HerbivoreMom
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2014
Family of three, son is 6 years old. First Disney World trip (we live closer to Disneyland so that's easier). When we do this trip again there will be a few differences.
Here's a breakdown of OUR costs:
Flight: Taxes and fees only. I got a new credit card with enough airline points to use the points on this trip. (Only do this if you can afford to pay the credit card min spend in full on the first bill. If you cannot afford to do this then it is not worth it.) = 0
Hotel: We own a timeshare and use RCI to exchange so we were able to get a 2-bedroom suite at The Fountains for $200 plus the respective fraction of our RCI membership and the maintenance fee of our timeshare ownership (all told probably less than $100). Having a timeshare unit also meant that we could eat in our room with our full kitchen and do laundry in our room too, both of which saved money.... = $300.
Park Tickets: We paid full price and bought them online months ago. Going during the slower time meant slightly cheaper tickets. We got three tickets for each of three parks for each day for three people = nine tickets total (two adults and one kid) which works out to about $900.
Food: We ate two meals at restaurants with table service which cost about $180 for both meals after tax and tip. Then we also ate three quick service meals and some snacks which totaled about $100. And of course I mentioned that we went grocery shopping and had meals in our room too. We stayed in Orlando for 7 days and did other activities there... all our groceries cost about $150 for the week so food total was about $430. Obviously these costs are all going to vary depending on how you live and how you vacation.
Souvenirs: Two tshirts, two toys, one necklace, one stuffed animal... added up to about $250 or so.
Parking: Since we didn't stay inside WDW we paid $20 for parking each day for three days. Parking at Disney Springs is free. Total = $60
Rental Car and Gas: For the whole week it was about $200
Tolls: not so much a cost worth budgeting for if you're willing to pay each in cash and are just going to WDW. But if you're going to do other stuff in the area then the tolls become very annoying.
Total was about $2150 give or take.
My husband says he wouldn't count all the food and gas as costs because most of those are the same as if we hadn't taken the trip, so maybe less if you think about it like that (minus about $200). For us though, we also have to factor in the cost of petsitting/housesitting which cost us about $200-$300/ week. And for many families (ours included) one needs to factor in the cost of lost income due to a vacation (as well as the cost of lost income if a stressed-out breadwinner doesn't take a break now and then and just burns out). We spent some money visiting the Kennedy Space Center ($140 - worth ten times that for our family) too as well as some time viewing wild manatees at Tampa power plant (free).
It definitely requires some planning to keep costs low. And if you break up the costs over time by paying piece by piece in advance then it doesn't feel like such a big hit when you actually take the vacation and thus the trip feels like a vacation (instead of a money pit).
Here's a breakdown of OUR costs:
Flight: Taxes and fees only. I got a new credit card with enough airline points to use the points on this trip. (Only do this if you can afford to pay the credit card min spend in full on the first bill. If you cannot afford to do this then it is not worth it.) = 0
Hotel: We own a timeshare and use RCI to exchange so we were able to get a 2-bedroom suite at The Fountains for $200 plus the respective fraction of our RCI membership and the maintenance fee of our timeshare ownership (all told probably less than $100). Having a timeshare unit also meant that we could eat in our room with our full kitchen and do laundry in our room too, both of which saved money.... = $300.
Park Tickets: We paid full price and bought them online months ago. Going during the slower time meant slightly cheaper tickets. We got three tickets for each of three parks for each day for three people = nine tickets total (two adults and one kid) which works out to about $900.
Food: We ate two meals at restaurants with table service which cost about $180 for both meals after tax and tip. Then we also ate three quick service meals and some snacks which totaled about $100. And of course I mentioned that we went grocery shopping and had meals in our room too. We stayed in Orlando for 7 days and did other activities there... all our groceries cost about $150 for the week so food total was about $430. Obviously these costs are all going to vary depending on how you live and how you vacation.
Souvenirs: Two tshirts, two toys, one necklace, one stuffed animal... added up to about $250 or so.
Parking: Since we didn't stay inside WDW we paid $20 for parking each day for three days. Parking at Disney Springs is free. Total = $60
Rental Car and Gas: For the whole week it was about $200
Tolls: not so much a cost worth budgeting for if you're willing to pay each in cash and are just going to WDW. But if you're going to do other stuff in the area then the tolls become very annoying.
Total was about $2150 give or take.
My husband says he wouldn't count all the food and gas as costs because most of those are the same as if we hadn't taken the trip, so maybe less if you think about it like that (minus about $200). For us though, we also have to factor in the cost of petsitting/housesitting which cost us about $200-$300/ week. And for many families (ours included) one needs to factor in the cost of lost income due to a vacation (as well as the cost of lost income if a stressed-out breadwinner doesn't take a break now and then and just burns out). We spent some money visiting the Kennedy Space Center ($140 - worth ten times that for our family) too as well as some time viewing wild manatees at Tampa power plant (free).
It definitely requires some planning to keep costs low. And if you break up the costs over time by paying piece by piece in advance then it doesn't feel like such a big hit when you actually take the vacation and thus the trip feels like a vacation (instead of a money pit).
