Last year we went to Disney for 9 days on a family vacation for only $1438 (hotel, plane, rental car, and park tickets). I have outlined below some tips we used to have a wonderful vacation on a budget!
- We did lots of research: We brought 2 Disney travel books. My favorite is The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World! We
checked out some Disney forums to learn all the tips and tricks to having a fun and cheap vacation at Disney. We also ordered a Free Disney Parks Vacation Planning DVD. Order your FREE DVD HERE!
- Traveled in the off season: The first thing we did was research when Disney’s high and low seasons are. By traveling in the off season we not only got fabulous deals but we didn’t have to fight the big crowds.
- Booked early: We booked our trip 9 months before we went to Disney.
- We stayed for 9 days: By staying longer our park tickets and rental car were cheaper per day. A ticket at the gate will coast $79 per day but since we got 7 days we only paid $34 per day. We also booked our tickets online to save money.
- We avoided money trap:
::We packed food and drinks to take to the park (most people don’t know that you can take food into Disney)!
::Our hotel included breakfast
::We took umbrella strollers with us (they would have cost $31 a day to rent)
::We purchased souvenirs outside of the park. We also picked up some great deals at the Disney outlet before we went to give the girls on the trip.
i have a family of 6 and we went to disney we camped at fort wilderness instead of getting a hotel. the per day cost is a big difference and the bathrooms and showers are sooooo clean it was like staying in a hotel anyway. my husband and i have already said that when we go bad we are going to do the same thing. for the time we spent at the camper its not worth it for our family to get a hotel we end up saving for an 8 day stay almost 3500.00 that was the biggest part of our savings….. thanks christine
Did you stay on or off property? I’ve been pricing a vacation there but staying on property, I can’t get it below $2700 for airfare and hotel, even in the budget resort.
Yes, I stayed off property about a mile from the Maingate of Disney. We were able to get our plane tickets for $100 each (I have a family of 4) so that helped a ton!
Christine,
Great tip-thanks!
How did you get your plane tickets at such a low cost?
We planned our trip for the lowest travel season (The first two weeks in December). It is easy to get great travel deals at this time!