Disney World may be the worlds most magical place, but it can also be the worlds most expensive family holiday. For those of us from a country where summer is nothing more than a six letter word, the heat can also take its toll on you if you're not careful. But do you want to know a secret? After seven trips to the worlds most magical place I do in fact have one or two hints and tips to make the most of your magical holiday.
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Holiday Tip # 1
Be prepared for your days in the park. You never know what you're going to need whilst you're in the parks but here is generally what you'll find in my bag.
- A poncho for those rainier days - buy these before you get to the parks. Disney ponchos will cost you at least $10 but you can buy them outside the parks for just a dollar
- Sunscreen to top up in the middle of the day
- A water bottle - Florida is the sunshine state after all
- Some plasters for those times when your shoes have just been rubbing one hour too many
- Sunglasses
- Your purse which of course will have your park tickets in it (or your magicband on your wrist if you're staying in one of the resort hotels)
Holiday Tip # 2
The biggest expense in Florida can be water for some families. The crazy thing is the amount of money that you could save just by taking this one little tip on board - don't buy water at Disney!
The parks sell an individual bottle of water for about $4 which for a family could gross a large sum of money in a day, let alone the entire holiday. So here are your top 3 options to avoid this massive expenditure.
- Buy water from somewhere out of the parks to bring in with you. You can head to Walgreen and get a large multi pack of water bottles for the same price of four dollars. This should last you a while in the parks and be a lot cheaper.
- If of course you want to go even cheaper than that then go ahead and buy one water bottle and a couple of boxes of your favourite drink flavour sachets, then you have free refills all day everyday from one of the many water fountains located in all of the parks.
- To take this one step further, you don't even have to buy the one bottle and sachets! How is this possible I hear you say? Well did you know that you can in fact go to any restaurant in the Disney parks and ask for a cup of free ice water.This tip is especially useful if you buy food in the parks - why spend an additional four dollars each for a diet coke when you can have some ice water for free?
Put it this way - 4 bottles of water per day for a two week holiday in Disney? That's $224 or you could spend less than ten dollars on one bottle and a couple of boxes of juice sachets to take with you. Easy math really.
Holiday Tip #3
Another big money saver? If you're not planning on staying on Disney property then take your food with you. Before going to the parks in the morning head on over to a Walgreen or 7/11 to grab one of their sandwiches and snack packs. We do this every holiday and I can tell you that it saves an absolute fortune. Let me break it down for you as to why.
We usually go to subway, 7/11 or Walgreen in the morning to grab some breakfast and also grab some sandwiches for lunch. We buy some pringles or something similar to snack on through out the day (although my mum does love to buy the caramel popcorn from the Main Street Confectionery to snack on through out the day.) This comes to a grand total of just over $20 for three people and covers two meals and snacks.
In comparison, we do sometimes have dinner in the parks if we are staying late for night time shows and get really hungry - one meal between the three of us usually costs about $40-50. Imagine we did this for every meal at Disney? You're looking at spending $170 a day, once you've added in snacks bought in the parks, in comparison to $70. Now that's a massive $700 saving between the three of us for our week at Disney World. Tell me you wouldn't rather save that money to spend on some amazing Cheshire Cat socks instead (and yes I did buy Cheshire Cat socks in Disney World. They match my Cheshire Cat vans).
Another big money saver? If you're not planning on staying on Disney property then take your food with you. Before going to the parks in the morning head on over to a Walgreen or 7/11 to grab one of their sandwiches and snack packs. We do this every holiday and I can tell you that it saves an absolute fortune. Let me break it down for you as to why.
We usually go to subway, 7/11 or Walgreen in the morning to grab some breakfast and also grab some sandwiches for lunch. We buy some pringles or something similar to snack on through out the day (although my mum does love to buy the caramel popcorn from the Main Street Confectionery to snack on through out the day.) This comes to a grand total of just over $20 for three people and covers two meals and snacks.
In comparison, we do sometimes have dinner in the parks if we are staying late for night time shows and get really hungry - one meal between the three of us usually costs about $40-50. Imagine we did this for every meal at Disney? You're looking at spending $170 a day, once you've added in snacks bought in the parks, in comparison to $70. Now that's a massive $700 saving between the three of us for our week at Disney World. Tell me you wouldn't rather save that money to spend on some amazing Cheshire Cat socks instead (and yes I did buy Cheshire Cat socks in Disney World. They match my Cheshire Cat vans).
Holiday Tip #4
If you're one of these people that want to have all of the ride photos from the parks, then take a look at the memory maker. We managed to get it as part of our tickets so didn't have to pay anything for it, but it only costs $169 when you're buying it separately. When you think of all the ride photo prices then you can imagine how much that adds up after a couple of weeks and plenty of thrilling rides. You can also get photos from all of the photo pass photographers all over the parks; they sometimes have some really cool effects that they add in as well!
The other good thing is you then don't have to worry as much about a camera. Of course we took our phones and still took pictures but the best pictures in front of the castle etc you can get done professionally.
Holiday Tip #5
Make the most of the My Disney Experience App and free wifi in the parks. With your park tickets you get to book dinner reservations and fastpass + tickets up to 30 days in advance (or 60 days if you're a Disney hotel guest). Having done the old fast pass way of racing to the attraction first thing in the morning to try and grab a paper ticket to come back later in the day, this new App is definitely magical. It saves trailing from one end of the park to another and then back again for fastpass tickets. Instead you can look at the attractions on your phone, pick the best times for you and book them - if you link your friends and families accounts then you can book for everyone on one App as well.
No longer do you get the paper copy but instead it's electronically linked to your magicband or park ticket, which you just scan as you go through the fast pass line. I guess that makes it a lot more eco-friendly with not printing tickets out for thousands of people in all four parks everyday.
You can go ahead and book up to three fast passes per day and then once all of those fast passes are used up, you can go ahead and book another fast pass one at a time until the end of the day or there's none left to use.
Another great thing about the App is it will tell you wait times through out the day or if there's any ride closures. No more walking all the way to the other end of the Magic Kingdom to find out Space Mountain has a wait time of 80 minutes!
(If you ever want to go on Peter Pan's ride, I highly recommend going in the first or last hour of the park or getting a fast pass. It is always an hour long wait in the standby queue minimum.)
And there you have it! My top five money and time saving tips for the Walt Disney World Resort. It truly is the most magical place on earth and I cannot wait until I can return again - whenever that may be.
If you're one of these people that want to have all of the ride photos from the parks, then take a look at the memory maker. We managed to get it as part of our tickets so didn't have to pay anything for it, but it only costs $169 when you're buying it separately. When you think of all the ride photo prices then you can imagine how much that adds up after a couple of weeks and plenty of thrilling rides. You can also get photos from all of the photo pass photographers all over the parks; they sometimes have some really cool effects that they add in as well!
The other good thing is you then don't have to worry as much about a camera. Of course we took our phones and still took pictures but the best pictures in front of the castle etc you can get done professionally.
Holiday Tip #5
Make the most of the My Disney Experience App and free wifi in the parks. With your park tickets you get to book dinner reservations and fastpass + tickets up to 30 days in advance (or 60 days if you're a Disney hotel guest). Having done the old fast pass way of racing to the attraction first thing in the morning to try and grab a paper ticket to come back later in the day, this new App is definitely magical. It saves trailing from one end of the park to another and then back again for fastpass tickets. Instead you can look at the attractions on your phone, pick the best times for you and book them - if you link your friends and families accounts then you can book for everyone on one App as well.
No longer do you get the paper copy but instead it's electronically linked to your magicband or park ticket, which you just scan as you go through the fast pass line. I guess that makes it a lot more eco-friendly with not printing tickets out for thousands of people in all four parks everyday.
You can go ahead and book up to three fast passes per day and then once all of those fast passes are used up, you can go ahead and book another fast pass one at a time until the end of the day or there's none left to use.
Another great thing about the App is it will tell you wait times through out the day or if there's any ride closures. No more walking all the way to the other end of the Magic Kingdom to find out Space Mountain has a wait time of 80 minutes!
(If you ever want to go on Peter Pan's ride, I highly recommend going in the first or last hour of the park or getting a fast pass. It is always an hour long wait in the standby queue minimum.)
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And there you have it! My top five money and time saving tips for the Walt Disney World Resort. It truly is the most magical place on earth and I cannot wait until I can return again - whenever that may be.
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