We’ve shared tips that can help you plan your family vacation so we thought we would do a post on tips for visiting a popular family destination. Without a doubt one of the more popular places that families enjoy visiting are Disneyland and Disneyworld. My family and I just recently took a trip to Disneyland a couple of months ago and we had an absolute blast. One of the reasons why we wanted to visit Disneyland was to check out the new Cars Land at Disney California Adventure Park. Even though we visited during an off peak time, this place was crowded. We got to the park when it first opened and made a quick dash to Cars Land and still had to wait in line for a hour to ride the test track ride. If you’re thinking about taking your family to a Disney park and are on a budget, these tips can help you.
One of the first things that you will need to do is figuring out how much you can actually spend. As fun as it is to visit a Disney park, it isn’t cheap. By creating your budget beforehand, you will know exactly how much you can spend and it will also make sure that you don’t plan to many things that can make you go over budget. After you have your budget in place, now you need to break down the total costs for your vacation. I recommend starting with how much it will cost to get to a Disney park. Whether your flying or driving, you need to find out how much you will be spending on airline tickets or gas.
After you have worked into your budget how much it will cost to get there, the next step is looking to where you will want to stay. A lot of families would love to stay at one of the Disney resorts but this isn’t always possible as they are much more expensive as compared to other non Disney hotels nearby. For our recent trip we wanted to stay at the Disney Grand Californian hotel but it was over $300 per night. Instead we stayed at a hotel right outside of the park and walked to the park every morning. If you are planning to visit DisneyWorld, there are sometimes Disney deals made for families so you will want to find out about them. To save on both your airfare and hotel, if possible I recommend visiting Disney during one of the off peak months. I know this is difficult to do especially if you have kids but if you avoid visiting during the Summer months, you will save on your trip.
A third thing that you will need to figure out is your food budget. If you’ve been to a Disney park recently, you know that for a family of four you could easily spend more money on food than your hotel stay. By working out how much you can spend on your meals beforehand, you will be able to stay within your budget. Without having a budget in place you can easily overspend after buying a couple of churros and bottles of water in the park.
A fourth thing that you will need to work into your budget is the cost of the park tickets. Most visitors to Disney parks like to buy the Park Hopper ticket as it allows you to visit multiple parks in the same day, but it is more expensive. Unless your trip is short and you’re only going to be there for a couple of days, I recommend not getting the Park Hopper tickets.
These are just somethings to consider when trying to visit Disney on a budget for a family vacation. Disney really is a great place to visit and it’s even better when you find great deals!