Inflation and deciding on a vacation!

[TinkerPan]

I am going to give you a different perspective. Your daughter is in college. Big expense. If she (or you) had to take out loans, I'd forgo any vacation for now. That expensive Disney vacation money can be better spent. I know you want to make your daughter happy (don't we all), but I think you need to listen to your gut that is making you hesitate.

 

[MomOTwins]

The way we save the most money is fewer days. The cost to add additional days to a multiday park ticket has gone up, plus G+, and the added per day hotel and food cost is huge. I’m always astonished here how many people seem to favor 7-14 day trips—it’s just so much money. But 4-5 day trip to Disney can be really fun—you get one day in each park, plus a rest day. If you want to make it a longer trip, we sometimes add on a cruise out of port canaveral or drive a couple hours and do a few days at a beach condo rental. I know a lot of people split with universal but for a short stay with their ticket prices it is not really much less expensive than Disney.

 

[scrappinginontario]

The way we save the most money is fewer days. The cost to add additional days to a multiday park ticket has gone up, plus G+, and the added per day hotel and food cost is huge. I’m always astonished here how many people seem to favor 7-14 day trips—it’s just so much money. But 4-5 day trip to Disney can be really fun—you get one day in each park, plus a rest day. If you want to make it a longer trip, we sometimes add on a cruise out of port canaveral or drive a couple hours and do a few days at a beach condo rental. I know a lot of people split with universal but for a short stay with their ticket prices it is not really much less expensive than Disney.

So many factors come into play. When we factor in cost of flights, before and/or after night stays due to 3 hour drive to airport, lower cost of additional park days - it is far less expensive for us to visit once a year for 9 or 10 nights as opposed to 2 trips of shorter length. Also allows us to visit attractions we enjoy multiple times and in general enjoy a more relaxing vacation for our family when we spread it out over more days. But, that's why we do longer trips. They're not for everyone.

Disney is our major vacation each year so I budget for a longer trip that works well for us.

 

[DCLMP]

If you are waiting for 2018 to come back then you will be waiting a long time. It isn't coming back. Disney does not want the middle class dollars. They are going to continue to hike prices to balance supply and demand. The DIS covered this in their livestream. WDW profits are up but attendance is down and they like it. They want the higher paying guests.

I posted that a while ago and got a lot of pushback. I'm glad to see someone agrees with me. Demand is not what is was in 2019. It just seems busy after what we've gone through the last two years.

 

[snikki]

The way we save the most money is fewer days. The cost to add additional days to a multiday park ticket has gone up, plus G+, and the added per day hotel and food cost is huge. I’m always astonished here how many people seem to favor 7-14 day trips—it’s just so much money. But 4-5 day trip to Disney can be really fun—you get one day in each park, plus a rest day. If you want to make it a longer trip, we sometimes add on a cruise out of port canaveral or drive a couple hours and do a few days at a beach condo rental. I know a lot of people split with universal but for a short stay with their ticket prices it is not really much less expensive than Disney.

We go every 2-3 years (4 this time due to covid) and usually stay 8-10 nights. It's much cheaper to do one 10 night trip versus two 5 night trips. Like a PP said, paying for flights once instead of twice, we get to do everything we want multiple times, it's a much more relaxing trip, we get more down time. It's what works for us.

Depending on where DD decides going to college (she's thinking of going to Florida) we may end up doing shorter trips more often but we will see. I also want to do an adults only trip with DH that would be a shorter trip but we would probably tack on Key West. But right now the long trips work for us.

 

[Gentry2004]

I also love the long trips. But we also fly, and we are often escaping cold weather so we want to extend the warmth as long as possible.

As I posted above, our tradeoff is staying offsite. Unless you are loaded, everyone has to decide what tradeoffs work best for them and it totally makes sense that different people would be willing to forego different things.

I would love to stay at the Poly for 10 nights and do parties and signature dinners, but that is not my reality. We still have a great time.

 

[Eastern]

They want the higher paying guests.

Until they run out.

 

[BOST99]

I've had some great luck with Costco Travel. Historically when we travel they have consistently had the lowest cost option for car rental - enough savings to cover the membership cost. Last week my rental through Costco was $100 cheaper then anywhere else (direct, Undercover, Orbitz, etc). I haven't booked a Disney trip with them but the pricing for Universal saved us about $1200 (then booking separately) in February.

You'll see this suggestion a lot but we have "pre-paid" for meals and souvenirs by buying Disney gift cards at Target. We also took advantage of dining deals off-property. This was also a nice break for us from all the Disney food. Bahama Breeze has a good happy hour with 50% off appetizers and we enjoyed good meals at Ford's Garage and Chuey's.

We also did a small grocery order with bottled water, snacks and breakfast food.

 

[ars0525]

We used to go to disney all the time when our children were younger. We had the best vacations, free dining and went during slow times are rarely waited for any ride. My daughter keeps asking when we can go back but I know disney has totally changed from when we were last there (2018) and I really have a problem spending around double for the same vacation when I know it won't be as great as it was before. My daughter is a freshman in college and will have a winter break, so we would be going in January. I am very hesitant to spend so much money, especially with the prices of everything so high but I want to make her happy. Maybe there will be some specials or discounts?

That time of year coming off the NYE holiday, marathon week, MLK weekend & the art festival at Epcot they don't need to lure people in so specials or discounts aren't likely.

Have you talked with your daughter that the next trip due to increased costs it is not going to be the same as years past? Will she still be happy going to Disney if it's on a budget compared to past trips? Times have changed & if you do decide to go best make sure ahead of time she's aware so her expectations are in line with what you are doing.

 

[DCLMP]

I also love the long trips. But we also fly, and we are often escaping cold weather so we want to extend the warmth as long as possible.

As I posted above, our tradeoff is staying offsite. Unless you are loaded, everyone has to decide what tradeoffs work best for them and it totally makes sense that different people would be willing to forego different things.

I would love to stay at the Poly for 10 nights and do parties and signature dinners, but that is not my reality. We still have a great time.

I tried SSR preferred room in 2021 booked it through Disney with 35% off. We discovered we loved being walking distance to Disney Springs. The resort is kind of boring, but it works for us and it's easy to rent points there which saves a ton of money. Our first trip in 2010 was 10 nights at Poly with deluxe dining....those were the days.

 

[DCLMP]

So many factors come into play. When we factor in cost of flights, before and/or after night stays due to 3 hour drive to airport, lower cost of additional park days - it is far less expensive for us to visit once a year for 9 or 10 nights as opposed to 2 trips of shorter length. Also allows us to visit attractions we enjoy multiple times and in general enjoy a more relaxing vacation for our family when we spread it out over more days. But, that's why we do longer trips. They're not for everyone.

Disney is our major vacation each year so I budget for a longer trip that works well for us.

I don't think the poster said anything about two trips. She said shortening the trip. Obviously a 5 night trip is going to save you money over a ten night. I don't think you need more than one day at each park to have a good time. We used to do 10 day trips. Now we do 4- 5 days about once a year and it's more than enough, but we take other vacations throughout the year.

 

[DisneyFive]

I don't think the poster said anything about two trips. She said shortening the trip. Obviously a 5 night trip is going to save you money over a ten night. I don't think you need more than one day at each park to have a good time. We used to do 10 day trips. Now we do 4- 5 days about once a year and it's more than enough, but we take other vacations throughout the year.

For us, at some point it's not worth going. Our bare minimum now would be 7 nights... AK arrival night, 2 days MK, 2 days HS, and 2 days EP. Sounds like we're spoiled, I know, but that's not really it. It's just not a WDW trip if we can't fully unwind from the real world and get enough time to enjoy our time together and feel we accomplished enough. If we can't at least make that happen we would just keep saving until we could, meaning less frequent trips. A 4-5 night might be perfect for some, but for us sounds like a downer right from the start. We're a family of 5 from Michigan though so flights are a lot no matter how many nights you go.

Dan

 

[DCLMP]

For us, at some point it's not worth going. Our bare minimum now would be 7 nights... AK arrival night, 2 days MK, 2 days HS, and 2 days EP. Sounds like we're spoiled, I know, but that's not really it. It's just not a WDW trip if we can't fully unwind from the real world and get enough time to enjoy our time together and feel we accomplished enough. If we can't at least make that happen we would just keep saving until we could, meaning less frequent trips. A 4-5 night might be perfect for some, but for us sounds like a downer right from the start. We're a family of 5 from Michigan though so flights are a lot no matter how many nights you go.

Dan

Understood, but the subject was saving money….so it’s an option.

 

[DisneyFive]

Understood, but the subject was saving money….so it’s an option.

You're right, and I should have mentioned that. Didn't mean it to be one sided, like longer stay or nothing. It's a viable way to offset the increased cost versus prior years. We reduced our typical stay by two days this summer in order to offset G+, lack of MDE, and the overall cost increases.

Dan

 

[DCLMP]

You're right, and I should have mentioned that. Didn't mean it to be one sided, like longer stay or nothing. It's a viable way to offset the increased cost versus prior years. We reduced our typical stay by two days this summer in order to offset G+, lack of MDE, and the overall cost increases.

Dan

When our kids were little WDW was our main vacation place so we went all out deluxe hotels and club level stays. We still like to go every year as a secondary vacation so I've had to come up with creative ways to keep the cost down. I always have a lot of Hyatt points so I've found staying at the airport Hyatt on each end I can get the WDW hotel stay down to 5 or 6 nights and still be gone 7 or 8 nights. It works out well. It's nice getting to the airport at 6pm have dinner go to bed and jump on a early morning flight home.

The resort I stay at isn't as important as it used to be. I'm going for the best deal as long as its not a value. Lately renting points has been the best deal. We don't eat at signatures anymore, even do some counter service for dinner now. No park hoppers.

Our WDW trips have changed drastically since we first started going. We used to stay club level at WL for 300 a night....and CL at Poly for 400 a night.... now that's the cost of a moderate. It's not the "bougie" vacations we used to take LOL, but we still have fun. I've priced out some of the vacations we used to take and it's beyond shocking, but people still do it. I can no longer afford it.

 

[Lisa P.]

Off topic... sorry I can't resist. DCLMP, I love your bandit kitty icon but I only recently figured out what it was! Know how you "see" one thing in an image, then struggle to switch, like in the Old Woman vs. Young Woman Image or the Duck vs. Rabbit Image?

Well, at first glance, I "saw" a man's face with a hat and long hair on your icon and I couldn't get past it, even though the "hat" seemed to be a fez with strange markings. I've added a line drawing below, of what I "saw". Never mind that I couldn't figure out what the odd feathers were about, behind the hat, either (the kitty's ears!). Brother! Your actual kitty icon image is SOOO much better, ha, ha!






Back on topic... I hope the OP can settle peacefully on a decision. Many people are struggling with their budgets these days (us, included). It's really tough to find that balance, allocating limited funds and limited time left as loved ones either grow up or grow old. Making memories is valuable. So is dealing with a realistic budget that doesn't jeopardize other financial goals/responsibilities now or in the future.

For us, spending the time to have new experiences together is a higher priority than doing it in a certain way or beyond our budget. Even if things don't turn out as we would've wished, the memories are usually good because it was a new, shared adventure. Even an epic hiking, biking, & road trip can make awesome memories. Our (grown) kids have terrific memories of our WDW trips. But they each have favorite trips and none of those were to WDW. Some of our Disney vacations were really great... others were disappointing, drenched with rain, or someone spent half the time sick. No 2 trips were alike.

We're huge fans of stretching our budget to include fun and sometimes splurges. But we don't have any debt and we won't allow an upgrade of fun to bring on new debt either. When we visit WDW, we either exchange into a DVC timeshare week or stay at a nice offsite timeshare resort nearby. I'm not willing to pay Disney hotel prices and sacrifice other experiences to keep total costs reasonable. We usually drive ourselves but if we are staying onsite and we fly, and if rental cars are expensive, we don't rent a car for the whole trip, only for a day ( to pick up groceries and anything we'd forgotten, then drop-off) at the beginning and end of the trip. If our budget is especially tight on a particular trip, we enjoy just one TS meal toward the end of the week, with either QS or easy convenience meals in our condo (full kitchen amenities). Really, the vast majority of humans don't get to do a FRACTION of what we do. 1st world. Vacation is what you make of it! Perspective and expectations.

 

[Anna131517]

Staying and eating off property are your best bets for saving money. Not doing park hopper and not getting genie+ (or maybe just getting it for MK and HS) are also good ways to save money. You can still have a great vacation and it may be more relaxing.

 

[100AcreWood]

Good luck with your decision! I struggled over booking another trip. Ultimately, I landed on a three night trip. My kids still love Disney and I want to enjoy it with them while they still want to go. Everything has increased in price since the pandemic. I priced out other vacations and found the same to be true.

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

Have you thought about renting DVC? We've done our past few trips this way and it's saved a good amount of money. The process is a little different and there are some considerations (like trip insurance) you might want to think about, but overall we've found it to be a good deal. If eating out isn't a huge deal to you, you could also save some money on food this way bc the units have at least a kitchenette, so you could order groceries and eat at least a chunk of your meals in the room.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

We used to go to disney all the time when our children were younger. We had the best vacations, free dining and went during slow times are rarely waited for any ride. My daughter keeps asking when we can go back but I know disney has totally changed from when we were last there (2018) and I really have a problem spending around double for the same vacation when I know it won't be as great as it was before. My daughter is a freshman in college and will have a winter break, so we would be going in January. I am very hesitant to spend so much money, especially with the prices of everything so high but I want to make her happy. Maybe there will be some specials or discounts?

Disney is definitely more expensive as tickets, lodging and food costs have certainly increased but if you last went in 2018, it's not an absurd amount. If you said you last went in 2010, I'd say then yes you are definitely in for a shock.

Free dining, while a great deal for those that maximized the promo, is not the only way to save at disney. January won't be a value season but if you could try to go during a cheaper time, that works with her schedule, that could help alleviate cost. And if it's a slower season, there will be less benefit to paying for G+, extra cost saves. Stay at a value or stay offsite at a place that has free breakfast. Don't buy water, pack snacks, etc. There are tons and tons of ways to save at disney and there always has been. You could also do a shorter stay. When my kids were little we did much shorter stays because that was all we could afford at the time. If you aren't 100% solid on January, you could book another slower season time and keep your eyes peeled for a discount or just go with offsite to save. Priceline/Hotels.com all do great deals around Orlando.