What would you do? (Adding an extra Disney trip)

[smartestnumber5]

(Not sure if this is the best board for this, but here it goes)

Question 1: What would you do?

Option 1: Take 1 trip to Disney this year for a bit less than $2000 (Aug 2007--9 nights at Pop w/ hopefully free dining, water park & more tickets, some extra OOP meals and fun, and maybe an extra long drive back to extend the vacation)

Option 2: Take 2 trips to Disney this year for a little more than $2600 for both (Winter 2007--5 nights cheap offsite hotel booked through expedia w/ $200 off deal, budget for dining but allow some TS meals and Aug 2007--7 nights at Pop w/ hopefully free dining, no extra food or fun, no extended drive back, with annual passes)


Question 2: What should we do?


The idea of a 2nd trip sounds wonderful to us, and if it only adds $600 and we just have to cut back on extras for the Aug trip, that sounds like a great deal. But we have some financial concerns:

Should we really be spending another $600 on vacation? Neither of us will exactly be hurting for the $600. However, it's not like we have a lot of disposable income. I'm living on a grad student stipend and gf is living on a school fund plus some money she set aside when she was working (as she's working on a 2nd bachelors). So we feel guilty spending any more money on vacation than we had already been planning for. At the same time, I will definitely (barring any unforseen circumstances) be coming out ahead this year by a couple thousand dollars and was planning to save all of my extra income at the end of the year for the future (a possible small, casual, inexpensive wedding in the next few years and eventually a baby--though none of these things are definite)--but $300 really won't make much of a difference. But then I'm doing much better financially than gf is right now. (Also, I was hoping we could do at least an overnight trip sometime this spring break just to get us away from home for a little bit. This would probably end up costing $150 at least, and we would not do that overnight trip if we were going to Disney twice.)

2) Is it better to have two shorter vacations with less extras? Or one longer vacation with more extras?

3) To keep costs down we're staying at a cheap hotel offsite and using only their shuttle service. Will we regret that giving we're used to being onsite w/ Disney transportation?

 

[PrincessTiff]

I like option #1. That's just a personal preference for me. My question is how are you managing to keep the cost under $2000? Is airfare not included in that price?

ETA- I reread it and saw the words "drive back" that could be an indication your not flying eh. Perhaps I need to get some sleep.

 

[Swimnoid]

I say take the second trip BUT DONT stay off site.

 

[GeorgeG]

A 9 day trip in August can be brutal. You might go for a shorter trip then and put the time into a second trip when the weather is better. The ambient temps aren't so bad, but the summer sun is very hot and you get a lot of sun in the parks.

If you choose to stay off-site, make sure it's at a reputable hotel in a nice area. The east end of International Dr. is not as nice as the west end and , in my opinion, not as nice as staying onsite.

Another good option might be to simply wait and do one shorter fall or winter trip onsite. Five days of really nice vacation might be better than nine in the middle of summer. We're only about an hour away and go often, but we tend to a lot less during July and August.

Either way, have a great time.

 

[smartestnumber5]

I like option #1. That's just a personal preference for me. My question is how are you managing to keep the cost under $2000? Is airfare not included in that price?

ETA- I reread it and saw the words "drive back" that could be an indication your not flying eh. Perhaps I need to get some sleep.

Thanks for your response.

The WDW site is coming up with for 9 nights at Pop with 10 day park hopper & water park option tickets for 1462. Right now we're just assuming free dining will happen. (It'll definitely throw a wrench in our plans if it doesn't!)

Driving in itself wouldn't actually save money versus flying. Last year we got flights for $120 each whereas just the gas would cost $200 (it's a 17 hour drive each way). The driving idea came up because we decided we wanted to have a car, and renting one would be an additional almost $300 w/ gas. So if we were going to spend $550 for flight and car rental we figured we could try to make it a fun road trip for that price and extend the vacation a little.

So actually, once we add in another $250 for OOP food and extras we're definitely over the $2000 mark.

Right now, though, our thought is to just suck it up and nix the car idea--saving $300. And cutting down on the extras and food to a total of $50--saving $200. And then dumping the water park option--saving $85.