WE’RE BACK…………………….

First of all, please forgive me as we had no internet access during our trip, so I will be blogging about our trip as we go along. I missed my friends, family and my cyber friends.

As most know, we just got back from a wonderful 10 day trip to Disney World. I had a show there, and we decided to make a vacation of it. We were able to take our bulldog, Leia, so that was good too. We left a week ago Thursday, and drove part of the way down to Gainesville. We left Friday morning and drove the rest of the way to Kissimmee. The only thing was that my laptop had issues and the AC adapter broke, so we not only were able to use it for the show, but we had no internet access for 10 days. That was interesting.

Disney’s logo is the most Magical place on earth, but did you know that you could save money in going? I know that putting Disney in the same sentence as saving money is an oxymoron, but it can be done! I am going to post my ways to SAVE money at the Mouse and not go broke going! We priced our trip before we booked it, and with tickets, our quotes ranged from the value of $4600-medium of $6800. That was WAAAY too much for us. Also when you count on it, for a family of 5, Lunch in the park would cost atleast$55-60 and Dinner over $100!! Parking is $10 at the parks! One tip though was taken from a friend of mine that goes quite often. Even though our boys are older, we rented a stroller. That way we were able to carry around our coolers and stuff without lugging them around! Next time, we will look for a stroller at the thrift store or garage sale before we go to save on that rental.

TOP TEN WAYS TO SAVE MONEY AT DISNEY WORLD

1. STAY DURING OFF PEAK SEASONS! We went the end of October/first part of November and it was perfect weather and crowds! Not only that it saves you BIG BIG $$$ on your accommodations.

2. COMPARE RATES! We compared on property and off property. Our favorite website is http://www.vrbo.com/ They are vacation rentals by owner. We stayed in a 3br/3ba townhouse, 2 miles from the gate. We also were able to bring our dog, which saved about $122 for boarding! We had our own laundry facilities, which saved $$ on laundry and we were able to bring ½ of what we needed, because we washed it. We also had a full kitchen, so we cooked big, full breakfasts every morning to head out on our paths. We paid $90 a night for our accommodations!! One man in the park was giggly and thrilled with his “sale price” of $169 on property, because most of the other rates were $275 a night!!

3. Find the Disney resort closest to you and see if you can park there. Since they are charging $10 a DAY to park in the Disney parks, you can try (we did it at Coronado) to park in their convention center and take the Disney bus to whichever parks you would like to go to. They constantly have buses in and out.

4. Take your own water bottles. Not only is the FL water NASTY but it is $3 a BOTTLE in the parks. So buy a case of water, drinks and soda BEFORE you leave and take it in with you. BTW yes they will search you and YES they will let you in!! Between our drinks and food, we had two coolers in the park and a backpack with cameras, etc and other odds and ends.

5. Take a sales tour for free tickets or find someone that you know with FL residence that will buy your tickets at a reduced rates.

6. Try to shop for your souviners off property or before you go. We bought our boys their autograph books (from the characters) for $3 at a local bookstore. We used the bound smaller sketch books. We also bought Disney character pins (writing)at the dollar store. We bought stickers to place in them too at the dollar store.

7. Find the nearest Walmart to your place!! This is where we bought our groceries and they had a WHOLE section dedicated to Disney souviners. There were SOOO Many it was ridiculous! The prices are comparable to here. Also, there was a Winn Dixie closer to the parks, but the prices were ridiculous, and so the search for Walmart began. Eventhough we have begun to cut back on the amount we are shopping at Walmart, this was necessary.

8. FOOOOOODD!! Yes they let you take your food inside the parks. Not only did we make our sandwiches, etc and take them with us along with snacks, but we took extras too. Not only will you be there, more than likely for lunch, but part of dinner too. So just take snacks that will tie you over until you get back to your house and can cook dinner, which is what we did. Since we were there for 10 days, we saved an incredible amount of money not eating out.

9. Take your own pictures. They make a KILLING off of pictures that they take. We took our digital and the picture people will take your picture, but there were a couple of times where ours wasn’t good enough, so guess what? I had them RE-TAKE it! Then with a digital you can pick and choose which picts are worthy of printing and you aren’t wasting pictures.

10. Have your kiddos save their money ahead of time with their allowances!! We did this and it worked beautifully. That way, when they run out of money that was it. We were amazed! We thought our oldest would be the horder, but it was the middle one that was. The oldest is a Pinocchio lover and he had saved his money until we found some stuff for him at MGM.

Well I hope that if you and your family plans a trip down there anytime soon, you will find these tips helpful. As Mickey Mouse says, "See you real soon!"