How We Budget for Disney World

In case you’ve missed me shouting it from the rooftops, we are the proud owners of Disney World AP’s for the first time since 2019 and I could not be more excited. The first reaction I get from everyone who hears this is “HOW do you afford to travel to Disney that much?” So here is a step-by-step guide on how we plan to do it.

Annual Passes

This is a huge upfront cost, with very few opportunities to “hack” but with 6+ weeks of Disney travel planned, the pass more than pays for itself. Disney does not offer payment plans to out-of-state residents, so we created our own payment plan utilizing a 0% credit card offer. We never recommend incurring debt, especially for travel, but in this case, we have a clear payment schedule laid out and will likely pay it off even before our goal date. In addition to the ability to pay over time, we will get a small percentage of cash back through our card, which we will immediately apply to our payments. Another option if you have the cash upfront would be to put these on gift cards. See below regarding maximizing gift card purchasing power.

Thousand Trails Cabin Pass

Our cabin pass is the number one reason we can travel as often as we do. Tropical Palms is located just minutes from the Disney Parks and is a beautiful campground with clean and spacious cabins. We pay $138.50 per month for our cabin pass, which is renewed on an annual basis. This allows us up to 7 nights in a cabin, with 14 days out before our next booking. We have plans to use a full week in January, February, April, June, July, November, and December. Even if we did not use our cabin pass anywhere else during this year (which we will), that is an average of $23.74 per night for our stays.

Dining Out

We don’t dine out very often, even when traveling. Disney is known for its food and we have our favorites. (I’m looking at you, Cream Cheese Pretzel and Boma) We enjoy these things without depriving ourselves and I will give you some pointers below about never paying full price for anything, but you can be sure I am never wasting money on anything that’s not either our favorite or something new we are excited to try.

As I mentioned above, we usually stay in a cabin with a full kitchen. This allows us to make breakfast and sometimes dinner and allows me to pack a cooler for the parks. Disney is extremely lenient with outside food (no loose ice, no glass, and no alcohol), so there is no issue bringing food in and since we still use a stroller, no one has to lug around the bag all day. I also like to pack fun snacks and treats that we don’t normally have at home. Things like the apple juice bottles with the character heads, or Mickey-themed treats are always a hit. My oldest has a sensitivity to food dye, so this allows him to have some sweets, as most of the sweets in the park are off-limits for him.

Drive vs. Fly

Driving is not for everyone and this is where I usually lose a lot of people. We live in NJ, approximately 15-16 hours from Disney World. I am someone who loves to drive and hates to fly. Due to work and school schedules, we travel at the busiest times of year which means the highest prices for flights. Except for very quick trips, we usually opt to drive. Since my husband is the one who needs to be home for work, there are times we all drive together, and he flies home before the boys and I drive back. We recently purchased a hybrid vehicle which has significantly reduced our fuel costs, but even before that, driving was less than flights for 4 people and a car rental. This past summer we discovered the Love’s App which is completely free and gives you 10 cents off per gallon of gas.

Our boys are still too young to tolerate driving straight through so we book one night on the way down and one on the way up, unless we are extending the trip as part of a larger road trip. We almost exclusively pay for those hotels with points, which I will talk about below.

Driving also allows us to bring along things like our cooler for the park, some food from home for easy pre-made meals, and things like pool floats which are certainly not a necessity, but we have come to appreciate having.

Credit Card Points

I recently began exploring the world of credit card travel hacking, but before I had any idea what I was doing, we stayed in a few Best Westerns we enjoyed and decided to get the Best Western card to earn points. Looking back, I could have maximized our earnings much more than I did, but it was a good start and our everyday spending allowed us to pay for hotels up and down I-95 with our points. Once I learned more about travel hacking, I was able to accumulate more points for even better stays.

We are currently working on Hyatt points which we will use for our upcoming overnights to/from Florida. We also plan to bridge two cabin stays in June and July and will use credit card points to pay for some of those in between nights.

We have also started to use credit card points for my husband’s flights home. A lot of people hate on Spirit but flights from NJ to FL are about two hours long and Spirit has a ton of flights between EWR and MCO every day. His sign-up bonus will likely get him 2-3 flights for free this year.

Discounted Gift Cards

I never pay full price for Disney Gift Cards and I never pay with anything but a gift card on Disney property. This is a small thing but it adds up over time. Recently Costco had the best sale on gift cards I have ever seen, $224.99 for a $250 card. It was limited to two cards, but 10% off is unheard of. Most commonly, I purchase the $500 cards at BJ’s Wholesale for $479.99 and use a card that gives me a percentage of cash back. That is the best deal I have found with no limit to the number of cards you can get. They just had an online-only promotion offering a few more dollars off per card, so I try to stock up when they have those specials.

Souvenirs

Because we visit often, we don’t usually buy a lot of souvenirs but of course, there are wants from time to time. We will have our AP discount to buy things like Christmas ornaments and the occasional treat for the kids and we will make those purchases with gift cards, as noted above. My best hack is to “recycle” your souvenirs. Most of the time, once we get home and my kids have the distraction of all of their other toys, they will lose interest in their Disney souvenirs. When they do, I pack it away until our next trip. If they ask for it (which is seldom) I am happy to take it back out, but usually it stays in the bin and I will bring it on our next trip. We do this with bubble wands and light-up toys. Those are fun in the park but have very little practical use at home. Of course, kids love to get something new, so if I find something on sale throughout the year, I will throw that in our Disney bin and it is presented as a special treat on our next trip.

Did you find these tips helpful? Is there anything you would like me to explain in more detail? Message me on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, and let me know what tips you will be using on your next trip.