Trip Saving Tips- Disney

[BiggerPiggyBank]

Has anyone ever don Disney on a budget?

Thanks;
Gina

I’m not sure which park you are referring to, but we visited Disney in
California in February.

Check out prices through a number of agents. We got our tix through our
local AMA at the cheapest price. Also watch for seat sales & special
offers.

Food – definitely eat outside the park if possible. There are a lot of good
restaurants that are a lot cheaper.

We tend to eat more lightly on holidays
so often the continental breakfast (that was included with the hotel), a
small midday snack (take some time out from the noise & bustle to enjoy a
quiet lunch offsite or tide yourself over with a smaller item) & shared
meals was usually enough for us(we ordered plates that were usually big
enough for us to split….plates of appetizers are great for this, too.)
Because we were traveling from Canada, taking a cooler didn’t work for us,
but there are lockers just outside the gates & we took turns with a
backpack.

(Just remember you’ll be packing that sucker all day!)

Hotel – We had a hotel that was very cheap but was also noisy. However, I
found we were never there except to sleep anyway. The hotel was in walking
distance of Disney, had a free continental breakfast. Since we did just
more than the park itself (Knott’s, Seaworld, Universal plus a couple
extras) we were up early & by bedtime, we crashed.

We only had a week so I
was satisfied with our place…….if I was going for a longer period or had
smaller children, I would’ve looked at a suite. Many people I know spent 5
days at the park alone & just bought groceries at nearby stores & prepped
their own. This was a good neighbor hotel…..if you’re in ca, the site is
really too small to worry about the expensive disney hotels.

there is a ton of free things to do as well…..take in a parade, fantasmic,
and all the other shows that are running daily. take a look on the disney
website & it will have a schedule for the days you’re attending.

souvenirs – decide ahead of time a set a limit. my greatest investment was
my pictures. we also waited to the end of our trip to purchase…that way
we could really see what was around.

some are cheaper at other venues
(knott’s is cheaper than disney by far!) and although i didn’t get to visit
outside stores as we would have spent taxi fare to get there, i’m told that
many of these are cheaper. we mainly bought clothes (undated so it doesn’t
matter how long we wear them!) i’m not much a souvenir person as i truly
hate dusting lol. (think of things that will still mean something to you 6
months or longer after the trip!)

Check out mousesavers.com – there are a lot of great tips to help you out.

Another place to check out what is also in Anaheim & surrounding is the
Anaheim Chamber of commerce site (just google for it!) A book I highly
recommend is Birnbaum (we got ours for free from our travel agent…also try
the library). I was able to plan what we would do, & when which saved
confusion when we got there. This was our first trip & my MIL (who has
pretty much traveled the world!) was very impressed with how little we spent
for the quality of the trip we took.

We did splurge in a few areas but the
money we saved in other areas allowed some extras. We knew that it would
likely be some time before we went again, and treated ourselves (ex. A
character dinner) & the memories are worth it!

Hoped this help somewhat. If you have any specifics that I might be able to
help you with, just contact me offline. Have fun with this!

Cindy

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