Big Trips, Small Budgets

Hello everyone.  I hope that you are as PUMPED as I am for this blog.  If you are not pumped up, get pumped because I am about to tell you all the secrets, all the tricks, all the tips.  The tips and tricks to what you may ask?  Travel!  And not just any type of travel.  Trust me when I tell you I do not have a lot of money to spend on traveling.  I’m in college, which means I have lots of college bills to pay.  That being said, traveling doesn’t have to cost you a small fortune, and there are tons of ways to minimize spending.  Budgeting on vacations is so important because the less you spend on one trip, the more you can go on.  I’d love to make this a series and talk about specific destinations to travel to on a budget.  So, I thought it would be fitting to start us off with a place frequently known as “the most expensive place on earth.”  Disney.  Like I said, I am a broke college student and was able to take myself and my sister to Disney.  Simply put, I did this through lots of planning, saving and minimizing spending during the actual vacation.  Let’s get into some specifics shall we.  

Big Trips, Small Budgets: Disney Edition

Tip #1: Planning trips in advance=more time to save money

My first tip is to plan your trips as far in advance as you possibly can.  There’s no such thing as too early.  If you plan vacations early, this gives you more time to put a little bit of money aside each week/month rather than paying a bunch all at once.

Tip #2: Calculate your cost in advance

This tip goes along with the last one a bit, but try to figure out ASAP how much your trip is going to cost for the big things.  Hotel, transportation and park tickets are typically going to be where you are going to be spending the most money, so try to figure all that out.  Then, once you’ve got all of that added up, you can figure out how much you need to put aside each month to pay for the trip.

Tip #3: You don’t have to pay for your whole Disney vacation at once

Most of the time, Disney allows you to pay in payments for your Disney vacation.  You can book everything online, put down a down payment and then you can pay it off whenever you want.  I really liked that I was able to do this because I paid on a monthly basis and then when I had a little extra money from the month, I would just use it to pay off my Disney bill.  You just have to have it all paid off a week before you go, so you can pay at your own pace, whenever you want, and all you have to do is log into your Disney account to make a payment.

Tip #4: Be open to using different airlines then you are used to

Usually when I travel with my family, we use JetBlue.  JetBlue was a bit pricer than some other airlines, so I ended up picking Delta on the way there and United on the way back and they both ended up being great flights.  So, if it is cheaper to use two different airlines, go for it, because it really was easy to navigate both of those airlines and we had no issues with either of them.  Definitely do your research when looking for flights and don’t just pick the first one you see, because when you do enough searching, you can usually find some pretty inexpensive ones.

Tip #5: Stay at a Value Resort

If you are going to Disney, I highly recommend staying on Disney property because it is just so convenient.  You have transportation to the parks, you are close to most of the parks, and if you need to go back to your room during the day for whatever reason, you’re right there.  Disney splits up their resorts into categories which are value, moderate, deluxe, deluxe villa and Disney Springs Area resorts.  I highly highly highly recommend value resorts.  They are often the same price or even less expensive than a lot of hotels outside of Disney.  We stayed at the Pop Century resort and we absolutely loved it.  The rooms were so cute, it was super clean, there were two pools, a gift shop and a food court.  There are a ton of rooms and it even had a Skyliner for transportation to Epcot and Hollywood Studios which was so cool.  Don’t rule these hotels out because they are really great.  I know sometimes it might seem really appealing to stay at the super fancy resort, but in the long run, you’re going to be at the parks most of the time anyway!

Here are some pics of the pop century resort!

Tip #6: Plan your days wisely

So originally when I booked the trip, I had us staying for 5 days 4 nights.  I had bought 2, 1 day park passes and 1 hopper pass.  If you don’t know the differences between the passes, basically, a general pass means that you can get into 1 park per day.  Because of COVID, you have to schedule the day that you are going to go to each park in advance.  If you have a hopper pass, that means you can go to more than 1 park per day.  When it was getting closer to when we were supposed to go, Disney suspended the hopper passes and you could only go to 1 park per day.  (It has since been back so now you can use hopper passes again.)  But anyways, because hopper passes are more expensive, and I really wanted to go to all 4 parks, I ended up booking an extra night at the hotel and getting 4, 1 day park passes.  The reason I am telling you all of this is because it ended up being cheaper to stay an extra night and get the 4 passes for 1 park each day.  So make sure you look at all your options.  If you are staying at a value hotel, it is likely you will find that it is cheaper to stay an extra day and go to 1 park per day, so look at all of your options.

Tip #7: Don’t get the package

When you book your Disney vacation on the website, you can choose to buy your tickets separately from your hotel, or you can get a vacation package that gives you one big price.  I still have not figured out what the benefits are of getting the package, and I have done so much research on it, but it is more expensive to get the package as opposed to buying the hotel stay and the tickets separate.  So, I recommend buying them separately.

Tip #8: Bring your own food!!!!

If you take any of my advice from this blog, take this.  BRING YOUR OWN FOOD!  I REPEAT, BRING YOUR OWN FOOD.  I did some quick math with my mom after my trip and we figured out that I saved at least $300 on food by packing lunches to bring to the park.  Disney lets you bring food and water into the park, so take advantage of this.  Bringing your own food for lunch will save you so much money, that way, you can go to a restaurant for dinner.

Tip #9: Instacart is your friend

I have never used Instacart before, but we didn’t have a rental car, because I’m only 21 and it would’ve cost a small fortune, and we didn’t really want to Uber either and then carry all of our groceries across the resort.  It is super easy to Instacart groceries to Disney hotels.  The shopper just leaves it with the bellhop, and then you just go and pick it up at your convenience.  We ordered things for lunch like peanut butter and jelly, chips, fruit snacks, waters, and then we also got stuff for breakfast like fruit, orange juice and muffins.  All that came to about $40, including service fees and a tip, and that was enough for breakfast and lunch every day.  The only thing we really bought at the parks were snacks and then we went to dinner each night. 

Tip #10: Consider getting a Disney Credit card

I got the Chase Disney rewards card about a year before our trip and used it for pretty much everything.  These cards are awesome because you get points for your purchases, and then when your trip is coming up, you get a Redemption Card that has all your points loaded up onto it.  Then the card basically can be used anywhere.  It pretty much works like a gift card.  You can use it at the resort, at the Disney parks, and even at Disney Springs.  I used it to buy some souvenirs and I even paid for dinner with it at Rainforest Cafe.  I really liked this card and it was really nice to have a little extra money at the parks.  Plus, the cards have such cute designs on them. 

 

BONUS TIP:

This has nothing to do with budgeting, but it is a great tip I have for you.  If you didn’t know, there is a new Star Wars ride at Hollywood Studios called Rise of the Resistance.  It is the coolest ride that I have ever been on by the way.  Anyways, you CANNOT ride the ride without using the virtual queue and you can only ride once a day, when your group is called.  Since COVID, you can now book a time from your hotel room which is really nice.  I read stuff online saying that the groups would fill up in 90 seconds, and I did not believe it, but they were not lying.  The groups fill up extremely fast so you have to be ready.  But don’t worry, I got your back.  Here is what you are going to do. 

1. The virtual queue opens at 7am, so you are going to get your phone ready at 6:45.
2. Now, you are going to open up the My Disney Experience App and make sure that everyone in your party is connected to your account.  I recommend having one person do it for your party so you all get the same boarding group. 
3. At 6:59 you’re going to start refreshing the app.
4. 7am hits and it is going to allow you to enter a group.  Click on everyone’s name in your party and join the queue.  After this, you are (hopefully) going to get assigned a group. 
5. Keep checking the app just in case, but you should get a notification when it is time for your group to join.  I believe we had an hour after our group was called to get there. 
6. If you don’t get a group at 7am, don’t worry because they also reopen the groups at 1pm so you can try again then.  

I hope that you enjoyed this blog and hopefully learned some money saving tips.  And of course, if you are going anywhere during the pandemic, make sure to be safe!  Disney was super safe regarding COVID and COVID policies were strictly enforced by staff.

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Signed,

Ashlyn

P.s. I am going to be uploading a blog post every Friday and a YouTube video every Wednesday!