Disneyland on a budget

[PixieT78]

Hi everyone!

I am trying to see how cheap I could make a 4 night trip to Disneyland. Flights I will have covered by points and am looking at arriving on a Wednesday evening and leaving on a Sunday in September (not the long weekend). I've currently tentatively booked at the Tropicana as staying close (walking distance) is also important to me, though I'd be open to another option that utilizes Uber if there are significant price drops to do so.

But I need some tips on how to make the actual park days as cheap as possible. Are there discount DL tickets anywhere (I'm used to purchasing from Undercover Tourist for WDW)? How imperative is Genie+? Can it still be booked by day or does it now have to be bought for the whole span of the tickets? Can you get away without ILL (priority rides for me includes Guardians & the Avengers stuff)? What about food? I'm definitely up for breakfasts in the room but what are some good options for lunch/dinner?

I think likely we'd be open to leaving the parks during the day for food or sharing food would be another option. Usually when I've done WDW trips I have looked at it as more of a spend what you need to in order to enjoy kind of thing but this one would be more on the "how cheap can we go but still have fun" budget level. Obviously the exchange also plays a big part, which is why I posted here but feel free to move to the DL board mods

Thanks all!

 

[cari12]

We were there last May for 5 days and it was really busy! We stayed at the BWPPI which had breakfast included so we had that each day but past visits when staying at the DLH we bought groceries and had a quick yogurt/fruit/muffins for breakfast in the room.
We did not do Genie+ to save on cost but next trip would possibly get it 1 or 2 days. We rope dropped every day so had our must-do rides planned for that. In the afternoons and evenings the lines were very long without Genie+. We found right as a window opened for Genie + return times, a standby line that was reasonable suddenly barely moved for 20 minutes or more due to Genie+ people coming for their return time. We experienced this over and over again.
If rope dropping Rise of the Resistance, go through Frontierland as this feeds right into the line. The path past Hungry Bear you basically end up chasing the end of the line which is filling up from the Frontierland direction. It was practically a walk on doing this. We found this was the best way to do Rise.
A tip for offsite meals, there’s a Denny’s across the street from the park. Sign up on the dot com version of their website and you get coupons for like 20% off.

 

[TinkAgainU]

I usually rope drop (just because I love a cup of coffee in a quiet park in the morning!). Personally, while I might skip Genie+ if I hit my must-do rides in the am - I go ahead and buy the ILL for something like Rise, it just seems silly not to enjoy it without a line. Rise closes early (8pm, I think) so if it breaks down, you'll miss it. If you do G+ it might be fun to have one MagicBand+ to play with, otherwise, that's an easy place to save money - just not that big of a deal for most of us.

 

[Aladora]

Are there discount DL tickets anywhere (I'm used to purchasing from Undercover Tourist for WDW)? How imperative is Genie+? Can it still be booked by day or does it now have to be bought for the whole span of the tickets? Can you get away without ILL (priority rides for me includes Guardians & the Avengers stuff)?

So here is some info about DL tickets that I have compiled, I will not be posting links since I don't want to get into trouble!

Whenever we have a trip planned, I always compare prices for tickets at a bunch of places and then convert the costs into CAD so I can compare apples to apples.

The sites I check are the following:
GetAway Today - US funds
Undercover Tourist - US funds
Direct from Disneyland site - US funds
Ares Travel - US funds
UK site, American Attractions, link can be found here: UK Tickets - Prices can be displayed in either UK Pounds or Euros, I check both and convert.
Expedia used to sell DL tickets in CAD but the last few times I have looked, there was no availability.

G+ can be added day of and you do not need to buy for the whole length of stay. It is less expensive to get tickets with G+ added on if you are planning on getting it every day though.

ILL as of right now is available for the following attractions:
Rise of the Resistance
Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway
Radiator Springs Racers

As of this morning, here are the prices for each of those ILLs, DL uses variable pricing so they will likely be a different cost when you go.

RotR $25
M&MRR $15
RSR $15

Since none of the rides you mentioned as priority ones are on the ILL list, you can definitely get away with not paying for the ILLs or even G+, just be prepared to wait in the standby queues.

As of 8:50 this morning, GotG had a SB time of 35 mins and Webslingers was at 30, so both definitely doable!

 

[PixieT78]

Thank you so much for all the details! I really appreciate it!!

 

[amandacfmartin]

aRes travel has a discount code if you enter "save5" you will get $5 off each ticket. I have compared and they seem to be the cheapest for the 3 day park hopper tickets that I'm planning for my March trip.