How much to budget for Disney world
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Anonymous
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We would like to eventually go with our son, who is now five, within the next year or two. DH is freaked out because he's hearing that park passes are over $100/day and thinks we'll have to budget about $10 to do a trip, which seems like a bit much.
How much would you budget for a 5 day stay on the park premises (i.e able to take a shuttle bus from hotel to the parks) with food, hotel (which I know could vary) and airfare? I know there are also some travel agents that do package deals, but can't recall who they are. I'm sure there are existing threads on this, but going through them all would be exhausing! |
Anonymous
Meant to say $10K in the first post! |
Anonymous
| $4k if you don't care about staying in a more exoenisve hotel |
Anonymous
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Totally depends on the hotel. Google "Free disney dining plan". They offer that on select onsite hotels. Keep the lowest dining plan and just pay for anything above.
Flight depends on when you go, anywhere from $200-500/person. There are so many variables (food, flight, lodging, time of year) that unless you have a specific time period we can't tell you how much it'll cost. |
Anonymous
| For a family of 3 or 4, about a thousand dollars a day sounds about right. Could be plus or minus though depending where you stay and how you eat. |
Anonymous
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We stayed in a deluxe hotel (Animal Kingdom/Wilderness Lodge/etc...) for four nights and went to the park 3.5 days (arrival and the next 3). Flew from DC. No meal plan.
Total spent was about $4K, and we got a 25% off deal on the room. I recommend Wilderness Lodge for your first visit - good proximity to Magic Kingdom and a nice space with plenty to do for an afternoon or so. |
Anonymous
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We have been to Disney 5x. Cheapest was about 3500 when we stayed off site. Most expensive was staying at Grand Floridian during peak times for about 10k. Assuming you can go during off-peak, meaning non school break, you should be able to do it for 4k or so. Of course you can stay at more expensive hotels and go up to 10k.
3 flights - $900 4 nights hotel - $800 4 day base non-parkhopper tickets - $1000 Food - $1000 |
Anonymous
| We've done this trip several times--5 days, 4 nights, 4 people, semi-off-season, staying in one of the Magic Kingdom hotels with the quick service dining plan. I think it's been about $3200 for the package and then flights. Nice thing is everything is included (including ground transportation to and from the airport) and you can really spend very little money in the parks if you want. With the quick service dining plan we one of our six daily meal credits to get breakfast at the hotel café and got waters and fruit instead of "dessert" at lunch to carry around and used snack credits in the parks for ice creams and such, so we didn't spend any other money on food. You can get away with cheap souvenirs...one time we bought a $10 balloon and carried it everywhere and the last day we gave it to another kid. |
Anonymous
Only on certain dates. It isn't offered all the time. |
Anonymous
| If you go during value season, you can get an All Stars hotel or Pop Century for around $100 a night. 4 day tickets are about $300 -$400 each. If you buy at the right time, you can Free Dining offers for 2 free counter service meals and 2 snacks per day. Flights or driving is up to you. |
Anonymous
This is what we did. I looked at my records and we paid $1500 for 4 nights at Pop Century in late April 2015 with a 5 day park hopper pass for 2 adults and 1 child. We paid about $750 in airfare. We ordered groceries online to the room and did breakfast (cereal/milk) in the room all days and took pb&j sandwiches to the park for a couple of days too. We ate out for all 4 nights. Keep in mind the first day the tickets are in the range of $100/day but each successive day gets cheaper so that adding on additional days at the end doesn't cost much at all. With only 1 kid and staying at a budget place it really isn't all that expensive for a Disney vacation. |
Anonymous
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You can easily do it much cheaper depending on when you go and how fancy you want things to be. Yes, people here will say it isn't worth it to do budget but for some people (like us) that's the only way it is happening.
If you can deal with a discount airline like Frontier you can fly a family of 4 from DC to Orlando for under $500, including bags. Stay at one of the All Star hotels (budget), they include airport shuttle and shuttle to the parks - $100/night or less depending on if you go during peak times. Tickets will be harder to get discounts on but if you're doing things cheaper elsewhere that becomes less of an issue. Amazon some food & bottled water to your hotel and eat breakfast there, or get a cheap dining plan. Etc |
Anonymous
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High season is almost double what low season is, so keep that in mind. And tickets for day 1 are outrageously expensive but by day five, they are almost free. Disney really wants you to stay a while!
They always run deals for 25-35% off room rates--get on their e-mailing list. Typically the offer comes out 3-5 months in advance. I think I've already seen the one for this fall, but not the one for winter yet. We alway get the deal. But try to call soon after the deal comes out, especially if you're picky about which hotel, as rooms at the discount rate are limited in each hotel. |
Anonymous
| We did it on a shoe string by driving and staying offsite for well less than $100 a night. Parking was really cheap and eating away from Disney was also really cheap. The big expense was the park tickets. |
Anonymous
| We just went on a last minute trip to Disney and spent about $400/day for two days in the park, plus $150/night for one night in hotel plus meals for two full days (two lunches, one dinner, one breakfast). Probably spent about $1200 for two days/one night for family of four. |