Our budget trip

[HHMcG]

I got tons of tips on this board that helped me through our recent ‘Budget Trip’ to Disney World so I thought I would post a summary here


Airfare: This is the hardest one to get tips on because everyone’s needs are different but here goes.
Be FLEXIBLE with your dates. Constantly check fares. We usually use an economy airline that isn’t shown on online travel sites (Spirit), so I checked there and Travelocity (could be any online travel site) daily. Know what the fares you are looking at include, there probably will be additional fees, know what those are ahead of time. And pick up any tips about airlines that frequent your area. (I know that if there are no Spirit deals online buying at the airport would save me $17/)

I was checking daily for months. This whole trip happened because I found ridiculously cheap air fare ($88/ round trip ACY – MCO). I passed on that airfare because Disney’s room deals weren’t out yet. I ended up buying $118/ but could have done a little better if I waited for the next deal. Still under my budget I set based on my previous research.


Hotel: I had my eye on a January trip because I knew it was the value season. I was willing to stay offsite (would have been a first for us) but didn’t think it would be necessary. Onsite, I knew POR was our cheapest option as a family of 5. I waited for the winter deals to be announced and planned my trip for it. I booked through Orbitz and got an additional 15% off Disney’s already discounted rate. (Thank you Budget Board!) Ended up getting POR for an average of $140/night.


Tickets: I wanted 5-day base tickets. We gave up park hoppers to stick to a budget. (Our first trip without Park Hoppers and I didn’t miss it at all. Just planned accordingly.) I knew about UCT and MouseSavers from this board. I was also checking out Orbitz’s buy 3 days, get 2 free deal. But at the time it was unknown if you could hook those to MDE and make fp+. I came across the ticket calculator on touring plans . com. (Was able to access this without a subscription) Which told me that The Official Ticket Center was my best deal. Ordered those and had tickets in hand and attached to MDE in time to make my fp+ at 60 days. Five 5-day base tickets - $1462


My budget was:
Air <$600
Hotel <$900
Park tickets <$1500
Total budget - $3000

Actual cost:
Air - $590
Hotel - $844
Park tickets - $1462
Total Cost - $2896



Meals: Forget about the Dining Plan, not a deal for us, we eat more than we need and pay tax on gratuity on it. We kept our TS to a minimum (planned 3 and added one as a walk up). We did our meals at in between times. For example we had ‘breakfast’ at Tusker House at 10:30. We are early risers so we grabbed granola bars or ceral (which we brought) then ate a big buffet at TH and didn’t need lunch. We also did a late lunch one day and just had desserts for dinner. Most of our meals were QS and we managed to get by on 3-4 QS meals supplemented with snack/fruit we brought with us. We also had two breakfasts in our room. I really love eating out but I didn’t find this to take away much from the vacation. I wouldn’t want to do it every day, but I didn’t really miss anything and it helped us get ready much faster those mornings.


Spending $: Of course being on this board I learned all the tricks on getting Disney gift cards for a deal. I took advantage of the Target Black Friday deal 10% off Target gift cards. Then I used the target gift cards to buy Disney gift cards online with 5% off. So I ended up with $550 in gift cards that I spent about $475 on. I also had $60 in Disney Visa rewards to use.

I also acquired $50+ in cashback rewards by using my Discover card for online purchases for this trip and $25+ in Orbitz bucks.


I also made some cutbacks / earned some extra money to help save for this trip. I had a spreadsheet where I kept track of my saving over the four month between booking and trip (Oct-Jan). Here are a few:
I stopped buying soda/ice tea from the shop at work and just brought my own in ($180).
Eliminated our premium cable channels ($76).
Eliminated Netflix ($24).
I participated in a seasonal consignment sale ($260).
Work some extra hours and participated in an outside work presentation ($105).
Got a refund from Sirius Radio after threatening to drop them ($91).
Switch to a new bank which gives $20 month for direct deposits and bill pays ($60).
Eliminated a Great Wolfe Lodge trip we had booked ($310).
Also I managed to finally get an insurance reimbursement that was due to me ($200).
Some of these were things I mean to do anyway but saving for this trip motivated me to follow thru with it. My grand total in my savings spread sheet was $1306. My goal had been $1000.

 

[mich311e]

Nice work! Thanks for sharing your info here.

 

[robinb]

Great job!

 

[marmalade]

How many people did you have in your group?

 

[HHMcG]

How many people did you have in your group?

Five - 2 adults and 3 kids

 

[marmalade]

Five - 2 adults and 3 kids

And you got flights for $590 for everyone?

 

[HHMcG]

I forgot to add our total budget buster.

Our flight home was cancelled. I got an email at 9:42pm telling me that our 8:50am flight was cancelled. %$#***!$#. After a lot of time waiting on hold we found out the best they could do was get us on a another flight 36 hours later. But after a lot of searching the internet I found a flight on another airlines only 2 hours later than our original flight but for $100/person one-way. So much for my hunting for good airfare.

I’m still waiting to get my funds back from the cancelled flight (won’t use that new airlines again). In the end I think the switch will end up costing us $250. I guess in the big picture that’s not too bad. But it did sting.

 

[HHMcG]

And you got flights for $590 for everyone?

Yes! $118 per person from PHL to MCO on Frontier. I paid additional fees for baggage but that's pretty standard. But as I added Frontier cancelled our return flight. So I won't use them again.
I had found flights for my same dates on Spirit out of ACY for $88 per person round trip. So bitter that I passed on those. Spirit has flights for $65 round trip right now. But you have to have very flexible dates.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

You did a great job!
I find that airfare is a biggie so we use the Southwest visa to pay everything! We are very careful to pay it off every month.
We've gotten approx 15 one way seats free in the last year which makes the $59 fee well worth it.
Also I agree hopping really isn't necessary if you're staying at least 4 full days but many of our visits are short, such as 2 days pre-cruise. In that case we may want to just hit a few favorites so hopping is a must.
Jmho

 

[marmalade]

Yes! $118 per person from PHL to MCO on Frontier. I paid additional fees for baggage but that's pretty standard. But as I added Frontier cancelled our return flight. So I won't use them again.
I had found flights for my same dates on Spirit out of ACY for $88 per person round trip. So bitter that I passed on those. Spirit has flights for $65 round trip right now. But you have to have very flexible dates.

WOW!! I've never heard of Frontier airline before, looks like the closest airport that flies to MCO is out of Cleveland. I am always hesitant to book through Spirit because of all the additional fees. I might have to venture out of my comfort zone in order to save some money. The cheapest I have ever gotten flights (other than free with points) was $667 for 4RT back in 2009.

 

[jhoannam]

wow! That's an awesome deal!

 

[sarahk0204]

And I have a friend whose Spirit flight was cancelled. They ended up renting a van and driving back to Illinois Budget airlines have great deals, but they are not without risk. Myself, I am never that lucky, so we tend to stick with the majors on the rare occasions we fly. Good job on the budget!

 

[lauradis]

WOW!! I've never heard of Frontier airline before, looks like the closest airport that flies to MCO is out of Cleveland. I am always hesitant to book through Spirit because of all the additional fees. I might have to venture out of my comfort zone in order to save some money. The cheapest I have ever gotten flights (other than free with points) was $667 for 4RT back in 2009.

Frontier isn't bad but make sure you are flexible they delayed one of my flights out of Tampa for 5 hr, to save money on their end by combining earlier flight with later flight.
we where packed in like sardines. it was cheap 78 for flight and 15 for carry on, last min flight.

 

[pigletto]

Good Job!! You really maximized your savings!

 

[HHMcG]

You did a great job!
I find that airfare is a biggie so we use the Southwest visa to pay everything! We are very careful to pay it off every month.
We've gotten approx 15 one way seats free in the last year which makes the $59 fee well worth it.
Also I agree hopping really isn't necessary if you're staying at least 4 full days but many of our visits are short, such as 2 days pre-cruise. In that case we may want to just hit a few favorites so hopping is a must.
Jmho

I've always stayed away from Southwest. I'm afraid of the lack of seating assignment traveling with three kids. I would be ok if we were split into two groups but none of the kids (even the 9 year old) would want to be without a parent next to them. Is it hard to get groups of seat together?

And I have a friend whose Spirit flight was cancelled. They ended up renting a van and driving back to Illinois Budget airlines have great deals, but they are not without risk. Myself, I am never that lucky, so we tend to stick with the majors on the rare occasions we fly. Good job on the budget!

I think with alot of the economy airlines it depends where you are flying to/from. I have a friend who flies Frontier all the time to Denver - Frontier's hub - so lots of extra crew, planes and flights available if a problem. Frontier just started in PHL and don't have many flights.
With Spirit I think ACY is a minor hub, so we have been lucky with it.
It depends on the airport a little more than the airlines.


Thank you all for the positive feedback. Part of the fun of planning this trip was finding ways to save and the challenge of coming in under budget.

 

[Monykalyn]

Thanks for the report! Really great on the savings. I have quit lunches at work too (can swipe our badges and just have it deducted straight from paycheck-yeah-one paycheck I had spent $35 and I work 3 days a week!).

We love Southwest(and free checked bags!) but unfortunately they pulled out of our area-last year we drove to St Louis to fly SW (we flew first for business meeting, grands came later with kids-grandparents live in st louis so worked well); we paid for priority boarding for them as it was 1st time for 2 of our kids-on way home we were split 3 and 2 separated by an aisle. Most people are pretty understanding about letting parents sit with kids!

this year we are on Allegiant (another budget airline) for ~$280 RT per person. I've been watching airfare and this is the cheapest its been. We probably could have waited a bit longer to purchase the plane tickets (but I wanted to lock Hubby in and not let him change his mind)

You did a really great job on your budget!!

 

[momtosam]

I don't have exact numbers anymore, but did similar things to make our last trip budget. We flew free with Southwest points. We stayed off site at the Sheraton Vistana. We booked through a friend who has a timeshare with them -- $500 for a full week in May!! ( that figure I remember ). We booked tickets via an Ebates/ travelocity deal. Got back somewhere in the neighborhood of $225 - $250 with ebates. Also no dining plan for us. I kept picking up Disney gift cards whenever I was at Target with 5% off on my Red Card to use for food and souvenirs. I signed up for a Landrys card using May as my birthday to get $25 off a meal at one of their restaurants. We used the board on here to find codes for car rental discounts and kept playing with that for month so get the best deal. We also did USO and bought discounted tix through my union.

It takes planning, but it can be done!

Oh, we also encouraged family members to give the kids spending money as gifts for Christmas and birthdays. (Not begged for money, just suggested when they asked what to get them.)

I forgot to add, I scoured through every credit card and debit card we had to see what bonuses we had racked up. If we couldn't redeem points for Disney gift cards, I redeemed them for things like a Walmart gift card to buy items for our trip.

Also, staying offsite we had lots of breakfasts in our condo as well as an occasional lunch and dinner. We ate at off site restaurants too, like an Applebee's which was much cheaper than eating at the parks.

 

[clshirk]

Great job sticking to your plan! I have tried my best to do as much budgeting as possible. We aren't doing as many park days nor staying as long, and chose to drive rather than fly since we're only 10 hours away, but its so great to see what you were able to do!

 

[kathy884]

I got tons of tips on this board that helped me through our recent ‘Budget Trip’ to Disney World so I thought I would post a summary here


Airfare: This is the hardest one to get tips on because everyone’s needs are different but here goes.
Be FLEXIBLE with your dates. Constantly check fares. We usually use an economy airline that isn’t shown on online travel sites (Spirit), so I checked there and Travelocity (could be any online travel site) daily. Know what the fares you are looking at include, there probably will be additional fees, know what those are ahead of time. And pick up any tips about airlines that frequent your area. (I know that if there are no Spirit deals online buying at the airport would save me $17/)

I was checking daily for months. This whole trip happened because I found ridiculously cheap air fare ($88/ round trip ACY – MCO). I passed on that airfare because Disney’s room deals weren’t out yet. I ended up buying $118/ but could have done a little better if I waited for the next deal. Still under my budget I set based on my previous research.


Hotel: I had my eye on a January trip because I knew it was the value season. I was willing to stay offsite (would have been a first for us) but didn’t think it would be necessary. Onsite, I knew POR was our cheapest option as a family of 5. I waited for the winter deals to be announced and planned my trip for it. I booked through Orbitz and got an additional 15% off Disney’s already discounted rate. (Thank you Budget Board!) Ended up getting POR for an average of $140/night.


Tickets: I wanted 5-day base tickets. We gave up park hoppers to stick to a budget. (Our first trip without Park Hoppers and I didn’t miss it at all. Just planned accordingly.) I knew about UCT and MouseSavers from this board. I was also checking out Orbitz’s buy 3 days, get 2 free deal. But at the time it was unknown if you could hook those to MDE and make fp+. I came across the ticket calculator on touring plans . com. (Was able to access this without a subscription) Which told me that The Official Ticket Center was my best deal. Ordered those and had tickets in hand and attached to MDE in time to make my fp+ at 60 days. Five 5-day base tickets - $1462


My budget was:
Air <$600
Hotel <$900
Park tickets <$1500
Total budget - $3000

Actual cost:
Air - $590
Hotel - $844
Park tickets - $1462
Total Cost - $2896



Meals: Forget about the Dining Plan, not a deal for us, we eat more than we need and pay tax on gratuity on it. We kept our TS to a minimum (planned 3 and added one as a walk up). We did our meals at in between times. For example we had ‘breakfast’ at Tusker House at 10:30. We are early risers so we grabbed granola bars or ceral (which we brought) then ate a big buffet at TH and didn’t need lunch. We also did a late lunch one day and just had desserts for dinner. Most of our meals were QS and we managed to get by on 3-4 QS meals supplemented with snack/fruit we brought with us. We also had two breakfasts in our room. I really love eating out but I didn’t find this to take away much from the vacation. I wouldn’t want to do it every day, but I didn’t really miss anything and it helped us get ready much faster those mornings.


Spending $: Of course being on this board I learned all the tricks on getting Disney gift cards for a deal. I took advantage of the Target Black Friday deal 10% off Target gift cards. Then I used the target gift cards to buy Disney gift cards online with 5% off. So I ended up with $550 in gift cards that I spent about $475 on. I also had $60 in Disney Visa rewards to use.

I also acquired $50+ in cashback rewards by using my Discover card for online purchases for this trip and $25+ in Orbitz bucks.


I also made some cutbacks / earned some extra money to help save for this trip. I had a spreadsheet where I kept track of my saving over the four month between booking and trip (Oct-Jan). Here are a few:
I stopped buying soda/ice tea from the shop at work and just brought my own in ($180).
Eliminated our premium cable channels ($76).
Eliminated Netflix ($24).
I participated in a seasonal consignment sale ($260).
Work some extra hours and participated in an outside work presentation ($105).
Got a refund from Sirius Radio after threatening to drop them ($91).
Switch to a new bank which gives $20 month for direct deposits and bill pays ($60).
Eliminated a Great Wolfe Lodge trip we had booked ($310).
Also I managed to finally get an insurance reimbursement that was due to me ($200).
Some of these were things I mean to do anyway but saving for this trip motivated me to follow thru with it. My grand total in my savings spread sheet was $1306. My goal had been $1000.

You did great! And it sound like it was a wonderful trip too!

My son (19) and I did a budget trip the week before Christmas too. DH stayed home as he doesn't care for Orlando. We had a few things going for us though that made it really inexpensive.
(1) I have that Southwest Visa card and was able to get both of our airfares with points, there is no luggage fee either
(2) My parents came to and did a timeshare trade for Cypress Point -- loved it and they wouldn't let us contribute.
(3) My parents rented a car and picked us up at the airport and dropped us off -- again they wouldn't take a contribution. They had free parking at SeaWorld (season passes). My nephew had free parking at Disney, so our only parking fee was Universal. All I could do was buy them Very Merry Christmas tickets and take them out to dinner at Café Tu Tu Tango.

Theme park tickets were our biggest expense -- Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party $150 for two // SeaWorld weekend advance purchase on the weekend to see Christmas shows -- $150 for two // Second day -- $30 for two // One day at Universal Park to Park ticket -- $280 for two -- so $610 for tickets // We did four theme park days and two resort days.

The Very Merry Christmas Tickets for my parent and my nephew who lives in Orlando were another $225 and dinner at Café Tu Tu Tango for all of us was about $125 so $350 entertaining relatives in costs. // lots of fun to do.

Our only other expenses were groceries, counter service food, airport parking, airport reading materials. DS bought souvenirs too, but with his own money and that wasn't part of my budget -- A Mickey Phone Case, two wands -- one for him and one for a friend -- and three Sea World T-shirts

Food -- We had all breakfasts at the condo and some lunches and dinners at the condo, table service lunches and some table service dinners at the parks, ordered pizza and salad in one night, did on nice dinner out at the fun small plates restaurant Café Tu Tu Tango. It wasn't so much that we were eating in to save money, but more that our condo was so nice and after some busy time at the parks we just all liked hanging out there visiting and didn't really feel like going anywhere.

Great trip -- budget was $1500 and we stayed just under that.