How to go to Disney World on a Budget

If you’ve been reading my posts for awhile now then you know how much I love a good travel deal. Disney World has been on my travel bucket list since I was a little girl. This year it was finally made into a reality! Here are my tips on How to go to Disney World on a budget.

Airbnb (with a group)

This is one of my favorite travel money savers no matter the vacation. If you are going in a group get and Airbnb and split the costs. Sometimes it even is cheaper and more comfortable than getting a hotel room. For a week long stay in current trip we are talking about, after splitting with friends we paid only a little over $400. Find yourself some travel buddies!

I have had people tell me staying in one makes them nervous. The BNBs we have stayed in have all been very welcoming, clean and well stocked for our stay. I personally only book entire homes, but you do have the option to rent a room in someones house. We already have our next BNB book for summer on the Olympic Peninsula and I cant wait!!!

Stock your Kitchen and snacks

This will save you so much money to bring your own snacks into the park! We also stocked the fridge with dinner items to make as soon as we got home from the park. Vacation is not a time to diet, and we wanted quick so we ate things like frozen pizza, turkey sandwiches, and chicken strips. Breakfast we had eggs or bagels and juice. We bought snacks for the park like apples, oranges, pouches for the kids, cliff bars and fruit snacks.

If you stay in hotel stay in a room with a small fridge and a microwave. We did this when we went to Disneyland a few years ago and saved money that way. Also if you went the hotel route, many hotels serve a free breakfast. This was another money saving tactic we used in Disneyland. Our hotel had fruit, breads, yogurt hardboiled eggs and waffles. This keep up full until lunch in the park, which we even packed sandwiches in a cool on that trip! (Check out my Disneyland on a Budget post here)

WATERRRRRR!

I know we have heard this a million times, but order the free water!!! Also the parks will give you a free cup of ice water without ordering food. Bring your own water bottle to refill all day at the park. You can fill it up at home prior to entry as well. To help the kids drink more water, I bought some sport drink MIO to mix into their water bottles. They wanted to drink more and got in important electrolytes while out in the hot sun!

Disney Redemption Dollars

Most people have a rewards credit card or two, our earns us Disney Dollars. We got the credit card back in 2018 at Disneyland, since then we use it to buy groceries, gas and pay any bills that can be paid on credit cards. In three years we saved up enough to buy our 2 day park tickets and had about $100 for in park merchandise. Say hello to my new beautiful Loungefly!

Another added bonus of the Chase Disney Credit card is a 10% discount on purchases over $50 in the parks. The you first sign up there are two card options, Premier Visa or the no annual fee Visa, both come with a statement credit incentive.

Watch Your Flight

Use Google flights, Skyscanner or Hopper to watch your flight AS SOON AS YOU DECIDE ON DATES. Your flight price will fluctuate so much, even more than once in one day. Hopper is a great app to use to track the price of your flight and will even tell you when you should book. However, I DO NOT recommend booking through them. I have had bad experience and so have friends, and they only way to talk to their customer service is through web chat. What I did on this trip was watch until the flight price dropped on Hopper then I went directly to the airline’s website. Round trip from our small local airport across the country to Orlando was only $230. We used a flight credit from a cancelled flight earlier in the pandemic and only checked one bag ($30) to save on extra costs.

One last tip I can leave you with for finding cheap airfare is book the nonrefundable (Southwest calls it way 2 save, Alaska calls it Saver, most airlines have an option for this) all big name airlines will issue you a credit that you can use later if you end up needing to cancel.

Go on the “Off Season”

Okay we did not do this, we went during Spring break. However, going in the off season will drop your ticket prices per day. Check the Disney Price calendar here. Also buying multiple days and resisting the hopper passes can save you money in tickets. Going on the off season can mean shorter lines! Shorter lines= more rides to fit in your day!

Disney vacations can be totally affordable on a budget, they just take some preplanning and searching for deals. If you still aren’t convinced you need to make it to Disney this year check out these 10 reasons why you need to go to Disney this Year!