Planning a Trip in 2020? Let's Share Our Budgets!

Going June of 2020 Myself 55 and DD 18.
Shades of green 7 days $1078
6 day park hopper tickets $602
airfare Delta Comfort $703
food $1300, this includes several table service meals and cake decorating in DS
transportation from airport $200
Souvenirs $500
 
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I'm going for a week in Feb with my family of 5. I am really trying to keep it under $4,000 but have budgeted $5,000. So far we have priced out:

*6 nights at POR - Currently booked at $1889. Actual $1684.

*5 flights from BOS to MCO - Budgeted $1250 ---- Actual $806
* Parking - $180 --- Actual $200, booked a hotel with 7 days of parking and free shuttle to and from airport.

* Tickets - $1405 4 day non-hoppers

* Meals and Souvenirs $500 ( The rest will come from our Disney reward dollars)

Family of five here, too. How’d you do with your food and souvenir budget?
 
Also really enjoy reading this thread. The interesting details and that spread sheet back on page 1-2!! LOL! Here is my very budget expense list.
Dates are 1-7-20 to 1-18-20

Gas (to and from airport) 30
Flight for 2 (air miles) 0
Car Rental (hoping for lower) 245
All Star Resort for 8 nights (staying at her RV the other nights) (my CM daughter is paying $500- she owes me from College Tuition Loans) 0
Park Tickets 0
Food and Snacks for 4 people (eat mostly off site) 500-700
Souvenirs (pictures are my favorite) 100
Approximate Total $1000

Diana, how was your trip?
 


Have a blast! ❤️🏰

Thank you! We had a wonderful time! We spent approx $770 on food and 4 refillable mugs for our family of 5 for 7 days. We never ate breakfast in park (I brought honey buns and muffins cause only half of us are breakfast people), we ate lunch in park, BOG lunch, sci fi dinner, Olgas canteena, and a few others, plus 3 alcoholic beverages. We ate half our dinners in the riverside mill food court and the other half we ordered Uber eats straight to the lobby. We spent about $400 on souvenirs because we did 2 droids.
 


So, previously, I mentioned this switched to Hershey/Pittsburgh/Columbus and then a 5 day NY trip, breaking the budget into $6K for the 1st trip and $3K for the 2nd (b/c I can use my timeshare there)...well, I finally got around to buying and setting in stone some of the 1st trip, so here's what I have so far...

Hotel
Fairfield Inn & Suites Hershey Chocolate Avenue (Hershey 5 night stay) - Larger Studio, sleeps 6 with free breakfast - $760.35
Home2 Suites by Hilton Pittsburgh Area Beaver Valley (Pittsburgh 1 night stay) - 2 Queen Bed and sofa bed, sleeps 6 with free breakfast - $147.85
Residence Inn Columbus Downtown (Columbus 6 night stay) - Two Bedroom Suite with Two Bath - Larger Suite, sleeps 5 with free breakfast, but have to pay parking - $1496.96 + $182 parking = $1678.96

Total Hotel and Hotel Parking = $2587.16

Gas and Tolls Total for Whole Trip $300

Entertainment

Hershey - Hershey Park - 6 1-day tickets with 3 hour preview entry (so 1.25 theme park entries) = $280 total (after extra fees - $43.95/each for 6) - purchased
Hershey Park Parking - $15
Knoebel's 1 night bargain night bands for 4 (spouse and I are vets and will just use our $20 in free tickets) - $48+tax or about $50
Hanover Pretzel Factory Tour - Free
Utz Factory Tour - Free
Yuengling Factory Tour - Free
Hershey Chocolate World - Still TBD - will do the free ride - still deciding if we will do more
Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine Tour - $60 total (hoping to get a deal and get this cheaper, but it's saved as a max cost b/c we are definitely doing this)

Total Hershey so far $405 - I plan on budgeting $600 for entertainment here, with Groupons for the Hershey museum or the gardens or the trolley...or the riverboat in Harrisburg...but it's a rough guess:).

Total Pittsburgh - Zero - family stop - so, no entertainment - family will entertain us

Columbus - Origins Game Fair Bands (3 adult - 1 vet, 2 free kids, 1 free volunteer) - $175
Origins True Dungeon $200 (for 3-4 folks)
Origins other event tickets $200
TBD activity on arrival or last day - TBD - I'm gonna save $100 here to play with and to have extra money for souvies if desired

Total Columbus - $675

Total entertainment = $1275

Food

Using my Busch Gardens trip experience last year, and knowing since we're working with the allergy, we tend to only eat out at most 1x/day (even more true when we have a hotel breakfast every day, which we do this trip), I'm planning the following...

Hershey
Groceries and Food Factory purchases $300
Food Out $300

Pittsburgh $0 (family feeding us)

Columbus
Groceries $200 (will be using some of the stuff from Hershey)
Food Out $300

Food on the Road $200 (1 cracker barrel or fast food meal on each driving day - so 4 meals)

Total Food $1300

Total Overall Budget as of now $5462 (of $6000) - any buffer not used flows to NYC or next year's funds, so this figure makes me happy for now:)...

Wanted to bump this thread to mention I canceled everything and started over:). Now, I have to plan a vacation in 4 1/2 weeks:). We're now doing Myrtle Beach, on the north side, in a condo/hotel site normally intended for conferences. With no conferences, we got a helluva rate for a 2 bedroom, 2 bath 1100 sq ft condo with a full kitchen. Since I bought a car, and travel isn't gonna be great this year, I'm bringing down my travel budget for 7 days, 6 nights to about $4000. The condo with resort fee and parking is $1800, and we'll be on the beach, have 9 pools and a spray park, and have lots of onsite outdoor fun. So, I'm looking at $200 for the drive and parking (gas and food back and forth), so I have $2K to eat and have fun. I was told to plan kitschy fun for the evenings after days swimming at the pools or beach (since we may not have pools open here this summer), so I figure $300 night for the 6 of us, skipping arrival night (so I have $500 for groceries and a few non-entertainment early bird dinners or take in lunches, which should work). I'm looking at a Hawaiian Luau, Medieval Times, the Pirate Voyage, and the Le Grand Cirque 2.0, and a stroll and spend around Broadway at the Beach, but I'm waiting to see if any deals pop up.

PS - I did get ALL my travel expenses back, save $60 that I am still working on...and I got my timeshare points pooled and saved...so that worked really well...even if all the plans were dumped...
 
Wanted to bump this thread to mention I canceled everything and started over:). Now, I have to plan a vacation in 4 1/2 weeks:). We're now doing Myrtle Beach, on the north side, in a condo/hotel site normally intended for conferences. With no conferences, we got a helluva rate for a 2 bedroom, 2 bath 1100 sq ft condo with a full kitchen. Since I bought a car, and travel isn't gonna be great this year, I'm bringing down my travel budget for 7 days, 6 nights to about $4000. The condo with resort fee and parking is $1800, and we'll be on the beach, have 9 pools and a spray park, and have lots of onsite outdoor fun. So, I'm looking at $200 for the drive and parking (gas and food back and forth), so I have $2K to eat and have fun. I was told to plan kitschy fun for the evenings after days swimming at the pools or beach (since we may not have pools open here this summer), so I figure $300 night for the 6 of us, skipping arrival night (so I have $500 for groceries and a few non-entertainment early bird dinners or take in lunches, which should work). I'm looking at a Hawaiian Luau, Medieval Times, the Pirate Voyage, and the Le Grand Cirque 2.0, and a stroll and spend around Broadway at the Beach, but I'm waiting to see if any deals pop up.

PS - I did get ALL my travel expenses back, save $60 that I am still working on...and I got my timeshare points pooled and saved...so that worked really well...even if all the plans were dumped...
Can you PM the resort to me? Myrtle beach is our closest beach and with all the nonsense going on the Blvd in the south area, we want to head north.
 
We also cancelled all our fun stuff for the year. DD missed three gymnastics meets, I cancelled a beach trip, and the Olympic trials were postponed. Our maybe May Disney trip was pushed to December. It’s a maybe too it just depends if parades and fireworks are back (not overly optimistic). The December maybe trip is not too bad, I think it was $2200ish. I have a week at the Hampton right there at Disney on an employee rate. I ended up with over $300 in reward points to go for tickets. We are driving and we aren’t fancy eating out people. So it’s a good budget trip.
 
I rebooked for August when our May trip got cancelled but I am not excited about it 😕. We will go 3 weeks after opening and I don't feel that is enough time to get all the kinks worked out or to have the experience we want.

I got CBR (originally Dolphin) since there will now be 5 of us. DD and I will stay at Music for one night before CBR, then our first full day is DD's birthday, my mom's is on our last full day 😃

Booked with the Sun and Fun promo, managed to get a pool/water view. Our budget has been turned upside down since DH can't make it, flights went down, my mom and I are splitting the room and we are going to do more cs than ts. Still have to do the math 😉
 
Sept 5-8 ASMO Sept 8-13 YC

4 Disney Adults

$1900 rooms
$1992 7 day park tickets
$1600 food
$800 airfare
 
We cancelled our September WDW trip. Haven't rebooked yet as we're waiting to see how things play out over the next several months. Hoping to go next year if things return to some semblance of normal.

This year will just be a staycation for us. We live on a lake in a tourist destination so it's pretty easy for us to still get out and enjoy some outdoor activities.

We're just hoping that DD's wedding in October can go as planned.
 
If you go can you please share photos of the parks and resorts, on here, tripadvisor, yelp, youtube, I'm curious about the crowd levels and how distancing will work esp in places like where you wait for Toy Story. I'm waiting to see how things go before I do anything.
 

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