What COST took you by suprise?

[mattsdragon]

You know what always amazes me?

How expensive those cheesy little antenna balls are. Everytime we see a car with one of them on the antenna, my wife and I say "there's goes someone who payed too much for a souviner"

 

[meljean]

There was one expense that took me by surprise was our breakfast at Tusker House. They take your picture with Donald before you walk in. They do not let you have this photo on your photopass. We were shown the picture at our table and the cost would be $30! I passed on this. I thought that they would be able to sell more pictures for $15 than $30.

 

[littlekidagain]

In 2010 my daughter wanted her birthday cake from Disney. We had dinner with a large party and were charged 18%. The cake was $150.00 and they charge another 18%. We knew the price of the cake know before hand but didn't know about the 2nd 18%!

 

[mom2rtk]

60$ chicken nuggets? are you being serious?

LOL! That sad part is that I WAS serious!

At age 10 kids are adults by Disney standards. Dinner for adults at CRT was $60. Since she didn't see anything on the adult menu she liked, they made her an adult sized plate of the kids chicken nuggets but would not allow her to just order off the kids menu. The sad part is that I don't think she even ate them all. The kid size meal would have been fine, but was not allowed.

I knew all of that going into it, and told myself it was our tradition to eat there before the Christmas party and all........ but that's one tradition that might have to change.

 

[SusieBea]

$30 for a six-pack of beer at the resort gift shop!

 

[Maps05]

The amount paid in tips by Americans anywhere. In Europe tips are not automatic and not a set amount. My DD went on a Disney Cruise and when they read in their booklet how much the tips were and for how many people AND that was each person not family, even though 2 of those were aged 2 & 3, they nearly jumped off the ship! My SIL calulated the number of people on board and the amount of tips and the staff were making more on that one voyage before their wages, than he made in a year, and he has a good job! Much as they loved the trip, they could have had another holiday from the cost of the tips.

 

[StarGirl11]

A couple of the meals caused a bit of shock over the price last trip.

I wanted to pipe in with some advice for anyone who gets sick on their trip. Coming to WDW last January I was still fighting the remnants of a sinus infection that would not go away. After one of my ears got so bad I could barely hear out of it the first thing I did once I was off the plane in Orlando wasn't to go help Mom get the bags but to go to the Urgent Care they have in OIA. Its a small urgent care with a few other places in FL but the point is I wish they had that lot here in Denver. The Urgent Care there is completely going back to OIA in my opinion if you need something, the doctor was great, the nurse was great, hell the reception guy was great. It was one of the best Urgent Cares I've been too and I've been to a few of them across the country. I was able to get the meds I needed at the site and arrived at WDW with the medicine in hand.

 

[iwantpeace]

This has already been said, but what really shocks me is the cost of my disney "adult" 10 year old to eat. Especially at buffets like Chef Mickey's. I know part of it is the experience, but it's a crazy amount of money for her to get a few chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. I know some 10 year old eat like adults, but mine eats like a 5 year old!

 

[Antonia]

Thank goodness we are staying DVC. We are taking our son and daughter-in-law and two young grandchildren. We haven't been to WDW since 2004. We are driving so we'll take our own drinks and we plan to do some cooking in our villa. Now I know to cook and enjoy it! We stayed DVC at HHI this past September and cooked in our villa and loved doing that. We won't do all our own meals. I know we are eating breakfast at Crystal Palace. But that may be our one character meal!

 

[bumbershoot]

--Again, nothing I can think of. I hate the term "budget" so we don't really budget out our trips. Our first trip, we saved for years because it was the first one with the kids, so we went all out and splurged numerous times. Last year it was a spur of the minute trip and we still had money left over from our first trip, so that was what paid for the majority of it. This year we decided to go 10 months in advance, so we're paying it off now. We might start getting the pre-paid Disney gift cards to ease the brunt of anything we buy there, but for the most part we like to have it all paid for in advance. It's our vacation - stressing over money is not a fun way for us to do it, so we plan accordingly and then enjoy.

That last part of your last sentence IS budgeting for a trip. Make the money you need available in order to have fun.

 

[The 6 J's]

If there was a contest for this thread, I would vote for you!

You are a good hearted soul........

Thanks for the compliment but before you go too far I should add one detail. We DID go on the ride before heading back to the hotel. I am, after all, a registered Dis Commando!

 

[pigletto]

Somehow I forgot to pack DS kids toothpaste...no idea how I did that and the one I packed for us was not going to cut it...

So down to the giftshop. They only had kids toothpaste with the brush and travel case so it cost $4...what a waste...

Also the games at Animal Kingdom. 3 games for $10...DS is still talking about how he didnt win the turtle he wanted but I wasnt paying more then $10.

Specialy drinks. DH got 3 bud lites at Ohana and it cost $20. My 1 drink was like $15. Rainforest Cafe was no different.

The games at Animal Kingdom tick me off. We usually avoid the area. Gee I just paid over a thousand dollars for tickets for my family of four. Not going to nickel and dime myself to death on cheesy carnival games thanks.

And as others have mentioned, I was annoyed with the cost of kids medicine at the gift shop. Both the kids got sick. DD needed adult Ibuprofen and DS needed kids Tylenol. I had everything but those two things. Seriously, I could have opened a pharmacy out of my room except for those two items. So.. I was more annoyed at myself than Disney in that scenario.

 

[Daisy-J&D]

I had a bit of a surprise...

While filling out our customs form on the flight home to Canada I pulled out all of our receipts to calculate the total.

First surprise:

We spent just over $700 on souvenirs. When I asked DP what amount she thought we'd spent, she said $400. Yeah, No. SEVEN HUNDRED and this didn't include DDP tips as I had just charged that to our room.

Second surprise:
I started going over our receipts to figure out HOW ON EARTH WE SPENT $700 (no we didn't have a budget) and discoverd that we were not charged for items we had "purchased" on 3 different occasions. The only item I can recall now was our DD's swim suit from Typhoon lagoon. I kept looking at the receipt and knew we had rented the locker, bought three souvenir towels and DDs swim suit but it was not there ($30). The other 2 items were worth around $15-$20 each. I think one was a picture frame and another was a hat. It was clear at the time because I was doing a complete mental inventory and couldn't find those purchases on any receipt or with the other merchandise we'd bought at the same time.

I wonder how much money Disney loses to this if it happened to us 3 times!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW, I think we had not noticed because a) we're obviously bad with money so we weren't looking at receipts and b) the cost of everything was so expensive it probably "felt" like we'd paid for everything even if we hadn't!

 

[mel&me]

I can honestly say high cost of stuff does not surprise me at all with Disney.
I get more of a surprise when paying for something I completely expect to be expensive and it is actually a reasonable price.

 

[The 6 J's]

did your 2 year old have the balloons when he jumped, thinking they'd keep him afloat? ...

No, he was following the 5yo as they played Indiana Jones around the room. Monkey see monkey do.

In the spirit of looking for a positive spin this was the cheapest broken bone we've experienced since Disney paid for the Ambulance, ER bill and taxis.

 

[rt2dz]

Honestly...? Everything, imo, is way overpriced and none of it shocks me anymore. I adjust.

The sad thing is, it didn't used to be this bad. I first started paying attention when we had to start paying for DS#1 (age 3). Eight years ago, we paid $89 per night for a Savannah room at AKL. For the same travel period we're looking at $465-$505 per night at the Polynesian (were we are looking at for the next trip). We've our grown that room for AKL, but for kicks I just looked it up and it's $415 -$450 per night. Now, I did have a pin for the first trip, but not one that covered $361 per night!

We drive; always have. So, basic things we buy offsite or bring with us. If we forget generally, we are able to stop by Target or Walmart. Heck, even Publix is better than WDW!

 

[kdawg8762]

The amount paid in tips by Americans anywhere. In Europe tips are not automatic and not a set amount. My DD went on a Disney Cruise and when they read in their booklet how much the tips were and for how many people AND that was each person not family, even though 2 of those were aged 2 & 3, they nearly jumped off the ship! My SIL calulated the number of people on board and the amount of tips and the staff were making more on that one voyage before their wages, than he made in a year, and he has a good job! Much as they loved the trip, they could have had another holiday from the cost of the tips.

This is going to seem rude, but for Americans, most everywhere in the country tip aren't automatic nor a set amount, it is because foreigners generally do not tip very well if at all, that places with a large amount of them (aka theme parks like WDW) have to make it automatic.

 

[BELLEDOZER]

I disagree completely. We tip based on the quality of service we receive. It doesn't matter if we are in our country or another country our tipping standards remain the same. I have a problem when 18% is added to a bill automatically, when if we get really good service we are more apt to tip 20% or slightly more. It should be based on the quality of service received, and while I do agree that some people do under tip, to paint all of us with the same brush is unfair to those of us who do tip fairly. I'm not going to tip a server that we've gotten absolutely abysmal service from, and completely ignore us, and then give them an 18% tip.

 

[mommyrosa2]

I'll have to agree with the folks about the cost of toiletries in the gift shops. One year, I made the mistake of forgetting suncscreen at home and almost choked when I had to pay more than twice the amount for a much smaller bottle of sunscreen. But then again, the cost of toiletries in any gift shop (not just Disney) are way over priced. We stayed at the Sandals resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica, once and I had to get some sunburn relief spray and let's just say the price for that was OBSCENE.

 

[W.E.D.]

I expect things to be pricey at WDW. What really took me by surprise were the fees that got tacked on to our flights. I guess I should have known better in that respect.