FYI ~ Just for Fun! Check out my Flying vs. Driving Budget!

[Hawk]

Is flying the way to go? Lets see, we usually fly in March/April as a family of 5 for about $1,200.00 and stay in 2 mods for 14 days for about $140.00 each per day with PAP discount. Thats about $5,120.00 for rooms and transportation. We have a $22,000.00 travel trailer that sits in the yard from October to May. Now we are a family of 6 and will drive 3 days back and forth for about $500.00 in gas and stay at a preferred site at FW at $70.00 a day for 17 days which is $1,190.00; room and transportation total of $1,690.00. Hmmm, I wonder if a savings of $3,430.00 is worth driving???????? Not counting the food savings, although wife says "think about it!" Must be fuzzy math!

 

[Hawk]

By the way - did I mention that the above FW trip was without discounts!

 

[cottontail]

Hi Hawk:

You get two rooms at a moderate. Hmmmmm now I'm thinking that I would like to get two rooms as well, but for me I would have to multiply the $140.00 times 2 times the canadian exchange rate of $1.62 equals around $453.00 a night, it gets a bit high with that darn exchange.
That would be nice to have two washrooms and the extra space, especially after a two day drive with us all together in the car.

Deb.

 

[cottontail]

Hi Hawk:

You get two rooms at a moderate. Hmmmmm now I'm thinking that I would like to get two rooms as well, but for me I would have to multiply the $140.00 times 2 times the canadian exchange rate of $1.62 equals around $453.00 a night, it gets a bit high with that darn exchange.
That would be nice to have two washrooms and the extra space, especially after a two day drive with us all together in the car.

Deb.

 

[Hawk]

Cottontail:

Have you ever tried sleeping two adults, a 17, 13 and 5 year old in two beds and a trundle and sharing one bathroom? I made that mistake once and that was enough. Two connecting rooms is the way to go. Now we have a 4 month old. Travel trailer sleeps 8 and the older kids will probably stake up the tent for more "privacy" and their own television set.

Tim.

 

[cottontail]

Hi Hawk:

Congrats on your little one.

No we have done the two adults and a son and daughter in two beds, I with my daughter and hubby with son. But I have to tell you, I am a bit worried about one washroom for the four of us.

If we didn't have to pay that darn exchange rate to go to the states I would probably grab two rooms as well. We will have two doubles and a roll away this time, but still all in one room.
This is our 25th anniv. vacation, so we should be having separate rooms, it would be nice to have some privacy for hubby and I.

Deb.

 

[mickey7861]

We usually always drive, I HATE to fly. We've been doing this trip atleast once each year since 1987. It takes us about 22-23 hours. Last summer, our most recent trip, we spent....$70 each way for hotel.....$80 each way for gas (last summer gas was high) for a total of $300. For the way down I pack snacks, drinks, and grinders for lunch. Supper is fast food. Breakfast is included in the room price. Then it's just a fast food lunch and we're at WDW for supper. I don't count days out of work since my DH has 6 weeks paid vacation each year and I'm off all summer too. We don't lose any $$ by taking that extra 2 days, we stay 2-3 weeks and we actually enjoy the drive.

My kids have always been great on the trip, they usually slept most of it ( my DD, 16, still does). My DS, 19, gets a kick out of being able to drive part of the way now so we have 3 drivers.

Flying, rental car (no sub compacts here we're 4 adults) costs us about 1500.00 for 2 weeks, for us driving is definitely cheaper.

 

[SandraC]

I love reading everyones preferences and stories. It definately adds to my planning and opens up new ideas! THANKS! I read a post about someone not wanted the trip to be over in 3 hrs by flying home. By flying and being home in 2.5 hrs (my case), leaves me more time in WDW and not 24 in a car (over two days, so that's really 48 Disney hours GONE!) YIKES! dh gets 6 weeks vacation and I have a great PT job where I can take time off any time and as much time as I need. We are looking into lots of other vacations this year other than WDW so we like to use our time wisely ~ that means WDW is a flying trip this year and we will so 3 other trips driving ~ each about 10 -12 hours. We'll call them our half way practice to a WDW driving trip one day.