When you visit any Orlando theme park, any of the big guys, it’s gonna cost you money. The tickets are the main expense for most people, if you have a family then boy oh boy we feel for you…😳 That being said we in the U.K. do tend to get a better a deal on tickets than other countries. At least here we normally get the offer of buying 14 day passes for the price of 7 – check out the blog we did on park tickets to read through our research on the best deals and the best ways to bag those tickets for the best combination and price for your holiday and your party.
The parks are actually very canny on ways of getting you to spend your hard earned Dollars – food, merchandise, snacks, photos, they are geared up to take your money. But they do it in such a nice way you don’t actually mind….. and you don’t actually notice a lot of the time ether!
When visiting any attractions, food is probably the main expense for people. As a rule the prices are alway’s 5-10% more than anywhere else. The portions are normally decent enough to share (we do on a regular basis, and if you want “snack” sized go for a kids meal). Or we buy one main and a side or two and divvy it up that way. Same with drinks, normally in a restaurant it’s buy one soft drink and it’s free refills – bargain. The parks all offer the same thing, you buy a custom mug/cup/glass and it’s free refills for the day. Handy if there is a few of you. And for a small fee they will re-do it the following days by adding a new RF chip to the mug. So plan ahead and do your research – appetisers are sometimes large enough to share, children’s meals are large enough for adults, buffet options where you help yourself to the amount you want, check out what side dishes are available with your entree, quite often two entrees with four sides which come with the dish will be enough to feed two adults and two young kids.
Also worth noting that if you are booking a holiday staying at a Disney World Resort Hotel you can purchase the Disney Dining plan as part of the package. It might be worth checking if you feel that would be advantageous to you and your family. Disney quite often does deals on the Dining Plan or at certain times of year offers it free, and some UK package deals also sometimes offer the Dining Plan for free so definitely worth checking! There are a couple of different plans, the Deluxe one of which offers breakfasts, table service dinners, lunches and snacks per day, at quick service restaurants and table service dinners (more than enough food for anyone) and also includes a drink with your meal (even one alcoholic beverage with your meal if you’re over 21). You can even get room service using the dining plan credits.
If you have children with you (or kids over 50…) the merchandise can be a very very big expense. From T-shirt’s to photographs to one-off popcorn buckets, the list is endless, you queue for a quick picture with Spider-Man and bosh! That’s $25 for a photo with the web slinger. (Obviously you can use your own camera too, but they put a special background on the purchased picture via the computer and it is really good, although not $25 good in our opinion….). The T-shirts, plush toys, princess dresses, bags, hats and let’s not forget the never ending array of ears definitely reels you in, so many cute and fantastic things that you just must have! The parks release so much fantastic merchandise – holiday special items, your favourite rides, characters etc etc. Hang on to your dollars!
The rides are the same, most coasters have cameras on now and some even have video recorders to show your face as you scream all the way round. So again, $25 for the pic and maybe the same for the video clip. If you are going to ride all the big ticket rides…it’s gonna be a very expensive few days.
One way of saving a few ££ is to make sure you have the Memory Maker as part of your Disney park ticket deal and buy a Magic Band when you are in a Disney park. The Magic Bands enable you to ‘tap’ into the ride at the end and if any pics or vids are taken you get them automatically saved to the ‘Memory Maker’. These will then pop up on your ‘My Disney Experience app’ and you can download them and save them to your smart devices. Then print them off at your leisure. If you get them printed in the parks you do actually get quite a nice frame normally park centric to where you are. But again, these can prove to be costly.
The Magic Band we’ve mentioned isn’t free, you can buy these at any Disney location for around $20 upwards. Lots and lots of designs. These enable you tap into rides when you are using your Fastpass, and photo passes. So with the Magic Band you no longer need to keep getting your park tickets in and out of your bag/wallets. Once you link them to your My Disney Experience app you are good to go! The hard part is actually choosing which Magic Band you want?!!!
The Memory Maker is an additional charge as well for most folks, but again in the UK we normally get this as part of the ticket package so definitely worth checking that it’s included in your ticket deal. It normally costs $169 if purchased before going but can be up to $199 if purchased at the parks. Worth haggling about with your ticket supplier. If you don’t ask you won’t get! And it will save you a fortune, especially if you have kiddies (or again big kids over 50!!) who have their photos taken with every character and on every ride.
When booking Fast Passes for the rides it’s free at WDW ($$ saved! Hooray), but at Universal it’s about $69.99 plus taxes per person. Per day. And you can only use it in one park. So if you plan to park hop from Universal Studios to Islands of Adventure you have to buy another FastPass package. Yikes. It’s called Express Pass at Universal, but if you are staying in a Universal Resort hotel its included free as part of your stay – so if you’re going at a busy time of year it might be worth looking at the Universal resorts as somewhere to stay. You’ll still get the WDW free Fast Passes as long as you have a valid park ticket so you could end up skipping all the lines free – plan plan plan people!
Car Parking can be an expensive business in Orlando. The parking fees are nearly at $30 per day in the theme parks. The only saving grace at Universal is it’s one car park for both parks and Volcano bay water park and you then get a free bus to the water park entrance. With parking at Disney Parks it’s a bit different, you’ll pay for the first car park but then if you move from park to park just show your receipt and you can park for free in the next one. Or, park in say the Magic Kingdom the use the monorail or the new Skyliner to travel between parks. Parking at Disney Springs is still free (valet parking carries a small charge). And obviously the shopping malls, supermarkets and outlets are all free to park.
Most hotels now in Orlando now charge a ‘resort fee’ for stocking your room or supplying various services at the hotel or resort. Unfortunately, there is no way of getting out of this. It averages at about $20 to $25 a day – if you’re booking a hotel in the Orlando area or a condo or apartment on a gated community that provides services you may well have a resort fee on top of the per night room rate. Make sure you read all of the small print and booking details. Direct booking sites with the actual hotel you are booking do mention it, but some secondary sites that specialise in booking lots of different hotels do not mention it, and when you get the resort to check in you may well be landed with a further $200-£300 dollar charge for resort fees. If in doubt check directly with the hotel you are booking. It’s the same with parking – a lot of hotels, particularly in very popular areas near to the action, are charging for parking now on a per diem basis but as far as we can see they are around $10-£20 per day. So if your hotel charges you parking fees, but supplies a free bus to the parks, use it! You’ll be saving cash each day. Not a lot, granted, but at least you’ll be saving.
As we said at the start, the drinks and food at parks is a extra expense but there is nothing stopping you from taking your own food in with you! Same with drinks. Water for example is nearly at $4 a bottle. If you have a family it’s a big expense during your break. So take a bottle with you from Walmart or Target, drink it and use the free refill station to top up – most of the Coke freestyle machines in the Disney Parks let you have free cold water , or at any quick service food location they will give you a cup of iced water if you ask. Or buy refillable bottles before you travel, fill them with cool water and ice and refrigerate in your accommodation and then take it with you into the park. If you’re heading to a park for the afternoon/evening you could get your lunch outside the park before you go, probably saving you quite a bit of cash, or head to a supermarket or fast food outlet, get yourself a couple of cheap sandwiches, head into the parks and grab a seat and eat your lunch, and then get cracking. Another way to save on food is to grab yourselves a brunch later on in the morning . Quite a lot of food generally gets served at breakfast buffets and restaurants, so why not schedule that for later in the morning – say 10.30 – and that will most probably keep you going through lunch until dinner in the evening. A little cookie treat, or ice cream or a giant cupcake to share might cheaply tide you over until dinner later, and eat outside the parks at a regular restaurant. Dollars saved!
You’re welcome!
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