Disney Parks, Food Cost, Hotel Cost

One of the tricks I’ve described before is to look at alternate travel arrangements.  When considering whether to upgrade our tickets this summer to annual passes, I looked for economical travel/lodging arrangements for other possible trips.  We had several school breaks to consider, including a Halloween-based trip (which includes some teacher work days in November) and an early February trip (using teacher work days as well).  Since these were “quick” trips to fit into a fixed calendar, we needed to be able to fly down to Florida in order to maximize our Disney time. read more

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Disney Gift Cards

There’s great news for those that acquire numerous Disney Gift Cards through discounted means. The disneygiftcards.com website has been updated with additional functionality. Previously, the site only allowed you to check the balance on your Disney Gift Cards, and the interface was a bit clunky and hard to use. Since the site was refreshed, you can store up to 5 gift cards on the site at once. More importantly, you can also combine multiple gift cards together, transferring the balance from one to another. The most you can transfer and store on one card is $1000. You can delete emptied gift cards from the site to make room for adding more. Also, if you fill one of your gift cards up to $1000, you can also remove it from the site. Removing the card from the site doesn’t change its stored balance. You can always add it back to the site later as well. If you lose a card, you can call in and have them freeze the remaining balance on the card. read more

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Disney Parks, Planning

One of the best kept secrets at Disney World and Disneyland is rope drop (with apologies to Disney Vacation Club for stealing your thunder).  Rope drop is the time when the park opens.  Arriving at the park for rope drop is one of the best ways to maximize your time at the Disney parks. read more

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Disney Cruise

I don’t know that you could ever call a Disney cruise “cheap.”  However, you can find some less expensive Disney cruises.  Here are some of our techniques for taking less expensive cruises: read more

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Travel Cost

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? read more

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Credit Cards, Grocery Store

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. read more

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Credit Cards, Shopping

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. read more

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Flight Cost, Travel Cost

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). read more

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