Will higher travel costs affect your travel plans?

[magicmama]

With the cost of airline tickets and gas going up, how or will the costs affect your family travel plans? more driving than flying? more flying than driving? less trips? no change? Will it change what you do while at DVC? or maybe affect you in the future? Will it influence how you use your points?

We are looking to drive more instead of flying, even though it takes more time. And we may alter some of our usual plans. But we think its still important enough to go!

 

[Cruelladeville]

Truthfully, our plans won't change. Now sometimes we would alternate driving and flying, but we would still go. For two people, the cost is often cheaper to fly, as long as tickets stay in the $200-$300 range.

 

[YesYourMajesty]

Our tickets were 425.00 dollars each. I have never paid that much in my life for airline tickets. But, there is no way on earth I am doing a 23 hour drive from Nebraska to Florida. Not gonna happen. So, I sucked it up and paid for the tickets...and ultimately although I complained about the price, etc etc, it had zero effect on my travel plans.

 

[lovinthemouse]

Ours will only change in the length of our stays. In stead of making 2 or 3 shorter trips we are planning on longer stays. There are only 3 of us so it is about the same to fly or drive.

 

[waltfan1957]

We dont have a choice in the UK we have to fly but the price are getting stupid we could have flown to miami and had a 2 week cruise for only £200 more than just a flight to orlando wish the airlines could explain that?

 

[cobbler]

We always drive. It's cheaper than flying for a family of 4. We had 2 trips last year and 2 trips for this year. Well kind of year, one at the end of Nov and one in Jan, relatively close to each other anyway.

Going to cut that down to one trip a year for a bit but not entirely because of gas prices, other reasons too.

Anywho we went after Katrina last year and gas was 2.99 if not over 3 most places we spent 364 round trip and 7 weeks later when we went down we spent 254 so 110 cheaper. This year I actually budgeted 350 round trip because I knew it would probably happen again, the oil companies feel the need to charge us more just because they can. So all it really means is that the extra money is going to take away from something else, souvinears, more counter or cooking and less table service, something.

Not a whole lot that can be done. I am not going to give up traveling entirely, it sucks but what can you do.

 

[magicmama]

It seems that distance plays a big part of the decison. It's a 1500 mile drive for us. But I usually stop to see family on one of our trips and fly for one trip. But now I'm looking at going just once a year for a longer time.

Will anyone try to change the time of year you go to help with costs?

Airfare has gotten so high its taking a little of the fun out of going to DVC.

But once I get there, I know we'll still enjoy the magic! I hope costs don't go up much higher or it may really be hard from this distance.

Maybe I'll retire and move south.....

 

[drakethib]

We may just have to save a little bit more in advance.

 

[shantay1008]

It seems that distance plays a big part of the decison. It's a 1500 mile drive for us. But I usually stop to see family on one of our trips and fly for one trip. But now I'm looking at going just once a year for a longer time.

Will anyone try to change the time of year you go to help with costs?

Airfare has gotten so high its taking a little of the fun out of going to DVC.

But once I get there, I know we'll still enjoy the magic! I hope costs don't go up much higher or it may really be hard from this distance.

Maybe I'll retire and move south.....

Have you made the drive from MN to Orlando? It'd be great to hear how it went if you did since we're from the same area. With six of us to buy plane tickets for, driving is looking more attractive. Especially if we take our time driving down and visit some places along the way.

But to answer your question, if airfare gets too out of hand, we'll definitely take fewer, but longer, trips.
Shannon

 

[DVC Sadie]

We don't plan on changing our vacation habits due to the increase of gas or airline prices.

 

[magicmama]

Yes, I have driven to Orlando from MN and back. more than once! It's not a bad drive, just lo-o-ng.

It's 1560 miles, to be exact. a little less for you and probably about an hour or so shorter in time!! I drive 94 to 90, then 39 down to Bloomington, 74 to Champagne, 57 to 24, to 65 till Nashville. (about 15 hours, depends on stops) I will stay overnite at my son's place. Then back on 24 to Atlanta, 75 to the toll road to Orlando. Last time I went off the toll road at Cleremont, down the west side of WDW. I liked it better than going on I-4 and entered WDW on the Animal Kingdom/ south side. (about 11 hours or so, you have a time change!)

If you want some specific info, (rest stops, sights along the way, side trips, somewhat cheaper gas stations) I can send you a pm.

 

[mello]

since we live in the Pacific Northwest. Though in the future we may fly, or even drive to California instead of flying to Florida. In Sept. we paid approx $350 roundtrip per person from WA State to Florida. I just bought 2 tickets for our anniversary trip in June, and it's $500 per person. It's INSANE! If it weren't for a $50 companion coupon we had, we wouldn't be going.

 

[Caskbill]

We drive. It's just short of 1000 miles (about 980), but we're retired so time is not an issue, and since we'll stay in Florida on average about 5-6 weeks, having the car there is essential. Driving is much cheaper than flying and renting a car for that long. Plus, the route takes us through KY, TN, and GA which have lower gas prices than our home state of IN, or FL.

We get about 34 mpg highway, so about 29 gallons one way. Thus every gas increase of about $0.17/gallon adds about $10 round trip (not including local Florida driving)

Today local gasoline is about $0.65/gallon more than it was in April 2005, and about $1.00/gallon more than it was in April 2004. So driving R/T to WDW today would be about $38 more than last year, or $58 more than 2004. (Again not counting local driving around Florida).

Of course, by next month gas might go up even more. Whatever it does, we'll just have to pay it.

We usually stop at a Fairfield Inn near Macon GA, breaking the trip pretty much into about a 9 hour drive on day 1, and 7 hours on day 2. (not counting stops).

Eating breakfast in the hotel, then leaving about 8:00 am gets us to DVC checkin right about 4:00, which works out very well.

 

[crisi]

Fly, we are in the Twin Cities as well, but I simply don't have enough vacation time to waste four days of it on the road. If travel prices get ridiculous, we'll sell.

We already go bi-annually to save on airfare.

 

[Mary Anne]

Living in NYC and having 3 major airports right here, we always Fly. I just got air of $89 (one way) it's just not worth it to drive to us and there are 4 of us.

 

[eporter66]

With the cost of airline tickets and gas going up, how or will the costs affect your family travel plans? more driving than flying? more flying than driving? less trips? no change? Will it change what you do while at DVC? or maybe affect you in the future? Will it influence how you use your points?

We are looking to drive more instead of flying, even though it takes more time. And we may alter some of our usual plans. But we think its still important enough to go!

Wow - that is sure a long drive. We live in NY, and maybe we are wimps, but I really have no interest in driving because it takes a little too much time out of the vacation for us. I am sure we could plan stops along the way, but our daughter is only two - so, it would be a long LONG trip.

We have 150 points on our contract. So, what we have thought about doing is banking points - and having more to go with every other year if flying gets to be too expensive. Rates are still not bad right now.

Family vacations are very important to us - and we will be making our first trip to Disney with our daughter this October. We also plan on going in January of 2008 with 3 other families who we went to China with when we adopted Cammy. All the families plan on making the trip - and it will be great for the kids.

We will just have to figure out how to save for the travel, but we will continue to fly as long as it is possible to afford it

Eric

 

[Tink-n-Belle]

The high airfares makes me glad that at least our accomadations are paid for.

Those of you who are flexible, try booking wednesday to wednesday. The airfare is always cheaper during the week. Now that Delta & the pilots tentatively agreed to a contract, hopefully airfare will decrease. I think alot was riding on that (at least I hope so).

Airfares have been really low lately. I never paid less than $238 in 20 years flying to Florida (for my annual trip) but the past 3 times I paid less than $188 each. I think with gas prices $238-$300 is a good deal. I paid $319 per person on my honeymoon 15 years ago. So I guess $300 now is still pretty good.

 

[magicmama]

It seems unfair that some parts of the country can fly much cheaper than others. But I know that's the way the market works. Sometimes I could get a cheaper ticket from MN to Orlando than my son could from Nashville to Orlando, even with Southwest being in Nashville.

I applaud those of you that have larger families and can fly. And those of you who drive long distances with smaller children!

 

[littlestar]

We're flying from Indy to Orlando in May for $97.00 round trip (thanks to a Southwest Ding fare!). I can fly cheaper than driving. We paid $82.00 round trip in September, $145.00 in January (too close to the Martin King, Jr., holiday and had to pay more for the flight - won't do that again).

If you can go off season, there are still some great fares out there for Indy.

 

[shellybaxter]

The high airfares makes me glad that at least our accomadations are paid for.

Those of you who are flexible, try booking wednesday to wednesday. The airfare is always cheaper during the week. Now that Delta & the pilots tentatively agreed to a contract, hopefully airfare will decrease. I think alot was riding on that (at least I hope so).

.

I gambled and bought round trip tickets on Delta for January of 2007 this last Thursday. We fly from Reno NV (closest airport to our Northern California home) to Orlando. It was and still is a gamble but is looking better after the announcement. I payed $369.00 per person for three people. That is still a hunderd dollars more than we paid last December. It is also at least two hunderd dollars less than the next comparable flight (morning to evening, not a red eye, one stop in a non-snow bound city) on United.

Even though I've already purchased I am interested to see if airfares will go down or up, so I checked the Delta site this afternoon. The same tickets I bought for $369 per person are now $459.00 per person. It doesn't appear as if the Delta agreement is bringing fares down, instead it is increasing Delta fares themselves.

To answer the original question, since it is usually just Dh and me (this time we are bringing Dniece) the increased cost of air probably won't deter us from traveling. I'll keep looking for deals, but we really enjoy our vacations so I can't see us not going. Driving is not an option as it would take WAYYYY too long from California.

Shelly