How to save?

[missdorado26]

We are going to Disney at the end of august. I booked our resort with a pin and saved 30% off. (I booked it just to have it reserved in case another good sale didn't come along)
But other than resort, how do you guys save money when you go?
Park tix, food, extra entertainment. I've heard of undercover tourist and checked it out today but it seemed like we would only save $10-20.
Have you gotten dining plan and and didn't save?
Or did you not get and wish you would have as you can pick anything on the menu?

 

[Babsy]

Dining plan savings depend upon what you plan to eat. We have done the math and for us, 2 adults staying deluxe, the RO discount always saves money over free dining. If you are buying dining, you need to consider how much you eat. We pay less out of pocket than we would pay for the dining plan. So basically, the dining plan has never worked for me. Often it does work for others, however, so it is worth checking it out against your eating habits.

Typically, I have gotten an AP for room discounts and then a tables in wonderland card for 20% off meals.
We get groceries for quick and easy breakfast in the room, then eat a nice lunch at whatever character meal or restaurant we want (never consider price) and have a small dinner at a quick service or even go to a nice restaurant and just order appetizers or share an entree.
(BTW, you can pick anything on the menu when paying OOP too.)

We don't drink anything but water at restaurants (unless milk or juice is included, like at the Crystal Palace).

Souvenirs for children, I buy elsewhere for less $$$.

 

[missdorado26]

What is the wonderland table discount? How much is it? Where do you buy it?

 

[kmb584]

What is the wonderland table discount? How much is it? Where do you buy it?

Tables in Wonderland is a discount (20%) dining card that is available for purchase for AP holders and FL residents.

 

[abner1776]

Depending on your observations or viewpoint of the new FP+ system, some people are deciding to not get the PH option on their tickets and save the considerable extra charge.

I am neither encouraging or discouraging this practice, as it's very much an individual choice.

We found the DDP to be a good choice until a few years ago when they changed what was included and only lowered the price by a few $$. Unless you just don't want to worry about keeping track of your food purchases or have a bunch of big eaters, I don't think the DDP is worth the money.

Refillable mugs are nice but not worth the cost as you can't use them at the parks and I always hear complaints about the refill stations being to far from the pools.

If you are a coffee drinker, one way that my DW saved money on our trip a few weeks ago to the GF was to keep her cup and re-use it. Disney limits your refills on soft drinks but not coffee...hold on to your cup and refill it during your stay.

 

[minnie mum]

Tickets are hard to save a lot on. UCT seems to have the best discounts, and you can save a couple $ more on those with the Mousesavers discount. An annual pass probably won't be a value unless you plan to go multiple times in one year or want more than 10 park ticket days for a single visit. We rarely buy the PH option anymore- for our park touring style its a waste. And we've never bought the WP&M option- just not our thing. The resort pools are all we need. I would recommend that you buy your tickets before the prices go up this summer.

The DDP is not a saving for us, whether its free dining (we find the room only discounts better) or purchased. We pay less for our preferred way of dining by paying OOP. We get groceries on the day we arrive for healthy breakfast items that we can eat in our resort room. We will also buy cases of bottled water (the tap water is safe to drink, but tastes awful) and snack items for munching during afternoon resort breaks, or late at night. We do buy the refillable mugs. At $17 pp per week (around $2.50 /day) it only takes a couple of cups of coffee or sodas a day to be worth while. We usually do a CS lunch in the parks and a TS meal either inside the park week's a resort.

Even after all these many trips, we've never felt the need to pay for a lot of extra entertainment. There is plenty to see and do without shelling out more dollars.

We don't want or need more junk cluttering up the house so our souvenir spending has shrunk considerably now that a great deal of the merchandise seems to be lower quality stuff made in China. Have an idea of what you'd like to get, set a limit, and stick to it. Disney elevates product placement for impulse buying to an art form.

If you enjoy adult beverages, you might want to BYOB. Just not into the parks of course. The price of alcohol at Disney is not cheap. DH usually brings along a bottle of his favorite single malt to enjoy in the late evening while relaxing. You can buy a case of beer inexpensively at the nearest Hess station.

Sorry this ended up so long. Hope it helped a bit.

 

[jimandami]

For tickets, ebates has a deal right now that gives you 20% cash back on activities purchases via Orbitz. Disney tickets count as an activity purchase so you can save 20% but you would need to purchase soon as I don't know how long the deal will last. There is a thread about it on the budget board.

 

[gilesmt]

I have found several ways to save, some may not be able to apply to you but worth mentioning so others may hear.

1) military, they get a deluxe hotel for the price of a value. We have stayed at shades of green three times now for under $80 a night. Military also has discounted tickets, salute tickets, or the MYW tickets that are regular tickets that have to be bought by military but can be used by anyone, and you basically save the most only because you don't pay taxes, so if you know anyone who can get them they are the cheapest. Military also has cheaper messages, and now they have there own BBB. Food is cheaper there also, not the best but no worse than some of disneys quick service meals.

2) CM discounts, 50 to 60% off rooms, 20 to 25% off dining. Since my kids have entered college we know at least one student every year that goes there so for 8 years now we have been able to ask if we can at least use the room and food discount, we never use the ticket discount we let them save them for parents and such.

3) now since my ex is military those are my only suggestions for hotel discounts and ticket discounts. For other things here are some other suggestions to save money.

4) Disney costumes, from the park shop goodwill in sept when they put out halloween stuff, usually I can find almost every charactor there, take it home and iron it wrap it in paper and put in suitcase, on the trip put it out during rest time and your little one will never know.

5)my DGD want Elsa so bad for our trip next month and this maybe her last time before she ages out. No way am I paying $200 or more for it because Disney did not make enough for supply and demand. So I went on ebay and found a blue satin bodice dress with tulle blue skirt, and a white overlay around the neck and running down the back, it even has snowflakes I. It. It looks so close but it is a real dress, $24 shipped and she can wear it for Easter.

6) last year she wanted to be herself princess Aaliyah, we went to a Spanish store down town, got a dress in pink satin with a huge puffy underlay, $45, everyone in the park ask her to stop and take a picture, we kept getting ask if she was a movie star or what show she was on. Everyone already saw the Disney princesses, but she stood out. Also she stopped a few princesses in there track when at characters meals, they would say hello princess Cinderella or aurora and she would say they are fairy tales, I am princess Aaliyah.

7) she meals or buy kids meals, there is plenty of food not he kids meals plates for most people. Or if there are three of you buy kids meals and a salad to split. Not at counter service but at table meals, they kids meals now are like meatloaf, chicken breast, steak, and such and if you are a normal eater they are big enough for us, and I think we are big eaters. They never question you about this except if at a buffet, you have to pay adult prices.

8) ship you water from stables, and then bring ice tea or your flavors with you, nothing against this and it can save you a ton or money on drinks.

9) depending on your group size, split snacks in half, we have 4, 6 or 8 so we buy half and split it at 10 am, and the. The other half and split it at 8:30 pm, most snacks are big enough, some are not.

10) send or buy breakfast food, we don't eat big at breakfast, but we usually get milk and cereal, bagels and muffins for the week and eat in the room.

Sorry I don't have boys so no idea how to make things cheap for them, like dresses. Oh also, if military works, BBB not the name over there but is half the price of the ones in park.

I have lots more after 20 years of going on a budget but can't think now. Baby crying.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

Hi: We do not take the DDP anymore. We did it once and it was not worth it. It was too much of food that we wouldn't eat. It gave you dessert at lunch and at dinner and not an appetizer.

One thing that we do, is if we want to eat at a restaurant - we go there for lunch instead of dinner. We are a family of six and it has saved us anywhere from $60 to $100 for each meal. We did this at Akershaus, Biergarten, Crystal Palace, Cinderella's castle, etc. Especially if we go during the summer - it is a break from the hot afternoon. Then we usually get something light for dinner.

Hope this helps.

Enjoy your time in Disney.

 

[snorkelyn]

The Dining plan tends to be a better deal for families that have kids under 10 who like to eat at table service restaurants and character meals. We have 3 kids between 5-10, and we feel that $17 a day for the plan is a good deal. It allows us to eat 1 character meal per day, plus a quick service meal, plus a snack. Ala carte, that would cost a heck of a lot more than 17 bucks a day!

My husband and I are doing to Disney without the kids in May, and we opted to NOT do the Dining plan for that. Instead, we will buy Tables in Wonderland. Since we have 2 signature dining restaurants (requiring 2 dining points), the TIW discount is better.

 

[missdorado26]

yea last year it worked out well for us.We went during free dining and upgraded to the deluxe plan and it Was so worth it. it was an extra $500 but we did a lot of character meals and signature dining. It was our firsttime @ Disney so we wanted to be able to do a lot Character meals for the Kids.They were 2 and 8 so now 3 and 9 I think they will still want to do some. I did like that I didn't have to be Conscious how much each meal cost.IM just wondering now if We got the plan and had to pay full price for it if It would be worth it. It would breakdown to being $25 a meal per person. And yes my daughter probably won't eat$25 worth of food but whatever she doesn't easy my Husband an nd soon can eat since they are bottomless pits. Lol

 

[wiigirl]

For tickets, ebates has a deal right now that gives you 20% cash back on activities purchases via Orbitz. Disney tickets count as an activity purchase so you can save 20% but you would need to purchase soon as I don't know how long the deal will last. There is a thread about it on the budget board.

 

[monorailsilver]

I went In August and I have been saving since then for our next trip in 4 years.

I do a few rewards sites that give me some free Disney money, I use my Disney visa too.

Any spare change we find goes into the Disney fund. My dh will recycle metals and get money as well.

I used a TA for the first time since their rates were better then AAA. I like to go in August so my days are flexible to find cheaper flights.

My splurge is that I like to hop so I always get a park hopper. We just do 5 days but I may do 6 on our next trip because I want to go longer.

I don't do dining as for us it isn't worth it money wise. I thought about QSDP. It I do 2 TS meals per trip so then I'd have extra dining credits.

I looked at the menus and prices before we went and knew where we were going to eat for the most part (our usuals) and minus the 2 TS meals I budgeted $40/meal for the 5 of us and once I went to $50 but the rest of the time it was around $41-$43. I will only do TS on a non park day since we do take a mid day break and I don't feel the need to sit again after a long nap.

Unlike our prior trip, I told my family we would not be buying soda/drinks at the parks aside from a frozen slushie kind of drink. I really believe that helped us with the $40 budget. We did get the resort mug and I let my kids drink whatever they want (yes even Power aid) on our resort days. Those days we spent at the pool (there were 5 of them although 3 were 1/2 days due to our arrival/departure day and a water park morning). So in the parks we just drank water-I shipped it and used my sisters leftover water when her trip ended. My kids use the big thermos for school so they used them in Disney and their water was nice and cold, dh and I need to invest in those!

Oh and we ship breakfast down too-cereal, pop tarts, oatmeal, etc...snacks... Bowls, cups. I did request a microwave since my son has food allergies and I was able to make him Rice Krispie treats via the microwave.

And the best part was that I lost 4 lbs in Disney! I think it was because I drank water vs soda as we were walking the parks!

 

[Lynne M]

I'm going to move this over to our Budget Board.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I splurge while on vacation and don't really think of ways to pinch pennies but I do think of ways as not to be wasteful. Wasteful with food or money.

Some ways we save money that just seem to fit our lifestyle and vacation style are:

No DDP.

We eat breakfast in the room almost every day. Cereal, bagels, granola bars, fruit. We do 1-2 TS breakfasts the entire trip and those are early in the trip when everyone is just so amped up and excited so missing sleep isn't a huge deal yet . We do RD and that's about as early as I can get everyone up. My kids can get ready in 15 minutes and they literally wake up 20 minutes before it's time to step outside. Most days they don't eat as soon as they wake up so they will take a granola bar or bagel on the bus to the parks or most days wait an hour or two before they want to eat. Most days it's a cupcake in the parks or something like that. Hey it's vacation!

If we do TS we do it for lunch most of the time. We take midday breaks so before we head out the park and back to the hotel we do a meal. This works great because after a midday breaks my kids do not want to sit down and eat. They want to be in the parks riding rides. Made this mistake last trip and they weren't too happy with some ADR's.

Dinner ADR's are made on rest days.

CS meals we will sometimes share. Especially me and DD. She likes adult meals and I can't eat a whole meal nor do I want to. I can't eat much in that August heat.

We bring our own alcohol from home for pool time.

Buy princess dresses on sale back at home. Online or in the stores after Halloween.

 

[dpswift]

I found that buying soda and beer (when we had a car) was our best money saver. Everyone says to buy snacks but in our family we never end up eating them.

Plan your meals and share when possible. If you plan on many sit down meals price out the dining plan. I did not get it last year and regretted it.

If you have the Disney Visa look into what they discount many restaurants on included.

 

[eliza61]

We are going to Disney at the end of august. I booked our resort with a pin and saved 30% off. (I booked it just to have it reserved in case another good sale didn't come along)
But other than resort, how do you guys save money when you go?
Park tix, food, extra entertainment. I've heard of undercover tourist and checked it out today but it seemed like we would only save $10-20.
Have you gotten dining plan and and didn't save?
Or did you not get and wish you would have as you can pick anything on the menu?

Dining plan has only saved us money when the apps were free and the tips included.

I do pick any thing on the menu. In fact when I'm not on the ddp I eat more enjoyably and never worry about price for the simple fact, I don't eat steak and lobster every night on vacation.

So overall the dining plan would cost my family ~over 200 dollars a night (4 disney adults). the last time we ate on site totally (eating all our meals in disney restaurants) we averaged 147 bucks a night. INCLUDING alcoholic beverages.

 

[crisi]

We never save on the dining plan.

I think it depends on how tight your budget is.

If your budget is really tight - and especially if you drive - dump staying on site, stay offsite. Pack in sandwiches. Eat breakfast in your room and dinner offsite. Get an offsite room with a microwave. Bring in your own water and snacks with your sandwiches. Orlando has too many hotels - and if you don't need to stay at Disney then you can get some real deals. Buy tickets with the Orbitz deal and don't get hoppers. Limit your souvieniers - buy Mickey t-shirts at WalMart before you travel, haunt the dollar store aisles for Disney related goodies, buy some glow sticks at the dollar store for the night parades.

If your budget is less tight, skip sit downs (although with little kids a character buffet might be worth the expense, although the food is horrible) and budget souvenirs - on a first trip sit down meals simply take time - and time is something that you could be using for something else. Skip hoppers. Don't drink alcohol and pack in your own water. Take your own photos and don't be suckered into Disney's.

Don't TELL your kids about activities that you don't choose to budget for - i.e. my daughter didn't realize you could eat in the castle with Cinderella until she'd outgrown it. She didn't know about Bibbity Bobbity Boutique until the year we were willing to do it. There is no reason kids need to know about the pirate cruise or character meals - unless you are going to do them.

 

[eliza61]

I splurge while on vacation and don't really think of ways to pinch pennies but I do think of ways as not to be wasteful. Wasteful with food or money.

.

Im very much like this. For my family and me, we pinch pennies at home so we can travel in style (or travel to our style) when at Disney.

I know how my family eats so I use allears menus to get a very good estimation of how much we are going to spend on food then I budget maybe 10% extra for "just in case".

For example, every one says to "share" meals. seriously in the last 10 years we've eaten at almost every wdw restaurant and have yet to find one that we could split meals and everyone be satisfied. So I don't budget on the probability that we are going to do that. we tried every trick to splitting meals in the book and 20 mins after the meal one of my sons wants a snack

Basically we all like to get one memento of the trip so I plan on that.

I agree with Crisi on the activities front. My kids and dh for that matter didn't really know about the "extras" until I thought we could afford to do them.

Not sure of the age of your kids or if this is your first trip but when my kids were small, we tended to avoid the gift shops not attached to rides. This prevented meltdowns and 'I want" syndrome.

 

[crisi]

Not sure of the age of your kids or if this is your first trip but when my kids were small, we tended to avoid the gift shops not attached to rides. This prevented meltdowns and 'I want" syndrome.

Since most rides empty out into the gift shop its hard to completly avoid them - so you use distraction - as you are exiting the ride, start talking about the next RIDE. With some luck, your kids will be so excited to get to the next thing that they won't even notice the plushies and keychains and snowglobes in the gift shop.