Thursday, June 21, 2012

Disney World Family Vacation on a Budget

And Finally, We Saw the Castle!

One month ago, we took our first family trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida.  Since this trip was going to cost more than our typical family vacation, we tried to use as many money saving ideas as possible.  We enjoyed our trip and were happy with the results of our money saving ideas. 

We opted to drive rather than fly in order to save money.  It was about a fourteen hour drive for us.  We used two days to drive to Orlando and used points we had earned and purchased to stay for only $11 at a Quality Inn for one night.  Once we arrived at our destination, we stayed 7 nights and then drove straight home (which was rough!)  We spent one day at Magic Kingdom, one day at Hollywood Studios, one day at Animal Kingdom, one day at Sea World and a few hours at Typhoon Lagoon.    

Silver Lake Resort Condo in Kissimmee, FL
Living Room of Our Condo
We booked our trip online through a travel service that sold time share packages.  We stayed at Silver Lake Resort in Kissimmee.  We received all the promised tickets after attending the time share presentation.  We loved the resort and our condo was perfect!  As expected, the time share presentation was a little difficult especially while trying to keep our two little ones entertained.

We purchased four Restaurant.com certificates before leaving home for two restaurants in Orlando and two in Kissimmee.  We used three of the four on our trip.  Overall, we were happy with the restaurants and the savings.  In the future, we will most likely just purchase certificates for the Kissimmee area since that seemed to be more convenient.  We did save a little on those meals, but also found it was a great chance to tip more generously!  We also took advantage of a Kids Eat Free meal at IHOP. 
                                
We did take soda, milk and snacks into the Disney Parks.  I purchased a couple of cute Igloo cooler bags from Kroger that worked perfectly and fit well in our stroller.  We did save a lot by not having to purchase drinks or snacks in the parks.  We tried to avoid eating at the parks when at all possible.  We also used our own stroller rather than paying to rent a stroller from the parks.

Our total cost for our trip was around $2,800.  However, we did splurge on a princess makeover at Downtown Disney which cost about $200.  So, it is possible to take a family vacation on a budget at Disney World! 

One of the Parades at Disney


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