What Disney expenses will you forgo next time?

Yes, I've already let him know that we actually can't do the dining plan at the Swan, but I think his solution is to stay at one of the other Epcot resorts--I'm not sure he understands how much more expensive they would be than what we paid at the Swan. I think he would do one of the Values, but I honestly think he would be disappointed and then try and hide it and I just feel like there might be a lot of sort of free-floating disappointment. I guess we already scaled back (the Swan) in a way I just hadn't thought about...

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/disney-dining-card/ You can purchase the WDW dining card if you're staying at the Swan.
 
We had our first visit in February and while it was an amazing trip, there are definitely a few things that we won't be spending money on next time around:

#1) Disney food
The quality when compared to the cost was SO hard to swallow! We did 1 character meal (CRT) which was a one time thing and I am happy we did it for our first trip, but next time we will pack all of our food and enjoy it much more than shelling out a fortune for lacklustre food. I can't say how delicious a fresh Taco salad was on our last day of Disney, and knowing it only cost about $20 to make was awesome! When I look back on it it seems kind of insane how much time I spent trying to get ADR's and how much WORRY went into not getting the right ones, or if we picked wisely, etc... we still would have had an incredible trip had we not spent one cent on park food!

#2) Magic bands and skins
We didn't stay on property so we bought magic bands thinking they would add to the whole experience, but they really didn't at all. They sat in our stroller and didn't get used beyond our first day to get into the park. I can't see the convenience of them if you aren't staying on property but again, I didn't want to miss out on anything and convinced myself we NEEDED them to have a perfect trip! So not the case!

#3) Souvenirs
There just isn't anything that Disney is selling that I care to bring home with us. My DD was insistent she wanted to use her entire budget on an Anna dress, it was almost $60 USD which in Canadian dollars at the time was about $80. She wore it once in the park and it's sat in her drawer ever since, lol. Pretty much every souvenir we bought is now collecting dust :worried: That's about $250 down the tubes!

What about you? What sorts of things will you not shell out for next time? What do you regret spending money on?
We are staying offsite. We got an entire house with a private pool in Davenport for $68/night! Even with the increase in parking fees we still save. We will eat most meals off site or at the house but I’m making reservation for a few special meals. We are going to Boma, The Columbia in Celebration and Pariadiso at Dis Springs. No souvenirs but I did get some cute t shirts online at Dis store.
 
I feel the Dining Plan for me, made me over eat. I know changes have been made, which is good. The only benefit of the dining plan, is having it paid off. One year we paid out of pocket, or a few years we did, and we either broke pretty even, or actually did pay more. Disney food is very expensive, and Disney pretty much has it down to a science how much th average person will spend on food. I have a friend that has 2 teenage boys and they go during free dining and she will upgrade and pay the extra. Her boys devour food. I agree food at Disney is insanely expensive, and not that great. You really need to know where the hidden gems are.
My husband said this too. We felt we had to get our money’s worth and definitely over ate.
 
Wow I'm so surprised at all the people saying they don't like the food! I can only think of maybe two times that DH and I have had a bad meal experience at Disney. We LOVE the food! That being said, we have started splitting more meals just because it's SO MUCH food. Less waste and more cost effective.

We don't typically do Photopass, but we likely will for our next trip which will be a big family trip.

I doubt we'll ever do a dessert party based on the reviews I've heard for them.

Won't pay for EMM.

I can't foresee us ever paying for club level.

I agree we always have a good meal.
Me and wife just got back from food and wine with no kids and we did everything and splurged on food. Again with out kids is easier. Only 3 days so no memory maker

Now we did book bounce back for next year at POR. Still deciding on upgrading to normal dining plan or upgrading to beach club for the experience. Will be nine days. Now wether free dining or not. Me and wife normally split a quick service meal and finish whatever the 3 kids don’t eat. Which is always a lot. So that may be our savings. And since 9 days with whole family def have to have memory maker.

Disney is something we only do one every 18 -24 months. So it’s worth the splurge. Eating out is fun. Overpriced? Yes. But fun
 


Our first trip was last fall, and we're going back in less than 2 weeks (yeah!!!). It's just my son and I, so it's not overly expensive to begin with. But things I'm cutting to make this trip more cost efficient:
-Airfare: got a SW Visa this year and we are flying on points
-Food: Last time we did 2 character meals, this time I'm planning plenty of (free) character meets in the parks instead and eating QS
-Memory Maker: Got this last time and only ended up with about 10 pictures. Just going to bring my own camera, have them use it, and only buy the pictures I want after the fact (I doubt there will be more than 5).
-Resort: Staying value, I can't see paying 4-5 times more just for a room. I know it's time or money, but the time spent on the bus is worth saving thousands of dollars! Also, we get to stay longer with the savings.
-Souvenirs: I don't personally need any, I get cheap Disney stuff all the time from Disney Store sales (there's one 10 minutes from my house) and children's consignment sales. We were gifted a few gift cards earlier this year, so I plan to let my son pick out something for himself and something for my parents as gifts.

I do splurge on special events like the TSL EMM and Tony's Parade Package. I was also going to do MNSSHP, but the reports of big crowds changed my mind. Since it's just me and an almost 4 year old, anything I can do to reduce waits in line or standing around for an hour to get a good parade view is worth it to me!

Have a wonderful one on one trip with your son. That really sounds awesome. You sound like us. I love the SW Visa -- those points really add up and I do mini budget trips with my son a lot. He's 23 now though, and all I can say is the budget Disney one on one with your kid is so much fun, both when they are little and when they are big!
 
#1) Disney food
The quality when compared to the cost was SO hard to swallow! We did 1 character meal (CRT) which was a one time thing and I am happy we did it for our first trip, but next time we will pack all of our food and enjoy it much more than shelling out a fortune for lacklustre food. I can't say how delicious a fresh Taco salad was on our last day of Disney, and knowing it only cost about $20 to make was awesome! When I look back on it it seems kind of insane how much time I spent trying to get ADR's and how much WORRY went into not getting the right ones, or if we picked wisely, etc... we still would have had an incredible trip had we not spent one cent on park food!
I agree that some of Disney's food is lackluster, but keep in mind that you're paying for location and convenience. As for taco salad, I know I can make this for my whole family for $20 -- it's one of our favorite meals -- but I fully accept that a meal in a resort location will cost much more than I can spend at home.

As for character meals, my kids LOVED them when they were small. Specifically, I remember looking at the pictures of my girls at Chef Mickey's. I don't remember the food as anything special, but the looks on their faces were priceless.

as far as souvenirs go-when the kids were younger we would wander through the shops but then either take them to the disney outlet or the nearby walmart b/c they had the bulk of anything the kids wanted and when they saw how much farther their souvenir budget would go there they were happy to get more bang for their buck.
We have always been a no-souvenir family. No, we don't look for cheaper souvenirs at outlets -- we don't buy them at all. They add nothing to our enjoyment, and they tend to end up in the next family yard sale. As small children, our girls accepted this easily; we pointed out to them that they took multiple trips (not just to Disney) every year, and skipping plastic junk is one way we could afford all the trips we took. We taught them to appreciate experiences over souvenirs. Incidentally, now that my girls are adults and have their own money, they still don't buy souvenirs.

Later when I chaperoned school trips and scout trips, I absolutely knew I'd made the right choices with my own kids. For so many of those other children, the trip was about shopping. I specifically remember a trip to the aquarium with the elementary school; about half the kids left the aquarium without seeing all the exhibits because they were sooooo anxious to get to the gift shop. Sad.

Can't say we'd eliminate anything. We don't book a Disney trip until we have the money FOR a Disney trip.
Eh, no. It's not about having enough dollars to cover the trip. It's about spending those dollars wisely /getting the most value for every dollar. If you can keep more of those dollars for yourself, you have a start on your next vacation -- or the kids' college -- or whatever else you need.

Dessert Parties--I really felt they were a waste. The desserts were not that great and I didn't feel we got our money's worth. Not likely to happen again anytime soon.
Yeah, I'm with you here. I can't see paying $60 or more for a seat and a snack. We're not big-time into the parades anyway, and we'd rather spend $10 on a nice dessert from the local grocery store, which we can enjoy back in the room.

Table Service Meals--Another situation of me not feeling like it was worth it.
I disagree here. After walking around the parks for a couple hours, I'm ready to sit down and rest. An hour in the air conditioning, a big drink, and a good meal, and I'm ready to get out there again. Perching on the edge of a wall snacking may rid me of hunger, but it doesn't refresh me in the same way.

Drinks--This last short trip with my daughter she carried an insulated bottle around all day and it was great. We refilled it from fountains or cups of ice water and it really cut down on buying beverages.
Carrying a water bottle around doesn't appeal to me at all. When we want drinks, we just ask for a free ice water from the nearest food venue.

We are staying offsite. We got an entire house with a private pool in Davenport for $68/night!
We've stayed on-site, and we've stayed off-site. They're different trips, but we've enjoyed both. I think the key is to go in with appropriate expectations and plans.
 
Now, there are some things I just won't pay for. I tend to stay away from special events like EMM, MNSSHP and MVMCP. Been there, done that, no longer see the value in these. I don't do character dining, but that's because I travel with adults right now. I foresee us returning to character buffets when grandkids come along. I don't do the dining plans (unless it's for a single night) because they don't fit our style. But overall, if it's something I want to do (like Spirit of Aloha in April), I will find every discount I can get and apply it to my purchase. I look at vacations as a splurge to begin with, so every expense is optional. It's why I save, and bargain-hunt and make sure that everything is covered before I head out the door.[/QUOTE]


LOVE this thought and reasoning!!!
 


Our way of saving a bit of money is to buy discounted Disney GiftCards from BJ's/Target/Swagbucks and then we just do Disney the way we want to. We always do 2 TS each day (Breakfast and Dinner) so we can ensure that we get a nice sit down break somewhere with good food. We are picky eaters and find that most of the food at Disney are very good. You just need to know what to order I think. Since we are DVC/AP and have access to food/shopping discounts, it helps us save a little bit of money too. Another thing that I think saves us money and also keeps us a little bit more healthy, is that we bring Brita bottles for water and hardly snack unless we happen to go during a festival at Epcot.
 
Eh, no. It's not about having enough dollars to cover the trip. It's about spending those dollars wisely /getting the most value for every dollar. If you can keep more of those dollars for yourself, you have a start on your next vacation -- or the kids' college -- or whatever else you need.
.
The challenge we have always faced is having enough vacation time to take the trips we want. Sadly, that generally left plenty of time to save the money. That will change in 2 years (hopefully) when we retire.
 
Target sells a nice athletic fit Mickey t-shirt that I wear sometimes when I go. I feel like I'm cheating because it's so much cheaper than a shirt would be in the parks. :D
 
The challenge we have always faced is having enough vacation time to take the trips we want. Sadly, that generally left plenty of time to save the money. That will change in 2 years (hopefully) when we retire.
I completely understand the time thing. With one child who's married /has a career and another child still in college, scheduling things isn't getting any easier for us!

Regardless, the point about saving the money is still valid: It's not about having the money or having enough time to save enough ... it's about spending it well so as to get the most value for it. For example, I'd rather bring breakfast for the room and opt for water with meals instead of drinks because skipping those things (which mean little to us anyway) can add up to enough for a quick weekend get-away to the beach at another time. It's about getting bang for the buck.
 
I completely understand the time thing. With one child who's married /has a career and another child still in college, scheduling things isn't getting any easier for us!

Regardless, the point about saving the money is still valid: It's not about having the money or having enough time to save enough ... it's about spending it well so as to get the most value for it. For example, I'd rather bring breakfast for the room and opt for water with meals instead of drinks because skipping those things (which mean little to us anyway) can add up to enough for a quick weekend get-away to the beach at another time. It's about getting bang for the buck.
We don't scrimp on vacations or weekend trips. We scrimp on things like:
CARS: DW has had hers almost 19 years, mine we've had 10 years, although we did just replace the family car we had for 31 years.
GROCERIES: My wife hates Walmart, but as she puts it, she saves enough on milk and her package of Oreos every week to make it worthwhile. We do buy our meat and produce at the regular grocery store, but only buy what is on sale.
CELL PHONES: We've had our current ones 4 years. At one point we both had 12 year old phones. And we have discovered 2 GB of shared data is more than we use. (although we came close last month for the first time ever. As fate would have it, Verizon this month started rolling over unused data, so we should be able to bank data in the future)
INSURANCE: $1,000 deductibles are your friend on both your auto and home owners insurance.
 
I go every year, but owning DVC I mainly enjoy sitting on the balcony and pool. Also walk. Eat more in than out.

I bought in when price was $65 per point. Someone told me I thought ahead. NO, it was blind luck
 
We always drive. We don't care to use the disney bus system so never used it. We have stayed on and off property. We stayed off property last trip and as long as all five of us are going (no one is an infant so that's a large party for on site) we will be off site again. We had a 2BR 2 Bath condo for 92/ night in May 2016. The day they announced no more free parking on site was the day that finalized our decision for staying off site AGAIN for 2019. We previously rented DVC but now that our kids are older we no longer need the proximity. We use the kitchen for breakfast and some dinners, and may stay 7 days but only have 3-4 park days so we can enjoy the resort and pool at a "vacation" pace.
 
DH & I go at least once a year sometimes twice. With that being said we hardly ever buy souvenirs (maybe something little for Granddaughter). We don't do Photopass, Holiday parties or desert parties. To us they just aren't worth the money. We also stay at a value resort because we spend all of our time at the parks.

We just returned and drank mostly water at the QS and noticed so did many others. The $4 price for a soda is just over the top. I'm glad that I booked the stay, play, and dine for our January trip. Having the QS plan at a discount seems to work due to the high cost of food.

I noticed all the price tags for clothing were torn off of the bottom and a new price sticker was put on the tag. So all of the t-shirts which were $29.99 are now $34.99. I went to DS to a shop called Uniqlo and bought 2 tshirts for 14.90 each. I also bought a few from Target when they had them. I noticed that Boscovs, Pennys, Kohls, and Walmart have Disney t-shirts.

While we were there we booked the free dining bounceback for next September and upgraded to the regular DDP. To us the difference was worth it to be able to sit at a nice restaurant.

Every one has different ideas on what to cut and what is still worth paying extra for.
 
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Not really sure we can cut down anymore.

We don't do the dining plan so that alone saves us money and wasted snack credits (I always read how people have tons left at the end).

Maybe we won't rent a car for a day and instead take Lyft/Uber to Super Target (or whereever) to get our water and breakfast and a few snacks but the car was only about $60 and it also took us to Chef MIckeys on arrival night and DHS for the 7am opening (we left at 6:15 so were there at 6:20/gate 6:25).

Maybe resort mugs but it all depends on who still wants soda/powerade or what ever they have in 4 years and 10 months from now. I am fine drinking water or I can get gallon jugs of water and mix crystal light in it.

Chef MIckey's will probably be skipped. WE only did it this year because we were planning on WCC but with the changes my kids would not be happy with the lack of ketchup at the table so instead I increased our dinner bill that night by going to CM.

We don't go yearly and are on the every 5 year plan so when we went in August, we did 11 days, I would like 12 but we will see, 11 was good for us. We did a split stay and did 5 nights at the BC f/b 5 at the Poly. DH and I split some meals-We each had half a turkey sandwich from the BC marketplace which was plenty for us, we split a foot long hot dog from Caseys twice. We bought 2 fajita platters and split it 3 ways one night.
 
This is only our second trip, but I think we're doing things similarly to what we did last time. As someone said a few pages back, a lot of it for us comes down to knowing which splurges really enhance our trip and which don't. In theory we could treat ourselves to any of these things, but we'd rather spend the money on other non-vacation priorities.
  • We never do extra cost events--no EMMs, no parties, and no dessert parties. With 5 people, the cost adds up too fast.
  • We eat breakfast in the room.
  • We don't buy park hoppers. It's not worth the expense for the 1 or 2 times each trip when we might use them.
  • We keep souvenirs to a minimum. When the kids were little, we let them pick one souvenir per trip plus the pressed pennies they collect. Now that they're older, we give them a budget and allow them to keep any money they don't spend. It's amazing what good choices they make for themselves with that incentive! Last trip all 3 had cash left, and I'm expecting that this trip they'll have even more money to bring home.
Now the things we do splurge on:
  • We stay on site. Between the 60 day FP window, the convenience of the transportation, etc, it's worth it for us. We often split up, with some people returning to the room while others stay in the parks, so renting 1 car wouldn't cut it and all those Ubers would add up. We stay in Values, but that's still a big expense since we do the family suites.
  • We get Memory Maker. I tell the rest of the family that's my souvenir and make them pose for a few photos of all 5 of us a day. When we're not at Disney we don't have many photos that all of us are in, so Memory Maker is worth every penny to me.
  • We do the dining plan. We'd save a little if we didn't, but it adds a lot to the feel of our vacation to enjoy a TS meal each day, get the expensive entrees, say 'yes' to treats like milkshakes for the kids, and so on. I know we could do that paying OOP, but we know ourselves well enough to know that we won't.
Disney is too expensive to be a yearly trip for us. Our first trip was 2.5 years ago. I don't know when we'll make it back after this trip. We aren't willing to pay the steep prices for school vacation weeks like we did on our first trip, and we wouldn't enjoy ourselves in the summer heat. Things worked out for us to go in Nov. this time, but I suspect that by the time we're ready for another big vacation in 2-3 years we'll have to stick to the school vacation calendar again. So we'll see...depending on what the prices are then, we may decide something else sounds better than Disney. One day I'd love to do an adults only trip with just me and DH, but that day is still a long way off!
 
It is great reading everyone's cost cutting ideas. Now that we live in Florida, and only 90 minutes from Orlando, it makes it much easier. I think on our last 2 week trip, we spent almost $10,000.

Now:

- No airfare which used to cost us at least $600 plus the cost of getting back and forth to the airport.

- No resort parking fee or park parking fee - I have a bad hip and have a handicap plate.

- As Florida residents, we bought silver park passes which allows us to park hop and get in most of the year (except summer and holidays) and gives us 10% off food and merchandise.

- We will never get the Disney Dining Plan again - got it for our last trip and found it to be too much food and too restrictive.

- We will keep souvenirs to a minimum unless there is something special. We downsized from a 2400 sq. foot house to 1300 sq. foot when we moved. We already have a bunch of souvenirs.
 
The DDP. Granted, I think it was mostly the way we used it and not exactly the plan itself, but we paid sooo much OOP in the form of tips and extra drinks and off-plan snacks. I know i would have spent much, much less without a plan and gotten exactly what I wanted instead of being forced to choose an entree and dessert.
 
For my first trip to WDW I bought all new clothes, and matching luggage. This was my first real vacation ever and I thought I had to have all those new things to make my trip special. After the first day there I left my fancy new bag for the parks in the room and took only a lightweight nylon over the shoulders bag with as little in it as possible. Same with shoes, now I know to wear what is comfortable. Before my next trip I will shop only for clothes I need and forget about "needing" every thing new.
 

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