dianeschlicht]

Well, this year we have 3 trips. The January trip was $0 for airfare, since we used FF miles. We stayed at AKV for a week and OKW for 5 days, and our food costs for 3 people was just under $1000 for the 12 days. Our APs were still active, so no extra cost there. We did spend $ on a car, but I can't remember what that was....something like $400.

Our trip next month is going to be less, since we are still using the AP, and our airfare is again FF miles. It is just two of us for a week, so our only expense will be a car and food. We have the TIW card, so expect to pay about $500-600 for food for the two of us for the week (this includes all meals and snacks).

Our December trip will likely be more, since we are needing airfare, but I check weekly and will get the best deal I can. We have an advantage in that our "kids" are grown, so we only pay for them when we want to!

 

[christa112]

I agree. I don't include airfare into our budget because that is something we pay for before hand. We are planning on the DDP for our 1st DVC stay in January, so we will purchase base park tickets & DDP.

We are planning on going to Seaworld for two days which will include renting a car, so we will hit up a grocery store to get stuff for the room such as cereal, milk, snacks, water, juice etc.

I also do Disney Gift Cards for the kids before hand, so their spending money is all ready taken care of.

We are hoping to stay under $3,000.00, including airfare. But this will be our vacation for 2009/2010 so if we go over, no biggie.

Nothing will kill the cost of the vacation faster than buying airfare & passes. Hence, I don't include those but have budgeted for them in advance. They are what they are & I knew this going into DVC. LOL


Room - paid for
Transfers/parking - paid for/included (would be $90)
Food... I plan one reservation for each day we're there, and we hit maybe half of those. I bring a lot of food with us and supplement with items from the store.

Budget for the 3 of us for this upcoming 9 day trip... $500. Includes food beyond our home budget & a few small souvies (essentials such as refillable mugs, hats, light saber ).

 

[christa112]

Most definately. We would not be able to afford staying 8 nights at AKV in a 2 bedroom, savannah view without the DVC.

I think this thread helps disprove a common misconception that many people have of DVC owners. While there is a wide range of income levels represented in DVC ownership, many DVC owners are also looking to keep their costs to a minimum and have nice yet budget vacations as well. In our case (as I believe with many others) we look at DVC as a way to have those great vacations at an affordable price.
I think that is what is great about Disney in general (not just DVC). You can have a fantastic vacation experience on a limited budget as well as a non-existent one!

 

[pickles]

sign up www.mousesavers.com for their monthly newsletter..buy tickets thru a source like that..you can then upgrade those tickets to an AP if you like..save your dvc discount and get the mousesavers discount..

sign up at www.travelocity.com and put in your airport and get flights watched..do NO buy thru them..but watch how airfares are doing so you know which airlines webpage to go to and what prices are running

also when looking at airfares, keep changing your dates by a day until you find the lowest combination that fits within what you need..sometimes one day either way can make a huge savings

take the kids out of school..why waste so much money on vacationing when the rest of the world vacations?..all that time spent shoulder to shoulder with a herd of other folks..not my idea of vacation

you can get 2 trips (one a year) out of a AP if you plan a little staggared on the dates

that said..we are a family of 6, we are not well off and the airfare and feeding of the family kills us(we enjoy ts meals at disney and even the DDP can add up)

I feel your pain, and yes we spend about what you just did

one idea we had considered is just taking trips one parent one kid..rotating ..this way when money is a bit tighter, we get trips in, one on one time with a kid, and it can be a bit more affordable.

 

[Anal Annie]

Thanks for all the wonderful replies! I can see that we are spending money that we don't need to. We definitely won't rent a car next time. We only used it for one trip to Wal-Mart I think we should have used TIW, but I wasn't sure if we could use it at all the restaurants and during Easter week. Does anyone know if it was valid during that time? Also, is the Dining Plan good during Easter week? We only go that week because the winters in WI are horrible and that's the only time the kids have off If I don't get out of WI I will go bananas! (It snowed here again yesterday!) I will check out kayak.com and other low fare sites to see what I can get. Some of you are getting incredible airfare deals! I'm already planning our trip next year and really needed the input! Thanks!!

I actually had printed out the application for the TIW card prior to the price increase, which makes it not such a good deal for us now. Anyway, I still have it & it says the blackout restrictions are: Easter, Mother's Day, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve & Day and New Years Eve & Day. So it sounds like you could use it every other day of the Easter week except for on Easter itself. I found that it takes a lot of planning to get the money back for it for our little family in that you have to eat at specific restaurants. That's why with the price increase I don't think we'll get it this year. Neither of the 2 restaurants that we're going to for our May ADR's take it so that means to get the $75 fee back we would have to make a concious effort to eat at participating restaurants where we know we'd spend $375 on meals on our August trip. In other words we'd have to commit to eating at least 4 TS meals at participating restaurants where we'd spend at least $94 per meal (or else eat a LOT of CS meals in AK). And that's just to break even and recover the $75 fee. That doesn't GAIN us anything. Now that they've raised the fee I wish it could be used at more restaurants. But being on a budget means eating our fare share of CS meals.

RE: airfare....I think most airlines will at least give you a credit if you book and then the fare goes down. Not a refund, but a credit. That's why I keep my fare alerts "on" with kayak.com and how we ended up with a $112 credit to use for this year. I booked what I thought was reasonable then 1 of our legs went down $45 pp. Air Tran charges a small fee to make changes over the phone so I lost a few dollars by having to call to get the credit but we still got a net credit of $112.50 so it was worth it to me. It was good for 1 year. It was about to expire in January and they hadn't released their August itineraries yet (we hadn't yet thought about planning the May trip then) so I called and said I wanted to travel in August and asked if the credit could be extended. Well, that was worth the call 'cuz they gave me a 90 day extension for it!!!

 

[Anal Annie]

sign up at www.travelocity.com and put in your airport and get flights watched..do NO buy thru them..but watch how airfares are doing so you know which airlines webpage to go to and what prices are running

also when looking at airfares, keep changing your dates by a day until you find the lowest combination that fits within what you need..sometimes one day either way can make a huge savings

Kayak.com will do that FOR you!!!!!!!!! You don't have to go to all of these websites all the time which is very time consuming! They even provide the links to the sites where the fares were found or to the airlines themselves so you don't have to hop all around! It's awesome! There are sliders where you can select your timeframe for you flights so you don't get bombarded with flights that don't meet your times & you can select non-stop only and that's all you'll get. I've found that some of these other sites really ignore your preferences but Kayak does not. They also provide a link to a chart that shows what each airline is charging for checked bags. The alerts also have a little graph that shows all the ups & downs that the price has taken. And yes, you can also be flexible with your dates (or not) for these alerts.