The Great 'Disney Cost Cutting' Hunt

Jeanmd128 · 18 June 2008 at 8:53AM

Healeydave - you should also mention that the tickets you buy only show the number of days you purchased - there is no way of knowing how many days are left - so NEVER buy from someone who says there are days left on a ticket as you could get to the gate to find it has nothing left. Most Orlando parks also require finger indentification linked to the ticket - so unless they give you a finger to go with the ticket it will be useless anyway!

The time share route is an option - even Disney do it in the parks - but unless you are really interested in buying do you really want to spend half a day looking at something that you have no intention of buying and get a slightly cheaper ticket - some of which are only valid for that day - which you only have an afternoon left to enjoy.

cozzard · 18 June 2008 at 8:56AM

Agree with the comment about booking direct. We have booked a condo through the owner at Bahama Bay for about half the cost of going with an agent. Same condo just much less money!

Flight tickets booked direct as well. This year via US Airways, who offer a convenient indirect flight. Cost £320 per person which compares pretty well with the bigger players. Always best to do plenty of research, for instance some of the charter flights have dreadful feedback and may not be the best option for your trip.

All in all, go direct avoiding the package deal and save a great deal. Our holiday to Florida this year will cost £1500 for a family of 4 (flights and decent accomodation for 9 nights). I estimate this to be about 50% of what a package would have cost.

healeydave · 18 June 2008 at 9:10AM

Jeanmd128 wrote: »

Healeydave - you should also mention that the tickets you buy only show the number of days you purchased - there is no way of knowing how many days are left - so NEVER buy from someone who says there are days left on a ticket as you could get to the gate to find it has nothing left. Most Orlando parks also require finger indentification linked to the ticket - so unless they give you a finger to go with the ticket it will be useless anyway!

That was what I was trying to warn people about when I said you only have the sellers word that the ticket has what they are saying left on it.

I'm not recommending the time share option either, I just mentioned it because in all the years I have been going, its one of the few genuine discounts but not worth the cost of you time in my opinion because its a "loss leader", they are losing on every ticket they sell to you at $20 but they would pay more than that to entice people into the seminar through other marketing schemes so they don't mind.

I use that example to make the point that the only way you will ever get significantly cheap Disney tickets (not just a few dollars off) outside of Disney themselves is if someone else is prepared to make a loss (through a loss leader or a second hand sale).

deana1000 · 18 June 2008 at 9:16AM

cozzard wrote: »

All in all, go direct avoiding the package deal and save a great deal. Our holiday to Florida this year will cost £1500 for a family of 4 (flights and decent accomodation for 9 nights). I estimate this to be about 50% of what a package would have cost.

I agree with your comment if you book with the likes of Virgin it would be a 50 % saving but if you shop around you can get better deals. We have decent flights (with Thomas Cook but not booked through them) and hotel accomodation for 14 nights for 6 of us (2 rooms in hotel) for £2467. So it can be done either way - our first holiday to Florida in 1997 for 4 of us with Virgin cost more than what we are paying for 6 of us 11 years later!

Wooleycats · 18 June 2008 at 9:51AM

Hi All
I went to Florida 2 years ago and before I went I stumbled across a fab website. However you do have to pay for it - $21.95 - but as it was only around £10 I took a risk on it.
You can plan your whole Disney stay. The guy - Mike is an ex Disney employee doing VIP tours and he now does his own VIP tours and runs the website. It tells you which parks to go to on which days - and I dont just mean like the books that say Monday go here, Tue go here go this way round the park. I mean on Mon 25th go to this park as first choice then this one as second and do not what ever you do go to this park.
There is nothing more satisfying than being on the Disney bus from the hotel and seeing crowds of people getting on the other buses and nobody getting on yours.
He has restaurant reviews, where to stand for the fireworks (there were only a few people stood by us and we were right by Cinderella's Palace).
There are forums and through that I even found a website to pre-order a shopping delivery so I ordered bottled water, cereal bars and juice cartons for us to have on days when we wanted to have a quick start and could eat breakfast on the go.
The best £10 I ever spent on a holiday I reckon we more than doubled our experience.
I am not sure if I am allowed to post the link to the Website here but if you are good at cryptic clues he is a tour guide and his name is Mike and it is an American site.
If I am allowed to post the link please can you let me know.
Have fun you lucky lucky people.
Wooleycats

miamivice_2 · 18 June 2008 at 10:41AM

Planning your trip is very important as mentioned before. a friend of mine has just come back having been for a fortnight. after he told us what he had done, we could have done it all in about 4 days including all of the travel!!!

we bought Disney hopper tickets which if i recall correctly meant we had 7 visits over a 14 day period (which started from the first visist). A we only used 4 days we went to guest relations and then paid (approx £30 for both)to have them upgraded to non expiry. i.e. we have 3 days of visits paid for when we go again.

i know this is not an option if you use all of your days or have a different ticket, but please bear this in mind - it will save you on your next trip (assuming you go again)

silvercar · 18 June 2008 at 10:50AM

We used the "unoffical guide to disney" and followed their tips to the letter. On the last Disney parks day we were convinced that we were just in a good week and there were no queues (as we'd never had to queue for more than 15 mins). We abandoned the plan and met disaster 90 minute queues and a lot of time wasted running between queues.

Here are a few tips:

Plan your days and restaurant stops before you go. One call from the UK to USA 2 weeks before you go to book all your restaurants in the Disney parks and hotels.

With young kids book a character breakfast in a Disney hotel for a day you are not going to the parks. Makes a quieter resting day and the kids will love meeting the characters face to face with no hurry. They'll also enjoy wandering round a disney hotel.

If you are unsure how many days in the park to book, go for more not less, the extra cost is small and you can always sell your unused days to the time share booths.

We used travelcitydirect for flights car and an apartment. found them to be great value and flew direct into Sanford airport - much quieter and quicker to clear than orlando.

Rosani · 18 June 2008 at 12:27PM

Every time I travel to Orlando I call up my local friends who work for Universal and Disney - free tickets every time!

Rosani · 18 June 2008 at 12:32PM

silvercar wrote: »

One call from the UK to USA 2 weeks before you go to book all your restaurants in the Disney parks and hotels.

During some busy periods and with some busy restaurants, you will need to call with more than 2 weeks notice to get booked. Disney takes advanced dining reservations 180 days before (I think) so the sooner the better.

The best free things to do while in the Central Florida area are a visit to Winter Park, shopping in Downtown Disney, visiting the hotels during the day (you can even have lunch there, not free of course but adds to the experience) and even riding the monorails... don't tell anyone (shh) but it is actually very easy to do this without any tickets, just avoid the rush periods and enjoy the ride!

GentleGiant_2 · 18 June 2008 at 12:44PM

We are there for 3 weeks and are looking at the 21 day unlimited pass sold to UK residents. I think for a family of 4 it is around $1700 or so - not sure if this is the best value or not.

Problem is we do not really know how much time we will spend in Disney and the waterparks etc. So thought that covering all the days will allow us to be flexible when we arrive.

The Great 'Disney Cost Cutting' Hunt

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