[jbtoursejg]

My wife just agreed that we can go to WDW 12/28 to 1/5. We'll leave Connecticut driving 12/26 to Myrtle Beach to see my sister's new home and spend the 27th with her. We'll leave on the 28th about mid day to arrive at WDW that night. The last 3 days we will stay at West Gate Hotel for $200 and 2 free tickets to WDW if we do the timeshare 90 minutes on 1/4.
Now the hard part. I'm on a $2000 budget. $200 for Westgate, $400 for travel gas etc leaves $1400 food , hotel and tickets. We have enough extra days left for 1 of us but need a 5 day pass for 3 of us- 2 kids and one adult. I wouldn't mind staying at Pop Century.
We have about 25 PLUS options left on our used hopper passes and hope it's warm enough to go to Blizzard Beach 1 or 2 days.

[tinkerbell]

So happy to hear your headed for WDW :) wish I could help with budget suggestions but I know someone will have some great ideas and suggestions :)

[MickeyRon]

Jbtoursejg--

We just returned from WDW and we saved hundreds of dollars using a Camelbak and loading it with sandwiches and snacks... we also had a kitchen and was able to prepare meals... this was a great savings for us...

www.camelbak.com

[PhantomBantam]

Well, South Carolina will do its part by not taking all your money.


$666.00 for the 5 day hoppers no plusses. (1 adult 2 kids)

$734 left. Now we get serious.

You my friend are going during the Holiday Season. The Value Season rates start January 1st. Now I know if you begin your stay during a Value season they book you at the Value rate even if your stay goes into another Season that cost more (rate change because of season). But I don't know how to flanagle Disney into doing that in reverse.

POP Century is 114.00 night (No Discount) $533.00 for 5 nights (28,29,30,31,1) ...ouch. (Price drops for pop century to $77.00 for 1/1)

$201.00 we need to pick at this amount for taxes and stuff.

$100.00 for food for 8 1/2 days...$12.00 a day to feed a family of 4....:cry: Ok... this is getting tough...BUT if there is any discount given by Disney you can slowly add back to the amount. I haven't seen any discounts yet and even AAA discounts don't apply during the Holiday seasons.

My advice is to push the vacation to dates after January 1st and all the prices drop dramatically and you may even get deeper savings off Disney last minute discounts for the off season. That's $385.00 for 5 nights at pop century before discounts not including taxes. And about $240.00 to buy food. This is a tough one.

Tell your sister you want an invite to the new years eve party.

[kphil89]

Originally posted by PhantomBantam


You my friend are going during the Holiday Season. The Value Season rates start January 1st. Now I know if you begin your stay during a Value season they book you at the Value rate even if your stay goes into another Season that cost more (rate change because of season). But I don't know how to flanagle Disney into doing that in reverse.

POP Century is 114.00 night (No Discount) $533.00 for 5 nights (28,29,30,31,1) ...ouch. (Price drops for pop century to $77.00 for 1/1)

My advice is to push the vacation to dates after January 1st and all the prices drop dramatically and you may even get deeper savings off Disney last minute discounts for the off season. That's $385.00 for 5 nights at pop century before discounts not including taxes. And about $240.00 to buy food. This is a tough one.

Tell your sister you want an invite to the new years eve party.

Why not do separate reservations, 1 for holiday rate the other for the value rate. Then ask to stay in the same room. Don't know if this will work but it's worth a shot

[jbtoursejg]

Thanks for all the help so far. I think, thanks to some of your suggestions I'm going to try to get the timeshare Westgate for the 28th, 29th and 30th. I will ask how much to add the 31st, then go to Pop Century Jan 1 - 5 on the saver rate.
As for the food, of course my 2 boys 7 and 10 and DW and me need more than $12 a day but we do eat breakfast bars and Orange juice in the morning in the room and will pack sandwiches for lunch. Dinner will be our splurge. Ohana's at least once for dinner and then a few LATE lunches in Epcot for dinner (we love Teppenaki?).

[crystalrp]

When we are trying to save money on food, we schedule our main meal for lunchtime as opposed to dinner. Most restaurants often offer the same food for less money at lunchtime. Then we grab counter service or something small at dinner time. Just a thought!

[tinkerbell]

there is one little suggestion, and since your driving it should be easy. I take those Cereal bars and breakfast meal bars when we go. So expect for mornings when we have a Character breakfast planned we have those. I get milk from the store at the resort ( its cheaper then the milk in the food court) I didnt actually start this to save money, I did it to save time .. so that we could eat and get to the parks sooner ..but it turned in to a nice money saver as well. Then we would always have an early lunch. Another thing I have done in the past is go to walmart and buy several 3 liters bottles of the walmart brand drinks, even if you perfer a brand name it's less expensive to buy and take then to buy at WDW. If your a water person you could do the same with bottled water, None of this would make a huge savings ..but it can add up :)