Planning Ahead for Disney, Any Advise?

We went to Disneyworld 4 years ago with a 4 year old and 9 year old. We also went to Cocoa Beach for a few days and loved it. Not a terribly far drive from Orlando and a chance to 'get away' and relax. As far as Disney, we stayed in downtown Disney. If you have travel points with hotels, cash in! Downtown Disney still has the shuttles to get you to the parks. Purchase tickets ahead of time. Purchase strollers for the time you're there ahead of time. This saves time when you get to each park. Also take a cooler with you. They'll let you and you can take your own bottled water and snacks and save a fortune in the park. Have fun. p.s. my 8 year still remembers this trip and she was 4 at the time. She wants to go back and do the stuff she remembers too so we'll be back! Good luck!

Plan plan plan! The best Disney vacation is the one that is thoroghly mapped out, with some flexiblility of course! Go on a totally off-season, saves tons of $ and time. Consider staying off-premise - you get a lot more bang for the buck and rental cars are not expensive in off-season. If you have AAA, they have parking privilages if you do it ahead of time. The kids will have a ball & you are smart to start thinking about it now! My daughter is 4 and we have been 3 times already, each experience is different & tons of fun. Invest in a digital camera, totally a necessity!

We did the Disney thing including a weekend cruise. We left here and drove through Kentucky, Tennessee, and I forget what all. We stopped in Chattanooga and visited this wonderful cave with a huge waterfall down deep. I forget the name but it was fantastic. We went to a 3d theater that was absolutely wonderful and a huge aquarium. We used a trip maker program and every place we wanted to stop for the day we would search things to do on it within 30 minutes from our stopping point. We picked up all we could at the visitor centers at each state and was able to call ahead while we were going down the road and find hotels and use coupons we found in the books.

The cruise was the largest cost for one thing. At the time we were a family of 5 and that was 10 years ago. So prices will have gone up. That was 2500 for the cruise. But we still spent another 5000 dollars all together. We spend 3 days in Disney, spent time in a fabulous resort and we bounced around Florida visiting some Beaches and the space station in Nassau.

We were gone for 2 weeks total and the whole trip was a lifetime memory. Of the 7500, 1000 of that was the income I missed for shutting down my daycare. So if you have paid vacation for your husband that will help.

We also did some extravagant things like we ate out at one nice place every day and did room service a few times.

I'm not sure 40 or 50 per month is much to be putting aside. But if you really have 5 years to plan it will be a good start.

S.

We just went to Disney in November of 07. My husband and I took our six children. We had always stayed on site but this year rented a van and a house. We saved more money doing this because we found a house cheaper for the week than the resort, plus had a whole lot more room and our own swimming pool. We have gone four other times, always in the fall before Thanksgiving (off season). It cost us about $3000 for 8nights/9days. We did a five day hopper and spent the other days swimming/downtown disney etc. 2 days were of course traveling. We flew and found tickets for approx. $220 a person. We probably could have found a little cheaper but didn't do a whole lot of looking. Really look into the planning and keep looking on the Disney sites, they change offers frequently. Please don't put off going though, it really will be a magical time you will never forget, even if your kids do!

Hi K.! My family of 4 went to Disney World last year about this time & had a fabulous time! It was worth every penny...you can't replace great memories!

We also drove, from OK, it was a long trip, but the kids were good. I think we probably spent a total of $2,500 - $3,000, including all expenses.

Absolutely, without a doubt, stay at a Disney resort, purchase the park-hopper passes & meals with your room. We chose the All Sports Resort...it's less expensive, has the free shuttle to all the parks & had everything we needed...multiple pools, gift shop, restaraunt & all. Nothing fancy, but we decided to spend our $$ elsewhere, especially since you spend so very little time actually in your room!

I think your kids will be a great age to enjoy everything! Animal Kingdom is really cool & a must see for both! We were there 4 days...exhausted by the end & went with the expectation of hitting the parks we really thought we'd like & then "hopping" to a different one or back to one we'd previously been to if we weren't enjoying ourselves. Of course, you could stay 2 weeks & not get everything done that there is to do!?!

It rains most every afternoon, so I took a backpack with ponchos, light snacks & water bottles to refill. The meal deal is definitely worth it...we ate FABULOUS lunches & dinners with steak, seafood & etc...snacks in the afternoon & just took cereal & etc to have breakfast in the room before we headed out each day.

Dress for a lot of walking...wearing comfortable shoes! Be sure & let them know if you're celebrating something special...it was my daughter's birthday (just happened to work out that way, not planned) & she got all kinds of special treatment, gifts, passes to the head of the line & etc!

It was great! Wouldn't trade it for anything!

I'd say minimum to save would be $2000-$2500. We went there last year and spent about $1800 but it was when both kids were still under 3 so they got free theme park admissions. That $1800 included airfare, hotel, rental car, theme parks for me and hubby, souvenirs, food, etc... We did our trip about middle of the line, not splurging but also not scrimping totally. My opinion is if you're making the effort to get there and have fun then make sure you do!

I would say to save money...book hotel and airfare together. We did ours on travelocity and paid about $700 for airfare and hotel for our family of four. the prices go up if you book them separately.

I would also recommend getting Disney tickets with the no expiration option. we just splurged and got the 7 day park hoppers w/water park with no exp. (13 days total of Disney) and we used half this past year and have saved the other half of the tickets for the next trip. we did this because the kids were still free this last time since they were under 3 and we knew it would make it easier on us to afford our next vacation only having to worry about buying their tix and not ours too.

as far as rental car, many of the hotels there offer free shuttle service to the theme parks (limited times), and once you're at a park Disney has their own free shuttle service to each of their parks. our first time going we didn't rent a car, but the taxi ride to and from the hotel was $50 each way! so the second time we went we did rent a car, and you can usually do so for $150 for a week depending on the time of year. it gave us the flexibility to bring the kids back to hotel for naps as well as more choices for eating out and nighttime entertaiment.

we've found the 3 times we've gone to Disney that it seems to be cheapest to go in late April/early May or in Sept/Oct. Those off peak times are during the school year and just slow travel times in general so you don't have ridiculously huge crowds like you'd have if you went say 4th of July weekend. We liked going the 1st or 2nd week of May, the weather is generally really mild and it's before the beginning of hurrican season with the rain and humidity.

WOW! this ended up being really long, but hopefully it helps! HAVE FUN! :)

K., I've been doing the same thing...you need to first order the video from Disney and check the sites. There are pros & cons to staying at the resorts...but only you can figure the dollar savings and decide how long you are going to stay in each park. My experience w/ Disney is that if you are taking youngsters, you need to figure naps so staying at the resorts may be more beneficial...Also, are you going solely for Disney or are you going to take a day off in between (my personal recommendation...it gets to be a bit much) Staying at the resorts will discount your hopper tickets and you can also purchase a meal plan through them. AND DEFINITELY get that Disney credit card! You can really rack up the dollars over the next few years to go towards the parks...

However, I am a HUGE lover of VRBO.com (vacation rentals by owner) you can get a FULL HOUSE much cheaper than a small hotel room and most of them come with pools, not to mention full kitchens and washers & dryers...that way if you need a day off from disney you can just lounge by the pool.

My personal experience with beaches in FL is this...The Atlantic is very choppy and has a lot of seashells to step on...but if you want to do the ocean go to cocoa beach/melbourne area. If you want absolutely GORGEOUS fine white sand beaches....go to Destin/Pensecola area...it doesn't get any better.

Another idea, is hit Disney for a couple of days and do the VRBO week at the beach somewhere else...fun and excitement but downtime and enjoy the beach too.

Remember, if you go in an off season the number of hours you actually have in the park is reduced but the prices aren't. Check the web, I thought I saw a book for sale around $20 written my an ex-Disney employee that gives you ALL the ins and outs...it was going to be my next purchase....looked like a real lifesaver.

ALSO, as an FYI...Call ahead and double check...but I seem to recall if you bought the hopper pass (like 5-7 day) it was an unlimited time for use. In other words, you could use it anytime you wanted...it never expired AND it gave you the ability to hop parks throughout the day. If they are still selling this, I would buy it now and stick it in a safe deposit box...these tickets only go up every year and you would eventually be saving these dollars....especially if they never expire....and they are also transferrable to anyone so whatever you don't use you can sell or give away. Good luck! L. B

We just got back from Disney last week and for our family of 5, including air fare! spent about $2500 for the week. My kids were 4, 5, 8-it was a perfect age to go. We rented a house from VRBO.com (vacation rental by owner). we had a 4 bed/3 bath house about 15 minutes from Disney for $700 for the week.
Chase Visa offers a Disney rewards Visa Card. We started 3 years ago with it and earned disney dollars for every purchase (usually 1-2%). We charge EVERYTHING on the card-even little purchases. After 3 years, we earned over $900 Disney dollars-which bought all 3 of my children's tickets and left $200 on a rewards card for food at the parks.
You can take in snacks/drinks into the park, so that saves a lot! Kids meals are about $4.50--good news, they're big and if you order from counter service restaurants they don't care if they're for adults or kids. They fill most adults--most meals, we ordered 4 kids meals and split them around (only about $18) a meal, plus our snacks we brought into the park.
Check out mousesavers.com--they give you lots of great money saving deals. We also spent an afternoon at Cocoa Beach (only about an hour from Orlando).
As for souvenirs, we had family give the kids Disney Dollars (you can buy them at the Disney store) for gifts for birthdays, valentines day, whatever throughout the year before we went-each of mine had $60 to spend on whatever they wanted (and it didn't cost us a cent!)
If you want more money saving ideas, just e-mail--I did a ton of research and found lots of ways to pinch pennies!

I would recommend talking to a travel agent. There are several different packages you can choose from. When we went, our travel agent got us a great deal--we never could have found that on our own--and we had an amazing time. I highly recommend staying in one of the Disney resorts; even the cheaper ones are still nice, and you're really not there for the hotel anyway. Staying at a Disney resort means you get free transportation to & from all the parks, and if you buy things in the gift shops, you can have them sent to your room instead of having to carry them around with you. You also have longer hours (I think it's an hour before the park opens and an hour after the park "closes") to ride if you're a guest at a Disney resort, along with a lot of other perks. It's been about 5 years since we went, but I think it was around $5000 for the whole trip, but we flew, rented a car in Florida, and we also spent a lot on souvenirs, etc. If you save $50 a month, that's $600 a year, so in 5 years you would have about $3000. I'm not a math person, but to save $5000 in 5 years, that's $1000 a year, so you would need to save around $85 a month to reach that goal. But then again, like I said, we kind of "spared no expense" when we went, so $5000 might be a high number...but then again it was 5 years ago, so the prices have probably changed. Sorry if I'm making you more confused! My best advice is to ask friends/coworkers for the name of a good travel agent in your area and go talk to them. It won't cost you anything (they get paid by the places they send people to) and they can help you find a deal that would be good for you & your budget. Have fun! And yes, those ages are PERFECT for Disneyworld, that's exactly the ages my kids were when we went, and they had a blast! :o)

We went in September and we also saved for a while, so we could have a nice trip. I would suggest two websites for planning and getting deals. They are AllEars.net and Mousesavers.com. They really helped me, as did my travel agent at Small World vacations. She did not cost me a penny, but saved me plenty of them. It helps to go during value season if you can and perhaps staying at a Value resort as well. We were only in the room to rest, so it did not matter to us that it wasn't the fanciest one on property. We flew done and got a pretty good rate on Southwest, but of course if you have more time, driving would save you money as well.

We had a wonderful time overall. Going to character meals, riding the rides and just being together having a fun time. I must admit to tearing up a bit the first time the four of us walked into the Magic Kingdom and seeing the castle in front of us. It had a been a dream for us to come here together and now we were there. My two children talk about it constantly and ask when we are returning. I told them to give us a couple of years, so we can save again.

I wish you luck on your planning.

If you are going to do Disney, do it right. It takes about 7 days to fully enjoy the parks with a family of 4-6. We have 6 and did it in 9 days this year, but one is a baby. Stay in the park or else you spend to much precious time moving from place to place. It might be cheaper to stay off resort, but the time you spend jumping from hotel to parks is horrible, and time is money. We have stayed in many different resorts and they are all worth it. I would reccommend going in October or February, becuase they are less crowded. Do not go on holiday weekends...you spend your whole vacation waiting in line! We have been 13 times during our 14 year marriage, and we would never stay off resort! Call the disney number and ask for specials...they don't always list them, but if you ask for them, they have to tell you. Last time we got all our meals for a dollar more! It was well worth it...more food than we could eat! Have fun! We are already planning our next trip for October!

We just went last month. It was me and 4 kids, we had a blast. We too spared no expense. We also spent around $5000. We stayed at the Nick Hotel and used thier free transportation to go to parks. We went to Universal and Disney. If I had it to do over again we would have stayed at Disney. I think we would have saved money and enjoyed the convenience of staying there. There was no way we could have seen it all in one day, I think staying there for 5 days and seeing every park and spending at least one day laying by the pool would have been perfect. I purchased the airline tickets and paid for the hotel in advance and then counted on having $1000 per day for food and entertainment. I didn't spend quite that much but it was nice to come home with money in the bank! I know you can purchase park tickets in advance for a discount. I think right now disney has a $1600 for a week package. No matter what you and your kids will enjoy it! Disney was so much more fun as an adult than it ever was when I was a kid!

If you have any questions send me a message!