When we bought DVC on the resale market in early 2018, our idea was to travel to WDW each year, alternating big, park-heavy trips with resort-only trips. In April 2019, we enjoyed a huge trip, spending 12 days at the Poly and visiting at least one park every day. It was great.
Now, it's time for the resort-only trip. We live in Michigan, where I grew up, but my wife settled in Florida in her Navy family. When we moved back north a few years ago, one of our agreements was that we'd still get south, especially in the winter, to enjoy some warmth. The fireplace does tremendous work, but it can't fully replicate the feeling of warm, outdoor air.
Here's what we're looking at for this January's trip:
Trip: 7 days, 6 nights (Wednesday January 22 through Tuesday January 28)
Who: Me (33), my Wife (32), and our daughters (8 and 5)
Airfare: $871.84 (4 round-trip tickets from Grand Rapids, MI to MCO)
----- Waaaay cheaper than spring break travel from last year. We initially booked with Frontier to try an ultra-low-cost option...but then they moved our flight to a different day, we got a refund, and booked with Southwest instead. Weather permitting, we'll be at the AKL for lunch on our arrival day and splashing in the pool into the afternoon on getaway day. The flights came together beautifully.
Tickets: $0
----- British tickets offered big-time savings last year, but they were substantially more than this. I do wish that Disney would offer more of their annual passes to non-Florida residents -- I, for one, would be very pleased to have access to the Weekday Select annual pass despite my distance from Florida. We'd spend a good deal more time in the parks if we were passholders again, but with only the Platinum Pass available to us, we'll be living at the resorts and Disney Springs for this trip.
Lodging: $746.57 (4 nights at AKL-Jambo and 2 nights at BLT; 76 total points)
----- This factors in a ratable portion of the upfront purchase price and annual dues for our DVC resale contract at the Poly ($8.91 annual per point purchase price for 2018 purchase in 2018 dollars, plus 5% annual inflation estimate (given that dues increase faster than overall inflation rate) --> $9.82 per point for this trip). The 2019/2020 cash cost attributable to 76 points was much lower given that we purchased the DVC contract in cash such that our only ongoing expenses are the annual dues. This blows me away: sure, we don't get certain Membership Extras because we purchased our points resale, but at $124.43 per night on this trip, we're staying at some of our favorite places in the world. It's absurd (in a good way).
Food/Souvenirs/Misc.: $900
----- This includes groceries, meals, tips, and souvenirs. We have table service meals scheduled at Boma and Artist Point as well as some type of sit-down at Beaches and Cream (could be dinner, could be dessert). This estimate is very high given our actual spending on prior trips, but I'd rather budget for a bunch of quick service meals and have cash left over than budget for PB&Js and be disappointed if we eat at The Mara a few times. We really enjoy dining at resort quick service locations like Capt. Cook's, Geyser Point, and The Mara. But as we found on our last trip, there were plenty of days where all our kids wanted for lunch/dinner was easy mac, a carrot, and a clementine. That's a solid, easy meal, and between grocery delivery and a suitcase full of food (thanks for those checked bags included in the fare, Southwest!), it's plenty cheap to pull that off.
TOTAL: $2,518.41
Now, it's time for me to put on my old man, get-off-my-lawn cap for a moment: I don't like the idea of suggesting that the use of airline miles/credit card points/hotel points/etc. makes a portion of a trip "free." I definitely understand the rationale for doing so -- rewards feel like found money -- but there's a real cost to using your points in that way. For example, if you cash out your credit card rewards for cash and contribute the cash to a Roth IRA, you've generated a unicorn: truly untaxed cash that also grows and gets distributed tax free. Is that the most efficient use of your cashback rewards? At 1 cent per point, no, normally it's not even close given the efficiency offered by some travel rewards portals. But it is another option for your rewards dollars and that's one of the costs of using your points for travel.
<soapbox dismount>
Happy budgeting everyone!
(EDIT: Items I left out above: we'll board our dog at my parents' house ($0), get dropped off at the airport in Michigan ($0), and take Magical Express to and from MCO (inc. in tips). Compared to many of our peers, that's a few hundred dollars right there.)