Our November trip is quickly approaching and I thought I’d give you a breakdown of our budget…
Our 7 night, 8 day Magic Your Way package is $2031.76. Here’s what it includes:
- 8 day base tickets for 2 adults and 2 children (ages 7 and 4; we are not getting Park Hopper)
- Magic Your Way Dining Plan for 2 adults and 2 children
- 7 night accommodations at Pop Century resort
We decided to fly to Disney this year. It’s a 10 hour drive verses a 1.5 hour direct flight and I got the tickets for so cheap that we decided the time saved was worth it. We got 4 round trip tickets to Orlando for $557.60!
- If we drove, we would need at least 4 tanks of gas. At $50 a tank, that’s $200 for gas.
- We would likely need at least 2 meals on the way there and back. At $20 a meal, that’s $40.
- We had been planning on driving halfway and getting a room on the way there and back. We are traveling with my mother in law and nephew and they won’t be able to do a 10 hour straight drive. A hotel room on the way there and back would of been $120 total.
- If you count the time spent sleeping on the way there and back, we would spend 36 hours traveling.
- 36 hours & $380 vs 6 hours and & $557, well it was worth it to me!
That brings the budget to $2589.36. The remaining $410.64 will be set aside for additional meals (the dining plan will pay for 6 table service meals (one of which is Cinderella’s Royal Table) and 7 counter service meals per person. We will need to eat a few additional meals unfortunately but we do plan to do breakfast in the room), tips for 5 table service meals (not included in the dining plan), souvenirs and additional unforeseen expenses.
I currently have saved $2683.47. Just $316.53 to go!
Great that you are almost at your goal!
Kristin-
We go to Disney November every year. Not sure if you have checked the website lately, but we were able to get the 7 night stay at a Moderate resort ( Port Orleans French Quarter) which we like because of the fridge that is included. Our package also includes the Quick Service dining plan, and we do the 6 day base ticket. All of this for the same price as yours. My kids are the exact same age as your two! An even better thing was I got an email from Disney to upgrade to the Animal Kingdom Lodge ( a deluxe resort) for $30 a night more! After figuring in our savings because we will have fridge and can store food, it is well worth it! Our original price was about $300 more, but I kept checking back on the website and found it cheaper, and they honored the cheaper price!
Wow Ragen that is AWESOME!!!
Kristen if you don’t mind me asking…what date are you going? we’ll be at pop 11-27 to 12-3 :)
We bought our tickets through Southwest during their anniversary sale and our tickets were a little over $700 with ALL fees/taxes included, for 4 people round trip. I was so excited, I nearly cried. The sale they ran saved us around $700!
I would love to know how you got your plane tickets so cheap! We’re planning a trip in February and we have 3 adults and 2 children going! please let me in on your great find! Thank
I don’t want to sound like an idiot. I just recently joined here and am trying to read everything. I know you made reservations for all your activities, motel etc. buy if you don’t mind me asking, how did you pay for it? Did you pay a deposit to hold it and then make payments so that it is paid for when you get there or do you just pay a deposit and pay the balance when you get there? I am trying to figure out how to get it paid for without going into debt. Thank you.
I found out what I needed to know about how they do payments but thanks anyway.
A little over $500 is great for travel! My hubby and I fill up our truck for $75 a tank and we would have to fill up at LEAST 5 times if we drove straight there (we live near Galveston, Tx.) so I would love to pay that!! :)
Good job, Kristin! :)
Where do you find the best prices for your trips as far as hotels and dining?
Disney releases specials throughout the year. I used a Disney special. I did book my trip with MouseUnlimited.com though.
How exciting. We just got back from one of our “mini” trips. We were there Sept 4-6th. I was shocked to see the Magic Kingdom was decorated for Fall/Halloween. It was beautiful. November is such a great time to visit Disney. The weather is perfect! Have fun!
Be sure to check the beds before you get comfortable in the room. Disney is having bed bug problems in all of their hotels.
Wow! After reading everyone’s comments, I’m realizing how lucky and spoilled we are since we live in Orlando. We usually buy annual passes with our tax return every year. We also pack snacks and drinks, cause it can get kind of pricey. The restaurants will give you glasses of ice water for free if you ask. Hope everyone enjoys their time on vacation.
This makes me so happy reading that I didn’t spend THAT much more on my trip for my family of 5 since you are a Disney pro and this is my first Disney trip as an adult. I did purchase the trip insurance since we are going in February for my daughter’s birthday. The past 3 years, we have had blizzards here on her birthday. We are packing pop tarts (which my kids eat without being toasted) and fresh bagels that I will buy right before we fly out and put in ziplocs right away. We are not huge breakfast eaters. The dining plan did include a little snack too, so we will take advantage of that. My kids are small. They don’t require much lol. It’s my husband that I need to feed more.
It is so inspiring to see how much money you have saved for the trip and the little amount you have left.
I packed the individual one serve cereal boxes in my luggage, then bought milk from the store downstairs and saved on our breakfast, also in our backpacks for the parks… I packed chips, cheez it’s, yogurt bars, trail mix and took waters, the ppl who checked the bags at the gate… never told us we couldnt take them in and always let us thru. They don’t care if you bring a few snacks in and the snacks always held us over till lunch or dinner. We also would hold on to the water bottles and refill them when we came to a water fountain. For a family of five this really did save alot!! We were just there august of 2011….and cant wait to plan our next trip back!!! Next trip i will look into dining plan. Have fun!! We can’t wait to go back!!!!
tips for mousekeeping?
We fly roundtrip from WA state to Orlando for $220 roundtrip. I can hardly fly anywhere else cheaper. Also, if you go when there is free dining……..you can’t beat it. Also, stay longer than 5 days. After that, it only costs a few dollars more a day to use the parks….that coupled with the free dining….you are practically only playing for a room. And yes, Pop Century rocks. Our reservations await.
Where do you get the reasonable deals on Disney? I checked on it last night and for 2 adults and 2 children it was almost 3 grand. Thank you!
Hmm I think we might be there at the same time, or close to it. We leave November 5th! Right now we are booked at All Stars Movies but I want to switch to Pop!
Thank you soooo much for sharing this with everyone. My almost 6 yr old daughter wants to go to DisneyWorld so badly and I have always feared the cost is too great for us to go. This gives me a ballpark idea and I think it’s a goal we can reach fairly easy with our tax return next year.
There’s a Publix pretty close you could buy some true BOGO stuff for breakfast to keep in your room. =)
Were going again in Dec. For 8 days staying at port Orleans,all free dining and owe 2300. I love free dining!! Found cheap flights for 6 of us and a baby 1080. At kayak.com
Pop is by far my favorite resort to visit with my kids! We always eat breakfast in the room that was often just PB&J from the caf and coffee in our resort mugs! Ahh, what i wouldn’t give for a piece of tie dyed cheesecake right now!
They also make the best turkey sandwiches…..yummy!
Hi! So happy for you; I know you can’t wait! Soooooo, where did you get the awesome deal on your flights? We live about 10 hours away as well! :)
I was wondering too!! Of course they’d be WAY more expensive for us since we are all the way up here in Oregon, but flights are nearly as much as the Disney vacation for us whenever we go!!
Can you/did you upgrade the meal plan? I thought the Dining Plan at Value Resorts was counter service? How much did the upgrade cost?
The upgrade is the difference between the quick service and the magic your way dining plan. I think it’s like $12 per person a day or something like that?
I’m also looking for plane tickets to Orlando for a November trip (2 adults 2 children) where on earth did you find round trip tix for under $600???!! Who are you flying with and when did you purchase ur tix if you don’t mind me asking? Thanks!
Southwest Airlines. :D
Hey Kristen,
Did you go through Southwest? Or the Disney website? Don’t mean to be nosy, but I too would love to fly instead of drive:)
Kristen, check http://www.clarkhoward.com for deals on plane tickets from various locations to Orlando. Also, you could go to travelocity.com and enter the city of origin & destination – then set up alerts as the price fluctuates. Good luck!
I use Kayak.com and set alerts. I set the alert as soon as we set our Disney dates. Another trick I use….with Delta Airlines, it usually does not cost extra to buy a one way ticket. It is usually 1/2 of a roundtrip. So I set my alert for one way tickets to and from Orlando. I find that when they pair the tickets up for roundtrip, often, I can’t fly the time of the day that I desire. I just purchase one ways tickets as the times I desire to fly become available. One year, I had my return ticket to WA a month before I had my departure ticket to FL. It felt ackward but I got both tickets for our whole crew at the times and dates that I wanted. It just takes some patience. This method works best when you have ample time before your trip. We book our Disney trip a year out (for September) and I usually get the great prices on tickets February-March timeframe.
Thanks for the info guys this helps! This trip is very last minute and a suprise from my husband so ill take it! =D Now were scramble to find the best deals for our Nov. trip which is hard but im frugal fannie over here so ill be able to pull it together! Charlotte- Thats what my husband does too with tickets also! Seems like all tickets nowadays are cheaper to buy one way, cant remember the last time i bought a round trip actually. Thats whay when Kristin said she got ALL her tix for under $557 i almost fainted! LOL!
Did you get free dining?
Yes. :D
We are going in October too, but the week we are there is the blacked out week! :( I am glad that you got it! whoop! whoop!
Shelia, although it might be too late for this & you may know this already. If you can alter your check in date to the last day of the week before that has free dining you can receive free dining during your whole stay (including the part of the week that falls in the non free dinning week.) That’s why we’re checking in on Saturday night, it’s too late to go to the park by the time we get there that day, but we’ll have free dining :-)
Nicole, Thanks for the tip…but sadly we won’t arrive until 5 days after and leave ONE day before!! I have done that before where we booked on the last day of the deal & got it for our entire trip. I WISH we could adjust it by that much, but we have a 14 & 9 yo who are on Fall Break so there isn’t any moving it around! Its frustrating too because the city where my DD goes to Preschool is on Fall break the week before, I wish the adjoining cities had the same week!
That $410 to go toward extra costs for meals – just want readers to recognize that some of that will have to be tips. Disney Dining Plan covers the cost of the meals, but not the gratuities. If anybody has done the quick service dining plan before, that’s one extra expense you don’t have to consider… but as soon as table service meals are involved, don’t forget the gratuity!
Glad you got the good deal on airfare – that’s going to be a lot nicer than the long drive there and back. We’ve done the 10-12 hour drives before, and they’re not fun! You want to be well rested when you get there so you can just jump right into the fun!
Aw yeah. Those tips always get me. Luckily there are just 5 meals I will need to tip at since Cinderella’s Royal Table’s tip is included. That’s still about $100 in tips though. I better start stretching the budget even more. ;)
I know they almost always added 18% to our bill for gratuity, but we had a party of 8. but stil paying 50 or 60 bucks is great when the bill was easily over 200. and we had about 8 snack credits left. remember u can use them for just about anything under I believe $4. we used a lot tasting.our wau through the food & wine tents, wish they’d.b good for adult beverages although I doubt I’d find one under $4
Have you thought of adding a night to the beginning of your package?? We drive into Orlando. We stay room only the first night and have the next day to start fresh. We do NOT go to any parks on the day of check out. So on the last day of park hopping we come back to the room and get a good night’s sleep and get up and head home. I could not imagine checking out, hitting a park and then going home.
Our DisneyWorld vacation begins in 2 days. And thanks for Couponing To Disney, I have 1/3 of my 2012 trip paid for because I’ve followed the Couponing to Disney method of paying for our trips. Yay coupons!!!!
How exciting!!
My kids love to trade and collect pins at WDW…I have found that going on ebay ahead of time and ordering lots of 10 or 20 is soooo much cheaper than buying them at the park. You aren’t able to choose which ones you receive, but you will be trading them anyway, so it’s fun for the kids to get a surprise in the mail and not know what pins they’ll get and then they choose which ones they want to trade when we get to the park! Lots of fun and saves money too!!
We had about 80 pins to trade last year, I bought them all on ebay, and I still think we could have had a few more. LOL
Did you include the tips for your sit down dinners in your budget? I almost forgot when planning our last trip, it can add up to alot (but it saves us so much money paying only the tip is a bargin!) Do you still get snacks with that plan? We got lots of Brakfast type stuff with our snack credits to cut down the extra out of pocket expenses.
I don’t know if your family eats them, but we brought a toaster and poptarts, and had that for breakfast in the am. i think that breakfast is a waste of a meal credit…..either me or my husband went to the food court to fill up our cups and buy our daughter some milk (i used a $25 gift card i got for inquiring about the DVC). We also had fruit for her her to eat with her breakfast….and that was enough for us!!
Also, Disney is very lenient about bringing in snacks, drinks, etc.. Even when they check your bags they don’t take those items away. One trip we even froze juice boxes in the mini fridge and brought sandwiches in a tote-type cooler. The juice boxes kept them nice and cool until we were ready to eat them !
I used to shop for discounted Disney merchandise in the months prior. If I found a cute Mickey shirt at a local department store on clearance, I would buy it and save it for the trip. When we unpacked in our room, every kid got a brand new t-shirt and a small Disney themed toy (also a clearanced item) as soon as we got there. Often times it was a good 75% cheaper than in the theme park gift shops. We were broke back them and it was the only way we could afford to go. Disney themed merchandise is in every department store imaginable, so I never had a hard time finding something for my three kids.
Same here. I would peruse the Disney store and tuck items away. I had a secret stash and would pull it out whenever my kids wanted a souvenir. Also we made it a habit to visit the Super Target that is near Disney property. They have souvenir t-shirts, toys, etc.. so much cheaper than the parks. I did let each child splurge on one item from the actual parks, but I made them wait until the last day so it was something they REALLY wanted. We would make a stop at the downtown disney shops that day.
Don’t forget to budget for gratuity on table service meals. Most all table service meals no longer include gratuity. I miss the old plan that included it!