Planning a Trip in 2019? Let's Share Our Budgets!

[mjantz]

Budget is still in flux on next summers anniversary trip to France but I just need to vent about the planning a bit. First off, I LOVE trip planning. Its one of my favorite stress relievers. That said, I'm on probably Version 8 or 9 of a schedule and I am DONE. There's a linchpin that everything has to revolve around & we thought it was nailed down then it moved so everything else had to move. Then we talked about different flights on different days due to price. At this point I almost want to scream & just say 'LETS JUST FLY IN AND WING IT!!!!'

 

[ZoeBell]

4 Adults
1 child under 3

2 Rooms at Pop, room only for 6 Nights $1067x2=$2134 May 15th- May 21th
4 Base Tickets for 5 days from UT- ~$1600
Airfare paid with points on SW. But I got a little nervous thinking everyone and their little brother under 5 would be on the same plane so I booked Early Boarding for all 5 of us R/T. So ~$300

I’m trying to budget for food? Where do you even begin? If I booked a package adding dining would have increased the cost by $2000. That seemed way high. But is it?
Should I be considering booking a package? We plan on doing at least one character meal(hopefully breakfast) and we will probably pick a TS restaurant on each day.

My daughter randomly received a “Unique Offer Code “ in the mail. Saving of $160 each room.

A new plasma blood bank is opening up around the corner from me. I’m going to look into donating to add to the fund.

 

[cruiser21]

Planning to go in February to Disney world and Disney Cruise at end of September with 3 nights at Disney world before the cruise. Fiancé and I, mid 30’s, no kids.

Trip:1
February trip Sunday to Saturday (6 nights

Airfare: purchased with points ($22 in fees)

Hotel: $2200 looking at POR

Park tickets: $600 AP holders, they expire the week after the trip. This is our 3rd 5+ day trip on them in the past year. So I’ll say 600 as that’s near a third of two AP

Food: $800-1000, doing highway in the sky dining tour, O’hana (dinner), 1900 park fare, and probably a couple others (thinking of skipping California grill this time).

Extras: $300-400

Total $3900 - 4200

Trip:2
September 2019, 3 nights at WDW and 4 nights on the Dream.

Airfare: $700 (have a companion pass from credit card)

Hotel 800-900 looking at dvc rental

Tickets: not sure if I should renew the AP in March or wait until this trip in September. I’ll have to wait to see what the discount is and if we will go for a weekend during the summer. So I’ll say 400 as it’s 1/4 of the cost of two AP.

Cruise/transfer/insurance: $2700

Food: $300-500

Other: $500 (its her BDay so it’ll cost me!)

Total: $5400-5700

I’m probably going to break down and buy DVC next year after looking at the numbers. Could break even in 5 years.

I would research the DVC thing. It's 18k for just 100 points. I think you would need at least 150 if you go every year. You still have a thousand or so in maintenance fees every year. The exchange rate is not good for cruises. If you decide to do it they offer a lot of incentives and discounts if you buy while on the ship.

 

[fbarker]

I just made reservtions for late March 2019. It will be me and DW we are driving so I have not caldulated the cost of the drive and the hotels on the way down and back home. Here are my WDW reservations:
Length of Stay: 7days/6 nights
Resort: Port Orleans-Riverside (king bed building 98) $1774.93
6 Day PH $1025.21
Total Cost: $2,800.14
Add On's
* Resort Parking: $17.00/day

I need help:
Dining Plan: We have normally done this but I am thinking we don't eat enough to justify this. It looks like the Plan would cost us $708.63 or $118.11/day. I think we can do this cheaper on our own.
Trip Insurance: This will be $155.00 but seems like its well worth it for the peace of mind

Thanks

 

[flav]

Planning a trip for August 2019. We have booked refundable hotels and cars and added the visits, estimated airplane tickets and food...

California is soooo expensive!
If we go with this, it will cost us 6k to 7k per week. And at that price we are staying in Best Western and Marriott Courtyard.

Last summer trip to Hawaii turned out to be 5.5k per week and we were in higher end hotels!

Florida is always much cheaper than both of these but we want a change.

We are seriously reconsidering our choice of destination.

 

[TwoMisfits]

So, in 2019, my mom and brother wanted to see Pigeon Forge and the Smokys b/c they heard about our trip (and hadn't been). So, we are planning a combo trip to Columbus Ohio for a game convention and then the Smoky's for a "do it all" trip. My mom picked up the timeshare cost in the Smoky's (I tried to do it 1st, but she beat me, so I've been picking up her attraction costs). For 12 days (6 nights in Columbus at a 2 bedroom Residence Inn and 5 nights at my mom's timeshare in Pigeon Forge), I'm planning on $6K all in for the 6 of us. This will be our big trip, and I'll plan a VERY cheap Xmas season weekend at a theme park with my timeshare (well, that or a beach trip...here's the plan...

Transport
Gas - 1100 miles total - $250
Parking - $20/day (this is less, but I want a buffer) - $240

Lodging
Hotel - Residence Inn Columbus - $1500 (booked)
Timeshare - Pigeon Forge - Free

Attractions
Columbus
- Game Convention Badges - $300 (also too high, since spouse's and daughter's may be free, but I like to be sure)
- Game Convention Tickets - $200 (any extra badge money will go here or to souvenirs from the Con)

Pigeon Forge
- Dollywood - $500 (planning 6 1 day tickets, but may get 2 day - this should still cover that)
- 3 attraction Ripley's tickets (bought 7 for $165)
- Anakeesta tickets (bought 6 for $66)
- 2 Evening shows - possibly 1 expensive and 1 cheap - $500 for 6 of us - we're gonna do "deal" ones
- Anakeesta Mountain Coaster - $60 (if kids want it)
- Smoky Mountains Horseback Ride or White Water Rafting or other attraction - $200

Food
- 12 days * $100/day = $1200 - we will have breakfast paid for all 12 days, and we will have groceries for lunches/snacks - groceries and dinner outs are in this number - I expect it lower, but I'm ready to splurge if my mom or brother want

Souvenirs
$0 (Kids can use own money and I'll take from buffer - we'll buy little, and I expect this is one place my mom might spoil my kids, so I won't need to double it)

Total
Transport $490 (round to $500)
Lodging $1500
Attractions $1991 (round to $2000)
Food $1200
Total Budget for 12 days for 6 = $5200 (so I have $800 more than my buffers to toss places if I see awesome stuff...or to save for my "use my timeshare weekend" later in the year)...

 

[IndianaMouse]

I'm not ready for a Disney vacation but after last year we decided it's time to start taking our grandkids. I just finished our budget this morning . We'll be arriving the day after Thanksgiving and staying for 14 nights in a vacation home. Our party is
Days 1-4 5 adults and 2 kids
Days 5-14 4 adults

House rental with pool heat - $2000
Park tickets $2530
Travel (hotel,all gas and tolls) $600
Trip Insurance $200
Groceries $400
Parking $220?
Park food $700
Photopass $169?
Incidentals ???

I'm planning right at $7,000 but we usually spend less than $500 on travel and I expect that we'll save $200-400 on food as none of us are big eaters or snackers and we usually take water into the parks with us. The extra Adult and 2 kids during the first few days of our trip are big eaters though, so I'm planning extra so they can splurge.

Disney rewards will cover all of our park food , parking, photopass, and a few souvenirs. I haven't felt up to messing with swagbucks this year but have done some large surveys for esearch and Reckner so I have $1,200 set back from those payments and I've earned another $300 just for shopping online.

Total out of pocket will be right around $4,400 ...I expect to bring at least $300 of that home with us.

 

[gorkt]

Staying next year at WDW for 9 nights in early November:

Two rooms Caribbean Beach standard plus four 9 day adult park hopper tickets, memory maker = $7175.94
Four flights to MCO: ~2000
Food/event budget: ~ $2500
Misc: Souvenirs, uber fees etc...: ~500

I hope to get enough points on my Disney premier card to pay for at least half the food budget.

We only go every three years, and my husband insists on staying in a separate room from the kids. We generally don't do the dining plan, partly because my son has food aversions (ASD) and eats a lot of kid food, and would have to pay adult prices. Also, we don't drink, so it is a loss for us.

 

[Marionnette]

Plans are in place for next September.

6 nights VGF Grand Villa - paid with DVC points
2 Platinum APs - still active from 2018
Airfare - going to budget $1K and hope for better. If all goes well, I will have a Southwest companion pass by then
Dining for 2 adults - $1500, hopefully paid for with gift cards earned from rewards programs
Airport transportation - $250, Magical Express in Orlando, shuttle service at home
Souvenirs and gifts - $500

Total OOP = ~$3250

 

[DisneyMandC]

Following along! DH and I are planning to take my mom, both of his parents, and his brother to WDW in September 2019 for a week. I will be using credit cards points with Chase to cover most, if not all, of the cost of this trip. I'll put in some legit dollar amounts though

Who: 6 Disney adults

Where: One of the moderate resorts. Preferably POR, but it will just depend on the availability of discounts. I am planning to book three rooms- one for me and DH, one for my mom, and one for in-laws. The only thing that could change here is if my mom brings her camper instead and stays at FW.

When: Late September 2019

Tickets: Probably 6 day parkhoppers. Maybe less days for MIL and FIL.

Food: Tentative dining plan. Will depend on availability of discounts and credit card points. I will actually come out cheaper if I book the dining plan on points instead of paying OOP for meals. Regardless, DH and I plan to pay for meals for everyone.

Transportation: Maybe rent a van and drive everyone down. If we do this, I will cover it with points- cash rate from Costco is about $700. If we fly (unlikely) then we may ask everyone to pay their own way for that. If we do fly, we will use DME and will not rent a car.

Souvenirs: Everyone is on their own for these! BIL will buy a lot but I doubt my mom, MIL, or FIL will buy much. DH and I enjoy pin collecting, so we will purchase those.

I would budget about $10,000 cash for this. Thanks to credit card points, I already have enough saved for one room with tickets, dining plan, etc. for 2 people! I expect to pay for the rest on points, or perhaps a very small cash outlay. I can't wait for this trip!! I've wanted to take my mom to Disney for a long time since she hasn't been in 13 years!

So I posted this way back on the first page of this thread and I just booked the trip for next year! Here's what I have booked:

Who: 6 Disney adults

Where: Pop Century. I booked three rooms for us. I would still like to upgrade to a moderate, but I wanted to have Pop booked so that we had good value option in case we don't have the budget to upgrade. We've stayed at Pop before and really enjoyed it, so I definitely won't complain if we stay there again!

When: September 21-28, 2019

Tickets: 5 day parkhoppers +1 water park day for everyone

Food: Booked the Disney dining plan for now. I will likely keep it as DH and I often share meals and we would like to save some of the table service credits to do California Grill one night. We normally eat breakfast in our room and pack some light snacks, so we try to use our snack credits for bigger snack items that can substitute as small meals too.

Transportation: Still up in the air. If I can get the miles to fly everyone for free, I'll do it. Or if everyone says they'd rather fly and are okay paying their own way, that's fine too. Otherwise, I'll have the points to rent a van and drive us down. DH and I are driving down for our trip in 3 weeks and it's a straight shot from our location, so it's not bad.

Souvenirs: Everyone on their own.

The total cost of our trip is $8,638.58. I went ahead and just paid the deposits on a credit card I'm working on a spending requirement for. I'm hoping that will be the only portion of the trip I pay for with "non-discounted" money! I currently have half of the remaining balance saved in credit card cashback and discounted Disney GCs. So I think the remaining $4000 should be very doable over the next 10 months with accruing more cashback and discounted GCs!

 

[flav]

Planning a trip for August 2019. We have booked refundable hotels and cars and added the visits, estimated airplane tickets and food...

California is soooo expensive!
If we go with this, it will cost us 6k to 7k per week. And at that price we are staying in Best Western and Marriott Courtyard.

Last summer trip to Hawaii turned out to be 5.5k per week and we were in higher end hotels!

Florida is always much cheaper than both of these but we want a change.

We are seriously reconsidering our choice of destination.

So, more details on the plan for

California August 2019 for 2 adults and 2 kids who will be 11 and 13 at time of travel:

Airplaine+luggage fees on Google Flight: 2800$

4 nights hotel in San Francisco: 1475$
Bus pass: 160$
Alcatraz tour: 113$

Car for a week: 650$

3 nights hotel in Oakhurst: 700$
Yosemite entrance: 35$

1 night hotel in Monterey: 310$

1 night hotel in Cambria: 320$
Hearst Castle: 140$

2 nights hotel in Venice: 570$

4 nights hotel in Anaheim: 920$
Disneyland tickets: 1360$
Bus to airport: 70$

Add tips for maid, gaz, day parking in Hollywood, few visits and 100$ of souvenirs each.

That sums up roughly to:
Hotel: 4400$
Food: 3000$
Transport: 3800$
Activities: 1800$
Souvenir: 400$

Total: 13400$

So, unless we find cheaper flights and hotels in San Francisco and the Pacific Coast to shave at least 2000$ it might be a no go. We are already offsite both at Yosemite and DL... Ideas?

 

[Glynis4]

We are tentatively planning a trip to DL in November 2019. We were there in November 2017 and my budget was $6000 CAD (actually came in a tiny bit under budget) for 8 days with 2 adults & 2 kids. One kid was under 3 at the time, so free for the park/character meals. I was hoping to keep the budget around the same this time, but my numbers are coming nowhere close . I didn’t realize how great a deal I got through westjet vacations until I started pricing out hotels for this trip . We were hoping to do 1 less day at DL this time (so 4 days), and 2 days at Legoland (staying at the legoland hotel). So a westjet vacation package wouldn’t work, and even their vacation package prices are way higher ($1400+) than last year. So, I’m just crunching numbers right now trying to figure out if we can make it work.

 

[Wmuflyguy]

I would research the DVC thing. It's 18k for just 100 points. I think you would need at least 150 if you go every year. You still have a thousand or so in maintenance fees every year. The exchange rate is not good for cruises. If you decide to do it they offer a lot of incentives and discounts if you buy while on the ship.

We are definitely looking into it in the coming year.

 

[E2ME2]

We're going to DVC in Jan of 2018, 76 Days, and just came across this thread. I'll give it my best estimate -
We paid OOP for airfare this trip, but did have a small SWA-Credit from a cancellation, so total R/T for 2 ~$400 (BWI/MCO)
5N-1/6-1/10-DVC-SSR - $0 (assuming we don't try to cost out our DVC points stays)
9N-1/11-1/19-SPG-Sheraton LBV - $180 (used an SPG-Amex Promotion to get SPG points, enough for entire stay)
5N-1/20-1/24-DVC-SSR - $0
We always use DME & WDW Transportation while at WDW on DVC points-$0
Budget RAC - SUV for the 10Days at SPG =$360
Tickets - $0 (no tix this trip/just enjoying the Orlando Sunshine)
Food - (Based on last 2 trips average - we usually stay just under $60/Day ($30/D/PP)- ~$600 (19N/20D)
So my total estimate is around $1540 for 19N/20D - - or just under $80/Day ($40/D/PP)
The SPG Points really make this trip worthwhile - we jumped on the 30,000 Point Bonus AMEX cards (1 for each of us) just before the SPG/Marriott merger was completed.

 

[lookame]

So my parents are coming along so the budget went into a tailspin for awhile until we figured out what to do.
4364.16-stay play dine package at Pop
$250-Mideveil Times tickets
$500- uber/lyft
$169- Memory Maker
$947.84- Southwest Flights
$1000-Spending money
$100-lunch for my parents at Sci-Fi
$305-Dining Tips
$300- Bippity Boppity Boutique
$25-First Haircut at Harmony Barbershop

Total-$7961 (Boutique and Harmony Barbershop can fall under spending money)

Savings
$1260- Gift Cards
$1704- Cash
$31.55-Visa Rewards
$46.62-Change
$3030.18-Paid on package (1333.98 left)
$947.84-Flights Paid
$169-Memory Maker paid

Total Savings-$7189.19
Left to save-$777.81 (or if I don't add in BBB-$471.81)

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

We are going Spring Break March 15-23.
First, it’s me, my fiancé, 17y/o daughter, 11 y/o son with autism and 7 y/o son with sensory issues. (Comes into play when budgeting food)

For this trip we are staying at Caribbean Beach resort. My Autistic son doesn’t share beds, so the Murphy bed is a good option for us and CBR is discounted right now because if the remodel and significantly less than POR which I’ve stayed at before.
We are doing 7 day 1 park tickets and Memory maker $4548.24
Parking should be $133
We drive from Oklahoma so gas is about $300
We are doing a mix of QS, a few local restraints, and some snacks/light lunch items we bring. I’m estimating about $900.
$50 souvineer money for each of the kids $150
Total of $6031.24 without souvineers for us. However, my chorus uses scrip and I can buy Disney gift cards through scrip to payfir most things and it should net me 3% back towards my yearly chorus dues for SAI.

 

[Amy and kids]

Family of five, 2 adults and kids aged 18, 15, and 12. We are going to WDW from Jan 8-16.

Port Orleans Riverside 8 nights - $1796.72 paid $926.72

8 day park hopper tickets X 5 - $2396.2 paid all

Food and tips $2,000 - have $125 in Landry's gift cards

Uber/Lyft - $200

Souvenirs - $200

Memory Maker Share $30 - paid $30

Milwaukee hotel Park and Fly - $91.40 paid $9.68

Total: $7,263.32

Still owe: $3,226.72

 

[Scrappygrrl]

Spring Break trip. April 20-25, 2019
2 adults, 2 kids 10 and 14.
Port Orleans Riverside 5 night: $1133.73
5 day base tickets with 1 day waterpark bonus: $1514.44
Airfare: SW flying on points
Food & tips: Budgeting: $1000 (breakfast in room, mostly counter service meals/snacking and one or two character meals)
Souvenirs: $100 max (my kids know my motto: the trip *is* the souvenir lol!)

 

[firefly_ris]

Souvenirs: $100 max (my kids know my motto: the trip *is* the souvenir lol!)

That's me! I usually will buy them each 1 thing (3 kids)... if they want something else, they take piggy bank money. The trip IS the souvenir for sure. They see all the toys and want want want... the last trip we took, I made them wait until the last day to pick what they wanted so that they had time to think it over. Even with all that careful decision, they played with the stuff for about a week and then that was it. Good thing I spent $60 for that....

 

[gorkt]

I am the same way. We rarely buy souvenirs. If I buy anything, it is something I will use, like a mug or a tshirt or hoodie. Otherwise it just sits around.