Blog/ Lifestyle/ Travel

Walt Disney Wednesday (How Much Disney May Cost You?)

Our Disney Family Vacation has come to an end and if you kept up with my daily vlogs you had a front row seat to watch our Disney Side and join in on all our adventures. While I don’t intend for this to be a boastful post, I surprisingly got a lot of people asking me how much did we spend for our entire vacation. In this post I’ll disclose how much we spent and some of those important questions people might ask but never really get a clear answer. Luckily for us, my boyfriend kept every single receipt for this very purpose. So how much did we really spend?

Vacation Package: $2,662.36
Airfare (JetBlue): $939.60
Additional Spent: $375.00
Total Spent: $3976.96

WHOA! That doesn’t sound affordable Betsy! What did your package entail that it cost so much?

* Our vacation was a total of seven (7) days; We paid for six (6) nights at Disney’s Pop Century
* Six (6) Days of Park Passes + Hopper Passes & Water Park Tickets
* Disney Dining Plan Plus; 1 Quick Service Meal + 1 Sit Down Meal + 1 Snack each day (does not include gratuity)
* Memory Maker Package (unlimited pictures and videos w/ any Disney Photographer)
* Free Shuttle from the airport

Why did you spend so much extra if you basically had everything covered in your Disney Vacation package? We had to pay gratuity on all our sit meals, souvenirs, housekeeping and transportation tips, additional drinks/snacks. Although we did have MOST our vacation covered, there were just some angles that were unavoidable. You may think again before you skimp on the aspects of your plans you might feel you can avoid. Let’s just touch on dining; Diner for two (2) as we shared our meals with Ziana were an average of $89.99/night for both of us + lunches which are an average $20/person + $5-$9 snacks every night. Yes. Not even a joke, but the meal portions on both the sit down meals and quick service meals were massive (including entrees, dessert and drinks), but most importantly DELICIOUS! Depending on the length of your stay, the cheaper your meal plans actually become. We ended up spending ~$391/ea for our dining plans and ate ~$1050.00 worth of food; Saving us $268 which we ended up spending on Disney property anyways. We DID end up buying more food. We would buy breakfast every morning. One (1) breakfast platter for my daughter and I to share, a bagel, extra side of sausage and a banana, costing an additional $15/day. Luckily for dining members, you receive a Disney mug on arrival which includes FREEEEE REFILLS IN ALL RESORTS! That means you always have morning coffee; maybe even fill it will ice and water before you head to the parks; when you get home a nice cold cup of lemonade.

All in all our vacation was worth so much more in the amount of stuff we jammed in, memories and food. Disney may come with a lofty price tag, but everything they do for you is so above and beyond! The cast members are great, the company of the other guests, the parks, the dining experience. The list can go on forever. It was such a great time we even talked about moving to Florida. Don’t get your hopes up though Florida readers, we’re going to remain in NYC- for now. We’ll be back though. In my next Walt Disney Wednesday entry I’m going to go into detail on some AWESOME TIPS that could help you cut costs. We found some truly amazing “Disney Hacks” on our own that people haven’t mentioned in tip sites. So if you’re interested in making a plans to head over and visit Cinderella and the Castle you might want to just check back next Wednesday. Disney is a plausible dream to make happen once you understand the little things behind Mickey’s ears…