Your vacation budget doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room. You want to get the best possible trip at the lowest possible price. With Disney theme parks, that’s something of a moving target. Prices are ever-increasing, and you must decide the best ways to spend your money. Let’s evaluate the cost of all Disney vacation expenses, deciding where to splurge and where to save.
Travel
Image: DisneySince I can’t possibly know where you’re coming from, all I can do here is provide you with a few pertinent details. The main one is that it’s not necessarily cheaper to drive rather than fly any longer. Prior to 2018, guests who stayed onsite at official Disney resorts received free parking. That’s no longer the case.
For a week’s stay, you’ll pay somewhere around $100-$160 to park your car at your hotel. Yes, it’s steep and unavoidable. For larger families, it’s an annoyance but not enough to justify extra plane tickets, of course. When you fly, you do get the benefit of Magical Express and save yourself the trouble of the parental nightmare that is, “Are we there yet?” Only you can place a monetary value on that or using bathrooms gas stations along the way.
Hotel accommodations
Image: DisneyThe part of travel that is up for debate is where to stay. When I say hotel accommodations, I’m speaking of a wide variety of options. You may want to rent a home, reserve an Airbnb, stay at a timeshare, book a third-party hotel, or treat yourself to an official Disney resort vacation. All of these selections are valid in their own ways.
Let’s be clear that you’ll pay more as you get closer to Walt Disney World, but you’ll get benefits that may justify the increased price for you and your family. In particular, staying at a Disney resort gives you access to Extra Magic Hours, times when only guests booked onsite are in the parks. With small crowds, you get to ride more of your favorites in a short period of time. Also, Disney resorts are spectacularly immersive.
Image: DisneyGiven the sheer volume of places to stay at or near Disney theme parks, you’ll get tremendous bang for your buck. Think of the situation in these terms. When you book a room for a business trip or a weekend getaway, you’re likely to spend as much as you would at a Moderate Tier Disney resort. Where would you rather stay for that money: a Radisson or Disney’s Port Orleans – French Quarter? Exactly.
At Orlando and Anaheim, the heavy amount of competition has kept the hotel situation reasonable. You can spend the night at extremely nice accommodations for no more than in your average tourist area. The difference is that you’re close to Disney and thereby living the dream.
Image: DisneyThe one tip I’ll give is that most people don’t spend a lot of time in their hotel room during a Disney vacation. You want to book a place that has fantastic logistics and amenities so that you’re not wasting valuable park time on transportation. But you shouldn’t splurge on more expensive hotels or better rooms unless you plan to use them.
The Disney Skyliner means that even the cheap All-Star Resorts provide relatively quick access to multiple Disney parks. There’s no need to spend more of your vacation budget beyond that. You’re already getting fantastic value for your money.
Admission tickets
Image: DisneyYou’ll have the least wiggle room with admission tickets. While some third-party vendors sell discounted tickets, the fractional savings may not justify the risk of buying Disney tickets from a non-Disney supplier. Even if you are willing to take that chance – and I have on occasion – you’re still only saving a few dollars a day.
Here’s my hot take on the subject. Disney ticket pricing is remarkably fair. A few years ago, I compared Disney’s ticket price inflation to some other long-established American brands and products. The results genuinely shocked me, as theme park tickets have increased in price at a lower rate than some of these comparison items. While Disney has expanded their vast collection of wonderful attractions, theme park admission has remained relatively static in price.
Even though clickbait headlines suggest outrageous Disney price increases each year, the reality is that the cost of admission is reasonable and fair for a product as terrific as a day at the Happiest Place on Earth.
Meals
Image: DisneyOn any vacation to a popular tourist area, you’ll spend an exorbitant amount of money on food. Meal mark-up is standard operating procedure at destination locations. Walt Disney World is just like everywhere else in this category. A cheeseburger starts at $15 and can get even more expensive from there. When I evaluate meals, something I’ll factor into the discussion is that tourist trap inflation isn’t a Disney thing; it’s an everywhere thing.
Something that I quite like about Disney is that your food budget has a great deal of elasticity to it. Whether you want to scarf down sandwiches every meal or put on your Sunday-finest and eat at Victoria & Albert’s multiple times, you have the power and freedom of choice. Disney will even provide a bit of guidance if you suffer analysis paralysis.
Image: DisneyThe Disney Dining Plan is more than just a way to set a finite food budget for your trip. It will also inform your meal choices each day. You’ll receive a set number of entitlements for Quick Service and/or Table Service meals. These are Disney’s terms for counter service meals and sit-down restaurant dining experiences.
The standard plan over the years has included one Quick Service and one Table Service meal a day. It sort of trains people to grab and go once a day, breakfast or lunch for most people, and then sit down for a more relaxing meal, usually at dinner. This sort of compartmentalization actually makes planning a Disney day a bit easier. Your meal informs your park behavior before and after eating due to the location of the restaurant.
Image: DisneyDisney even provides packages that include the Disney Dining Plan (DDP) for “free” with an official resort stay. Cynics are quick to comment that Disney makes up the price of the dining plan by raising prices elsewhere. While this is true to an extent, the free DDP means that you’ll know your food cost prior to your trip. I find that invaluable during the planning phase.
Should you skip the DDP, you’ll have other ways to maintain control of your meal budget. For example, Epcot hosts festivals at the World Showcase on more than half the days of the year. During these events, pop-up food kiosks sell entrees that can fill you up, and they’re almost always less than $10. It’s Disney’s version of street food, affording you the opportunity to eat cheap.
Image: DisneyYou can save on food in other ways as well. Florida residents and Disney Vacation Club members may purchase the Tables in Wonderland card, which discounts meals at many restaurants by 20 percent. Annual pass owners and DVC members also receive standard discounts of 10-20 percent at several restaurants. As another option, you can stretch your food budget by eating off-site.
While Disney does have tourist trap pricing at many establishments, my opinion is that food cost relative to food quality here is extremely reasonable. I believe that you’ll get tremendous value for your food budget here.
Merchandise
Image: DisneyOkay, this subject is touchy. Everyone loves Disney, and their merchandise is legitimately some of the best in the world. Just a quick glance around my house verifies both the quality of the goods and the fact that I could have bought a Tesla with the money spent on such items. So, I’m in a “do as I say, not as I do” situation.
My strategy for a Disney vacation is to set a daily budget for shopping. I keep it separate from the food budget for the most part, although DDP tips could go into either category. What I’ve learned over the years is that impulse spending can set your vacation finances more than anything else.
The reason why is because everything that Disney sells is overpriced. I mean that in a general sense. A shirt costs double what it would at your local retailer of choice because it has the Disney stamp on it. When you’re shopping on the Disney campus, you’re going to get gouged. You can make your peace about it, or you can get smart about it.
Image: DisneyAs Theme Park Tourist’s own Amanda Leanne once said, the best-kept secret at Walt Disney World is the Disney outlet store. Disney’s Character Warehouse has multiple locations in Orlando. Here, you’ll find all of the merchandise that Disney tried to sell in the parks but over-produced. Sometimes, the goods are as recent as from that month and usually at least from that season.
You can fill up your shopping bags for a fraction of the price. It’s the best way to maximize your merchandise budget. Otherwise, you’re going to waste a disproportionate amount of your vacation budget on merchandise. Shopping at Disney provides the second-worst value of anything on this list…although it’s also the most fun.
Upsells
Image: DisneyYou can think of Disney as a mafia enforcer whom you owe money. The mouse isn’t above lifting you in the air, turning you upside down, and shaking you until all the money falls out of your pockets, wallet, and/or purse. No matter how much love you feel at Disney, never forget that it’s a business. During every corporate earnings call, one of the topics for discussion is how much Disney earns per guest. At the end of the day, you are that number first and foremost, an item on a spreadsheet.
Presuming that you have any money left after all of the topics discussed previously, Disney will try to persuade you to splurge on upsells. Let’s be clear that out of everything listed here, these are the priciest and the worst investments. I speak from much personal experience here. I’m a sucker for exclusivity.
Many of the upsells at Disney are clever in design. Corporate executives understand that experiential events have more value to anyone in Generation X or any of the more recent generations. This knowledge explains why concerts and plays quintupled in price over 20 years and why cast members in plaid jackets charge thousands of dollars to walk you around the parks. A VIP Tour is only marginally more expensive to the company, realistically just the cost of that one employee. Disney can charge you 40 times as much as the price of a standard admission ticket for it, though.
Image: DisneySure, VIP Tours are the extreme example, but most Disney upsells are superfluous by nature. Having a private tent or cabana sounds lovely…and it is. Two weeks after you’ve returned from your vacation, however, you’ll have nothing to show for the experience and be out all of that money.
I’m emphatic when I state that upsells are the most dangerous form of possible entertainment at Walt Disney World. You’ll stretch your budget too much while gaining too little. It’s least cost-effective Disney offering…although also arguably the most memorable, depending on the event. Fans of Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party understand the paradoxical nature of this thought process.
Putting together the entire picture, you’ll get the best value with admission tickets, hotel accommodations, and food. Transportation depends on where you live. Merchandise and upsells are where you’re most likely to blow your budget. These are the areas you need to be savvier with your purchases. And by you, I mean me.
