Compromising or just priced out?

I am also a Canadian, and I have a few tips that have saved us a ton. First, plan ahead and study! Last year 5 adults stayed at CBR for $1100 US per person for 8 nights and that included hotel, tickets and food. Also because of studying (love disboards!) I found out about the gift card offer in time and they gave me a $600 Disney gift card on arrival and that paid all our tips. I also love my one day at Universal and the best advice for that is plan and collect airmiles and "buy" your ticket for 1 day with dream miles. Sometimes the other plan is to just look up flight prices periodically. This year my daughter and I found flights from Ottawa to Orlanda (MCO) for $263 CAD return. We bought them in January for a November trip and it is from a Tuesday to the following Wednesday but you can't beat that price so we grabbed it.

Anyway that is my 2 cents worth, I certainly understand the frustration of our dollar and fingers crossed it will go up sometime soon. Enjoy your trip and if you don't do Universal you can just stay in the Disney bubble the whole time! :lovestruc
 
We also have 6 Flags New England a little over an hour from us, thinking about getting Annual Passes for there instead of Disney.

New Englander here. Six Flags season passes are a fantastic bargain! You can currently buy a 2019 season pass for $57 that will get you in for the rest of 2018 as well as 2019, free parking, etc. There are multiple "bring a friend free" days, and my kids love to invite their friends on the ultimate play date.

Definitely not Disney-level theming or entertainment, but lots of thrill rides, if you have older kids into that, and two pretty good kiddie lands that keep my 3-year-old happy while my older kids ride coasters. The water park is great in warm weather (and does a good job pulling people out of the main park, so lines generally aren't too ridiculous, even at peak times in the summer). Character meet and greets are superheroes and looney toons. They often roam the parks, and there's never more than a few minutes wait to meet them.

The food is disappointing - greasy and so expensive it makes Disney look like a bargain. And, unlike Disney, you cannot bring in your own food (though you can get water free at any kiosk). But...if you buy a basic meal plan for $42, you get lunch and a snack every time you visit. I have found a few decent meals, like the grilled chicken wraps, for myself, and just let my kids get their pizza or nuggets and fries.

Since it's a day trip, there's definitely not the immersive Disney experience, but, then, it's a whole lot less expensive than flying to MCO and getting a hotel. I think if you manage your expectations as to what Six Flags is and isn't, you'll be pleased, especially given the price. For me, Six Flags is a place to get an annual pass and go multiple times to get my rides fix, and Disney is a place to go every other year or so for the theming and attention to details.
 
Not a theme or amusement park but our new regular outing is the WWII museum in New Orleans. Great nearby covered parking, cheaper than Disney resort or park parking, senior discount for tickets. We don’t eat at the cafe but take advantage of the many neighborhood eateries with excellent reasonably priced food. It’s currently one of the top rated museums in the country, after the NYC Met, which is my other favorite but I can’t go to as often.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to get a senior discount on ANYTHING at Disney?
 
Last edited:
The resort prices are a bit out of control right now but when we have a slight recession (and we are due based on the length of the current economic growth) it will correct as it always has. Disney likes to push the envelope then correct when the economy limits travel. .

Totally agree and waiting as we need a little correction/slight recession. Just look at all the housing going on and around Florida again.... and the prices their going for...just didn't learn
from the last time...goes for the rest of the country too...
 


If we have to compromise we wait a year.

Yup. Same here. We last went in 2015 as a family. I'm going in November with just DD12. DS18 went in March for his senior trip. If we ever go again we will be getting two rooms. I won't share with my kids. In the meantime we take trips elsewhere. We find that we get more bang for our buck outside of Disney but we still enjoy Disney so we try to find a way to go back every once in a while. Once we hit a slight recession and Disney has fix their prices we may take advantage of the deals.
 
Yup. Same here. We last went in 2015 as a family. I'm going in November with just DD12. DS18 went in March for his senior trip. If we ever go again we will be getting two rooms. I won't share with my kids. In the meantime we take trips elsewhere. We find that we get more bang for our buck outside of Disney but we still enjoy Disney so we try to find a way to go back every once in a while. Once we hit a slight recession and Disney has fix their prices we may take advantage of the deals.

I'm going with just DS10 and DS8 this fall. I will probably take DD3 sometime in the next year or so. I'd like to take her when she's still young enough for princesses and magic is real. Also I'd like to go when I can get cheap flights that don't conflict with school schedules, so it needs to be before kindergarten.

When (if?) we all go together as a family of 5 again, it will be in two rooms, or a suite at the very least. We actually do travel quite a lot, and there are better deals to be had nearly everywhere else. In 2016, we got a two-bedroom at Sheraton Vistana, and the room to spread out was heavenly. Five people in one standard room sounds miserable to me.
 
.....My biggest issue that forces me to compromise is the prices for flights. I can deal with the Disney price increases, but I'm paying way more for less options on flights than I used to, which this year forced us to cut Universal out of the trip as well. I'd drive, but I live in the Northeast and while I don't mind driving and it would be cheaper to rent a car, pay for parking, and pay for gas even if we don't get a hotel on the way down, a 20+ hour drive packed into a car....

YES!!! I fly out from Philadelphia, and live maybe 10 minutes form the airport, and finding a DIRECT flight for a reasonable price is basically a part-time job! My father lives a couple of hours from Newark airport and I almost flew out of there; but basically decided to suck it up and pay out of the nose for Philadelphia.

The MASSIVE number of people who use that airport to get to Orlando, I cannot believe there are not more direct flights for a little cheaper (i.e. even $150 each way). This does seem to be a serious problem for more and more people.

I would elaborate further but I would end up going a rant!!
 


So I am deep in trip planning and it is exciting. But, while we have not been priced out (yet) we already have had to make a big compromise: no Universal on this trip. On all our previous Orlando jaunts, we visited both WDW (8-10 days) and Universal (2-3 days). This trip, we are doing just ten days at Disney, and two of those nights will be off-site. We always stay at value resorts.

Previously, we could visit both theme park resorts for about $1500 each (two adults), including flights from Canada. Now we will be shelling out about 2K apiece, as we did last year, but Universal is now out of the picture. Yes, some of that is due to the high Canada-U.S. exchange rate, but most of it is due to theme park inflation.

Okay, we accepted that, but I was wondering how many of you have had to make compromises and settle for less while paying the same or more?

We have the problem that we can really only go Thanksgiving, Christmas (which we aren't going to do because of family), Spring Break, or 4 weeks in prime summer season.

We've decided to do Universal Spring 2019 for the first time.
We are a family of 5, so options are a bit limited. For what I set as our budget without food and transportation ($4000), we could do 5 nights at a moderate Disney resort (POR) with 4 day parkhopper tickets and our 3 FP+/day set 60 days ahead of time OR we could do 5 nights at Portofino Bay with 4 day park-to-park tickets and unlimited express pass.

For the first time since 2003, I'm not even sure about us going back to WDW.
 
YES!!! I fly out from Philadelphia, and live maybe 10 minutes form the airport, and finding a DIRECT flight for a reasonable price is basically a part-time job! My father lives a couple of hours from Newark airport and I almost flew out of there; but basically decided to suck it up and pay out of the nose for Philadelphia.

The MASSIVE number of people who use that airport to get to Orlando, I cannot believe there are not more direct flights for a little cheaper (i.e. even $150 each way). This does seem to be a serious problem for more and more people.

I would elaborate further but I would end up going a rant!!

We fly out of PHL too. I'm in South Jersey about 20 minutes from the airport. When we've gone in August and flown on Wednesday or Thursday it's not so bad. I've gotten under $200 RT PP. My Jersey Week flights......$350 PP and that was the day SW released their flights. Those same flights are well over $500 PP. The same with American.

I've been tempted to fly out of Baltimore.
 
So I am deep in trip planning and it is exciting. But, while we have not been priced out (yet) we already have had to make a big compromise: no Universal on this trip. On all our previous Orlando jaunts, we visited both WDW (8-10 days) and Universal (2-3 days). This trip, we are doing just ten days at Disney, and two of those nights will be off-site. We always stay at value resorts.

Previously, we could visit both theme park resorts for about $1500 each (two adults), including flights from Canada. Now we will be shelling out about 2K apiece, as we did last year, but Universal is now out of the picture. Yes, some of that is due to the high Canada-U.S. exchange rate, but most of it is due to theme park inflation.

Okay, we accepted that, but I was wondering how many of you have had to make compromises and settle for less while paying the same or more?

Where are you flying out of in Canada? Close enough to the border to make a domestic US flight feasible?

My group travels pretty frugally, but your post motivated me to go back and look at how we did last year. We paid my inlaws $1,200CAD (~$950 USD at the time) for a week at their time share, basically covering their maintenance fee, plus USD $331 for 3 extra nights (10 night trip). This made sense for a 2 bedroom condo for 5 adults; for the two of you I know you can do much cheaper with a smaller unit or renting a cheap timeshare week. Big rental SUV for the group at $470; again something for the two of you should be proportionally less. Airfare was ~$320 per person, including trip cancellation insurance. We paid $260pp for 4-day Canadian Resident Disney tickets, ~$100pp for Disney Halloween party, and ~$150pp for Universal 1-day park-to-park. Transport costs other than the car rental were $120 for 6 park days of parking, $80 for gas, and $5 for tolls.

All told that was USD$6,100 for 5 people, or $1,220 per person. Smaller unit and cheaper car could have gotten you there on a 2-person trip too. Adding days at Disney if you desire isn't much more either; we just preferred the leisure days. One companion and I took a day trip up to Gainesville for a football game for about $100 for gas and two tickets.

Now I know ticket prices (even the Canadian discount) have gone up. Airfare's gone up. But $1,500pp (USD?) may still be a reasonable and attainable target.
 
Not a theme or amusement park but our new regular outing is the WWII museum in New Orleans. Great nearby covered parking, cheaper than Disney resort or park parking, senior discount for tickets. We don’t eat at the cafe but take advantage of the many neighborhood eateries with excellent reasonably priced food. It’s currently one of the top rated museums on the country, after the NYC Met, which is my other favorite but I can’t go to as often.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to get a senior discount on ANYTHING at Disney?

My husband and I wet to the WWII Museum in New Orleans and I agree with you it really is a wonderful Museum. We walked in to the cafe onsite and walked right out and went elsewhere. I can't wait until I can get back down to New Orleans!!
 
I won't compromise!

As you can see by my signature, we've enjoyed Disney a LOT in the past...every year sometimes twice per year! When I went to price out our vacation last year, the price was so ridiculously high that I just couldn't do it and that was even with an agency exclusive deal! I always said we would continue to go to Disney while the math made sense... the cost for the four of us last year just didn't! Instead we booked a week long stay for the 4 of us at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica which was amazing and it cost FAR LESS for the entire trip, airfare included, than it would have cost us to go to Disney without the airfare. My husband and I have also always enjoyed our solo fall trips for F&W but again, because of the high prices, we opted to do an all-inclusive in Mexico last fall which cost far less and we loved it!

We do miss Disney and I am planning to price out next August when the agency comes out with their labor day deals... if the math makes sense, I'll book it, if not, back to the Caribbean we'll go!
 
Airfare is our biggest issue. So...then we decide to drive. So...then Disney starts charging for parking. Grrr...
 
Airfare is our biggest issue. So...then we decide to drive. So...then Disney starts charging for parking. Grrr...
We live in GA, so we have always driven. The problem for us is that Disney prices have risen so much more than other things that when it starts to be $1500-2000 more for a vacation than it was a few years ago, we can fly somewhere and still come out ahead.
 
Oh boy have things changed for our household.

We are a family of five who lives in Florida about 125 miles from the parks. We use to get AP's every year and did many weekend trips. When it was just the kids and I we did an onsite value and sometimes splurged for a mod. When hubby came along on these trips it was offsite condos. We also use to do at least one week each year with all five of us staying onsite, typically in a deluxe. This was always peak season when the kids were out of school either in the summer or spring break so discounts were not usually a part of these occasions. Also, my husband likes the connivance of the dining plan so that yearly trip almost always included the DP. In addition, the past few years we did two rooms on those week long deluxe stays because the kids have grown into young adults who are just too darn big for all five us in one room. While we are not that Disney dream "family of four, week long, onsite demographic," we have spent more money then I ever want to add up at Walt Disney World over the years on AP'S, rooms, food and an occasional souvenir. I shutter to think about the cost of my outlay on my Disney pin collection alone!

I use to love having Disney as our go to backyard playground. In the past few years I have seen the value slip for me. We can afford it but I'm just not able to justify the increase charges in all things Disney. My final straw was the parking fees at the resorts for overnight guest who are paying to stay at their hotels. I have only been once since this fee was imposed and only because I had no choice about where we stayed as I was traveling with my daughter's softball team and we had to stay where the team booked. We attend the softball tournament at ESPN but didn't go to the parks. We only ate one meal in the food court and drove off site for our other meals. This was not the way I used to do Disney. I was that person who wasn't bothered by the fact that I was spending more to stay and eat in the bubble because I happened to like that bubble. Well, the bubble has burst wide open for me now! Admittedly, I reached my boiling point, I was ticked about the parking fees and I was not about to fork over any more money then I had to that trip because I was still irradiated by these changes. My point is no one in my family has ever used the magical express to and from the airport and hardly ever use the Disney buses over the years. Now I felt like I was being penalize for being a fool who saved Disney bank all these years by driving my own car. This was not a nice way, in my opinion, to treat a loyal returning guest so I did the only thing in my power and returned the gesture by going out of my way to spend my Mickey earmarked dollars else where. Between parking fees and the room checks I really have gotten to the point where I don't want to stay on site at all now. To be honest even if I decided to visit the parks up the road as long as it is in my power I doubt I will return to onsite stays unless Disney gets a clue and figures out how to rectify these matters. Oh, and why they are at it they should also allow pass holders to book fast pass plus at 60 days not 30 too! Another huge annoyance of mine!

Our last set of our annual passes expire in March and we have not stepped foot in a park since then. Considering I use to be there at least monthly this is huge for me and my family. I'm sure we will go back to visit the parks at some point when I miss it again, but I'm not there yet, and have no clue when that will be. In the mean time I am saving my expendable income. I have also found countless really nice offsite restaurants for a fraction of Disney Restaurant cost with better food in the Orlando area. I know where a multitude of markets and a weekend farmers market are in Orlando now. I have also stayed at some amazing offsite resort and condos in the area that do not have resort or parking fees. I suppose I should thank the powers at be at Disney who ticked me off because now I have more jingle in my pocket and have discovered a whole new world of entertainment and family activities on the mouses door step that I didn't know existed when I was under the Disney Spell.
 
Last edited:
I really hate penny pinching on vacation but that being said I have had to make changes. I pay for an extended family (8 people) so it gets pricey from the word go. We stay for 10 to 12 days each time but I have had to make major changes for our 2021 trip. In the past I have scheduled a day at Sea World with one of their add ons like young dolphin thing. This day typically cost me around $1200 for one day and it was mainly for my daughters mother. And this past June trip besides that I shelled out around $1000 for 4 1 day passes at Universal with their meal thing. And we stayed a night at Daytona Beach. I have informed everyone that in 2021 I have scheduled 2 free days. Go to the parks or do what you want but I am not paying for any of these things. I have further reduced by telling people I am not paying for everything. I still have to pay for 2 rooms for my daughters mother and stepfather but if your not my daughter,god daughter or her mother and stepfather you can come but your paying for your tickets and your share of the meal plan. The last savings is entirely Disney's fault. I gave each girl $800 to spend and the now 9 year old spent $600 at Universal on Harry Potter stuff but my 18 year old brought back $500-$600 dollars. Even I hard trouble finding anything to buy. Just 2 shirts this trip. All of these cuts bring down my budget by around 6k. I have to admit thou my girls have decided that they love the deluxe plan and being deluxe girls. I am still looking at 22-26k for the next trip. But I do save and pay cash and we only go every 3rd year.

Please adopt me.
 
Last edited:
While the prices have gotten higher, and they likely will continue to do so, it really hasn't bothered me that much. We have DVC so that part has been locked in. As for food and whatnot, I think opinions on that vary based on where you live. I do not find the TS restaurant prices at WDW to be much more than what I would pay for an equivalent meal at home.
 
We stayed offsite in a condo this year for the first time. I swore I wouldn't do it, but we did, and we loved it. We paid less than a value resort would have been ($950 all in for 9 nights) for an 1100 sq-ft, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo. We ate breakfast and a few other meals in the condo (when we were there, we didn't travel back just to eat), and we really enjoyed all of the space. We did have to drive to the parks, but we had been doing that the last 3 trips anyway because the bus system isn't what it once was. Our longest drive was MK, that was 23 minutes from our parking lot to theirs; we went early and didn't mess with the trams at all. Other than MK, it took us no more than 15 minutes to get to the parks from our condo. We had to pay $22 to park, but we typically stay at a moderate resort, so it would have been $23/night to park there too (we drive down).

I don't know when we'll go again (DS1 is a senior in high school), but we will be staying offsite from now on.
 
We have the problem that we can really only go Thanksgiving, Christmas (which we aren't going to do because of family), Spring Break, or 4 weeks in prime summer season.

We've decided to do Universal Spring 2019 for the first time.
We are a family of 5, so options are a bit limited. For what I set as our budget without food and transportation ($4000), we could do 5 nights at a moderate Disney resort (POR) with 4 day parkhopper tickets and our 3 FP+/day set 60 days ahead of time OR we could do 5 nights at Portofino Bay with 4 day park-to-park tickets and unlimited express pass.

For the first time since 2003, I'm not even sure about us going back to WDW.

If you`ve never been to Universal, that is a good choice because all of it will be new to you. For us, the only thing new at Universal would be the Fast and Furious, which doesn`t move the needle for us.
 
Interesting thread. When we left WDW a couple of weeks ago we had the discussion about next year and what our plans are. We don't want to take our daughter out of school anymore, so this was the only time we took advantage of "value season."

I got a good deal through my TA for POP in March. Then we will stay offsite and drive down in July. For less than $200 a night we have a suite at Towneplace Marriott with free parking and free breakfast. We had such trouble with the transportation 2 weeks ago that we would rather have our car anyway. We decided to split our time and do the beach after WDW instead of staying in WDW for 9-10 days. It's cheaper!

We want to go in October for MNSSHP and will probably stay at POP again. I can't justify deluxe resorts anymore unless I get a crazy discount.

Not sure what 2020 holds for us. Our new APs will expire in March of that year. We plan to go to NYC and Universal for now.

Making the move offsite has me excited but also nervous. We'll see how it goes!
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top