Best strategies for an inexpensive Disney family trip??

TurnDownForWalt

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 7, 2020
My wife & I have two kids (ages 4 and 8) and I'm looking for some tips & tricks on keeping the cost down at Walt Disney World? Specifically cost saving ideas BEFORE & DURING our vacation.

I already know about some of the basic things like bringing your own food into the parks and traveling during slow seasons.. Looking for some deeper cut tips & tricks or hidden Disney gems to save on $$. Thank you!!
 
You might want to post over at the Budget Board.

One thing you can do is sign up for rewards credit cards with a good sign-up bonus. Put everything on the card and pay off your balance each month. You can build up points for flights or hotels.

You can also work on getting Disney gift cards at a discount. They can be used for hotels, food, or park tickets. While many of the higher-yield strategies have dried up, but you can always get an easy 5% off just by using a Red Card to buy them at Target.

Look to see what the current deals are. Right now there's a 4-park ticket that is less expensive than a regular 4-day ticket because you can only use it for one admission to each park.
 
Get rich so it feels cheap?

So in no particular order
-If you're OK with not having the pick of the litter FP's & don't need to use EMH, find an Off-site hotel
-Keep your nose to the grindstone on checking for official discounts from Disney THemselves
-Check trustworthy sites like Undercover Tourist for discounted tickets and discounted hotel stays (Touring Plans has a nice aggregate calculator that provides sites with the best discounts for tickets).
-Get a Disney Visa Card as they do offer some discounts for those cardholders
-Get a Target credit card and buy DIsney gift cards at 5% off, which you can use to pay for everything when you're at DIsney.
-Consider a Big Box Store membership (Sam's Club, BJ's, etc.). They can have fairly big discounts on tickets.
-If you're military current, look at the Salute to Service* (not sure if that's what it's called) tickets. Also check out the Shades of Green resort options
-If you have the money for a deluxe, you can save big by going through a DVC rental broker and essentially get a Delxe Villa for a moderate's price (if not lower at some times).
 
It really depends on your idea of inexpensive. I did a lot of cost cutting measures - to a degree. Our family of 5 adults (3 kids aged 11,10,10) for a week was $5,700 staying offsite. That includes flights for all of us on points.

We bought our Disney gift cards from Sams at the discount. I used the cards to pay for our dessert party so that we had some savings. Our food and spending money was also on a gift card so we didn't spend more than we wanted.

I searched all menus so we knew what the actual cost of the restaurant would be if we decided to eat there. We ate breakfast in our house. We saved for over 1 year so that we had the cash and didn't charged our vacation.
 


Offsite hotels may or may not be less expensive than a Disney value. With only 4 in your family, the cost of staying in one room at an All Star might be less than paying an offsite hotel, parking at the parks, and car rental. Look at offsite hotels, and make sure you include all associated costs, including resort fees that might not be upfront in the listing.

There are some offsite hotels that offer character dining that is both less expensive than on property and easier to book. We saw Minnie and Goofy at breakfast at the Garden Grove at the Swan for a lot less than at the Disney hotels and parks.

Consider pre-buying souvenirs. I've purchased toys and t-shirts at discounts before going to Disney and then had them appear magically in the room. With my sons, it was "Mickey Magic" and I think Tinkerbell is going to leave a few items for my daughter this trip. I have also gone to the dollar store to buy glow sticks, which are great for night time at the parks, and eliminate whining to buy light up things at inflated prices.
 
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My wife & I have two kids (ages 4 and 8) and I'm looking for some tips & tricks on keeping the cost down at Walt Disney World? Specifically cost saving ideas BEFORE & DURING our vacation.

I already know about some of the basic things like bringing your own food into the parks and traveling during slow seasons.. Looking for some deeper cut tips & tricks or hidden Disney gems to save on $$. Thank you!!

When we were kids, my mom used to get souvenirs ahead of time at home. You can get Plush at different stores and not at the parks and other small items that are similar to things you would find in the gift shops. She would bring everything with us and then we got gifts in the room each day instead of buying things in the gift shops. It was so fun and I remember really loving it.

Also, if your kids want to pin trade, you can get cheap trading pins on eBay to use. Those are also great souvenirs and fun for kids to do.
 
My wife & I have two kids (ages 4 and 8) and I'm looking for some tips & tricks on keeping the cost down at Walt Disney World? Specifically cost saving ideas BEFORE & DURING our vacation.

I already know about some of the basic things like bringing your own food into the parks and traveling during slow seasons.. Looking for some deeper cut tips & tricks or hidden Disney gems to save on $$. Thank you!!
Nothing is inexpensive at Disney. However every bit helps.

I have a Disney Visa cc and use that to get Disney Dollars by purchases through the year. Over a year or several you can rack up some good $ to apply against your expenses. Depending on what discounts are out there you can sometimes get a deluxe for pretty good price.

Plan to go when free dining is offered.

Go for a all Star hotel if you plan to mostly be in park and not using resort.

Stay onsite and use magical express to save on rental car costs and parking.

Share meals. You get allot of food some places and allot can go to waste.

Limit expensive meals and snacks.
 
Also, if your kids want to pin trade, you can get cheap trading pins on eBay to use. Those are also great souvenirs and fun for kids to do.
If your kids want to pin trade, please, please educate yourself about these fake pin lots. There are many videos on YouTube.

I love going to Character Warehouse before the trip starts. Lovely souvenirs so the kids are already a little satiated and so much cheaper.
 
I've gotten close by offsite hotels that don't have terrible reviews for around $50 a night including fees using Hotwire's secret hotels where they don't tell you the hotel until you book.

Sign up for a Disney credit card when you buy tickets that gives you a cash back reward for initially spending a certain amount of money. Then cancel immediately if you don't want the credit card.

Don't do park hoppers or other extras unless you really want them.

Spend a day checking out resorts. Parking is free at them for three hours I think with a dining reservation.
 
Plan to go when free dining is offered.

Share meals. You get allot of food some places and allot can go to waste.

Limit expensive meals and snacks

“Free” dining is a very popular promotion, but it means paying rack rate and buying hoppers. Depending on a family’s eating tendencies, they might be better off taking a room discount and buying base tickets from an authorized reseller at a discount.

For some families, the free dining promotion saves quite a bit over other discounts, but it’s important to crunch the numbers to see which is better for your family.
 
My wife & I have two kids (ages 4 and 8) and I'm looking for some tips & tricks on keeping the cost down at Walt Disney World? Specifically cost saving ideas BEFORE & DURING our vacation.

I already know about some of the basic things like bringing your own food into the parks and traveling during slow seasons.. Looking for some deeper cut tips & tricks or hidden Disney gems to save on $$. Thank you!!
Have any of you ever been to Disney before? Do you already have an idea of where you want to stay?

I would stay onsite, esp. if you are flying in. Use Magical Express to get to the hotel and use Disney transport to get around. Obviously the values will save you money and we used to stay in them exclusively.

Eat breakfast in the room.

Free water is available at any counter service, just ask for ice water.

Get your tickets through somewhere like Undercover Tourist.

I wouldn't suggest the dining plan (unless you eat a lot of food), rather I'd try for a room only discount during a time when they are offering a promotion.

Don't do any extras that you have to pay for, rather maximize your park time by really learning the best way to use FP's, refreshing, rope drop, or end of night touring.
 
Things we've done to save money on our trips: I signed up for the Target debit card to get 5% off the Disney gift cards, we stay off-site if it's a budget trip. There are tons of perfectly fine Airbnb's and hotels in the area and a lot of the hotels offer free breakfast which can save quite a bit. We do max 1 (sometimes 0) sit-down meals per trip. Honestly we're way less hungry on park days because of all the walking around in the heat so it's not a big deal.
 
I didn't know you needed hoppers now for free dining! But the PP is correct. I also think the DDP is almost too much food, and almost forces you into eating when you otherwise might not. We did it twice - both times for "free". We found we were always rushing to a reservation, that we were restricted in what we could order and (at least at the time) always had to order dessert we didn't want. Free dining isn't really free anyway when you have to buy the rest at full price.
 
Share meals (portions are huge) , drive down, if you have a car local outlet stores are close by and have Disney souvenirs very cheap, and don’t get park hoppers.
 
There's a site that gives tips using coupons/couponing to help you save for Disney
 
Sign up for a southwest rewards card if you have good credit and don’t have one. Their sign up points are pretty generous and will at least give you one leg of the trip. You have to charge an “ X” amount by a certain time to get the points. Also, take the gift card offered at the resort in exchange for no housekeeping. The free cups of ice water are just fine at counter service locations, soda and specialty drinks add up. Look for free resort activities like chip and dales camp fire at Fort Wilderness. Don’t do bippity boppity boutique, Pirates league is good for boys and girls and waaaay cheaper.
 
When are you looking to go? There’s a room discount through the Disney website through the entire summer.
 

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