My wife is pretty amazing. For many reasons. One of this is that she is just incredibly organized.
So, in 1995, we married and we honeymooned in Disney World. I used a travel agent to pay for a complete package, so the price included everything except food. We stayed at Dixie Landings (now know as Port Orleans Riverside) for 5 nights.
Anyhow, she asked me a couple days ago how much the trip cost, and I couldn’t remember for sure. Well…no matter…because as it turns out, she saved the receipt for the trip and boarding pass.
I mean, I would say I can’t either…but it is so much my wife!
I forgot to mention…that price DID include breakfast at the resort each day. So the food we paid for was what we got in the parks. I forgot they even did that…but you can see it mentioned near the bottom of the receipt.
I love to save some receipts just for historical value. Thank you to your wife.
One of our last extended family stays was in 2001 at the Yacht Club. We were there for 8 nights for some reason. Idk why it wasn’t 7.
We had been doing a Disney trip every 3 years or so, saving money and usually not getting a package. On this particular trip Disney was not offering a Dining Plan but many family members wanted one. So I estimated a cost, family paid their share and I paid Disney. That was $3000 for 3 table service meals per day for 6 adults and 2 tweens.
Our younger DD wanted to come with her DD but her DH declined to spend any money on Disney, feeling we should be camping in Nat’l Parks instead. So we saved money for her room, meals and park admissions as well as our own. As I recall, $3000 covered her costs for herself and her DD as well.
Probably both $3000s could have been $3500 or $3250 or thereabouts.
20 years later, after covid, etc, I wonder how many days of room, meals and admissions does $3500 pay for. It’s mostly rhetorical cuz I could do some figuring if I cared.
Another number I recall is rack rate room only at the Poly in early 1988 was $188/night.
Remember that wages were also lower. I looked at the average wages in 1995 and 2023 (the latest I could find). As a percentage of income, that $200 would have been $530 in 2023 for a moderate. In 2020 right before the closure we spent about $700/night at a deluxe & tickets (minus food). We used points for the airfare, so no idea what that would have been.
That’s great. Is it right that the airfare was $516 total? Air travel hasn’t remotely gone up compared to other things (like the other parts of a Disney vacation)!
Yes. That would have been for two on Northwest Airlines (today, what is Delta). So, slightly higher today, but definitely not nearly as significant increase. I think for our upcoming flights to Disney in December, flying Delta, it would have been around $750 I think. (Don’t have the exact price with me at the moment.)
Also interesting…the Mears shuttle was $46, there and back. So that’s not all that different from paying for Mears Connect today, which would be $64.
I went back to look at the original document, and we were there 6 nights, 7 days. I was confused because the TA put that we departed on Aug. 11, which would be 5 nights. That felt wrong. But the plane tickets confirmed we flew back on the 12th, so I think the TA meant our last night was the 11th.
So, 6 nights and we then did use all 7 days of tickets.
If you compare that to today, it costs around 3 times more now for the same stay including tickets.
