Pittsburgh Nesties
LittleD8081
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Disney Go-ers
No matter what way I look at it, it seems that a week-long Disney vaca is going to be about $6000 for a family of four. This seems really outrageous to me. Am I wrong? How are you guys finding good deals or ways to cut costs? We want to stay in a Disney park that has access to the monorail, as we don't want to have to rent a vehicle while we are there. Can you give me some insider tips? Thanks.
Re: Disney Go-ers
I think if you cut out the monorail, you'll shave a huge portion of that cost off. I'm assuming you're just talking $6K for the actual Disney package, and not airfare, right?
Ours is about 3.5K less than what you're saying, but we're staying at a value resort. we're not renting a car either, but will take the free disney transportation to/from the parks. The package that we booked is with 6 days of park tickets (no park hopper or water parks or anything), and the dining plan. Liam will be under 3, so he's free.
I think it would be wonderful to stay at a monorail resort (especially with the little ones), but when I started looking at the price, I knew we just couldn't be able to swing it this time around.
edited because I stink at math. corrected figure it now above!!
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
Our trip won't cost anywhere near that! We are staying in a mid-range resort (Port Orleans) and taking the shuttle (no car rental). We are also going for only 5 nights, and taking one day off from the parks to give ourselves a day to rest in the middle. Anything more than that seems like it would be exhausting. We aren't used to very action-packed vacations, and this approach will give us one day to just relax and take advantage of the resort amenities (and visit Downtown Disney).
We aren't doing a meal plan. I don't intend to necessarily skimp on food, but I do plan to at least have a light breakfast in our room (we aren't big breakfast eaters) and split some of our smaller meals and snacks vs buying one for each kid and adult. The plan is to do one sit-down meal a day, and use the counter service for the rest.We are doing dinner at the Castle our last night, so that'll be the one meal we splurge on.
I've also already started stashing inexpensive Disney stuff to substitute for the overpriced stuff at the park (Ross had a ton of kids Disney tees for under $5 and Walgreens also had a whole bunch of stuff marked down to crazy prices a few weeks ago). I will buy them a few souvenirs I'm sure, but I won't go crazy with them.
I'm no insider (it's my fourth Disney trip and the previous ones were in elementary, middle and high school), but those are some of the ways we're trying to work Disney into a more reasonable budget!
I agree with this. And the monorail doesn't give you access to all of the parks anyway. You will have to take the shuttle to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood studios.
ditto the monorail hotels are what's making it expensive. I will say I really did long for the monorail but it was doable without and saved money.
we stayed at fort wilderness campground in a cabin (they were nice like a hotel suite) and that was a mid range resort and could take boat to Magic kingdom. We got our dining plan free for when we went which is definitely a good deal but at the cabins you have a kitchen so you could cook some meals and save some money if you have to buy a meal plan.
we did I think 8 nights and 7 days park hopper passes for 3 of us and it was definitely less than that.
That's what I am calculating for next February for 8 day/7 nights, dining plan and tickets at the Contemporary (walking distance to Magic Kingdom) then add airfare
. I am also considering Beach Club or Boadwalk since its walkable to Epcot, Hollywood. The other Deluxe aren't worth it to me.
I don't know if dining plan is worth it since I am just now planning restaurants and dining experiences to figure out cost/value for each restaurant.
I've been pricing it out too for mid October (which according to the calendars should be low volume, low price time)--and we're planning at staying at one of the value resorts (art of animation which is brand new and has family suites) 7 days/6 nights with the dining plan and it is looking to be around $3400.
We're not planning on adding the water parks tickets--since the resort has great pools and we're planning on spending a day just hanging out at the hotel or downtown disney istead of going to one of the parks.
I'm ok with the free transportation that Disney offers in light of the rail. And I actually picked the value resorts because they looked so kid friendly. The family suite is a nice option too.
I consider DH to be a big eater, so feel that the dining plan will be worth it for us, although I'm hoping I'll get lucky and they'll offer free dining in the fall.
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
I found our original pricing email from our Disney planner from last year. The original quote was 6 nights and 5 days park hopper for feb ( with free dining plan) for 3 people. Looking at port Orleans it was around 2K but if you went with contemporary which is on monorail and within walking distance to MK it was 4K. The ft wilderness campgrounds was in between cost wise at 3K.
These prices are outdated obviously but you can see what a difference a closer/monorail hotel can make with price. Just depends if its worth it to you or not. I have a friend who did contemporary their first trip and really loved it but did port Orleans the next time and really liked it there. They didn't think it was worth the extra cost to do contemporary again for them.