What's the cheapest you've ever done Disney?

[Mjasp]

Well if we join DH on business. The hotel is paid for, his air ticket is paid for and we always have one free ticket. So I usually only have to buy 1 or 2 air tickets. At $140 each roundtrip, the worse case scenerio is $280 for airline tix.

MIL's friend works at Sea World, so those 4 tickets are FREE

Best friend works at Disney, so those 4 tickets are FREE

Brother works at Universal, need I say more.

Although we like to eat dinner out, we always have to visit everyone and have dinner at their homes and hang out. Small price to pay, although MIL of course wants to see her grandchildren all the time. Its great having all our family in Orlando, now if DH would just make the plunge and move to Avalon Park in Orlando I could get an annual pass.

 

[TreeOfLife]

The cheapest we've ever done is our next trip in Dec: Delta Skymiles award tickets saved us close to $1200 on three direct flights, round trip tickets. AAA gave us the sharpest savings on Universal's HRH, at least as of today. We bought WDW park tickets last year but if APs give us better discounts we'll switch to them for about the price of a hopper. We bought Universal's park tickets last year too, during an awesome promo. The total cost of our 10 day trip, staying onsite at both parks is under $1700. Not bad at all!


It just takes planning. Maybe I could not have done it in a few months but when you take time to learn your options and go it alone you save tons of money otherwise wasted in packages and going through third parties.

 

[gdulaney]

I'm new to this board, but I have a cheap story (a REALLY cheap story)...

We went to a timeshare presentation and received buy 1 - get 1 tickets to Disney (and breakfast), then went to another timeshare presentation where we earned $40 in Disney Dollars (and lunch). Then hung out (free sightseeing) for the rest of the day. We had a cheap hotel (this was almost 11 yrs ago...I don't remember the exact price) and the next morning, we got up and hit the Magic Kingdom. We used our Disney Dollars for food, a couple of goodies, and ended up with around $5 left of the Disney Dollars. We were supposed to stay at a different hotel that night, but when we arrived, it was in what can only be described as 2 steps away from a "red light district" so we just started driving back to GA. I think we ended up getting a couple of hours of sleep in a rest area...

Thank goodness for having the abililty to say "NO" about a billion times...or we'd own timeshares in a number of different places! We went to a presentation last year that "earned" us (and yes, sometimes you really do earn it!!) free tickets for 2 to Daytona USA, a $35 dinner certificate for a local restaurant (it was great!!), and a certificate for a free 3 day/2 night stay in Orlando. We're using the free stay when we go down next month...we only pay hotel taxes and resort fee. Not bad for a couple of hours worth of repeating yourself (over and over and over).

The best (or worse) part is that I have totally rubbed off on my husband...he's almost as thrifty (doesn't that sound nicer than cheap?) as me.

Ginny

 

[yecats]

Back in about '97 or '98 both my mom and I were having problems with our now ex's. We both decided to just take a vacation. As it was aoubt a week before Thanksgiving and I had college exams through the first week of December, we decided to go for 5 days the second week of December. Got hotel with breakfast bar everyday for $212 (beautiful breakfast - Radission Resort by Disney). Mom had two tickets from last visit with one day each. We brought them and asked to have them upgraded. The cast member did all of the computer stuff and upgraded us each to a 4 day PHP pass, total cost for both passes $90. We spent $100 in gas and the most expensive items were food and souvenirs which I think we spent about $400 as it was mostly late lunches and two dinners but snacks everyday. So total for 5 days for two people was about $800.

I am heading back to WDW this fall and my trip will cost me at least $1500 for just myself.

I know there are millions who only stay on grounds and I admit I love to stay on Disney property but I have truly had great times off property with last minute deals.

 

[jeannej]

Cheapest my family has ever done Disney and stayed on property was taking advantage of my mom's discount in January 2001 (she works at PO) We stayed at CS three nights for 89.95 for the 3 nights and had free tickets for all three days. Park hoppers. Just paid for meals and souvineirs.

jeannej

 

[Dancind]

How about the nicest trip, at the busiest time of year, for the cheapest? In Sept. 2001, we had airline tickets to Disney booked months in advance. Before we went, we made an offer on a DVC contract that had banked points that needed to be used by the next Feb., which I think of as "free" points! A month before our September trip, Southwest slashed their fares in half. So our $200 each tickets became $100 each tickets for two trips. I booked the second trip for Dec. 29-Jan. 7, and we bought annual passes on our Sept. trip. We paid the Government rate for three nights Dec. 29-31 at the Dolphin, then moved into OKW on our "free" points for a week. I have no idea what we spent on food, but we ate in our OKW 1 BR quite a bit. Overall, I thought it was a steal! Diana