Disney World -- The Money Game

Our trip was fabulous! There will be many, many posts about it soon. First though I thought I would record all the costs. That way we will know what we spent (for planning for the next one) and any one else can look to see when planning your own trip.

First -- the preparation -- $181.08 -- I dress my kids alike each day so we needed a few matching warm things--

• 4 matching kids long sleeve shirts -- $22.60
• 4 more matching kids long sleeve shirts -- $22.60
• 6 Red fleeces -- $67.84
• 3 Autograph books -- $47.85
• 3 sets of Disney princess stickers -- $3.24
• Ridemax -- $16.95 -- the best software program -- it lets you plan your day ahead of time to minimize waiting and walking -- I wouldn't do Disney without it. We were there the busiest days of the year and did it all with practically no waiting. (our longest wait was maybe 15 minutes and we did that only 2 or 3 times over 6 days)

Second -- getting there and back -- $259.23 -- We drove. That is all our gasoline, plus we had to buy wiper fluid. It was exactly 1000 miles door to door from Houston to Orlando. It took us about 18 hours of time in the car each way (that includes the lunch, dinner, and bathroom breaks.) Going there we split it into 2 days and spent the night just past Tallahassee. Coming home we did it in 1 day (not the plan, but the kids were all asleep and we just kept taking it one town at a time and before we knew it we were in Beaumont -- and we couldn't quit in Beaumont just an hour and a half from home)

Third -- lodging -- $78 -- We only had to pay for the one night on our drive there. My parents rented a home in Kissimmee for all of us. (Thank you, thank you Mom and Dad - it was wonderful!!!) It was 5 miles from Disney world, had 6 bedrooms, 4 full baths, a big kitchen, breakfast room and dining room, 2 family rooms, and a washer and dryer and the biggest and nicest surprise was that it had free wireless -- we did not know what our internet options were and I think it may be a house by house thing, but we walked in and saw the wireless router and gave three cheers! It was $187 a night and they rented it for the week. It slept 14 of us very nicely (although all of the beds were really squeeky) So if you were renting that house by your self it would cost you about $1400. If you could squeeze 2 other families with you and divide the cost by 3 -- it would cost you $466 dollars -- or just $66 each night. We rented through Orlandovacations.com.

Fourth -- tickets $1235.92 -- Can you believe that???? Outrageous isn't it. We got 2 adult and 3 kid (Adam is still free) 6 day Magic your way Park hopper passes. We had originally planned on only 5 days but when we realized that we could add an extra day for only 10 extra dollars total -- we decided it would be fun to go half a day Saturday - the day we arrived.

Fifth -- Food -- $513.84 -- This includes the fast food driving to and from. We bought groceries ($204 of the total) and ate breakfast at the house, packed a lunch (all days except Friday) and ate dinner in the park each night except for one day where we ate at Sizzler. We always just ate at the "fast food" style restaurants not the sit down ones. I priced several (the fantasmic, cinderella castle and brown derby and they were all nearly the same $55 for adults and 37 for children -- that would have been a 250 dinner for us each night so we nixed it!). I highly recommend taking a lunch. It was a pain. It wasn't the funnest things to eat, but we saw the lines and on Friday I waited in them and they were painful. When we took our lunch we were able to keep going without so much as a slow down, eating while we waited. When we bought our lunch it took an hour and a half. Dinner took about that long too, but by dinner we were ready for a break, at lunchtime we all wanted to keep going. Now the waits may be much less at other times of the year to eat, but mind you . . . We were there the busiest week of the year. FYI -- an adult combo meal is 7.99 and a kids meal is 4.49. The kids meals are hamburger, cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, and mac n cheese with 2 side (grapes, apples, applesauce, pudding, jello or fries so for us, each meal in the park was about $40) The adults also had choices like taco salads, chicken wraps, and asian dishes.

Sixth -- souvenirs -- $43.53 -- The girls got Disney charm bracelets last time at Disneyland and this year they each got to choose 2 more charms (charms are $3.95 each). Adam got a cute set of 8 cars from the movie Cars. (Ramone, Guido, Luigi, Doc Hudson, Sally, Sheriff, Lightning McQueen, and Mater) (12.95)

Seventh -- the speeding ticket -- $188 -- Now this is certainly an extra that you all may not want, but we apparently did. So we are facing the music and including it in the cost .

Eight -- and almost forgotten -- $66 -- parking. It is 11 bucks a day and you can come and go between all the parks without repaying.

THE GRAND TOTAL -- $2565.60 -- That was for 2 adults, 4 kids (1 who did not need a ticket but certainly needed everything else) and the 7 days of house rental as a gift from my parents -- had we paid our share (1/3 -- as there were 3 families in the house the total would have been $3000)