Planning & Saving for Disney

Saving for a Walt Disney World Vacation can seem like a daunting and impossible task; and for us, this was definitely the case. After receiving our first trip together as a generous gift from Ryan’s parents, we had no idea of when we’d be able to return on our own dime. Both somewhat recent grads, looking to start our careers in a tough job market, we had no expectations of making it back to Disney anytime soon after our 2012 trip.

We both got great full time jobs shortly after school and made the decision to move in together! Ryan had been living on his own since he started university and Ellen had opted to stay at home during university. We were pretty excited... and nervous about taking this step (we had been dating for nearly four years at that point). With such a big change and added expenses, saving for a Disney trip seemed like a long-lost thought. After discussing the possibility and crunching some numbers, we found out that we could comfortably live and save for another Disney trip!

Ellen had a bit of money set aside from various graduation and birthday gifts, but we pretty much started saving from scratch. We determined how much we needed to save each month and started a Disney Jar – more on that in a bit! 

Back tracking a bit, let’s have a look at some of the discussions and decisions that were made that allowed us to determine we could save up for a Disney vacation!

• The first consideration, and perhaps one of the largest, is where to stay? For us, staying on resort was a must. We loved the ease and fun of it so much last time, that it was a no-brainer this time around!

• Next was to consider which resort we wanted to stay on. We had previously stayed at Disney’s All Star Movies Resort in 2012 and absolutely loved it! We considered going back there again this time around but eventually decided it would be nice to check out all of the value resorts. Seeing that Ryan is a sports fan, and neither of us are into music all that much, we decided on All Star Sports. Knowing the cost of your resort is a huge factor in planning and saving. Had we decided to stay at a moderate resort, for example, we would have needed more time to save or larger amounts of savings per month. If you’re on moderate budget and don’t want to break the bank on a weeks’ vacation – we highly recommend the value resorts. They’re clean & modern and great for guests looking for a standard room after a full day at the parks.

Disney's All Star Sports Resort

• To budget how much we needed to save for dining we discussed what type of dining we wanted to experience. The result was unanimous – quick service! Like we've mentioned in other posts, we aren't fancy people. We enjoy low-key, familiar food so quick service was the best option for us. Plus we wanted the majority of our time for rides and attractions, not sitting a table-service meal! We considered working in a table service meal here or there but ultimately didn't have the desire to do so. We find the quick service restaurants at Disney to be affordable (in comparison to table service restaurants) and delicious! We estimated how much each meal would cost us (approximately $10 each) x 3 meals per day + snacks. Of course, breakfasts were cheaper and some dinners were a bit over the $10 mark, but it gave us a solid guideline to save. While some prefer to save money by buying groceries off-resort, part of the vacation for us is dining at restaurants. We opted not to purchase the Disney dining plan again as we determined it would cost more than buying our meals out of pocket would. However, had we been given the option to add a Disney dining plan to our package for free, we would've been all over that! Disney often offers free dining plans as a promotion to those staying on resort  during non-peak periods such as September - December. 

• A great way to add extra value to your Disney Vacation Package is to keep an eye out for new special offers! We booked our trip in February for June 2014 through our travel agent who told us they would upgrade our package to include any new offers that became available between February and June. This worked out great for us! We ended up adding free Hopper Passes to our package and got a fifth park ticket for free! While these weren't things we planned on adding to our package, it was great to have them added for free!

• In addition to the hotel/flight and dining planning, we also had to plan on saving for additional costs such as tips, transportation costs (to Universal) and souvenirs. We did some research on transportation off-resort via Mears Bus Transportation and were able to add that into our overall savings plan. We each had a few souvenirs in mind that we wanted to purchase so we budgeted accordingly for some extra spending.

Our Disney Saving Jar 

• Having a small portion of money previously put aside, Ellen began saving monthly. Ryan, who has a second hobby job, was able to save different amounts of money at different times. When we had the money saved, we paid for our trip in full through our travel agent. We continued to save for our dining and extra spending up until June as scheduled.

You might be wondering how we saved this money... or, maybe you don’t care at all. To make it more tangible and concrete, we used our Disney Jar. This is just a plain old mason jar that we stuck a label on. We got this idea from watching Gail Vaz-Oxlade; a financial planner and host of a number of shows here in Canada such as Princess, Till Debt do Us Part and Money Moron in which she helps individuals save their money and plan out their financial matters. Thinking about it now, it would be fun to fully Disney-fy it (we'll keep that in mind for our next trip). We each put our money in the jar as planned and before we knew it – we had plenty! When we knew we reached "the number", we separated each portion into separate categories – Ellen’s spending, Ryan’s spending, tips, transportation to Universal and divided each dining allowance by day. It made it so much easier to stay organized and on-budget when we arrived at Disney!

While this method of saving may not be for everyone, it works great for us. We’re pretty strict about not using debt to buy things we want. While it’d be easy to go on vacation and just throw the cost on a credit card, it would take a lot of the fun out of it for us. Saving, step by step, is a great way to look forward to your vacation and ensure you have a worry and debt free time in Disney World!