You’ve planned the perfect Walt Disney World vacation. Assuming you are staying on property, you’ve got your flights planned out as well as your Disney vacation package (complete with tickets, hotel and dining plan). Now you’re faced with another tough decision: should you get a rental car or not?
Every once in a while, you will find discounts or cash back for purchasing prepaid credit cards. These cards will have the Visa or Master Card logo on them. These prepaid cards generally come in denominations of $25, $50, $100, $200, and sometimes more. They also come with heavy fees that total 3% of the card’s value or more.
“Cheap” and “shopping” are two terms that are normally not used together when it comes to Disney. Most of the items at Disney are much more expensive than you would find elsewhere. However, if you plan ahead, you can spend less money shopping at Disney than you might have otherwise.
There are two Disney branded credit cards offered by Chase. The first is the Disney Premier Visa Card that has a $49 annual fee. It earns 2% at gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants and most Disney locations and 1% everywhere else. The other is the Disney Rewards Visa Card that earns 1% on all purchases, but has no annual fee.
Flying is a quick and easy way to get to see the mouse. Flying into Orlando airport is the most common approach. Most major hubs have daily flights into Orlando (MCO) and the prices tend to be competitive with so many choices. Since we live in the Washington DC area, we have a choice of three major airports to fly out of (Reagan National – DCA, Dulles – IAD, and Baltimore -BWI).
Feeding a family at Disney World can get expensive. You usually won’t have access to a kitchen if you stay on property, so you will be relying on restaurants for most of your meals. Disney restaurants can be pricey; the meals can cost from double to triple what a comparable meal would cost at home. How can you reduce your expenses in this area? Here are a few methods we’ve employed:
We’ve previously discussed using the Target 5% discount as a method to reduce the cost of your Disney vacations.
The basic approach of our vacation savings plan is built on the Target 5% discount. You can get 5% off Disney gift cards through the use of a few Target cards. The Target based products are the Target Redcard Debit Card, the Target Redcard credit card, and the Target Prepaid Redcard.
Welcome to Back to the Mouse! We are starting this blog because we want to share with others our obsession with traveling and vacation planning. It is not intended to provide all the answers or do all the research, just a view of what we do when planning for vacations. You can learn more about us on our about us page.