If you had $10k for a Disney trip, how would you spend it? Amazingly, not a hypothetical situation.

[DOP95]

Hi everyone,

so basically a short story I am in a very lucky position on booking a Disney trip and with this Type of budget. This will be a double celebratory trip of a birthday and graduation..

We will be flying from the uk so some of the budget will already be lost on flights. We will be going in The first week of November for two weeks (4-18). I am struggling on how to spend the budget.

For some relevant info there will be two of us and both of us are massive Star Wars fans and HP fans ( as well as Disney of course) so are planning on trying to get the most out of galaxy’s edge and try not to rush it. As well as experiencing some of the animal experiences or tours at Disney/ animal kingdom. We are interested in attending mickeys Christmas party too!I am looking for advice on the best places to stay for the money as well as other experiences we could do within the budget.


any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[k5xs]

Congratulations on your graduation and birthday!

So many variables to consider.

Is this your first (and likely only for a while) visit? If so, do you want to spend every possible minute in the parks so you can experience as much as possible? Are you "foodies," who want to eat at nice sit-down places?

Do you want to stay at the deluxe level and luxuriate in your room/resort, or do you want to stay in a value-level resort and spend on other things what you save on accommodations?

How much will airfare eat up?

 

[soniam]

I would highly consider the Galactic Starcruiser, especially if you can get a discount. It was really amazing. I worry it won't be around long though.

 

[goofyernmost]

As for places to stay, if you aren't sold on staying onsite, just offsite there a villas of all sizes available to rent for a variety of days. I did that in 2008 and I took the whole family, 11 of us for a week. I realize that 2008 was 15 years ago but I paid for Airfare, lodging and tickets for everyone in a 6 bedroom villa, with private full size pool, jacussi located in a huge Florida room (i.e. keep the bugs away room) full kitchen, game room, dining room and TV in just about every single room in the house. We all bought our own food and I bought the a couple of meals during that week for everyone. It cost me a little over $7000.00. That also included 2 rental cars plus my own (I drove there from Vermont). With that almost everyone had complete freedom to do their own thing or go places as a group. It would all depend on the size of your group. As it was for me if I had stayed onsite lodging alone would have been about that. So size of group, length of stay and desire to go to Universal for Harry Potter. Believe me, the villa was an easy 4 star rating.

 

[wabbott]

A two week stay @ WDW for two can burn up $10K in a hurry, especially if you book the expensive hotels.

Four years ago (2019), after a 25 year hiatus from WDW, mrs. wabbott and stayed at the Grand Floridian. We splurged, thinking we wouldn't ever go again. IIRC, it was about $750/night.

We've since returned 3 time since, each time at the Caribbean Beach. We had just as good a time, and paid less than half the price of the GF. We are in the rooms just to sleep and for an afternoon nap, so the fancy hotel isn't a big deal for us. Next trip next year, we will be staying at the Pop Century or Art of Animation.

If you stay off property, you can save more, but the convenience of the transportation system and early/late hours in the parks makes it worthwhile for us.

We prefer to splurge a bit on the meals, with a nice sit-down meal at least once a day. We order what we want, thinking that the money saved on the rooms will be spent on food.

 

[DOP95]

Congratulations on your graduation and birthday!

So many variables to consider.

Is this your first (and likely only for a while) visit? If so, do you want to spend every possible minute in the parks so you can experience as much as possible? Are you "foodies," who want to eat at nice sit-down places?

Do you want to stay at the deluxe level and luxuriate in your room/resort, or do you want to stay in a value-level resort and spend on other things what you save on accommodations?

How much will airfare eat up?

Thank you for the reply. This is my first time going as an adult Have been when I was a kiddo but don’t remember much! And will be the last visit for a while. We do enjoy our food but would say not really the ones for fancy restaurants as long as there’s good options really. The flights are costing about 2.5 so quite a lot of the budget. We will be most likely be having rest days at the resort too so some luxuries would be nice. We are considering both value and deluxe resorts.

 

[Specter]

A two week stay @ WDW for two can burn up $10K in a hurry, especially if you book the expensive hotels.

Four years ago (2019), after a 25 year hiatus from WDW, mrs. wabbott and stayed at the Grand Floridian. We splurged, thinking we wouldn't ever go again. IIRC, it was about $750/night.

We've since returned 3 time since, each time at the Caribbean Beach. We had just as good a time, and paid less than half the price of the GF. We are in the rooms just to sleep and for an afternoon nap, so the fancy hotel isn't a big deal for us. Next trip next year, we will be staying at the Pop Century or Art of Animation.

If you stay off property, you can save more, but the convenience of the transportation system and early/late hours in the parks makes it worthwhile for us.

We prefer to splurge a bit on the meals, with a nice sit-down meal at least once a day. We order what we want, thinking that the money saved on the rooms will be spent on food.

This is actually almost exactly DW and I's mindset. We did splurge a little and stayed at AKL on the last trip but normally we stay at CSR and have come to really enjoy that resort. We also splurge more on dining, too, with at least one table service meal each day and occasionally two. Drinks, appetizers, wine, entrees, dessert, if we want something we get it.

 

[karen4546]

Hi everyone,

so basically a short story I am in a very lucky position on booking a Disney trip and with this Type of budget. This will be a double celebratory trip of a birthday and graduation..

We will be flying from the uk so some of the budget will already be lost on flights. We will be going in The first week of November for two weeks (4-18). I am struggling on how to spend the budget.

For some relevant info there will be two of us and both of us are massive Star Wars fans and HP fans ( as well as Disney of course) so are planning on trying to get the most out of galaxy’s edge and try not to rush it. As well as experiencing some of the animal experiences or tours at Disney/ animal kingdom. We are interested in attending mickeys Christmas party too!I am looking for advice on the best places to stay for the money as well as other experiences we could do within the budget.


any help would be greatly appreciated

my assumptions are:

flights $1000 each
wdw ticket 14 day for price of 7- $750 each
Universal tix- $500 minimum each with express pass
mvmcp tix- $100 each
moderate resort stay-$4200
the total for the above is $8900

and it doesn’t include food, souvenirs, or transportation (to WDW or Universal)

$10000 for 14 days is a tight budget.

you could rent a car and stay offsite Or stay in a value resort To save.

personally, I would do 2 nights at universal at a hotel that includes express pass-get 3 day park to park tickets.

4 nights at WDW hotel max of $300/night and 5 day park hoppers

4 night Disney cruise verandah room but you could do inside to save $$

 

[dreamer17555]

Two weeks can burn up that money pretty quickly. If you’re Harry Potter fans and you’re doing universal, please go ahead and consider doing one of the Deluxe Universal hotels for the days you’re staying there. They come with Express pass. Well worth it.

Next you’ll need to determine the number of days you’re going to be staying at Walt Disney World. Honestly, if I was there more than a week, I would want a one bedroom DVC for the laundry kitchen but if you can do without, you would definitely save some money. If you’re going to do DVC consider renting points. Hotels can eat up a lot of costs and quickly so determine what places you feel most comfortable at both staying and cost wise.

The next part would be if you’re looking at dining out a lot or ticketed dining events like Hoop Dee Doo. I would look at menus for sitdown meals and make sure you have those cost as well as tax and tips calculated in (tax I believe is 6.75% and tipping is generally 18% and up)

I don’t think there’s a realistic way for you to be able to Starcruiser- when I priced it for the two people it was $5700 for a two night stay in early November.

But you probably would enjoy building your own Lightsaber, and possibly droid depot and Oga’s Cantina.

I know it sounds like a lot of money and it is but it can go faster than you think.

 

[Skippyboo]

You said you’re SW and HP fans? Are you planning to going to Universal for Harry Potter? Lodging and Tickets are going to be a big chunk. $250 x 14 is $3500 , tickets are probably another 2K.

 

[wabbott]

The very first thing to do is to write it all down, either with an excel spreadsheet or with old-timey ledger paper and pencil - with an eraser. Set up the categories for each day - park tickets, hotel, souvenirs, snacks, meals.

It's a bit of work, but to be truthful, I almost enjoy the planning as much as the trip. It tends to whet the anticipation factor.

 

[Skippyboo]

my assumptions are:

flights $1000 each
wdw ticket 14 day for price of 7- $750 each
Universal tix- $500 minimum each with express pass
mvmcp tix- $100 each
moderate resort stay-$4200
the total for the above is $8900

and it doesn’t include food, souvenirs, or transportation (to WDW or Universal)

$10000 for 14 days is a tight budget.

you could rent a car and stay offsite Or stay in a value resort To save.

personally, I would do 2 nights at universal at a hotel that includes express pass-get 3 day park to park tickets.

4 nights at WDW hotel max of $300/night and 5 day park hoppers

4 night Disney cruise verandah room but you could do inside to save $$

Christmas party tickets started at $149 plus tax last year. Christmas party is more expensive than Halloween party.

 

[wabbott]

One other thing, welcome to disboards. There's probably no other place that you can find out more info about all things Disney than here.

And don't worry, you'll get PLENTY of genuine feedback from folks who have seen and done everything there is to do Disney, and are looking for an excuse to tell a newby about it.

 

[DOP95]

Thank you for the advice all so far, apologies I forgot to mention that the packages we have been looking at include tickets for Disney and universal so they wont be an extra cost of a budget so we will be able to save money there. But after reading the replies I can understand how quickly the budget can go!

 

[Disneylover99]

I would definitely recommend a split stay for a 2 week vacation.
A value (Pop Century) for one week and a moderate for week 2.
skip the deluxe sand save your money. You can always do a monorail tour of the MK resorts to check them out.

 

[scrappinginontario]

A different question. If you are from the UK, is $10,000 your budget in US$ after exchange? Only asking as we’re Canadian and currently need to add 40% to everything due to exchange right now so it affects our budget in a big way. A $10,000 US trip for us currently costs us $14,000.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=GBP&To=USD

1.00 British Pound =
1.2565056 US Dollars
1 USD = 0.795858 GBP

 

[karen4546]

Christmas party tickets started at $149 plus tax last year. Christmas party is more expensive than Halloween party.

I am not planning a MVMCP night for myself but if I do, hopefully we will get a discount.

 

[grapefruitjellybean]

Hi everyone,

so basically a short story I am in a very lucky position on booking a Disney trip and with this Type of budget. This will be a double celebratory trip of a birthday and graduation..

We will be flying from the uk so some of the budget will already be lost on flights. We will be going in The first week of November for two weeks (4-18). I am struggling on how to spend the budget.

For some relevant info there will be two of us and both of us are massive Star Wars fans and HP fans ( as well as Disney of course) so are planning on trying to get the most out of galaxy’s edge and try not to rush it. As well as experiencing some of the animal experiences or tours at Disney/ animal kingdom. We are interested in attending mickeys Christmas party too!I am looking for advice on the best places to stay for the money as well as other experiences we could do within the budget.


any help would be greatly appreciated

That’s awesome. Congrats on the big trip. There are so many variables to consider here that there’s no standard answer. But to make things easier, why don’t you let me come along and I’ll plan the whole thing for you.

But actually….
Hotels - stay on property. You will be immersed in all the magic. There are *still* some perks to staying at the resorts like the transportation to/from the parks, booking rides before non resort people, and you will have access to the parks 30 min earlier. Do you like to ball out and stay at the best hotels? Or are you only interested in having a place to sleep? There’s also a mid range so don’t worry there.

Rides - do you like them? Do you like fast trill rides? How much time do you want to spend in the parks vs lounging by the pool, exploring other resorts, shopping etc.

Food - this is hard to gauge because everyone has different tastes and expectations. Are you into food? What types of restaurants do you frequent?

I’ll make some recommendations when I learn more about you.

 

[Genie+]

UK based attractiontickets has WDW/Universal combo tickets for… yikes… about $2,200 for 2 ppl, so adding in the MVMCP tickets that’s roughly a quarter of the budget $2,500.

There aren’t any great UK package offers currently for November. I’d suggest renting DVC at least Sun-Fri during the trip. You could get room as low as $250/nt this way. Then take a look at a Uni to possibly stay there a few nights (maybe get free Express Pass), and offsite the rest. Offsite does save money but logistics and travel expenses chip away. Say you did 5 mights WDW ($1500), 2 nights Uni ($800), and 7 nights airbnb or similar ($700). There’s tradeoffs to everything. I think putting $3k here might elevate your overall experience and ticket investments. $3,000

Flights, food, and transfer costs out of the remaining $4500:
Flights? $1500? $2000
Food - you possibly could strategically make $100/day for 2 ppl work. $1500? $2,000?
Transfer costs - Mears or Sunshine Flyer could get 2ppl from the airport to WDW for under $40. Uber/rideshares can get you around (outside of WDW where there’s free transport)… all this could stay under $500 depending on plans.

You definitely could have a great trip at $10k. What I’d do is compare different strategies and see which one looks the most exciting to you.