Budget Friendly Monday

Travel Packages –

Disney is the king of selling the travel package. It is the easiest thing in the world to go in, select the boxes you want and get an estimated cost of a vacation. They make the process of spending $3,000 on a long weekend effortless. When you are costing out your vacation there are so many options that you may feel like you have to select the package. This may not always be the most economical option. If you are looking to save money there are a few things you need to ask yourself.

Questions:

What type of accommodations are you looking for?

• Are you willing to stay off property to save some money?
• Are you willing to stay in a value resort? Or are you looking for high quality resort themes, signature dining on premise and awesome pools?

What type of dining are you looking for?

• Are you willing to eat off property?
• Are you willing to brown bag it and/or eat counter service most of the time?

What type of park touring will you be doing?

• Are you willing to take a day or two off and enjoy other things at Disney?
• Are you willing to only tour one park a day?

Answers:

What type of accommodations are you looking for?

• If you are willing to stay off property this will be a huge money saver. But you must also factor in parking, no dining plan option and no Magical Express option.
• If you are willing to stay at a value resort you can save money, but without the loss of the Disney perks. If you are looking to stay at a Deluxe resort, I highly suggest looking into buying DVC points.

What type of dining are you looking for?

• If you are staying off property, then eating off property is a good idea. You won’t experience the same atmosphere, but you will save money.
• If you are willing to brown bag it or eat counter service, you will probably not need the dining plan. The dining plan is an expensive edition if you are not using it correctly.

What type of park touring will you be doing?

• If you are willing to take a day or two off and enjoy the “free” things at Disney, you can save money and stretch the tickets to include multiple vacations, more on this here.
• If you are willing to only tour one park a day, this will save you the expensive of a park hopper.

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Budget Friendly Monday

Most everyone I know is looking to do things on a budget. Many people think that vacationing in Disney will never fit in their budget. Whether you want to make Disney a yearly trip or a once in a lifetime adventure it can fit into almost any budget. Here at Magical World of Disney we are going to have budget tip Mondays. There will always be another way to save money at our favorite place on earth.

For our first tip we will talk about tickets. We wrote an indepth blog post last year about Disney’s ticketing process. So if you are new to the idea of a Disney vacation you can start here.

Disney World tickets will be one of your top 3 expenses. There are very few ways to save on tickets, but there are some.

1. Authorized Broker: Undercover Tourist and Ticket Mania are the two that we would suggest.
2. Disney Discounts: Florida resident, military, corporate or club discounts (i.e. AAA) and DVC discounts are available if you qualify.
3. Annual Pass: If you travel to Disney more than once a year, or you plan on going in say September 2013 and May 2014 then looking at purchasing an annual pass is something we suggest. Even if you are a yearly Disney vacationer look at December of one year and November the next, this can potentially save you dollars.

Three things you should note when you are purchasing tickets.

1. NEVER buy tickets from an unauthorized broker. NEVER buy from EBay, Craigslist or from someone standing outside the gate.
2. Consider whether you want to park hop or go to the water parks. If you are only going for a long weekend you may want to spring for the extra $56.80 in order to see more than one park per day.
3. Realize that if you buy your tickets through an Authorized Broker they will not be included on your key to the world card. You will have a card and another ticket. If this is saving you a boatload of money it is a small price to pay.