A trip to Disney World is expensive no matter how you look at it but after making several trips over the past few years, we have figured out a couple of ways to save a few dollars.
Stay off site.
Depending on the time of year, staying off of the Disney grounds may help save a few dollars…or a lot of dollars. When calculating savings, be sure to factor in the parking fees that you will have to pay for each day that you drive to the parks. Check the Disney Value Resort prices because sometimes the prices are similar to an offsite hotel and you will get the benefits that come with staying at a Disney property.
Stop by Walmart or Target before heading to the parks.
Both Walmart and Target have large Disney souvenir sections with totes, towels, magnets, stuffed animals and more. We always make a stop to purchase a few souvenirs so that we don’t hear the “I want that” phrase all day long. We might still pick something up at the park if one of those stores doesn’t carry it, but we have done our research and know how much it will cost.
Share meals.
There is nothing that irritates me more than buying a meal for each of my children when they don’t eat it. Or they eat half of it and could have shared a meal. When I posted on Twitter for some last minute Disney tips, one of my friends sent this one and I totally agree with her. The food is pricey but plentiful. Start with one order of chicken nuggets and french fries or one sandwich, split it. If everyone is still hungry, order more but at least you know it will get eaten!
Bring your own drinks.
Visitors to Disney World are allowed to bring soft sided coolers if they wish. If you don’t mind keeping track of a cooler bag all day, load it up with ice, waters, juice, sodas, and more to keep you hydrated all day long. Another option is to bring a Camelbak pack or something similar. The kids love to wear our Camelbak. Not only is it a source of water but it can also be a source of entertainment in long lines!
Bring your own poncho.
It always rains at Disney. I have been to Disney World at all different times of the year and it has rained everytime we go. The first time it rained, we got stuck buying the 10-15 dollar ponchos with the giant Mickey head on the back. Now, we bring dollar store ponchos to throw on if we need to. An umbrella would work as well but is bulkier and a pain to carry around. Think of the ponchos as an insurance policy. If you have them in your bag, maybe you won’t need them!
Have you been to Disney World lately? How did you save a few dollars on your vacation?
We travel on a tight budget. I certainly wish that I had buckets of money like that picture over there, but the truth is I had to go to Flickr (Photo courtesy of borman818) to get the picture because I don’t even have 5 bucks in my wallet to take a picture of! There are things that we give up in our daily lives so that we can afford to travel. There are also travels that we have to give up so that we can afford to fix a broken washing machine or some other expense that we weren’t expecting. We have responsibilities in our own city like house and car payments, swim lessons, and the electric bill (which is ridiculous this summer!). My husband has a full time job where he has to show up at an office from 9-5 and is given a couple of weeks of vacation a year. We have to work around that vacation, but believe me…we take every day we possibly can. Sometimes, we don’t get to use all the vacation for that year. Many times, he is tethered to his laptop working on our vacations.
There are a lot of articles out there about travel being expensive and something that you can’t do. We are here to prove that you can travel on a budget and have a great time doing it! I am not sharing our trip expenses from this vacation to sound braggy…I am sharing them because it is one of the first questions we get asked…”Isn’t travel with a family of four too expensive?”
We aren’t the only ones that think travel can be done with a little bit of saving and prioritizing. Spencer at The Traveling Philosopher and Carol at New York City Mama have both written about this issue recently. My hope is that this trip report will show you a real life breakdown of what it costs for a family of four to take a five day road trip. Here is a rundown of our expenses from our most recent trip:
Hotel Expenses
We stayed in a Country Inn and Suites off of Tunnel Road. I pricelined the hotel for the first time in years and years (reviews of both the hotel and our Priceline experience to come!). After several tries, we got the hotel for $65 a night. After taxes, the total came to $307.48.
Gas Expenses
Luckily, gas dropped several cents right before we left for our trip. Also, we were traveling to an area where the gas was cheaper due to lower gas taxes. I had about 1/2 of a tank of gas when we left, we filled the tank 3 times – $49.07; $56.01; $51.54. We got home from Asheville on Sunday the 26th and I got another four days of driving around town before I had to get gas. We drove a total of 1164 miles. Our gas total for the road trip was $156.62
Food Expenses
One of the benefits to staying in a Country Inn and Suites is the free hot breakfast. The breakfast included make your own waffles, cereal, breads and pastries and more. We ate breakfast in the hotel each morning. I ate lunches at my conference and my husband and children ate peanut butter or ham sandwiches, chips and other snacks we brought with us. We ate at local eateries that were reasonably priced for the most part.
Day One – $12.18; $13.18
Day Two – $40.86
Day Three – $26.72
Snacks and Lunch Supplies purchase before we went – $66 (We brought home a lot of food that we will use throughout the next few weeks while we are at home!)
Our food total for the trip was $158.94.
Activity Expenses
The main reason for our trip to Asheville was so that I could attend a blogger’s conference. My conference ticket cost $149 dollars. While I was at the conference, my husband and children explored Asheville. They went hiking, kayaking, and visited a few other attractions. The attractions listed below were for one adult and two children to visit.
Asheville Outdoors Center (kayaking) – $34.00
Western North Carolina Nature Center (admission) – $16.00
Chimney Rock (hiking) – $17.00
Asheville Tourists baseball tickets for 2 adults and 1 child (my 4yo was free) – $32 + $6 (popcorn and drink)
Our activity total for the road trip was $105.
Total Expenses for a five day road trip to Asheville, NC (from Pensacola, FL) with my family of four was $728.04. If you add in my conference ticket $149), the total is $877.04. I know this is no small sum but I love that a 5 day 1100 mile road trip can be done for less than $1000. With some planning and saving, a trip costing less than $1000 is doable. Over the next few weeks, I will be going into detail on some planning and saving techniques that worked for us.
Do you have any tips to save for vacation?
Posted in Saving on February 20, 2011
I am headed to Orlando this month without my family for a working trip. We head to Orlando at least once or twice a year because we live so close. It is easy for us to book a weekend at an inexpensive hotel and spend one day at Disney. Our Disney trips are not necessarily the week-long dream vacations but we like it that way. Living nearby gives us the luxury of being able to visit Disney without breaking the bank. Sometimes we travel to Orlando and skip the theme parks completely and just spend an afternoon at Downtown Disney. It gives us a chance to see what else Orlando has to offer.
Disney is the land of souvenirs and it is hard to get out of that place without making a purchase whether it be a stuffed animal, a princess dress, or Mickey ears. There are some things that you can only purchase at the theme parks but if you aren’t picky, head to the local Walmarts or Targets. Both stores carry a large amount of Disney trademarked items included bags, hats, shirts, water bottles, and so much more at a fraction of the cost!
I will definitely be stopping by one of these stores to pick up a little treat to take home to my kids!
In my review of 2010, I mentioned that we always try to travel on a low budget but that 2010 was no exception. We had lots of unexpected expenses but we still made room in the budget for traveling because it is important to our family. My latest article on Traveling Mom is about four different ways we save for vacation. If you have a moment, drop by Traveling Mom and leave me a comment with your favorite way to save for vacation.
Throughout the next month I will be giving our tips, secrets, and things we have learned along the way to help us save for vacation and be able to travel the way we want to and as often as we want to. I am thinking about making it a weekly post!
Photo Courtesy of borman818
So much for the House of Mouse. We are all geared up to make a trip to Orlando and Big S has to go break his collar bone!!! This week, my little man fell and broke his collar bone. We are still making the trip to Orlando for other reasons, but we have to significantly change our itinerary for this trip. No amusement parks, no wild and crazy running around, no fun as far as he is concerned.
So I am asking for my readers’ help. Leave a comment in this blog with all of your free and cheap Orlando activity favorites!
Thanks to Lucia from Dim Sum, Bagels and Crawfish for introducing me to Pit Stops for Kids. This is a great site that is busy building up its database! It has already helped us out! The concept of Pit Stops for Kids is to share tried and true kid friendly pit stops. The site is extremely informative-information on each stop includes cost, which interstate it is located, website, bathrooms, food and other tips. We are roadtripping right now and I found one of our pit stops on the site. We stopped at the Mayfield Dairy for a brief bathroom break and if I hadn’t read about it here, I would never have known about it! Today, my submission about the Afred B. Maclay Gardens State Park is located here. You can read the full post on my blog here. Do you have a review of your own? Submit it here!
Christmas in Europe might seem like a pricey venture for a family with two kids. My husband always says that you can’t save money while you are spending it, but here are a few ways that I saved money while spending money on this trip!
1. Airfare — We bought our tickets directly through the airline agency about 6 months before our departure date. When we decided that we were going to make this trip, we started checking prices obsessively on a nightly basis. They fluctuated from 1500 dollars a ticket to $750 before bouncing back up to 1000 dollars. One night, they were $525! We didn’t hesitate and bought them on the spot. Have your trip planned out. Make sure you know when you are going and where you want to go so when the tickets become available, you will be ready to make the purchase without worrying about it. It paid off for us…two days later the tickets had jumped up to 800 dollars!
2. Hotel — When we started looking for hotels, we read all the travel books, travel guides on the Internet and got recommendations from friends. Then we got out the maps and searched for hotels on discount hotel websites. After choosing the area of town and street we wanted to stay on, we found a hotel next door to a swankier, more expensive hotel. The reviews are fantastic and we are paying about 75 dollars less a night.
3. Christmas in Europe — Christmas in Europe means that we will be bringing our presents to Europe in a suitcase. It means that for the most part, Christmas in Europe IS our family Christmas gift. This has helped cut down some major spending. All of the money that we are saving by buying fewer gifts that are less expensive is going into the family travel pot! This has opened up a few other opportunities that we may not have had otherwise.
