Planning a Disney trip with a $800 budget

[MomOTwins]

I wonder if we are overthinking it—this is the “resorts” board and OP’s post talks about hotels, so maybe OP is just talking about their lodging budget being $800? If that is the case, it makes a lot more sense. There are Disney Springs area hotels that run $100 or less a night and include transportation to the parks, though you do have to watch out for resort fees.

 

[_19disnA]

Some of the OP's older posts refer to a family Disney trip in 2015. If they have already been to Disney before, then it seems a bit more detail/background would be necessary for us to provide meaningful input and not have to guess on the what was left out.

 

[Heather07438]

I managed to plan a 5 day, 4 night solo onsite trip for $1000 for the last week of October. $150 for airfare (w/bags), $480 for 4 day tix, and $370 Hotwire hot rate for Pop Century. I have $250 in free gift cards through my work that I’ll use for food. I’m not sure if you can get a whole week for $800, but good luck!!

If $800 is for lodging, this looks like a great option! Find a discounted room at Pop and that would keep you in budget, onsite, good transport options, central location, and the room renovations make Pop look a winner.

 

[P'colaBeachBum]

If $800 is for lodging, this looks like a great option! Find a discounted room at Pop and that would keep you in budget, onsite, good transport options, central location, and the room renovations make Pop look a winner.

The OP was posting about off site with a shuttle bus to WDW. Sounded to me like a total of $800 for the week for everything. Hopefully the OP will return and clarify.

 

[happymommy]

No offsite resort will have decent shuttle with your budget. Most don’t have a shuttle that will be decent. This could have been done in the early 90’s or in the 80’s, but now, I think you need to price it out.

 

[Mrsjvb]

Hello! I'm interested in planning my first solo trip to Disney for December 2020. How can I plan a week-long trip on an $800 budget? A hotel with a shuttle to Disney World would be preferred.

You don’t. Tickets alone will be $500 for a 7 day no park hopping.

hotels off site will be cheaper, but have squat as far as reliable, frequent transportation to the parks. They might run 3 times a day, hit several other off site locales and only drop you off at TTC, where you’d still have to get transport to the parks( and the monorail is not currently running to all stops). Even so, you are gonna spend on average $100 a night minimum on hotel . Probably closer to $200 in December.

food..even going extra cheap and bringing pop tarts and protein bars to eat in the room for breakfast you are still looking at $30-50 a day eating on site, even goi g super cheap options.

$800 might get you 3 days during the week and zero souvenirs.

 

[karen4546]

Since the OP has not responded, I don't know if they really thought a trip for a week at WDW for $800 was possible.

IF, OP you are serious....

Tickets for a week will be at least $450. That leaves $350 (5 nights @ $70including tax WITH a SHUTTLE to WDW-I don't know ANY hotel that would fill that requirement. That does not leave any money for food.

There is no way I would consider a trip like that. You could do maybe 3 days with that budget.

We have APs and are DVC owners and it would be near impossible to cover our food and drinks with $800 for a full week.

I would suggest this:

Look on the DVC rental sights and snag one of those $10/point last minute reservations. Ask a friend to join you and split the cost. That will get you in the $75/night range at a Disney resort that has bus service to the parks. $75x5nighs=$375. buy 5 day ticket from Undercover Tourist for roughly $500. and now you are at $875-over budget. You will need to split the room by 4 (you and 3 others) and the that gets your cost to around $190 for 5nights. It would leave you $110 for food. Tough but possible.

OP, if you want to stay under budget you are going to have to split the room four ways.

 

[kmhowell]

Hi @Spyells ! Don't be discouraged, I think you can make a trip happen thats fairly close to your budget. You may have to cut your trip from 7 days to around 4 or 5. I would suggest you follow the Priceline Express Deals thread. The friendly folks over there helped me grab a a Hotwire deal last December at All Star Movies for $78/night and with a promo code I saved $32 off of that total. (Currently there are some great deals with Pop starting at $75/night at the end of October). In addition to that, I used my credit card to get cash back and also used Rakuten for around 4% cash back.

I purchased a few discounted Disney gift cards (and had a few free I got from work) to purchase tickets with. Touring Plans has a really helpful tool to compare ticket prices from different vendors (this will more than likely be your biggest expense).

If you live near an airport that Spirit Airlines, Allegiant or Frontier flies in, if you purchase tickets directly at the airport (in advance of your trip) you can save roughly $18 off the price each way. Keep in mind though, Allegiant only flies into the smaller Orlando airport so you will not be able to take advantage of the Magical Express like at MCO. You'll have to pack light, but a roundtrip flight for $50 is a deal (its possible, my family flew to Chicago last year for $30 round trip)!

Another suggestion - if you aren't a big foodie, when I took my brother last December we ordered off of the kids menu most of the time (we mainly eat . We found that it came with just as much food as the adult portion (if not more) and always included a drink and piece of fruit that we'd take with us later to snack on. I hope this helps some, good luck planning your trip!

 

[Wendysofftoneverland]

We have done cheap trips to Disney before, but we use the military discount or else camp. Fort Wilderness tent camping in December would be about $90 to $100 a night. But you don't have to pay a parking fee at the campground. I saw some Disney Springs hotels listed for about $120 a night, but that would quickly jump up to around $160 after resort fees and parking fees. I think you could achieve your budget if you shorten your trip and do fewer park days (plus bring food to fix at your resort) We only go to the parks every other day or so of our stay, and we only go for 4 or 5 days at a time. On our non-park days, we go to Disney Springs, relax at Fort Wilderness, have dinner and explore another resort, do a character breakfast and ride the monorail, etc. We end up filling our non-park days pretty well. Not sure if they still do the midday ticket (can't enter parks until noon), but one of those was less than $200 for 2 days. I think you can still have a fun trip if you adjust trip length or budget a little. Good luck!

 

[Spyells]

The $800 was including airfare, hotel, and park tickets. Thank you for giving me insight and hope that it's possible.

 

[Deb & Bill]

The $800 was including airfare, hotel, and park tickets. Thank you for giving me insight and hope that it's possible.

Double your budget and it might be possible.

 

[My2Pixies]

You might find this site, and this blog post in particular helpful:

https://thebudgetmouse.com/how-to-find-disney-world-hotel-deals-on-hotwire-priceline/

Apart from that, there are many smaller, cheaper non-Disney hotels, Hilton Garden Inn, etc, in the Disney Springs 'area' (they are quite a walk from the actual Disney Springs) that do have shuttles. How often they run or how reliable they are, I'm not sure. You would definitely want to call in advance and find that information out.

If you fly Spirit or Frontier, you may be able to swing it, but you probably won't be able to do many park days, as tickets will max out your budget. Unfortunately, due to Covid you can't even explore the resorts without a room or restaurant reservation so besides the parks and Disney Springs there isn't much to do on non park days. You would probably have a much better trip if you shortened it to 3-4 days, giving you more money for park tickets.

 

[Eastern]

To get an idea of cost, you should actually sit down and price out the things you need to purchase. Then you will be able to consider alternative hotels, watch for airfare to go down, or decrease your days. It's hard to really appreciate the cost until you write it all down.

 

[Disneytrippin']

What are your plan details? Where are you flying to and from? The more detailed you can be the better others like me can advise. I am pretty wicked with a budget.

I have some really good tricks to push out payments on things like airfare and tickets too. I no longer have to use these tips as we are empty nesters and can splurge but, I did sometimes use these tricks just so we could all go when the kids were younger.

 

[ExtraMagic]

I love a budget trip! My advice is to find the least expensive off-property hotel in the Disney Springs area for easy, included transportation (note that there are resort fees to calculate into the budget). Pick just two parks to visit. Other days visit Disney Springs, lounge by the pool, walk around the boardwalk area, take the skyliner for fun! Bring breakfast and lunch with you and have a counter service dinner.

 

[Blondie58]

In May of 2019 I stayed at Pop for a week and took two tours: Garden Show Behind the Scenes and Food Taste Testing Tour at Magic Kingdom. I also did the High Tea at Grand Floridian, and two tea events in the United Kingdom (one was free but you had to register very early). My budget was $1,500.00 and I stayed within that. HOWEVER, I used flight miles to get to Orlando from Detroit Metro, did not have room service to get the $60.00 gift certificate, ate out only one meal at Pecos Bills in MK in addition to the meals with the tours and used my Annual Pass. I ate food I packed or from the "store" at the Pop Food Court. I had a GREAT time and made a challenge out of doing my "extra trip" for the $1,500. I do not think $800.00 is going to work without hotel points, an already purchased Annual Pass, or some flight points. I wondered about seven days alone at Disney but I loved it. My first stay at Pop was great. In fact, I had my one week alone for the Garden Show planned and booked when Covid hit. I was going to stay under $450.00 BUT was going to use IHG points and stay at Disney Springs. Of course, for that price I was going to use flight points and an annual pass too. $450.00 would have been spent on tours and food. I don't eat signature meals when alone but I love the tours alone or with someone. When alone dining is not a focus.

 

[Sue M]

The $800 was including airfare, hotel, and park tickets. Thank you for giving me insight and hope that it's possible.

Going solo I wouldn’t stay in one of those cheap off site motels. I wouldn’t feel safe. Looking at Hotwire for one of the onsite Values, or Disney Springs hotels would be best.
Have a look at the Budget Board.

 

[Blondie58]

The $800 was including airfare, hotel, and park tickets. Thank you for giving me insight and hope that it's possible.

There are some really good air flight prices right now. But don't know where you are flying from. I don't think for $800.00 you can go to the parks everyday. What if you just did four parks days (one at each), two pool days and a day at Disney Springs? Seven parks days will eat most of your $800.00 budget. OR see if a friend will go and split the cost of the room. Pop is reasonable and safe. I would NOT suggest you use a credit card to pay for your trip but Disney has a credit card that if you spend $500.00 you get $150.00 back. So if you already have $$$ saved you could get the card and IMMEDIATELY pay it off and earn the $150.00 credit. You could also get the card and earn points between now and the time of your trip. Those points equate to $$$. If you are good with credit this is a suggestion BUT if you are not good with credit, I would never do this. Christmas is coming. Add Disney gift cards to your list. Look at your everyday budget and cut back on a couple things and add that money to travel budget. You can make this trip happen and have a wonderful time. You will just have to be creative.

 

[hlm2007]

That may be tough to do if you plan to go to parks every day. I just planned a cheap trip but had major discounts on everything due to my friends' military and marriott connections. Even with that, I paid $260 for a military 4 day park ticket and I will pay about $210 for my 1/3 portion of 4 nights at the Swan (sharing room with 2 friends). My flight was free since I used miles. With Uber to and from the airport (split with one of my friends), I'm already at a little over $500 for a 4 day trip and that doesn't include any food or drink.

I think staying off property will be key although I'm not sure specifically which off property hotels offer shuttles. You also may save some by not buying a park ticket for every day (maybe just doing 4-5 days) to lessen that expense. Good luck planning!

 

[Nagle]

The $800 was including airfare, hotel, and park tickets. Thank you for giving me insight and hope that it's possible.

I believe most of the replies indicated that there was no hope of achieving your goals on this one.