Keeping the reason in mind?

Forget about being in the park open to close. Your children will not make it. Get to the park when it opens if you can to take advantage of shorter lines first thing in the morning. Then take a break and head back to the resort for naps and a swim. My son was four on our first trip and his favorite thing was swimming in the pool at the resort. After everyone is refreshed, head to another park for evening shows and any FPs you can pick up. Then try to be on your resort bus before the end of the night. Otherwise, you are going to have sleepy kids and no way to handle all of them. If you want to stay to the end, plan on starting the next day later, not park opening. And move at the pace of the kids. Their legs are shorter than yours and cannot move as fast as you can. Do what you can, but don't stay so long that the kids get out of sorts. That will make a horrible bus trip back to the resort.

A good way to see characters is to do a morning or afternoon character meal. You could do that for your lunch and head back to the resort right after eating. Then if the older child isn't tired, maybe you or your spouse could take the little ones back to the resort and the other stay with the older in the park for a while longer.

Oh, and you won't get your money's worth. You might get a good value for your money, but it's going to be the family time and not the number of rides.

IMO that is more valuable than anything!
 
My dh and I were commando park people and felt we only had a successful trip if we managed to ride everything. Our kids came along and taught us the true magic of WDW. Walking around and watching your kids enjoying the moment is more valuable than worrying about the next ride. Don't be to disappointed if you spend hours planning and thousands of dollars to have your kids look at you and ask "when are we going back to the room" which is just another way for them to say, we want to go to the pool. We treasure our afternoon breaks and pool time.(Disney resorts have some awesome pools) I would also look into activities outside of the actual parks. Our girls love fishing, renting boats and even a bike ride around FW. The magic of WDW goes beyond the rides. Have a great trip.
 
my first trip was as a kid. my parents saved up and surprised us and i know how badly they wanted it to be perfect. decades later, they still complain (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) that with all the money they paid for the trip, all we wanted to do was swim in the pool.

for me, hearing that story over and over just reminds me how disappointing it was for them instead of how great a vacation it was for me. it’s something i thought about lots as we planned our first family trip. we set our budget and figured out what costs were most important, but we also stayed flexible. when we had a meal booked that wasn’t going to work with his nap schedule, we cancelled it before the 24 hour window. when we waited in line for a ride and he fell asleep in my arms and missed the whole thing, we took funny pictures to share with him when he’s older. our vacation cost a lot of money, but it also let us spend time together and create memories that will last us a lifetime. that’s worth the high cost, to me
 
:scared1::scared1: Wow. Wish we had that kind of budget. We'll spend 2.5 weeks there and spend maybe 25% of that.

We’re from Australia so airfare play a huge part in that number and we usually stay 3-4 weeks so the kids aren’t taking such long haul flights too close together.
When it was just the two of us we could do it on $8000 or less but wish kids the costs add up.
 
With kids, it's not about how much you spend, or how many "special experiences" you work into your plan. Some of my kids' favorite trip moments have been the unscheduled, unplanned ones. My youngest is almost 13--his favorite memory of a WDW trip was from the trip he turned 4. We had stayed off-site, and I'd gotten him a birthday cake at Publix. We were leaving (on a plane) the next day, so I let him have leftover birthday cake for breakfast that morning. Why not--we were only going to throw it out! He STILL remembers that, and says, "Best birthday EVER!!!"

So, I wouldn't worry so much about getting the perfect ADRs or special experiences or fancy hotel or whatever. Those things are nice, to be sure, but you don't need them to make a memory.
 
my first trip was as a kid. my parents saved up and surprised us and i know how badly they wanted it to be perfect. decades later, they still complain (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) that with all the money they paid for the trip, all we wanted to do was swim in the pool.

for me, hearing that story over and over just reminds me how disappointing it was for them instead of how great a vacation it was for me. it’s something i thought about lots as we planned our first family trip. we set our budget and figured out what costs were most important, but we also stayed flexible. when we had a meal booked that wasn’t going to work with his nap schedule, we cancelled it before the 24 hour window. when we waited in line for a ride and he fell asleep in my arms and missed the whole thing, we took funny pictures to share with him when he’s older. our vacation cost a lot of money, but it also let us spend time together and create memories that will last us a lifetime. that’s worth the high cost, to me

We saved for a long time to take my kids to WDW. We took them on a ten day trip, beginning in Daytona Beach, hitting area attractions and ending in WDW for New Years. Oh my, what a trip! WHen we got home my youngest told anyone who would listen that his favorite part of the trip was the chocolate chip pancakes at IHOP> Yes, the pancakes. At a chain restaurant. That we also had at home. We laugh a lot about that still, but we did learn from it as well.

WHen my DGD was 4 my DH announced she was going to WDW to meet all her "friends" and so we planned. And planned. My DD asked me a few times if I realized we coudl not do all that I had listed. Of course!!!! One day my DH came home from work and asked what my backup plan was. What back up plan? "The one you have JIC Kady hates the parks, is afraid of the characters, and just wants to swim in the pool." Ahhhhh, that back up plan! One of his coworkers told him that his little girl would not do anything but swim, and he was mad to have spent all that money "for nothing" so he refused to take her back. Buddy told me this was way too much responsibilty to lay on the tiny shoulders of a 4YO so I better figure out what would happen if this child was afraid, because no one was going to get angry at the little Princess. I called the TA, changes our reservation at ALK to CL AKL, tossed out the "schedule" and made a loose plan of where to start and where we were eating every day. Noted the parade and fireworks times, and that was it.

Kady was a trooper and had more energy than any one of us, loved meeting all of her "friends" and dragged us from M&G to M&G for several trips. Best memories ever!!!! If we had to determine if our park tix were cost effective when there were days we barely made one or two attractions, I think we would faint, btu if I look at the total trip, complete with memories of a little girl in awe of her friend Pluto, mesmerized by WIshes, discussing mystery pins with CM's or seriously shopping for the best plusshie to stick in her Pa's hand for the duration of the day, those tickets were the best money spent.
 


We saved for a long time to take my kids to WDW. We took them on a ten day trip, beginning in Daytona Beach, hitting area attractions and ending in WDW for New Years. Oh my, what a trip! WHen we got home my youngest told anyone who would listen that his favorite part of the trip was the chocolate chip pancakes at IHOP> Yes, the pancakes. At a chain restaurant. That we also had at home. We laugh a lot about that still, but we did learn from it as well.

WHen my DGD was 4 my DH announced she was going to WDW to meet all her "friends" and so we planned. And planned. My DD asked me a few times if I realized we coudl not do all that I had listed. Of course!!!! One day my DH came home from work and asked what my backup plan was. What back up plan? "The one you have JIC Kady hates the parks, is afraid of the characters, and just wants to swim in the pool." Ahhhhh, that back up plan! One of his coworkers told him that his little girl would not do anything but swim, and he was mad to have spent all that money "for nothing" so he refused to take her back. Buddy told me this was way too much responsibilty to lay on the tiny shoulders of a 4YO so I better figure out what would happen if this child was afraid, because no one was going to get angry at the little Princess. I called the TA, changes our reservation at ALK to CL AKL, tossed out the "schedule" and made a loose plan of where to start and where we were eating every day. Noted the parade and fireworks times, and that was it.

Kady was a trooper and had more energy than any one of us, loved meeting all of her "friends" and dragged us from M&G to M&G for several trips. Best memories ever!!!! If we had to determine if our park tix were cost effective when there were days we barely made one or two attractions, I think we would faint, btu if I look at the total trip, complete with memories of a little girl in awe of her friend Pluto, mesmerized by WIshes, discussing mystery pins with CM's or seriously shopping for the best plusshie to stick in her Pa's hand for the duration of the day, those tickets were the best money spent.

exactly :) those kinds of memories are priceless. i get the pressure to “get your moneys worth” on an expensive vacation, but with small kids it’s not about rope drop or whatever, it’s about those magical moments.

your stories make me want to visit with my baby’s grandparents. a whole different kind of magic!
 
We saved for a long time to take my kids to WDW. We took them on a ten day trip, beginning in Daytona Beach, hitting area attractions and ending in WDW for New Years. Oh my, what a trip! WHen we got home my youngest told anyone who would listen that his favorite part of the trip was the chocolate chip pancakes at IHOP> Yes, the pancakes. At a chain restaurant. That we also had at home. We laugh a lot about that still, but we did learn from it as well.
Don't ya just love it? He can sit over next to Birthday Cake Boy...
 
exactly :) those kinds of memories are priceless. i get the pressure to “get your moneys worth” on an expensive vacation, but with small kids it’s not about rope drop or whatever, it’s about those magical moments.

your stories make me want to visit with my baby’s grandparents. a whole different kind of magic!

Oh my, the trips will be so different!

My DD and DSIL were (and still are)so generous with Kady. The trips could have been stressful, but we made sure they knew we wanted the three of them to go off on their own. The more we tried to send them away the less they wanted to do so, although they did agree to heading off and leaving Kady with us several times. My DH and I would take her swimming with the "kids" played cards or something.

As Kady got older once in a while I would take her someplace special for long weekends just the two of us. I would ask if she wanted a friend, or her parents, Nope. Just us.

WE still take her to shows, and offer the tix to her and her friends, and tell her we will still take them all out to dinner first. Nope. Just us.

She loves going down memory lane, laughing about the adventures we all had, some with Mom and Dad, others without.

If you can, encourage the trips with your little one's Grands. The bond we have been able to forge with our DGD (and the two down the street that we regard as ours as well) is priceless. The child is 17 and knows she is cherished beyond measure, not only by the two people who love her more than life, but by the two people who raised and adored her Mom, and who love both of her parents.

It is easy to fall into the money vs value trap, but we work to avoid it by finding ways to slow us down in the parks, as well as the resort.
 
The cost of taking the kids to Disney World makes me want to cry. Like a year of preschool plus a year of gymnastics for 1 week at DW makes me cringe. But when we jokingly mentioned a Disney trip to the kids and they got sooo excited, it made us decide to go ahead and start planning. I know when we get to Disney, I am going to want to get my moneys worth, at the parks open to close, rushing around to hit every ride and all meet and greets the kids want to do. At the same time, I want to make this a magical trip. I know when all is said and done it will be the little things that make it magic and that they remember. I'm going to be telling myself this over and over for the next year but does anyone have any tricks on how to do a Disney trip and not just see dollar bills flying away every minute?

Biggest tip I can offer: Have the money already saved! There is nothing worse than going on a vacation you can't afford. But if you have budgeted and gave up certain things throughout the year in order to save for your trip you won't feel so bad about really ENJOYING it. We told our kids, "no" to a lot of things in the year we were saving. Anytime they wanted a new toy, or to go out for dinner, or whatever it was.. the answer was always, "guys, we are on a budget because of Disney" and they understood that. They didn't live completely deprived whatsoever, we still made room for some fun throughout the year, but we were careful. And when we got to WDW we didn't have any guilt in spending the money because we had been so disciplined for a year, we felt like we really earned ourselves the right the truly enjoy it. And it was SOOOO worth it. SO SO SO worth it. It was a wonderful, absolutely magical trip that we all have nothing but amazing memories of. You are going to LOVE it!
 
Food and rooms are really the main things we feel we have control over.

1. We often fly on airline miles and the park ticket prices are what they are.

2. We have stayed on and off site and every trip has been absolutely fantastic. Now that my kids are older, we want a two or three bedroom suite, not a room. This is a significant price increase from an onsite standard room to a suite, as in 2-3 thousand dollars. We discovered Wyndham Bonnet Creek, which is near the CBR. It is not the same as staying onsite and you don't get the FP 60 days in advance, but we had 900 square feet versus less than 300 in a room at Pop for the same price. That was last August. That saved us a ton of money over paying cash or trying to rent points at a Deluxe.

3. We set up a budget for food and then add 50 percent, and that is usually accurate, lol. We do bring snacks into the park so we can keep touring but also eat at least one meal a day in the parks. There are plenty of other options if you stay offsite, though.
 
A couple of things you can do is start saving up gift cards. You can use them for meals, hotel costs, etc. There can be savings by using places like Sams club, Target, etc. Snacks in the room is a Huge money saver along with bringing your own water bottles. Purchase a refillable popcorn bucket for the kids to share for snacks in the parks. Have grandparents etc give the kids gift cards for birthdays/holidays. You will find kids are much pickier about their souvenirs when it is their own money. Sounds like you picked a value resort (I don't think you will be disappointed) we love them. One other thing is let each kid pick out 1 or 2 "must do attractions/meet and greets" you will find that there will be less complaining that child A got to do more of what they wanted vs Child B. It also gives them something to look forward to.
Hope you have a wonderful vacation!! Don't stress too much over it. Their excited faces will be well worth it!
 
As others have said, stop focusing on having to be there from open to close every day and run from ride to ride. That will make you miserable. Take time to "stop and smell the roses". Soak up the atmosphere, have fun, relax. Those are the memories that will last, along with the attractions.

As for saving money, I'm one of the extremes on being "cheap" at WDW and we still have a blast. We stay off-site only. Not only because it's cheap, but to us staying on site would be horrible. We rent a 3-4 bedroom, 2.5 bath condo/townhouse for around $80-$100/night all in. We pack all of our own food...it's nowhere near as difficult as people make it out to be. In one week, we may buy one QS meal in the parks...maybe. Normally, the only food we buy in the parks are snacks or desserts. I've read that people who buy all their food in the parks spend between $50-$100/person per day. We spend roughly $7-$8/person per day. Be smart on the souvenirs you buy.

Believe me, we know the pain of budgeting for a trip. We've got 3 kids playing year round sports, which cost a fortune. We do WDW on a budget and still have an absolutely wonderful time every time.
I'd love to know your strategies for saving on food- what you pack in that stays well, where do you eat, etc. We are traveling in August and flying so I'm concerned about food spoilage...
 
We flew on airline miles....take out one or two credit cards that can get you a total of 100,000 miles and then put your normal spending things (groceries, gas, whatever) on those credit cards to meet the spending limits. Our roundtrip airfare cost less than 100 bucks for 4 of us, with points left over to book a hotel room the night before the flight.

Having just done it, definitely skip the Character meals. Oh my god what a ripoff. The only table service dinner meal i was happy with was Ohana. Huge money but value in it. But go with your own snacks, have amazon prime deliver groceries to your room like breakfast things. Get a case of water that you take into the parks with you. Tickets and hotels are generally a set price but you can really save on the food and the transport.
 
We flew on airline miles....take out one or two credit cards that can get you a total of 100,000 miles and then put your normal spending things (groceries, gas, whatever) on those credit cards to meet the spending limits. Our roundtrip airfare cost less than 100 bucks for 4 of us, with points left over to book a hotel room the night before the flight.

Having just done it, definitely skip the Character meals. Oh my god what a ripoff. The only table service dinner meal i was happy with was Ohana. Huge money but value in it. But go with your own snacks, have amazon prime deliver groceries to your room like breakfast things. Get a case of water that you take into the parks with you. Tickets and hotels are generally a set price but you can really save on the food and the transport.
To each his own. I think the character meals are great. It’s a way to meet many characters in one place without wasting time in multiple lines.
 
To each his own. I think the character meals are great. It’s a way to meet many characters in one place without wasting time in multiple lines.
Look, it was nice to see the smiles on the kids faces when the characters came around and I budgeted for it, but this person wanted advice on how to cut costs. And that is a big cost. It’s doubtful I will do it again. We got the one good experience with the kids and there are tons of good food options that are a really disappointing and super expensive buffet.
 
Look, it was nice to see the smiles on the kids faces when the characters came around and I budgeted for it, but this person wanted advice on how to cut costs. And that is a big cost. It’s doubtful I will do it again. We got the one good experience with the kids and there are tons of good food options that are a really disappointing and super expensive buffet.
Gotcha. And ftr, we always do breakfast b/c it’s cheaper & we think the food is better.

And, I didn’t think OP was necessarily looking to cut cost as much as wants to feel she’ll get her money’s worth. To us it’s worth the money to meet the characters if that’s something her kid are going to want to do anyway vs standing in multiple lines.
 
Sticker shock is a very real thing! But IMHO worth every penny for the Disney magic :)

Things you can do to cut costs -
- Pay using Disney gift cards bought at Target using the Red Card. you get the 5% discount and that adds up FAST! We use gift cards both for payments on our trip and food/souvenir money in the parks.
- Get a grocery order from Instacart or Amazon. Eat breakfast in your room (breakfast bars, fruit and cold cereal) and pack waters, sandwiches and snacks to bring into the parks. you can bring a smallish soft sided cooler in with you, we actually got a large lunch bag that was insulated on one side and a regular tote bag compartment on the other. If budgeting is high on your priority list, don't feel like you have to do sit-down meals every day - the counter service food isn't horribly priced for theme park food, one Counter Service meal a day for your family will end up costing about the same as a sit down meal at a chain restaurant. Pick one or two really special character meals (because having the characters come around to the tables is SO much fun for the kids!) but don't feel like you have to book character dining every day.
- RELAX. Let yourself be obsessive about planning before you get there, but once you arrive just let yourself enjoy it. Disney is the one place where I know we are going to have magic moments no matter what happens.
- you DO NOT need park hoppers. You can save a ton of money just doing one park per day. I felt it also made planning simpler because we weren't trying to plan bouncing around.

I'm not sure the age of your kids, but when we brought our boys (8 and 10 at the time) we were park-open-to-close commandos. They did great keeping up, BUT we planned one day in the middle of the vacation that was a no-parks, sleep in late, swim and hang around the resort day. It allowed us to recharge so that we had plenty of pep for the rest of our stay.

Good luck planning your trip!
 

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