Ballpark cost for 5 days at Disney World; family of 4?

[ourbabygirl]

We'd like to take the kids next fall/ winter (by then they'll be 3 & 5), or early in 2014, and I'd like to make sure we budget for it, since it'll be more expensive than a typical trip.
We'll be flying from a big city and will hopefully use DH's frequent flier miles. But we'll definitely need a hotel/ condo, food, and all the theme park related costs. I'm assuming we'd need a rental car, too, but maybe not?

Thanks for your input!

[anonomom]

Budget depends on so many things. Do you want to stay on Disney property? With four people, you could stay at a Value resort, which is fairly reasonable. That would eliminate the need for a rental car and transportation from the airport, since Disney has transportation.

For four people, staying in a value resort and paying rack rate for five days in November, the cost is about $2k. That includes the room and 6-day park hopper tickets. You can add a dining plan (which gives you two meals a day plus snacks) for about $500 more. Disney also typically offers a free dining promotion in the fall where you can get the dining plan for no extra charge.

I'd call that your high limit for budget. You can mess around with dates, find deals and price off-property rooms, which can edge your costs down somewhat.

One tip -- if you choose not to do the dining plan, you can find menus (with prices) for all Disney restaurants at www.allears.net. You can see how much a typical meal would cost. Mousesavers.com also has a lot of great tips.

Hope this helps!

[AnnieW625]

I priced out a trip for us a couple of months back on WDW.com so that could be on the high side of things, but for a moderate, tickets and airfare for four including a just 3 yr. old the total was right about $4500. I will only stay at a WDW property if free dining is included, unless I am able to rent a condo from a DVC rental for less than what it would cost me to stay on property and not have to pay more for food.

We would be flying from the Los Angeles area so there were a fair amount of flight options for us, but the average seemed to be about $1500-$1800 for round trip airfare.

I priced an off location hotel/condo, (one of the Marriotts, the Hilton, or a Sheraton) through Costco.com (included airfare, room, tickets, and car) and it was about $1000 less, but I never made it around researching how much food would be, but I think a soft estimate for us would be to plan on $500 for food, which would include at least one character breakfast and probably at least one really nice dinner out, plus then all of the food we would need to have handy at the hotel for breakfast, and lunch, and then money for the other non theme park places we'd eat dinner at (we love eating at local spots where the locals eat).

I also looked at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek rates as well, but there are different ways to stay at the property (renting timeshares and such).

So with all of that said I think we could do the trip on a $5K budget and be happy, but we also don't usually have airline points and would have to come from across the country so airfare is just about a 1/3 of the cost.

We aren't huge souvenir people, and I don't plan on doing things like the Bippity Boppity Boutique so I think for a 3 yr. old and a 7 yr. old we could easily ration out $20 a day each for souvenirs or extra food treats. Other than a baseball cap and probably a retro style Mickey tee shirt or sweatshirt DH and I probably wouldn't buy too much for ourselves either.

After talking with friends who just got back from WDW in June (which with a plan they said is absolutely do-able and she said crowds were easier than DL because things are soo spread out) with their girls who are 5 and 9 we have decided to wait a couple of years to go because we want DD2 to be able to enjoy it and we want DD1 to be able to go on lots of rides as well and since DD1 is on the shorter side (maybe 46" tall) now we wouldn't want there to be a whole lot of stuff she couldn't do even at 7 yrs. old.

[TwinFoxes]

I think the best thing to do when thinking budget, is decide on where you want to stay. Things fall into place after that. On property vs off, deluxe vs moderate vs value vs Vacation Club. If you have a property with a kitchen you can cut down on food costs, but not everyone wants to cook on their vacay.

[peanut520]

The cost will vary greatly depending:
Season - huge difference in price from value season to the high seasons for the same accommodations
On or off disney property
Car rental or Disney transportation
Ticket type - park hoppers & water parks?
Dining - which meal plan, no meal plan, eat on or off property

We did Disney last year and I paid $7500 for 5 flights from Philly, 4 nights (2 rooms) at the comtempory in the tower, 5 day tickets (no hoppers no water parks), deluxe dining plan. With deluxe there are more sit down meals so that equals more tips and an additional expense. I have friends (6 travellers) that went last year also and stayed the whole week and paid only $4500.

[belovedgandp]

We went this past November (mid month before the higher prices and crowds of Thanksgiving) with kids that were 4 and 7.

We just DID Disney, so used their transportation, didn't attempt to see anything else in Florida. Did it cheap, value hotel, in a free dining period (upgraded to get the table service option).

5 nights of hotel
5 days of parks with hopper option
dining plan - free basic dining, but paid upgrade difference

$1,900 for everything to Disney. We used their transportation, so no car expense.

Spent about $300 more on a few drinks, snacks I brought from home and souvenirs.

Airfare was our only other expense.

Disney is one of those that with how they price the tickets the first day of park admission is crazy expensive but by day #5 it is like $10-15 per person.

[MSWR0319]

We stayed at Bonnet Creek for six night, rented a car, ate dinner at he condo, and flew on Allegiant for about $2200 last May. We only had to pay for two tickets to Disney though since DS was 2.5. It's really reasonable if you eat dinner at the condo (if you stay off site). We didn't do any sit down restaurants at Disney except for one character meal.

[Jen841]

In a few weeks we pd $2300 for a moderate resort for 4 of us with 7 nights, 5 day park hopper and FREE meal plan. Air is with points, so I did not count that.

We are 100% using Disney transportation, which I LOVE b/c Mom's Taxi Service needs a break.

Two VERY picky friends have recently FAVED about the value resorts.