Disney World Trip Advice

We leave for Disney on Monday!
We're doing the trip for about $2500 for the 4 of us, including the dinig package and park hopper option. We're staying on property at Old Key West in a 2 bedroom villa.

I went through mousesavers.com, and Small World Vacations to book everything. They helped me take advantage of all of the discounts that were available...without me having to do the homework on my own.
I highly recommend them!
We did book airfare separately, since we were taking advantage of our miles on United...so I'm not sure how the price goes up once you factor that in for you....

we did disney on the cheap.. we bought a 5 day park pass. we did not add the park hopper.. we could find plenty to do in one park per day. we went to disney for 3 days.. took a break and had an easy day relaxing . and then 2 more days at disney. park passes for our family of 4 was about 1000

we rented a 5 bedroom house about 15 minutes away from disney. it was 950 for the week. we ate breakfast at our rental house -- we cooked several dinners at home.. one night we picked up pizza on our way home from the park. food was very cheap for this trip.

we packed snacks to take in the park. a drink a fruit and a half sandwich per person.. ate our snack at 11ish..then had a lunch bought at the park at 130ish.. we had fun and did not spend a lot.

With food and souviners, we spent $1200 for a week for a family of four (excluding breakfast as that was included in the price of the hotel that my parents paid for). A lot of this depends on where you are staying and transportation and how long you are going. I am not sure how far you are but I would assume it would be hard to fly there and stay for, say, a week, in a hotel with food and everything else for under $3500. We stayed at Shades of Green and I think once all was said and done (11 of us went) - it cost around $1200 per person.

The Disney site has some great information. sign up for emails and they will send you a lot of information. Check out mousesavers.com that is one of my favorite non-disney disney sites. they have some kind of deal thru 6/14 that was just posted. See exactly what the Magic your way package is offering- some times it is multiple days/multiple parks & water parks or the ability to save extra days for the future. The meal plan--I have actually never bought one, but I can see some benefits to it if you use all of it. We usually stay in the Disney Vacation club condos so we eat breakfast there. Have a wonderful trip! Airfare could be a big factor here and could wipe out a good portion of your budget. See what kind of Disney deals you can get on the airline websites.

Flights will definitely be a huge expense. I'm sure you could do a trip to Disney on $3500 but I doubt you could fly and get the Magic Your Way Package in June. Maybe if you're lucky and check out deals that others suggested.
We've done the package with basic dining. Everything with that package is convenience, and not really anything was spectacular. Food was fine, but I got sick of it fast. Hotel was fine. It was great to use the transportation from the airport and from the hotel to parks. Not having to worry about parking and all that stuff was really nice.
Every other time we rented a villa off site and car. The 3-bedroom villa was $89 a night and the car about $10 a day. Since we had a full kitchen we just went to the grocery store, made breakfast and dinner each day, and either packed sandwiches or bought lunch at the parks. Some people don't like to cook on vacation, but I'd rather eat that way. Cost was definitely WAY lower that way.

You could fly out of Dayton on Southwest - that may be your best flight option!

My personal opinion is that you will spend more money if you book 100% the way you are planning. They count on you wasting some of the perks you pay for.

Also, we always book about a year in advance for our hotel, flight, character dinners,etc.

I deal specifically with the airlines I deal with day to day which are American and Southwest. You can get good deals on their websites if you book enough in advance. For June... you are in a prime travel season but it should not be that bad, depending on your originating airport.

I worked directly with WDW for book my hotel and character dinners, etc. We always stayed at the Polynesian which is on the monorail line and one of my all time favorite hotels. I LOVE that place. It is pricey but worth it (at least to us). The Grand Floridian is another favorite and very nice.

We never did a meal plan. I don't like limitations when I am on vacation and being told where or what my eating options are. We are not huge diners anyway, plus we usually stayed in the Concierge tower of the Polynesian which has a small breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, happy hour, dinner and dessert provided daily with unlimited drinks, fruits and light snacks 24 hrs.

You should be able to have your vacation for $3500. We have spent as low as $2500 (free airline tickets) to over $7000 which was all Concierge, private safari, unlimited tickets, etc.

Good luck, I am sure you will have fun!

We did Disney for a week for about $2500, but that was driving, our youngest and my husband were free, and we stayed in a timeshare for $199 for the week.

Disney is SO expensive unless you can get deals. We use military tickets, so we get tickets for all 5 of us for under $800. Our hotel will be about $595 for the week, but that's really cheap.

That does not include getting there, food, parking, souveniers, etc...that all adds up REALLY quickly. So even with our discounts, I think $3500 is tight. Can you up it at all? Or can you drive? That is MUCH cheaper than flying...