Keeping costs down on DVC vacations

[Tiger926]

We started out with 175 points, 6 years ago @ SSR. We could stay for 10 nights in a studio in July. Dues were $800.00 and buy in $420.00, so it was very reasonable @ approx $1300.00 (sometimes more due to fluctuating exchange rates).

Fast forward to today - we now own 360 points (SSR & AKV). We stay for approx. 12-14 nights in July/August in combination of studios and 1 beds. We added on as we had our son, so with 2 opposite gender children, 4 years apart, we were seeing space and sleeing issues. Dues are $1750.00 and buy in is $720.00 for a total of $2500.00.

We are now at double our original vacation totals for only a few more nights. Of course, everything has gone up in regards to food as well as we now have 2 hungry kids to feed. We love TIW, and like to eat breakfast in our villas (occasional breakfast buffet), and 2 TS meals per day. The frugal girl in me is now cringing when I see a total of almost $5000.00 for 2 weeks @ WDW each summer. FYI - we go for 2 weeks as I'm a teacher and we drive from Canada, so in order to keep transportation costs down, we do it 1x per year.

My hubby thinks I'm nuts, as he says that's very reasonable, considering the accommodations, annual passes and 2 TS meals per day, plus snacks. I am thinking that having a 1 bedroom for 6 days and not using the kitchen is silly. I want to cook more in our villa, but hubby says it's not worth it when we the 4 of us can eat lunch for like $40.00 (we get 3 adult meals to share and bring our own bottled water).

I am very analytical, introspective and frugal, so now I'm feeling great regret for doing our add-ons, and for eating out at so many TS meals. Actually our total food budget is good as we have 23 TS meals, 2 CS meals and 4 snacks per day budgeted for less than $1500.00 for 2 weeks - that's 2 adults, DD7 and DS3. But, that's several months of groceries for us, and that's a lot!!

I wouldn't change being DVC members at all, and I am so grateful for it. But, I am wondering if we should have just kept our 175 points at SSR for as long as we could, and added on once kids are older? I am conflicted because even with 360 points, we can't stay in 1 beds for the whole trip, so this trip, we have more studio nights than 1 bed (although this is because we squeezed an extra trip in March).

Not sure if our add-ons were a good choice? Does anyone else feel guilty about their DVC purchase? If so, how do you rectify these feelings? How else to keep costs down?

Tiger

 

[corpcomp]

If your vacations don't completely financially strap you, you should not feel guilty, especially since you are taking your kids to a wonderful place.

We are adding on in small increments, generally about 30 points at a time but only have 270. And I would imagine that the airfare from Canada must be a good part of your expense, unless you drive.

As long as you enjoy yourself, you should not feel guilty about spending the money or buying addons.

During the weeks that we stay, we generally spend about $500 per week on food (three of us) but have two disney visa cards and we build up enough points to completely pay for two weeks of food every year. Perhaps you might want to look into that. It's one less thing to think about.

 

[lizanne]

We have 400 points and through careful planning (on my husband's part, certainly not mine) we managed to go to OKW every year in a 2 bedroom with our 5 kids. Usually for about 10 days.

We would get annual passes and if the activation date on the passes was July 1 of one year, we would make sure the next year our trip was finished by June 30 so that we could get the maximum use (for us) of the passes.

Breakfast was usually in the room and because we were there in the summer, and it was really hot, we would go back to the room in the afternoon. Sometimes we would have TS for a late lunch, or TS for dinner. We always had something available in the room in case someone wanted a sandwich or snack. We really couldn't eat 2 TS meals in a day & breakfast. It was just too much food (and we're large people who like to eat - 4 of the 5 kids were growing boys).

I've used the past tense because my sons & 1 daughter are grown adults now.

I'm not telling you what to do, only telling our story. There are definitely ways to cut back on expenses while in WDW if you want to. Maybe you can come to a compromise with your husband.

Selling points will save you in dues but what will it cost to buy back in, and what size accomodations will you be able to get. In my opinion there is a big difference between a studio and a 1 bedroom.

 

[Sandisw]

I don't know if this would work for you (and maybe you already do this) but we will be going every summer (I teach) but making our trips 51 weeks apart so we can use our AP for two trips and only have to buy it every other year.

But, if you can afford the $5000 you are spending for a 2 week vacation, then I say continue to go for it!

We did a beach trip a few summers ago and it cost us a little over $3000 for only 1 week for a 2 bedroom oceanfront condo and our meals. The only fun we paid for was going to play putt putt a few nights.

So, really, for two weeks, that is not bad at all!

 

[Deb & Bill]

We used to have 500 points. We sold off two contracts so we now have 325 points. We might sell off another when resale prices go back up.

We don't do the dining plan. We do get APs and try to schedule trips so we get two trips out of the AP.

 

[El&Asmom]

I agree that 5k for 4 people at WDW for 2 weeks isn't that high. Some people pay well over that for a week at the Poly. It is a lot of money, so if you're trying to save, I would cut back on TS meals over selling points. I would rather be at WDW and eat a few more meals in the villa than be at home.
We have gotten to the point where we are less excited about the TS choices. But we're from Chicago, and have great restaurants around here, so dining at WDW doesn't always seem that great.

 

[toniosmom]

We save the most money by eating most of our meals in the villa. I dont' make anything elaborate -- it's all about quick and easy, so it's no big deal to "cook on vacation".

If you are really that worried about it, why don't you cut out the lunch TS meal? You can have a cheap and easy breakfast in the villa and pack sandwiches for lunch. When we did this for the first time last year, I found that we had SO much more time on our hands to spend in the parks or simply relaxing at the pool. It was great....and significantly cheaper.

 

[disneynutz]

Your room is just a small part of the overall costs. It's everything else that really adds up. Here is what we do.

Book SWA airfare using frequent flyer points from our credit cards.

Limit eating in Disney restaurants to 2 days out of 10.

Rent a car using discounts.

We do our shopping at Publix and Walmart. If we have a large group we shop at Costco.

We don't visit the parks as often as we use to, so we buy non-expiration 10 day tickets from a ticket discounter.

Look for discounted gift cards for the non Disney restaurants. We can buy a $100 card for $80 for some DTD restaurants.

We cook simple food just like we are at home.

We will also eat off site if we feel like it. Nothing fancy, good food, reasonably priced.

We limit the shopping for stuff while at Disney. Way over priced, average quality and everything is made in China.

Bill

 

[Tiger926]

Thanks for all of your thoughtful replies. Here a few of mine:

Extra spending - We don't really spend extra, which is why I didn't list much. If we purchase anything, it may be 1 toy the kids earned, or a shirt, and that's it. There isn't really anything to cut here.


Accommodations - for us, this is our biggest expense of our vacations because we only go 1x per year, so it's not spread out over several vacations. Our buy-in and dues together represent the largest fraction of our vacation budget. We added on in order to mostly stay in 1 beds and save on food and love doing laundry, so it cuts down on packing too. But, depending upon what rooms are available, and what our kids' needs are, we have to mix studios/1 beds for the most part. Going in the sweltering summer heat adds to the issues as well.

Transportation - I forgot about transportation in my total, so that's an additional approx. $600.00 as we drive from Canada (I did mention this above), so that's hotels, gas and food. That's why we limit trips to 1x per year, in order to cut costs. No need for rental cars, so that's not in budget either.

Food - This is the biggie. Three of us have low blood sugar, so we must eat regular meals. Plus, we don't eat junk food, drink pop/coffee or candy and such. Our food totals are straight food and milk/juice. We looked at spreadsheet last night, and are going to cut a bunch of character meals. We've done them all a million times, but in the sweltering summer heat, we find we need that time to relax and it allows us to meet characters without waiting in line. We are eating breakfast in room all days except two days. We are limited with what we can cook though as we have a bunch of studios (we don't eat packaged/processed foods), but for our 1 bed, we are eating dinner a few days in our villa. We don't bring foods into parks, except snacks, so we wouldn't bring in sandwiches and stuff, as how would they stay cold enough? Plus, we need a mix of food to keep our blood sugar level. We are working on this though, and have already cut close to $300.00 out of the budget.

Points - if we sold points, we would take a huge loss as our first contract @ SSR was with a 25% CDN exchange rate, so those points cost a lot. We would lose thousands of dollars, so that's not an option. Our contracts are pretty much paid off, so that's taken care.

Dues - these come out in one lump sum of 1x per year in January, as we are Canadian, so we can't put them on credit card in order to get extra money to use towards Disney, but we do have a travel VISA, and usually have around $500.00 to put towards our Disney vacations each year, so that's great!

Tickets - as I mentioned, we have Annual Passes, so we get 2 vacations on each = pretty much 4 weeks of park time.

Hubby says due to the frugal girl in me, when I see the huge vacation totals even though spread out over 2 weeks for 4 people, it seems much larger than it is. We really can't cut much as the amounts are fixed - if we spent unnecessarily, I could see that, but our total is just the accommodations, food, tickets and transportation, and that's a lot to me. But, in the grand scheme of things, it's not as it's less than 3% of our income.

I thank you all for your thoughts - it's frustrating because even with 360 points, we struggle to get 1 beds the whole time. We can do it at Animal Kingdom Lodge, but find with the kids, the remoteness of it, makes for problems like getting back to our room for a midday break, so we prefer Boardwalk or SSR as we can get to all parks very easily.

I guess my thread title was kind of incorrect - I can't really keep any of those costs down except food.

Thanks again - more things to ponder today, Tiger

 

[photobob]

You're right food is the one big place where you have some control on your cost. We drive as well, not nearly as far! We usually bring a bunch of food with us. We bring 12 packs of sodas, cases of water, beer, snack foods, sandwich supplies etc. We like TS meals as well but we limit them to lunch which is usually cheaper. We have bfast in the room and supper is usually in the room or a snack at the parks. We are going to Whispering Canyon for lunch this trip, the skillet is 17.99 at lunch where it is 28.99 at dinner.

 

[jimmytammy]

Food is our biggie too. We have 4 contracts that total 485 pts.

Food as you say is the main $$ grabber in your case as well as ours. We usually eat 1 TS per day, breakfast in room. Sometimes, on longer trips we will cook in room. Usually spaghetti or pizza, something fairly simple.

One suggestion is for your 2nd meal of day, drive off site. There are many restaurants off Apopka Vineland Rd. that may cater to your needs. Olive Garden, Pizza Hut, Joes Crab Shack, Giordannos(Chicago Style Pizza), a couple mexican places, McDonalds, Burger King, chinese, Chevys and several back in the CrossRoads shopping area. This whole area is easily accessible by car, very near the DTD areaby way of Hotel Plaza Blvd. or can be gotten too by way of 535 from a couple of rds. leading out of WDW. If you have the Birnbaums guide, they have a map of WDW property in back that shows CrossRoads area.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I do agree that food is where you can save. We find the DDP too expensive for us. We prefer to eat just one table service meal out each day and all other meals are taken in the villa. We don't do fast food, so that means we make a large breakfast in the villa and schedule one table service somewhere nice for either midday or evening. If we decide to have another meal, it's usually something simple in the villa. We shop at the beginning of our trip, and often have to make a second grocery run to Publix mid trip for milk and fruit.

 

[dzorn]

We started out with 175 points, 6 years ago @ SSR. We could stay for 10 nights in a studio in July. Dues were $800.00 and buy in $420.00, so it was very reasonable @ approx $1300.00 (sometimes more due to fluctuating exchange rates).

Fast forward to today - we now own 360 points (SSR & AKV). We stay for approx. 12-14 nights in July/August in combination of studios and 1 beds. We added on as we had our son, so with 2 opposite gender children, 4 years apart, we were seeing space and sleeing issues. Dues are $1750.00 and buy in is $720.00 for a total of $2500.00.

We are now at double our original vacation totals for only a few more nights. Of course, everything has gone up in regards to food as well as we now have 2 hungry kids to feed. We love TIW, and like to eat breakfast in our villas (occasional breakfast buffet), and 2 TS meals per day. The frugal girl in me is now cringing when I see a total of almost $5000.00 for 2 weeks @ WDW each summer. FYI - we go for 2 weeks as I'm a teacher and we drive from Canada, so in order to keep transportation costs down, we do it 1x per year.

My hubby thinks I'm nuts, as he says that's very reasonable, considering the accommodations, annual passes and 2 TS meals per day, plus snacks. I am thinking that having a 1 bedroom for 6 days and not using the kitchen is silly. I want to cook more in our villa, but hubby says it's not worth it when we the 4 of us can eat lunch for like $40.00 (we get 3 adult meals to share and bring our own bottled water).

I am very analytical, introspective and frugal, so now I'm feeling great regret for doing our add-ons, and for eating out at so many TS meals. Actually our total food budget is good as we have 23 TS meals, 2 CS meals and 4 snacks per day budgeted for less than $1500.00 for 2 weeks - that's 2 adults, DD7 and DS3. But, that's several months of groceries for us, and that's a lot!!

I wouldn't change being DVC members at all, and I am so grateful for it. But, I am wondering if we should have just kept our 175 points at SSR for as long as we could, and added on once kids are older? I am conflicted because even with 360 points, we can't stay in 1 beds for the whole trip, so this trip, we have more studio nights than 1 bed (although this is because we squeezed an extra trip in March).

Not sure if our add-ons were a good choice? Does anyone else feel guilty about their DVC purchase? If so, how do you rectify these feelings? How else to keep costs down?

Tiger

You could always do a no parks trip especially at AKV where the remote location may be beneficial.

Denise in MI

 

[nunzia]

I would think you could still get away with studios for awhile..but it seems you like the 1 br for other reasons besides sleeping arrangements?.. you could just sleep with your DD and have your DH sleep with DS. There are free laundry facilities and the little frig, so do-able. It sounds a little like you were just used to being able to do things cheaper and now things cost more with kids getting older...that would happen in any vacation, not just DVC, so don't beat youself up over it. And you haven't seen anything yet! You have to compare the room you are geeting now and it's value to what room you would need to get somewhere else to really realize you're still getting a good deal. Eating is always the biggie. I also have low blood sugar, but carrying a piece of cheese or jerky with me, or some nuts, works great at little expense and can be brought with you from home. I then supplement a little carbs like popcorn. We rarely eat table service, CS works great, and since I eat off an on all day, a kid's meal suits me fine, usually around the $7.00 range, plus both your kids would do well with those, so you could eat pretty cheaply, maybe splurging for a character meal or TS every couple of days. I am also very frugal but allow myself to see my vacations as my spoiling time, and vacation money is not real money . Enjoy it without regret! Your kids will be grown up soon enough and you don't want your memories to have that little taint of of remembering your worry about money added to them.

 

[1153rsmith]

A big savings for us on Counter service meals this trip was just to ask for cups of ice water. We usually got large drink cups of cold, filtered water, and they do not charge. Not buying drinks alone for 4 people will cut $10-$12 off a meal. Also, my wife and I would sometimes order a double cheeseburger and an extra bun and make two sandwiches out of it. There was still plenty of food, and the extra bun cost was usually less than $1.

If you have your car, there is a great Walmart Supercenter not too far from disney property that has great prices. You can always stock up on frozen pizzas, veggies, and drinks. We also have a backpack cooler where we have carried in peanut butter and jellie sandwiches in along with extra bottled water. The back pack has kept ice in frozen water bottles all day for us.

There are certainly ways you can cut down on food. We went in Sept 09 and again in May 10. I learnt alot of money saving ideas between the two, and aside from doing Whoop-de-doo the second time, our meal costs were much less this time.

That being said, the maintenance fees are what has so far kept us using our time share we have had for 15 years and not buying DVC.

 

[Tiger926]

Thanks all - we are working on food budget today. We have TIW card, so our meals are good as we get 3 adult meals to share, no beverages as we bring own bottled water from home, no alcohol/coffee and no desserts. We are pretty frugal with our eating - the 4 of us can eat lunch at most TS restaurants for between $35.00-$45.00 tax and tip included. What gets us is that we are there for 2 weeks, so those totals, add up. We don't care for CS meals at all, and find that for the same price, we can eat at TS meals, so that's a better value for us. Plus, it allows us to get air conditioning in the sweltering summer heat. Snacks for us are things we bring from home, plus maybe an ice cream, fruit, juice or pretzel. Still working on the food budget, so thanks for all tips!

We have no interest in going off-site for food, as we have 2 little ones, so in the sweltering heat, it's too hot to go off-site. Plus, like I said, we don't eat fast food, so we don't do McDonald's etc., nor do we care much for buffets. We like sandwiches, soup, salads and wraps for lunch, and chicken, fish and pasta for dinner.

DH has the day off today, so he's working on some stuff. I will have students arriving to my classroom momentarily, so I will be working on stuff in my head until I can get back on my computer to tweak my spreadsheets!

Thanks so much for all of your help fellow DVCers. DH and I talked about it more this morning at the breakfast table, and my problem is staying in studios when we added on to stay in 1 beds. Hubby wants more days, but I keep reminding him that more days = more $ for food and gas in car. I don't think we can do much for this trip as it's 5 weeks out, but we are looking at knocking off 1 or 2 nights, as well as cancelling a few character meals.

In the grand scheme of things, we can afford it, but I don't think it's necessary. Nor, do I think we are getting the best bang for our buck by staying in 1 beds, yet not using the kitchen.

Even though we've been members for 6 years, it's still a work in progress!

Happy planning to all, Tiger

 

[FindTheMickeys]

You also asked about how to keep food cold enough if you take it into the parks. You are allowed a cooler, but it must be small enough to fit into a locker. Freeze bottles of water to use as ice blocks and then drink the water as it melts...
Some suggestions for the studios since you drive is to bring an electric skillet or griddle. Then you could make small meals in the studio..

Hope you don't get overwhelmed with your thoughts. Just think of all the memories you are making with your family

 

[jodifla]

Here's the other thing about your food costs -- you eat at home as well. So that's not really an "extra" cost. The extra cost would be the difference in what you'd eat at home vs. what you'd eat elsewhere.

To make yourself feel better, I'd also price out what vacationing anywhere else with a similar quality would be, or even staying home on a "staycation."

WDW remains an excellent value for all you get to do and experience.

 

[lucyem]

I think you should ask yourself some questions before feeling guilty. Are your needs in the real world met? Do you enjoy your vacation? If yes to both then I see no reason to feel guilty. You cannot undo the add-ons. There is no reason to feel guilty about them. When you bought them you had a real reason for doing so. Look into saving in other ways. Change how you eat. Read all the other tips and tricks on here. Find ways to save at home too. Stay at HHI or Vero Beach one year and skip the park tickets. Maybe change how you drive, eat in the car more. But most of all look closely at what you are getting. A great vacation with your family every summer

 

[dbs1228]

I was going to reply to this thread last night but my savings for going to Disney was always in the food and since you have a studio you are a little more limited. I like the idea of bringing a skillet! We just joined dvc but always stayed at the cabins with a full kitchen. Last year we were there for 11 nights (family of 5, 3 teens) and we did a big shop which came to 260.00 which included soda, water and beer. My DH was in shock until I explained to him that it equals less then 25.00 per day for a family of 5 for meals! We do make sandwiches for the parks, dinner is usually 2 meals spagehetti and meatballs followed the next eve. meatball subs or chicken for dinner then salad with chicken in it the next day. We prefer eating in because we are on our own schedule and do not have to wait for anyone and for the amount we pay for the resort (dvc or not) I want to enjoy my surroundings as much as possible.

This past Feb we paid 6000.00 for 11 nights Ft Wilderness cabins, 4 - 8 day park hoppers (oldest DD in college and she only came for 4 days used an older tck we had) and the food we bought, dinner one night at Hoop De Doo Reveue, car and airfare. Please remember this was with the promotion pay 4 nights get 3 free, so prices will go up.