Honestly, how much money should I really save to have a good time at WDW...?

Good question - and a hard one to answer! It really depends on what is important to you - which is always a topic of discussion here! And the timing of when you go plays a big factor too, since room rates vary and free dining can be gotten!

For us, we like the moderate resorts, and park hopper tickets. So using our upcoming trip in September, which is 8 nights, the hotel and tickets cost about $2,100 for 2 adults. And lucky for us, we get the free dining plan in September, so meals are covered for the most part under that. That saves us several hundred dollars.

We're also lucky enough to be able to drive to WDW, so we no longer have to deal with airfare and car rental (we always rented a car vs. using Disney transportation). But on past trips, when flying from Minneapolis, we allotted about $600-$800 for 2 adults. I'm not sure where airfare is these days though.

I did some looking around online because I was curious, and found this from Fodors:

What's the average cost of a Disney visit?

I always dread this question because there are so many variables that can affect the price -- the number of people in your family, where you stay, how fancy you eat, the time of year you're visiting, etc. But the standard figure is $500 a day for a family of four, and that includes hotel, food, and tickets. I think that's probably a pretty good average.

I'd be curious to see if folks here think that's close based on their trips. For 2 of us, I'd say about $300 - $400 a day is where we set the starting budget.

I think you can approach it one of two ways - figure out what you are willing to spend on a vacation and then try to back into the trip, or price out a basic trip with what you know (hotel, tickets, airfare) to set a base, then add in food (the standard dining plan is a little under $50 a day per person) and see what that looks like, and then decide how much more you can add for other things and go from there.

Not sure if that helps at all, but hey, I gave it a shot!

There are so many variables when planning a Disney World Vacation.

How long are you thinking of going for?
Do you know what month?
How many people are you going with?
Are you going with all adults or will there be children as well?

Are trip is 9 days at the end of October, we are staying value, have the dining plan and park hopper tickets for 5 days and I believe the total was around $2230.. We are also coming from CA and just bought plane tickets which were another $900 (leaving from Burbank instead of LAX)for 2 adults round trip.

I have heard of others getting trips for a lot less but this is what we got..

__________________

*Jennifer Lynn* NDW #38

Check out my blog at Jennifer's Disney Adventures

That's a great way to do a quote! I just tried it for my trip coming up and it's very accurate!!

Good advice JeffC!

I'd guess that our trips were in the $300-$400/day range, BUT you can do much cheaper versions, it helps if you go regularly though. We had annual passes and other discounts that made it much cheaper to go multiple times per year.

Very true! Also, booking through certain travel agents (ie. AAA) can get you discount coupons and room rate discounts. The room rate discounts are helpful if you're travelling at a time when there are no other room discounts.

My trip this year is $316 per day (after our disney discounts) and that includes a 12-day stay at a deluxe resort with parkhopper pass and dining plan. If you were staying at a moderate or value resort you'd be under the $300 per day mark!

Well..you can do Disney pretty cheap if you plan far enough in advance. Go during free dining, go during the slow season etc..for us I don't go if there is not a discount. It has to be pretty significant. Like everyone has said you have to think about whats right for you. We drive so the cost of transportation is much lower & we almost always stay at a value or moderate. We just don't do deluxe (other than our honeymoon) because we really aren't in our room that much. As far as "spending money" I typically budget $150 dollars a day (including food). For the two of us that's pretty reasonable because we are not big souvenir people. We may buy a few small things during our trip but that's all. We are much more into eating well!

That's how we did it for years..we really had fun! We did it a few times for less than $1000 for 4-5 days.

oh also.. get a job with Disney and cha-ching on the discount! that's what I do.

TWO WEEKS! eeeek

WE ARE SOOO EXCITED FOR YOU! OMG < 2 weeks!

Is that per person? Does it include anything like park tickets/accommodation? I'm curious as to how much I'll need for spending money per person too, after already having paid for the park tickets and hotel

We usually end up spending very little after food, hotel, travel, etc. We really don't buy souvenirs (though I always tell myself I can if I want to....I never want to haul anything home).

DD -- So excited for your upcoming trip!

Surely food and drink you're looking at about $40-50 per person, per day?

To assist in your research/planning, Check out MouseSavers:

http://www.mousesavers.com/wdw.html

Everyone else's trips always sneak up on me, while my own never seem to get here. How does that work? Congrats on being under the 2 week mark!

We are doing 2 weeks the first part of September, we are going during the Free Dininy plan but are upgrading from the quick service to the normal for an extra $10 per person per day. so our trip through CAA came to 2600 for the two of us for the dining plan, 10 day park passes with Park Hopper and Waterpark Passes, 2 weeks at POP. Flights are looking right now around 700 for both, but CAA refunds if they go down before we go as well....... we are also getting a small discount through CAA on our passes to US/IoA/WWoHP. So not too shabby

How Many people are in your party? How Long are you staying? How old are your kids?