s/o affordable wdw vacations-what drives the vacation spending, destination or budget?

[amberpi]

It used to be I could vacation on whim...if a client engagement was wrapping I'd usually get out of town....everything was very fluid. Now, vacation is decided by custody as my husband has 50/50 so we can't just bounce anytime. We get the kids 2 weeks in the summer and either fall or spring break. It also gives us 2 weeks to do grown up trips, so I guess in that way we're spoiled. Doesn't matter how much it is or what the destination is if we have the kids DH isn't going to waste precious days with the babies for us to run to Napa...we can wait until we have the time.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

We have a trip in mind, and after some research and reviewing of our finances, we set a budget

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

We usually take 3 trips a year - a week over Easter Break (I'm a teacher), a week during the Summer and a mini trip (3-4 days) over the Christmas Holidays because our college kids can't take the other two trips with us anymore due to classes and work schedules. Most of our vacations are driving distance trips to the mountains in Va, NC, or PA; beaches in Va, NJ, NC, SC or FL; WDW; or driving distance cruise ports. We usually trade our timeshare for the Summer and Spring Break trips, so that cost is prepaid. After I figure out where to go, I research activities and save the money. DH pays for all the dining out with extra money he saves from the monthly budget.

We take a flying vacation every two or three years. For flying vacations (Sedona/Grand Canyon, Hawaii, Mexico, Lake Tahoe, Keystone CO, Southern California, Punta Cana), we save up longer to afford them. The flying trips are usually taken with my extended family, and we know about them a couple of years in advance and plan/save accordingly. Again, flights, rental car, and activities come out of my paychecks. Dining comes out of DH's paycheck. The reason for this is that when the kids were little, I only worked part time. My income paid for the extras like vacations, house projects, the extra holiday expenses, etc. Now I work full time, and most of my paycheck goes toward college expenses for our 2 kids, but I still save for vacations as well.

This year I am on a really tight budget. I am desperately trying to save for our last round of Family vacations before my oldest graduates from college in May, moves away to start his career, and will no longer be able to travel with us. We have decided not to take a 2019 Spring Break trip because we rented a cottage big enough for our whole family for DS's college graduation weekend. We also have bigger than normal Christmas and Summer trips planned this year as a last hurrah. The 4 of us are going on a 5 day cruise to the Bahamas out of Charleston in December. The cruise line allowed me to pay this off monthly with no interest, so it was very easy to budget for over the past year. The big budget buster is a 2 week trip to London (3 days) and South Africa (9 days) for sightseeing and a safari this coming summer. I've researched the heck out of this trip to make it affordable. I should come in at around $11,000 total for 4 people as long as the flight prices cooperate and drop to where they were this past summer. I've paid for about a 5th of it so far. I'm working credit card points and bank bonuses to help defray some of the costs and have about a third saved up on top of that. I'm still waiting on flight costs to drop (fingers crossed) because they are about $2000 too high right now, and I still need to save another $5000 over the next 10 months.

 

[Happyinwonerland]

I pick/plan my vacation and then save to pay for it.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We are creatures of habit, so we do the same vacations most every year. 5 days at Disney in the fall and 2 weeks at Hilton Head in the summer. We generally go ahead and reserve them both about a year in advance so we can make payments and have them paid off in plenty of time for the trip.

 

[LovesTimone]

I posted earlier, but had several thoughts about this that I did not put in my first post.

When I plan I try to include everything... to see what the actual cost is really going to look like. So of course I look at the major items, Airfare or driving to and from. Resort/Hotel/Homeaway, Food. But that's just really the body of the budget then, I start drilling down, adding all the vital organs, and such...

Air Fare - Flight cost and with that goes, are we parking at the airport, or Ubering/Lyft to and from the airport. Food in the airport both ways, a couple of bottles of water or soda for the plane trip, in flight cost wifi, or food or drink cost, baggage fees.

Driving - cost of oil change, tire rotation before we leave, Gas to and from, stopping for meals, and when you stop for gas snacks and drinks. Emergency money for car repairs.

Resort/ Hotel / Homeaway - Room cost per night... if we are driving cost of parking, wifi, resort or hotel fees, if rollaway or crib is needed.

Then the activities, tickets to theme parks, museums, shows/concerts/ zoo, zip-lining, horseback riding, snorkeling, spa treatment/couple massage, private tours, dinner cruises...the list goes on and on.

Car rental at destination if we are going that route, gas, mileage.. and we always get the insurance.

Transportation at destination - private car service, uber/lyft, hop on hop off buses, trains/metro/subway.

Food, Dinning out, cooking at Homeaway, snacks, treats, adult beverages, drinks - coke, water, diet coke, Gatorade for in room, as well as tipping the servers. I look at what we spend out for dinner at home since we live in a tourist meca, our cost of dinning out is high, then look at the area we are traveling to, I know that in NYC, Vegas, Paris the meals are going to be more expensive, and plan accordingly.

There is alot of tipping when you travel, servers, baggage handlers, bartenders, bell boys, uber/lyft/taxi drivers, even if the tip is included and we get above and beyond service we do tip something extra.

The before trip spending, clothing, shoes, beauty/personal care items, a heavy coat that will be need or swimsuit/coverups, sunglasses, sunscreen, thinking about that, I do start shopping months in advance so I am not spending a chunk of money right before we leave. Getting you hair, nails done before the trip.

When we take a cruise, hotel the night before with dinner, as well as brunch when we return, parking at the cruise port, cost of excursion the ones that I know that we will want to do, soft drink packages, adult beverages, money for gambling, spa treatments, and any out of pocket meals that are not included such as a specialty restaurants, or on board activity such as kids and teens clubs.

Currency Conversion - what's our dollar worth, where we are going.

For me taking the time to drill into where you are going, really thinking of all the stuff you will need, want do you want to do, and see. Any experiences that you must have. For me I like to know a more realistic number so that I don't have a ton of extra unexpected CC bills after we get back. By really looking and planning, you learn things, read tips, and can find deals, and information. There is so much out there, by planning at least for me, it helps me keep the budget in line, and helps us do the things we want to do.

 

[MamaLema]

Vacations are whenever the 5 of us can coordinate time off at the same time which is harder to do.

In the good old days when our 3 kids were younger and on the same school break it was so much easier. At that time I had a job with very flexible hours. Now I am full time and at the bottom of the seniority list.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We take into consideration many things when it comes to vacation-cost, time of year, things to do at X place, reason for trip (pure relaxation vs big time sight seeing for example), etc.

We don't normally have a budget per se just a "I'd like lodging to be under this if possible, etc" which is destination-specific as different destinations have different lodging cost norms. We don't really say "Whole trip needs to be under $2,000" in terms of budget, just looking over costs in general.

We have restricted ourselves twice in terms of vacation destinations due to airline points. Went to Hawaii because Delta went there and we had enough points for 1 of the 2 tickets and most recently went to Jamaica because SWA went there and while the points was a bit higher than we would have wanted to spend lodging was less expensive for what we were looking for in comparison to several other places and we knew food would be reasonable. With SWA we have plenty of points we just like to keep the usage to a minimum. We were looking strongly into the Florida Keys/Key West and some places along FL's coast but they weren't the tropical setting we were looking for. Having said that while Jamaica is beautiful I doubt we'll ever want to go there again.

A few trips were piggy-backed from my husband's work trips. For example we went to Vegas last October due to a work conference and extended the trip out to a vacation. Also husband needed to do an equipment test in NJ just before Christmas last year so we extended the trip and took several days to go into NYC and visit his uncle as well. That helped in terms of costs for certain things though we are responsible for costs incurred after he is finished with business. Those two trips were aided by the fact that we had a Companion Pass for me so in terms of airfare his company paid for his ticket and my ticket was paid for with exception to 9/11 fees. If my husband goes to CA near LA next year for a field assignment we'll go to DLR and we're really wanting to go to Vegas again.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The before trip spending, clothing, shoes, beauty/personal care items, a heavy coat that will be need or swimsuit/coverups, sunglasses, sunscreen, thinking about that, I do start shopping months in advance so I am not spending a chunk of money right before we leave. Getting you hair, nails done before the trip.

This is actually interesting as I personally never consider a vacation destination on something like this.

But honestly that could be because of where I live. If I need a coat it's because I need a newer coat as my old one is worn. If I need a swimsuit/coverup it's because I need a newer one as my old one is worn or just isn't working anymore. We already have sunglasses and sunscreen though I suppose with the sunscreen it's making sure it's still good and not expired. Basically I've already got those items. Only trip that I needed to buy something specific was ski trip. I bought stuff for me and then tried learning skiing at home prior to going and knew it just wasn't for me lol though I still went I just didn't ski but my husband also bought skii stuff and was able to use it again the next year we went skiing. Not sure if we will make it to skiing in 2019 due to my husband's field assignment but we did in 2017 and 2018.

Clothes I do sometimes and sometimes I don't. Depending on when we go on vacation things might also be clearanced too (got two skorts just before I left for Jamaica in late August and spent $5+ tax on them for example).

I don't get my hair or nails done at all. It would be a complete loss to spend $ on my hair as it's thin and fine and doesn't retain style well lol. But I will get a haircut depending on if I want one but that's not spending a ton of money anyways.

Interesting to get that viewpoint on choosing a vacation destination

 

[Uncle Coaster]

I’m normally travel solo. My vacation planning usually starts by finding out what days I can get out of the office, then I look up what sporting events, concerts or shows I’d want to see and build trips around those and finally I check my budget to see which trip or trips fit.

Every once in a while it goes in a different order where I know I want to go somewhere specific and then try to get the time off but that isn’t the norm.

 

[LovesTimone]

This is actually interesting as I personally never consider a vacation destination on something like this.

But honestly that could be because of where I live. If I need a coat it's because I need a newer coat as my old one is worn. If I need a swimsuit/coverup it's because I need a newer one as my old one is worn or just isn't working anymore. We already have sunglasses and sunscreen though I suppose with the sunscreen it's making sure it's still good and not expired. Basically I've already got those items. Only trip that I needed to buy something specific was ski trip. I bought stuff for me and then tried learning skiing at home prior to going and knew it just wasn't for me lol though I still went I just didn't ski but my husband also bought skii stuff and was able to use it again the next year we went skiing. Not sure if we will make it to skiing in 2019 due to my husband's field assignment but we did in 2017 and 2018.

Clothes I do sometimes and sometimes I don't. Depending on when we go on vacation things might also be clearanced too (got two skorts just before I left for Jamaica in late August and spent $5+ tax on them for example).

I don't get my hair or nails done at all. It would be a complete loss to spend $ on my hair as it's thin and fine and doesn't retain style well lol. But I will get a haircut depending on if I want one but that's not spending a ton of money anyways.

Interesting to get that viewpoint on choosing a vacation destination

I live in Florida, I really don't own a coat of any sorts... a hoodie, and a couple of sweat shirts, a button up dressy sweater... So if we are heading somewhere cold... then i had to buy a coat which I did when we went to Paris...as well DH needed long sleeve shirts ( not dress shirt for work) and a nice warm jacket... My friend that just visited had to buy swimsuits for the whole family as this is something that they really don't use.

I hit the clearance racks to... looking for items that we might use or need when we travel, I bought DH and pairs of really nice gloves he never used them until we went to NYC then again to Paris.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I live in Florida, I really don't own a coat of any sorts... a hoodie, and a couple of sweat shirts, a button up dressy sweater... So if we are heading somewhere cold... then i had to buy a coat which I did when we went to Paris...as well DH needed long sleeve shirts ( not dress shirt for work) and a nice warm jacket... My friend that just visited had to buy swimsuits for the whole family as this is something that they really don't use.

I hit the clearance racks to... looking for items that we might use or need when we travel, I bought DH and pairs of really nice gloves he never used them until we went to NYC then again to Paris.

Well that makes more sense for sure

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Budget always carries the day for us and what we have to spend varies; we don’t specifically save for vacations. We keep a running list of ideas - I’m always looking into two or three different trips. When the time comes we decide which, if any of them we can afford. Sometimes we have to pivot and find something completely different. Disney vacations are no longer a priority for us and are apt to be a day or two add-on only if we’re already doing something else in the vicinity, like DLP last year when we went to Europe for a Med cruise.

This is us, pretty much. The list of destinations is endless. Which one we choose is typically dictated by budget, with a handful of exceptions over the years.

 

[NHdisneylover]

For us it is a combination--sometimes we jump on a vacation mostly because it is a great deal, and sometimes we spend quite a bit more than our typical trip to go somewhere we really want to.
The most budget driven is often Christmas-----severasl times we have plugged a number of bedrooms and bathrooms and dates into Holiday Letings nad looked for the least expensive place to go within a day's drive and tried somewhere new. It's how we first fell in love with Zagreb, and it is also why we spent several Christmases in Alicante or Valencia, Spain.

But, we enjoy a lot of different vacation types and locations so these days one of the MAJOR factors is tying trips into DH's work travels (or some other travel we have going on). we also try to work in chances to see far flung family once in a while

So, for example, DH worked in Detroit last month (we live in Germany). His parents live in COlorado and no longer like long fighs, but enjoy cruises and do not mind short flights.
So, I flew to Detroit with him, using miles at a discount since he was on the flight. Then we did an add on trip to meet his parents in Seattle and take a cruise with them.

In April DH works in China for two weeks. We'll fly out early (I will go with him on miles again) and we have booked a cruise out of Shanghai for the weeek prior and a few days at Disney in between). China/Japan is happening next year becuase DH has to be there anyway--so it saves us his airfare cost AND then he spends less time on airplanes---not having to travel home and then to a vacation destination.

Or, last summer we took a transatlantic cruise from the US back to EUrope---we chose which cruise based on one which left the weekend after my oldest finished finals at university---it was the way we got our kid home for the summer.

etc

 

[Nancyg56]

We start with destination. Once we choose a place we want to visit we look at cost and save for the trip. Our budget definately plays into the vacation though. I figure out how much it will cost with all the bells and whistles we like, but then pare down to what our budget will accomodate.

 

[ronandannette]

This is us, pretty much. The list of destinations is endless. Which one we choose is typically dictated by budget, with a handful of exceptions over the years.

We've done one or two "bucket-list" type trips that we saved and planned for well in advance, but not usually. Right now we're still smarting from our two 2018 trips - the CAD/US exchange rate has been brutal. Even economical locations aren't really so much when you have to add 33% for the exchange. For the first time ever, 2019 may be a staycation. Oh well, we need to re-paint and replace the patio door anyway and it's been tough to find the time.

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

I posted earlier, but had several thoughts about this that I did not put in my first post.

When I plan I try to include everything... to see what the actual cost is really going to look like. So of course I look at the major items, Airfare or driving to and from. Resort/Hotel/Homeaway, Food. But that's just really the body of the budget then, I start drilling down, adding all the vital organs, and such...

Air Fare - Flight cost and with that goes, are we parking at the airport, or Ubering/Lyft to and from the airport. Food in the airport both ways, a couple of bottles of water or soda for the plane trip, in flight cost wifi, or food or drink cost, baggage fees.

Driving - cost of oil change, tire rotation before we leave, Gas to and from, stopping for meals, and when you stop for gas snacks and drinks. Emergency money for car repairs.

Resort/ Hotel / Homeaway - Room cost per night... if we are driving cost of parking, wifi, resort or hotel fees, if rollaway or crib is needed.

Then the activities, tickets to theme parks, museums, shows/concerts/ zoo, zip-lining, horseback riding, snorkeling, spa treatment/couple massage, private tours, dinner cruises...the list goes on and on.

Car rental at destination if we are going that route, gas, mileage.. and we always get the insurance.

Transportation at destination - private car service, uber/lyft, hop on hop off buses, trains/metro/subway.

Food, Dinning out, cooking at Homeaway, snacks, treats, adult beverages, drinks - coke, water, diet coke, Gatorade for in room, as well as tipping the servers. I look at what we spend out for dinner at home since we live in a tourist meca, our cost of dinning out is high, then look at the area we are traveling to, I know that in NYC, Vegas, Paris the meals are going to be more expensive, and plan accordingly.

There is alot of tipping when you travel, servers, baggage handlers, bartenders, bell boys, uber/lyft/taxi drivers, even if the tip is included and we get above and beyond service we do tip something extra.

The before trip spending, clothing, shoes, beauty/personal care items, a heavy coat that will be need or swimsuit/coverups, sunglasses, sunscreen, thinking about that, I do start shopping months in advance so I am not spending a chunk of money right before we leave. Getting you hair, nails done before the trip.

When we take a cruise, hotel the night before with dinner, as well as brunch when we return, parking at the cruise port, cost of excursion the ones that I know that we will want to do, soft drink packages, adult beverages, money for gambling, spa treatments, and any out of pocket meals that are not included such as a specialty restaurants, or on board activity such as kids and teens clubs.

Currency Conversion - what's our dollar worth, where we are going.

For me taking the time to drill into where you are going, really thinking of all the stuff you will need, want do you want to do, and see. Any experiences that you must have. For me I like to know a more realistic number so that I don't have a ton of extra unexpected CC bills after we get back. By really looking and planning, you learn things, read tips, and can find deals, and information. There is so much out there, by planning at least for me, it helps me keep the budget in line, and helps us do the things we want to do.

I am so bad at this part haha. I basically started figuring 2.5x the base budget (hotel, airfare, and other known costs) because it all adds up so quick. I’m not a very thrifty traveler. I want things to be easy and quick so that tends to come at a price.

The pre-vacation shopping!!!! I’m set most of the time as I try not to travel anywhere cold haha, but ended up going to Tokyo in March with temperatures dipping into the 40s and I had to buy an entire wardrobe for the trip plus a coat, hat, gloves, real shoes etc. I guess I have a coat now and I did use it once last year so that’s something.

Overall I tend to pick the destination and then do what’s feasible for my budget.