torinsmom
<font color=red>I have someone coming to scoop<br>
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2004
- Messages
- 8,921
AlwaysI’d love to participate but my budget keeps growing. Please tell me we aren’t the only family who does this. We booked for November and since have changed tickets and hotels to more expensive options lol
That’s not a bad price. We are from uk and we are nearly 15k next time for the 4 of usThis is how much we spent over last 2 weeks in GBP. So accounting for terrible exchange rate.
Flights £1100 - x 2 premium economy using points (taxes and fees are awful from uk)
Town Car airport transfer £115 - Best Splurge of the Trip.
Hilton @ Heathrow £143
POFQ 5 Nights including 14 days over 18 days Tickets (including drawn to life + dining credit) =£2397
Lowes Portifino - £538 - incluing 4pm checkout and $100 dining credit
Marriott Swan Reserve - converted amex points but spent £660 on additional points -Resort Fees, Massages, Coffees and Fountain Milkshakes came to $437 dollars additionally.
Hilton Signia BC - converted amex points spent £600 on points.- resort fee covered due to points stay and $30 fb credit meant total bill at end was $237
Food Drinks and Merch - Haven't worked it out exactly but it was around £3000 (including the above figures)
Universal tickets were £654 for 2 adults. 3 park but we didnt end up doing volcano bay
After Hours = 145 each and dessert party 99 each
Total: £9695
Next trip won't be for at least 5 years.
Yup me! I have a solo trip in May! Originally booked GFV for 6 nights and just now extended my trip and added WL CL for 3 nights! My budget is blown!I’d love to participate but my budget keeps growing. Please tell me we aren’t the only family who does this. We booked for November and since have changed tickets and hotels to more expensive options lol
Updates:Our current trip plans - Sept 8-24 (16 nights) at the Dolphin. We are a party of 6. Hubby and I plus 4 children ages 7,5,2,4mo.
Room: Dolphin standard room with AP discount (code QWH), $4338.
Flights: Southwest, nonstop from Indianapolis. I paid around 22,000 points per person for 3 people. Hubby and I both have companion pass for our older kids. I monitor the flight prices every day and change them if they go down in price.
Dining: We budget around $400 per day for a sit down lunch and dinner plus snacks. We will do a few signature meals and character meals in that. We typically get a cocktail with lunch and sometimes a bottle of wine with dinner. Beers around the world at Epcot. Cocktails while the kids do the Wilderness Explorer books at AK. Drinks at the pool. We have done 30-40 days at Disney per year for the last few years and with inflation, that is what we have averaged. We typically just have a quick breakfast in the room or while waiting on transportation.
Extras: $25 per day. That averages out but is probably less. Our kids each get to pick "one thing" per trip and we use that as a bargaining chip if they start to misbehave.
Airport Parking: $9 per day
Transportation to resort: UberXL. Can range but usually around $120 round trip. We bring all of our own car seats.
AP's, $1499 each. My 7 yo has one currently so we need 3. Praying they sell them before our trip or we will have to figure out the best way to piece together tickets. Shouldn't have let ours expire
Room: $4338
Flights: $0 ($990 value in points, bags free)
Dining: $400x16 = $6400
Extras: $25x16 = $400
Parking: $9x16 = $144
Uber: $120
AP's: $4500 + tax so probably $5000ish
Total: $11400 + $5000 for passes = $16400 for a family of 6.
Dates -
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I think your dining expenses are a little low, especially if you're doing any character dining.We are traveling in August 2023. Family of five with boys aged 8, 5, and 3 at time of travel. These are my current working totals. The 162 DVC points from 2022 were free when we bought our DVC contract, but I figure they are still worth the 2022 dues pp.
7 Nights at Polynesian Lake View Studio: $1291.89 (162 2022 points @ $7.3859pp, 12 2023 points @ $7.9475pp)
2 Nights at Animal Kingdom-Kidani Village 1BR Savanna View: $556.33 (70 2023 points @ $7.9475pp)
7 1 Park Per Day Ticket for 2 Adults & 3 Children: $2,833.61
Roundtrip Airline Tickets from and to MDW: $1,579.78
Roundtrip Transportation on Sunshine Flyer: $144.00
Groceries: $200.00 (estimate)
Restaurants: $1,500.00 (estimate)
Souvenirs: $1,110.00 (estimate)
Tips: $100.00 (estimate)
Total: $9,315.61
Current amount saved: $10,552.55 with an additional $475.00 in Disney gift cards. Accommodations were paid for in December 2022.
$4194 for 16 nights at the Dolphin? That’s a really good rate!Updates:
Rebooked Dolphin for a lower rate. Now $4194.
Rebooked SW flights for fewer points. They had a sale one day and I rebooked for the lower rate. I forget how much we saved.
Uber XL: Just realized that we probably won't fit a family of 6 plus driver plus 2 strollers and bags into one Uber so we will probably need 2 or need to hire a 12 passenger van.
Food: We just got back from 14 nights at Aulani and our middle 2 kids barely made it to dinner time a lot of the nights so we will probably only do a dinner reservation every other night to give them time to pass out. I'm guessing $350x16 nights.
Room: $4194
Flights: Still $0
Dining: $5600
Extras: $400
Parking: $144
Uber: $240??
AP's: $5,000
Total: ~$10,575 plus $5,000 for passes
My wife and I are still debating restaurants. My original plan was and still is to eat at one QS restaurant per day, with the exception being breakfast at 'Ohana. We plan on eating breakfast in the room and lunch or dinner will be at our room or out of a cooler. I have a working spreadsheet of the park restaurants we will likely eat at, prices of our likely orders (starters, drinks, entrees, and desserts), and then calculated the tax and any gratuity that may be necessary to get to a total for that restaurant. I think my current spreadsheet has us spending around $1,300. But my calculations may be too low and they may change as well. My wife brought up the idea of only doing TS meals when we eat at the parks, which I'm not exactly fond of with how inconsistent my boys are at eating the food they order. I also did not factor in snacks, as we will have snacks in the cooler, but I'm sure they will get some snacks in the parks. I'm curious to see if my estimates are too low. I'll report back after our trip to let everyone know how well I budgeted.I think your dining expenses are a little low, especially if you're doing any character dining.