Planning & Budgeting Post
Whoooh guys. So I spent A LOT of time crunching numbers for 2 separate currencies, which I found fun but James did not. The last time he was at Disney was in 2016, so lots have changed and I had to explain a lot with the different resorts and transportation changes (Magical express anyone?!
).
While AoA was not the cheapest option for either of us, it was still on the lower end and we both like in-your-face Disney decor lol.
We were considering a DVC rental but, even though the dates were shifted by one day, there was a big difference in flight prices for James and would actually deprive us of sleep just due to how days/events would line up. To us, the sleep and lower cost (for James) was more important than a DVC resort and extra time at Epcot.
I got a great price on flights (under $500 CAD round trip, which is actually a good price) with a direct flight for arrival day (yay!). James ... still needs to get his flights. Otherwise, we already got our party tickets and will be purchasing our 3-day basic park tickets later.
️
PLANNED SCHEDULE ️
Saturday, Nov. 30th 🛍🍽
Arrive
Disney Springs
Sunday, Dec. 1st 
Animal Kingdom (morning/early afternoon)
Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
Monday, Dec. 2nd 
Epcot
(Festival of the Holidays, my favorite! Whooh! Get festive
)
Tuesday, Dec. 3rd 
Hollywood Studios
Storybook Dinner before Fantasmic
Wednesday, Dec. 4th 
Boma Breakfast
Departure
As you can see, the full days at Epcot and Hollywood Studios is a big reason why we chose a Skyliner
resort.
While I normally don't go to all parks in a trip (due to only being able to afford short trips), I wanted to make sure I have time in each park since by the time I come back, sooooo many things will have changed, as per all the announcements from
D23.
Animal Kingdom
Me -
FoP, Safari, & Everest
James -
FoP, Na'vi River, & Safari
Epcot
Me -
Guardians, Frozen, & Living w/Land
James -
Guardians & Imagination w/Figment
Hollywood Studios
Me -
Frozen Sing-Along & TSM
James -
ALL Star Wars rides (RotR, Millennium, Star Tours) & Slinky
Magic Kingdom
Me -
SDMT, Pooh, Space Mountain, Tron, & Philharmagic
James -
Tron & Haunted Mansion
At this point I should mention that James has not been to WDW in a while, so he has never experienced Pandora in AK or Galaxy's Edge in HS. He's a big Star Wars fan so I'll most definitely make sure he experiences the area. I'm a bit sad that he won't be able to see Pandora at night but that's okay, he'll have another reason to visit in the future.
LL Single & Multipass
Okay, so the last time I did any special ride pass was when they were still free. But, I did do research and I like how it's kind of a mesh of FP+ and
Genie+ (I hated Genie+). So, based on the popularity of rides and our must try, I have determined that we will need both LL for Hollywood Studios. For AK and Epcot, I'm not quite sure and am hoping you guys might be able to help me determine the best method (see below). We will only do MK on a party ticket and you cant use LL with those, so our ride plans will be a bit different and I'll detail those in the
Holiday Planning section.
Hollywood Studios
LL Single: RotR
LL Multipass ...
Tier 1 = Slinky
Tier 2 = TS Mania, Star Tours, Frozen Sing-Along
Rope Drop Millennium Falcon
If we can't get Slinky for LLS, then I'll try for Millennium and RD Slinky. The above is in order based on ride popularity. I imagine I'll want to do LLS before I book Multipass, right?
Animal Kingdom
There a few ways to do this one, with LLS only ...
LL Single: FoP
Rope Drop Safari
Standby on everything else
... with both LL ...
LL Single: FoP
LL Multipass: Na'vi River, Safari, & Everest
... or no LL at all ...
Rope Drop FoP
Standby everything else
I do want to make sure we get to at least one of the musical shows at AK but I figure those won't be in as high demand as the others. The reason why no LL at all is an option is because we're not sure if James can ride FoP (he is of larger size) and am not sure we'll want to pay for the ride if he can't ride it. Granted, we won't know if he can until the tries the seat while we're at the park. Another thing to take into consideration is that we do need to get everything done by 1pm at the latest. I know the option for both LL would be the fastest but would it be worth the estimated $30-34?
Epcot
Again, multiple options for this park; no LL ...
Rope Drop: Remy's
Virtual Queue: Guardians
Wait until evening End: Frozen
Standby everything else
... or Both LL ...
LL Single: Guardians
LL Multipass ...
Tier 1: Remy's
Tier 2: Imagination & Living w/Land
I suppose we could also RD Frozen for both LL but I'm kind of wanting a non-RD day since we'll be up late from the party the night before. While Remy's is not on the must list, I still want James to ride it since it's a new ride for him. Also, I do want to ride Frozen but, if it doesn't work out, that is okay as the Asian Disney park I'll be near does have a Frozen ride, so I won't be completely missing out. Since we have VQ for Guardians, I'm not sure I want to spend an estimated $15-17 just for that one ride but, again, it is a must ride ... the most must ride of all, really. Can we have LLS for Guardians AND do VQ once there?
So yeah, I could use a bit of feedback for Epcot plans too.
DINING OPTIONS/PLANNING 🍽
Okay, these plans are the most tentative at this point. Since special holiday menu items won't be available before our Dining booking date, we are going with what sounds good now and still keep in mind budget.
For those wishing to provide opinions/recommendations: I cannot eat red meat (includes
) so my options are limited to poultry (
), seafood (
), and vegetarian (
). James needs to watch his sugar and carbs.
The only two items we
% agree on with food is that we WILL have dinner at Storybook Dining and, other than breakfast, only eat from the festival booths at Epcot for our meals on that day.
We are thinking of having a late TS dinner reservation for arrival day but will be fine canceling if we just want/only have time for QS.
I've only narrowed it down to Disney Springs and along the Skyliner route.
These are the current options:
️ Sebastián's Bistro
️ Chef Art Smith's Homecomin'
️ The Edison
️ Frontera Cocina
️ Planet Hollywood
️ Raglan Road
I'm leaning more towards Sebastián's and Frontera Cocina.
For our breakfast on departure day,
thankfully that's narrowed down to
only 2 options:
️Boma
️Whispering Canyon Cafe
Moving on to talking about the parks, I do want to hit
Satu'li Canteen for lunch in AK before we leave. I do enjoy their food and I love the blueberry dessert thing BUT if they change that dessert for a holiday dessert ... that I'm not interested in, I most likely won't have to go.
Since James is a huge Star Wars fan, I'm thinking of getting a reservation for
Oga's Cantina on HS day but am not sure what time I should reserve it for. I'm not big on drinking alcohol, but I do occasionally, and, as said above, James need to watch sugars and carbs, so I'm not sure if it's worth going there? I did hear any Star Wars fan should go at least once though, so maybe it's worth it just for that?
Food Plan Schedule
Saturday, Nov. 30th
- Snack at AoA QS upon arrival
- Dinner at resort or DS
Sunday, Dec. 1st
- QS Breakfast at AoA
- QS Satu'li Canteen Lunch
- Holiday food/treats at MK/
MVMCP
Monday, Dec. 2nd
- QS Breakfast at AoA
- Eat at all festival booths in Epcot for Lunch & Dinner
Tuesday, Dec. 3rd
- QS Breakfast at AoA
- Holiday snacks at HS
- Oga's Cantina
- Storybook Dining Dinner 5:40pm
Wednesday, Dec. 4th
- TS Breakfast at Boma 9:45am
- Holiday treats/snacks
Money Matters
Normally I only share details on pricing on trips that are rarer (like my
DCL Transatlantic trip in 2018) but I thought it might help with sharing my detailed budgeting here in case it helps anyone AND for anyone that needs to convert foreign currency.
My first step was looking at DVC availability vs WDW resort availability with the special winter rate. I then had to convert the USD price that Disney uses to CAD using the google currency converter. I always round up to the nearest dollar. I played with a lot of dates. I would have preferred a 5 night stay but budget wise, 4 night was best. I then took a look at flights for the various dates I found for DVC and WDW resort; dates we have and early December were the best flight prices for me. James's flights varied. I then took a look at ticket only options sold by Disney as well as
Undercover Tourist and converted those into CAD currency as well. Finally, I did the same comparison with the MVMCP tickets. James and I will also be splitting the hotel cost. For me, this is how everything added up for our now booked dates.
The below include Resort Hotel Option (divided by 2) + 3day Tickets from Undercover Tourist (
UT) + Flights + MVMCP ticket from UT, all converted to CAD from USD:
ASMo Preferred Room = $2097
POP Standard Room = $2189
DVC Rental: Saratoga Springs Standard = $2222
AoA Little Mermaid Room = $2275
POR Standard Room = $2282
CBR Standard Room = $2490
Now, these are James's totals in USD with the same included as in my numbers above:
ASMo Preferred Room = $1530
POP Standard Room = $1597
AoA Little Mermaid Room = $1660
POR Standard Room = $1666
CBR Standard Room = $1832
DVC Rental: Saratoga Springs Standard = $1843
We kind of guessed on the flights for James as he wanted only non-stop flights and tried to get them with similar flight arrival/departure times as mine. While my flights weren't booked at that time, Canada has very limited options for flights and it was pretty apparent which flights I'd buy at that point.
As you can see, the DVC is actually cheaper for me than AoA but the most expensive for James due to his flights being way more expensive for those dates (Dec. 1st-5th). I have mentioned multiple times we chose AoA for Skyliner/Theme/Price but also the way to split payment was a huge factor. In Canada, it's super easy to transfer money to other people as banks here allow transfers using emails. It's super easy, but US accounts are .. not. If we were to choose the DVC option, James would have had to send me a check that I could deposit into my account before paying for the DVC reservation since payment is usually due pretty soon after requesting the reservation (I'm talking about already reserved DVC reservations). One, that would not be fun with the exchange rate and two, I'd have to wait for the check and hope it didn't get lost. With booking through Disney for AoA, James was able to put the deposit down and then we can both pay for the remaining balance at the resort (split on two different cards). Thankfully I have an account with a card that has multiple currencies (called Wise) that I can move between my various bank accounts and they have amazing transaction and conversion rates, much better than my credit card and purchasing Disney gift cards up here in Canada.
To budget for Lightning Lane costs, I did a search on historical prices for the Single and Multipass options and came up with the below:
LL Single
AK - FoP = $12-16/pp
HS - RotR = $20-25/pp
Epcot - Guardians = $15-17/pp
LL Multipass
AK = $18/pp
HS = $26/pp
Epcot = $21/pp
Since cost is a factor in our schedule, these prices are important. HS will be the most expensive as we will need both LL for that day but the other days will vary (see Rides/LL section above). All in all, if we utilized both LL for all 3 parks, we are looking at an extra total of $112-123 USD, which converts to about $152-167 CAD.
In order to figure out if the Dining Plan would be worth it for us, I took a look at the QS DP and
DDP prices, which turned out to be $228.04/pp (QSDP) and $377.12/pp (DDP) USD for our trip. If we were to get the Dining Plan, we would have used our snacks for the Epcot Festival of the Holiday booths, so to get an average cost of snacks I looked at 2023's menu and totaled up all the dining plan eligible snacks/drinks and came up with a total of about $6.25 per snack (some did go up to $12, but that's the average). I then usually average $15 for a QS meal and looked up the base cost for the TS restaurants we were interested in (I used Storybook, WCC, and Sebastians). Which came out to the below totals:
QS DP
1 Refillable Mug = $22
4 Snacks = $25
8 QS = $120
Total: $167 (difference of $61.04)
DDP
1 Refillable Mug = $22
4 Snacks = $25
4 QS = $60
4 TS = $126
Total: $233 (difference of $144.12)
As you can see, it really wouldn't have been worth buying the Dining Plan, even if we add estimated taxes. For what we want to eat, it just doesn't justify the costs.
Later, after menus for the holiday treats and food booths are announced, I'll include total estimated cost for food for this trip.
For the next two sections, I would appreciate any opinions or if you'd share your experiences to help me narrow down options and additional plans.
Must rides for this trip ... 
This Section is Under Construction
Not everyone loves them but we definitely do
