Still spending a boat load of dough

[rutgers1]

I was just looking over my budget for our upcoming trip, and I have concluded that a Disney trip is still more $$ than many others even when you take lodging out of the equation.

After an upcoming year that will see us go twice in 7 months, I think we are going to bank the next year's points and do something considerably cheaper. Plus, that will leave us with more points for a longer trip the following year.

 

[El&Asmom]

I agree. Those park tickets and food add up quickly. Thankfully, we're not paying for lodging at a place like BC or the Poly. It would be really expensive then.

 

[princessfionasmom]

when you figure in park tickets, food and transportation (flying in our case) it really ads up to a whole lot. Although this year my family lucks out because we are military and can take advantage of the military deal they have which takes away a big chunk of the cost (and my ap covers our next trip for me). Although I think of it as, if we didn't own DVC, we wouldn't have such nice accomodations that we can now have so it does help. Unless you do a no park trip, it's hard to make this a cheap vaca but the memories are surely priceless IMHO.

I LOVE the idea of banking and making a bigger trip! That's what we are doing for our Oct trip. We banked last years pts and will use them in Oct. Although for us it's bitter sweet, DH has an extremely good chance of being sent overseas for military when our trip is planned but insists that the kids and I still go. He is currently away for training for his deployment so my excitement has gone WAY south. Sorry to be such a downer, just wallowing in my self pitty.

Just put your excitement into planning your next longer trip!

 

[culli]

I was just looking over my budget for our upcoming trip, and I have concluded that a Disney trip is still more $$ than many others even when you take lodging out of the equation.

After an upcoming year that will see us go twice in 7 months, I think we are going to bank the next year's points and do something considerably cheaper. Plus, that will leave us with more points for a longer trip the following year.

For our family and the entertainment we get, cheaper than many other options. Even for an adult only trip the wife and I took....much cheaper than going to Vegas for us, but we do have APs so once they are paid for more trips actually makes more sense for us. We don't eat out hardly at all so we save a bunch there plus we don't get a rental car.

 

[rutgers1]

Our tentative plan is to spend some time at the Jersey shore during our "off" year, which will be cheap for us since my parents just bought a house 20 minutes away from the water. We will probably do a cruise. The cruise will be cheap because we can drive to the dock (save on air fee), and from what I hear, if you shop around, there are a lot of cruise deals. I think this family of four can do a week's cruise for less than the price of our premium annual passes.

Another benefit of banking is that we can take friends and family with us. Since we got extra points when we bought this year, we had enough to offer friends a week with us in February. We are excited to experience Disney with another family. I have a growing list of others that I would want to invite in future years.

 

[twinklebug]

You want expensive? Look at the cost of a trailer: tow vehicle, gas, tolls, campground fees, excise taxes, insurance, maintenance... and that's after the initial purchase price which is at least $3K for a fixer-upper!
... Oh, and you need a place to park it when not in use.

I think the only "cheap" vacations you can take anymore involve crashing in on relatives or tenting in a state forest. Hm. No indoor plumbing, heat or AC.

I'll take Disney & my DVC any day. Simple, magical & perfect.
It's your choice if you want to pay for park passes, I believe DVC can be enjoyed unto itself as a retreat. Combine that with driving (I realize most of us don't have this option) and it's even less expensive.

 

[kaffinito]

I know what you mean. The trips do end up costing $$$ sometimes. After this years 3 trips, the next few years will be one summer trip with the boys to WDW, and my annual trip with DH (next time is VB). DH is cheap so that won't cost much OOP.

I figure things will settle down money-wise once we get back in the habit of our $20 per day per person at WDW and no credit card purchases. I can also save on vacations if I cut out the water park trip in February, since it really isn't half as good as Disney, and it costs as much for three days there as it does for a week in a moderate.

I can really save if we start using our pop-up and do some shorter camping trips here and there. Trailers are expensive, but pop-ups (especially the used ones off of Craigslist) are relatively cheap.

So I sympathize with you on the cost of a WDW trip. I wish it was cheaper as well, but then again you do get what you pay for at Disney. You get to experience the

 

[buzz5985]

when you figure in park tickets, food and transportation (flying in our case) it really ads up to a whole lot. Although this year my family lucks out because we are military and can take advantage of the military deal they have which takes away a big chunk of the cost (and my ap covers our next trip for me). Although I think of it as, if we didn't own DVC, we wouldn't have such nice accomodations that we can now have so it does help. Unless you do a no park trip, it's hard to make this a cheap vaca but the memories are surely priceless IMHO.

I LOVE the idea of banking and making a bigger trip! That's what we are doing for our Oct trip. We banked last years pts and will use them in Oct. Although for us it's bitter sweet, DH has an extremely good chance of being sent overseas for military when our trip is planned but insists that the kids and I still go. He is currently away for training for his deployment so my excitement has gone WAY south. Sorry to be such a downer, just wallowing in my self pitty.

Just put your excitement into planning your next longer trip!

Thank you for the sacrafice you and your family are making for our Country. I hope your DH gets to join you in October.

Janis

 

[Teachckg]

Thank you for the sacrafice you and your family are making for our Country. I hope your DH gets to join you in October.

Janis

I second this!

 

[eliza61]

LOL. Disney has never been a budget trip but what I always try to factor in is "Value" or most bang for the buck and this is where IMO disney rocks.
Last summer we went to Ocean city Md. room was 238.00/night (1 bedroom condo) and still 1 block from the ocean. Food at restuarants was just as expensive (although I will give them better marks for quality. but they have the advantage of being privately owned) and movies and broadwalk activities were crazy expensive (10.00 movie tickets)

Our total one week at the shore ~3000 bucks. easily what we spend at the world and not nearly as much to do.

 

[DVC Mike]

Disney has never been a budget trip.

That's for sure!

 

[whitfamily]

I'd have to agree with many here. For what youget, WDW is a good value and DVC seems to make it an even better value.

When we went to Disney in January it was actually more expensive to go to the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg than it was to do Disney, even when you add in the gas money! When my father does his yearly trip to Mammoth Lakes he shells out almost $2000 for his week long condo and has to spend even more on other entertainment. My AP and MF for our two DVC trips is the same amount and I get a much wider array of entertainment.

Folks are right, short of sleeping in a roach motel, with family or camping you're not going to get a much better deal. I dont mind the latter, but will avoid the first two when able!

 

[DisneyWalker44]

We've had good luck keeping most trips "cheap." We use ME, so there's no car to rent or transer costs. We make good use of the kitchen to cover many meals and snacks. For parks, we get 10-day non-expire + more tickets and spend 1/3 days in the theme parks, 1/3 at the water parks (or Disney Quest) and 1/3 doing no parks.

 

[jodifla]

The thing is, what can you really do that's similar that's cheaper?? We'll go to Cape Cod for a week, and between lodging, rental car, airfare, food, it's 3 grand, and that's not including any entertainment!

 

[gkrykewy]

In terms of bang for the buck, I'd put WDW ahead of anything else, particularly with DVC.

 

[HayGan]

You want expensive? Look at the cost of a trailer: tow vehicle, gas, tolls, campground fees, excise taxes, insurance, maintenance... and that's after the initial purchase price which is at least $3K for a fixer-upper!
... Oh, and you need a place to park it when not in use.

I think the only "cheap" vacations you can take anymore involve crashing in on relatives or tenting in a state forest. Hm. No indoor plumbing, heat or AC.

I'll take Disney & my DVC any day. Simple, magical & perfect.
It's your choice if you want to pay for park passes, I believe DVC can be enjoyed unto itself as a retreat. Combine that with driving (I realize most of us don't have this option) and it's even less expensive.

While I love my Disney I have to disagree that there are not cheap vacations out there. We usually go "camping" for a week every year in a modern cabin in a state park that costs $300 for the week! This cabin has all the modern ammenities except a/c. And it is just feet away from a beautiful lake that we can actually swim in (unlike the lakes at WDW.) The whole week costs about $600.

There are plenty of ways to have inexpensive getaways that are fantastic vacations as well. You just have to be willing to look

As for the cost of Disney vacations, I agree that it is expensive no matter what. However, we find that DVC does allow us to do Disney more affordably. For instance this trip will be $2,500 or less. After finding out about the holiday premium at our favorite restaurants in June we have decided to try more off-site places and do more "easy" meals in the villa. That is a huge savings. There are so many other ways to make Disney more affordable. It all depends on how you want to do it!

 

[jakenjess]

Disney certainly is not a cheap vacation for us. We just got back from ten days where we spent WAY too much money! But whenever we start pricing out a so-called "budget" vacation, driving, closer to home, etc., it adds up so fast that I always end up thinking, we could go to Disney for not much more. That's where DVC really pays off, because when you start adding up the cost of hotel rooms, it gets expensive very quickly!

 

[photobob]

Ours won't be as bad this year, we are going to Vero Beach so no tickets to purchase. Our traveling friends who are also DVC members wanted a year off from WDW. The cheaper vacation wasn't the primary reason but is a big benefit this year because as with many our cash is a good bit tighter.

There are ways to lessen the costs of WDW vacations. We try to get as many trips as we can with our AP's. Our last AP's covered June 2007, February 08 and June 08. I will not buy them again until June '10 and use it for three trips again. We'll probably get 15 days of park use from them.

Many people don't like to cook while on vacation and I understand that completely, but that is the one area where you can cut the costs of a trip significantly. Dining is the biggest cost variable in WDW trip. While Disney dining is very expensive i do like the fact that there are many chooses price-wise. You can spend hundreds on a single meal at Victoria and Alberts or have a $5.75 turkey leg or an egg roll for $2.50. So if you want to go on a lower budget WDW trip you can. While i enjoy a nice meal as much as anyone, I'd rather go cheaply rather than not be able to go anyday!

*An addition: We also drive so we don't have to deal with airfare and are able to take lots of groceries with us.*

 

[KPH500]

when you figure in park tickets, food and transportation (flying in our case) it really ads up to a whole lot. Although this year my family lucks out because we are military and can take advantage of the military deal they have which takes away a big chunk of the cost (and my ap covers our next trip for me). Although I think of it as, if we didn't own DVC, we wouldn't have such nice accomodations that we can now have so it does help. Unless you do a no park trip, it's hard to make this a cheap vaca but the memories are surely priceless IMHO.

I LOVE the idea of banking and making a bigger trip! That's what we are doing for our Oct trip. We banked last years pts and will use them in Oct. Although for us it's bitter sweet, DH has an extremely good chance of being sent overseas for military when our trip is planned but insists that the kids and I still go. He is currently away for training for his deployment so my excitement has gone WAY south. Sorry to be such a downer, just wallowing in my self pitty.

Just put your excitement into planning your next longer trip!

We will be taking advantage of the military offer too, plus we've decided to drive instead of flying so we save some on airfare and the cost of a rental car.

Also, we buy enough groceries to have breakfast in the room, make sandwiches to bring in to the parks along with some light snacks and water.

We don't do the DP and generally only buy dinner out which means we can splurge there and do mostly sit down meals instead of CS.

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

We are hoping that when we eventually get more points and have APs that each individual trip won't be very expensive.

We like to go to Hilton Head for our not so expensive trip. We had planned to grill out on our 1st day at HH, and then eat left over goodies on our last trip. Well...it was 20 degrees when we got to HH.

Next time though...I'm sticking to my plan. I'll hang out at the resort...and eat in.