Our family had a truly magical experience at Magic Kingdom this week, and I can’t wait to tell you about the many things you can do at this park. There is truly enough to do on the Disney campus to keep you busy for several weeks, however our visit lasted three days. It’s hard to imagine that I’m in my mid-thirties and have never been to Disney! If this visit was as amazing for me as an adult, I can’t imagine how exciting this would be for a child!
Now that our family has visited ALL FOUR parks for Disney, I have some serious tips to help you have a GREAT Disney vacation + money saving tips for you and your family!! We will cover the basics on planning your trip and we will also cover all four parks.
You can’t imagine how much fun we had, and all four parks contain rides, entertainment, and plenty of dining opportunities! However, we’ll show you the insider secrets on how to save money, decide what’s worth the money, and how to get the most out of each park.
Ways to Save Money at Disney World
#1. Decide on a budget. You can’t even begin to think of a trip to Disney (or the Orlando area) unless you start with a budget. The biggest factors for most families will be if they have to fly or not. Even driving from Pennsylvania would have cost us $500 or more. I completely costed out the auto train (where you take your car on the train with you), and it was the same price as flying. Our flight only took an hour and 40 minutes. When we considered the two extra days of pay my husband would have love on driving time, we made it up in the flying costs (and helped our entire family stay less stressed).
You will still have to come up with a realistic budget before you can begin to make any decisions. Again, there will be many considerations you may have to weight to truly decide if you can afford the trip or not. If you live within even 10 hours of Disney, consider yourself blessed, because the transportation costs obviously go down the closer you live! Having a budget beforehand will at least help you make your Disney decisions!
#2. Decide WHERE you want to stay. Do you want to stay on Disney property or not? This will make a huge difference in how much you are going to spend, and that will affect how much fun you have on the rest of your trip. We saw rates as low as $40 a night on signs (however, I don’t think you’d want to stay at some of those motels). However, we were easily able to find a beautiful resort for around $100 a night!
We also discovered the Orlando world of timeshares. If you are willing to take a morning out of your vacation to listen to a time share, you will snag cheap rates, a free night or two on another stay, and we even snagged a $100 American Express gift card. Also, if I had more money to invest, there are features of time shares that make them a decent long-term investment, but that’s another blog post entirely.
Just remember, if you’re going to stay off property, there will be trade-offs. However, I just used the Disney website to find out how much a 7-day stay (including Magic Your Way tickets) on a value property (we’re talking the lowest of their resort options) and my quote with dining was close to $3,000. I can assure you that I have never spent this much on a vacation, and never will. This may be in budget for many families. For our family, we had flight costs on top of these costs, so this makes getting to Disney much more expensive then for a family who can drive there. First, you won’t have a monorail in your resort to take you directly to one of the parks. This is a tough decision to make if you’ve never been to any of the parks, and don’t know which park you’re going to love most. HOWEVER, I will say that getting to Magic Kingdom was the toughest out of all the parks, because you have to take the tram from the parking area, to the monorail (or ferry), and THEN to Main Street USA. So, your first decision will be to choose whether you want to stay on or off property.
(Photo of the condos at our resort)
Since we were staying in Kissimmee, we want to emphasize how easy it was to get into the park with minimal traffic even in peak season. It also took approximately 12 minutes to reach the park from the resort. Parking is $14.00 per day, and that allows you to park in any of Disney’s parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Blizzard Beach, and Typhoon Lagoon), which is nice if you have Park Hopper Passes (These allow you to go from park to park in one day). However, I will tell you that this option was only necessary for us one of our days, because it took us a whole day to get through Magic Kingdom and a whole day to get through Epcot. However, since we were only visiting three days, we decided to split Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios in one day (which we could have taken a whole day for each if we had stayed that long).
#3. Decide on how many days you are visiting the parks. As far as ticketing for the park, you pay less per ticket for each additional day you visit. So, since we had tickets for three days, we paid less than if we had bought tickets for just one day. Of course, hours vary throughout the year, but during our week, the park was open from 9a.m. until 11p.m. For first time visitors, we could have easily spent a day in each of the 6 parks (4 main parks + 2 water parks). We were also reviewing other amusement parks (Legoland, Sea World, and Nick Hotel- We will be posting about those as well!) in our trip, so we only had three total days to spend at Disney.
#4. Pack a bookbag or stroller. If you already have a little one in a stroller, this will be imperative to help carry the extra food and supplies. However, if you don’t have one in a stroller, we packed a bookbag that one of us carried throughout the entire park. This bag will be necessary to save as much money as possible. From my husband’s many Appalachian Trail hikes, we know how to pack as light as possible as well.
#5. Pack water flavoring packets. This is my #1 money saving tip even above packing your lunch. This is because you will spend $3 or more per water bottle, and in the summer, you are downing a bottle of water every hour. This would be $30 in water for one person in an entire day. The water in this area is very sulfur-based and has an unpleasant egg taste, for those of us used to a more chlorinated water.
Water alone would have cost our family $100+ a day had we been buying it during our stay. We learned our lesson the first day, and I had hubby take me to Walmart the second morning to purchase Gatorade and Walmart water flavoring packets. Plus, with the heat, we were sweating out nutrients so fast that having the Gatorade made us feel much better on the second and third day.
#5. Pack your own lunches. While we did buy our lunch at Magic Kingdom, we still packed PB&J’s every day, fruit snacks, and granola bars in addition to our water packets. If you eat any of your meals at the park, plan on at least $10 per meal per person, and this is at the outisde kiosks. Many of the fine dining meals were $30+ at the nicer restaurants in the parks. The guide you receive as you enter the park tells you the cost level of each restaurant by including either one, two, or three dollar symbols.
Magic Kingdom Specifics:
When you arrive at the park, there are trams that take you to the ticketing center. Once you pass through the gates, you will then go to the monorail, which takes you directly to the park. You can also ride a ferry to the park entrance (both take the same amount of time). Please note that your bags will be checked upon initial gate entry, and you are allowed to bring packed food. We packed enough food and snacks that we only had to pay for our dinners.
As an avid thrill seeker at amusement parks, this park definitely met our expectations. Upon enterting the park, you will be at Main Street USA, which then takes you down to Cinderella’s castle. This is the main artery of the entire park, and there are five main areas of entertainment that branch off from the Cinderella’s castle area. These are Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. Each area presents plenty of rides, attractions, shopping, and dining opportunities.
A typical day at Magic Kindgom begins with entry onto Main Street USA, where you can shop, learn, eat, and more. We always stopped to get our Guidemap and Show Schedule insert. For a family who had never been to Disney, these were essential. The best morning show for us was the Street Party Parade, which features character floats, music, dancing, and more. At one point the guests are also allowed to dance in the street alongside their favorite characters!
Once the parade ended we headed toward Cinderella’s castle and walked through. Any family with a little girl must visit the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique where your little princess can get a princess makeover (girls aged 3-12). We noticed that many of the princesses even wore their gowns to the park for the day! Boys have their own dress-up opportunity to become part of the Pirates League where they can transform into a pirate as well!
As you can see above there are many shows at Disney, and this was just one the shows located near the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and I have to admit, this actor really looked AND sounded like Johnny Depp! Of course, there were rides upon rides, and Splash Mountain and Space Mountain are probably two of the most death-defying! However, we weren’t brave enough to try those! Splash Mountain provides a 50 foot drop into the waters below, while Space Mountain is an indoor roller coaster! So, if you are a thrill seeker, these would be the rides for you!
One of the unique things about this park that I would be remiss not to mention is the Disney pin trading. When you arrive at Disney (you can purchase one beforehand as well), you can purchae a lanyard with four pins. Then you are able to trade these pins with up to two cast members per day. Read the trading rules HERE. This was a neat feature, and also provides a really neat keepsake for when you return home. It also gives you something to do each time you visit!
Disney also makes a big deal out of birthdays! If it is your child’s birthday, you can ask for a birthday pin at any of the guest service areas. They will then write your child’s name on the pin, and workers all over the park will wish your child a happy birthday! This is such a nice feature, and since our son’s birthday was within a week of visiting, we were still able to get a birthday pin. He thoroughly enjoyed this, and told me that he loved that his birthday celebration lasted many days!
We ate our lunch in Frontierland (near Splash Mountain) at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe where we had amazing pulled prok BBQ sandwiches and homemade style potato chips that were to die for!!! Yum!! All of the food we ate at any of the parks was very high quality and tasted very good! After lunch we needed a break from the walking, and just wanted to relax for awhile, so we took the Walt Disney World train around the entire park, and it was very neat to have that view of the park, plus get a chance for mom and dad to sit down!
Since we have a little boy, we spent a lot of time in Tomorrowland, which featured a Monster’s Inc. interactive comedy show, and of course an arcade! We also danced in the street to some of the best hip hop music, at the direction of our dance leader on stage. It was hard to take in all of the fun, entertaining things to do!
As nightfall descended, the air became electric as everyone waited in anticipation for the nightly Disney Electric Parade! This time of day was truly a magical time of day at Disney! There were two showings of the parade, one before and after the nightly fireworks. The viewing space fills up quickly, so I would try and get seats at least 90 minutes before the events start. The first parade starts at 9p.m., with the fireworks at 10p.m. and the second parade at 11p.m. They dim all the lights, and I don’t want to spoil too much of the evenings events, so I’ll just say you’ll walk away in awe covered in magical pixie dust!
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