First of all, most of you don’t know me. Some of you know me as “the one who doesn’t take requests.” Ironically enough, I’m here to make a request.
So, hi! I’m Laurel. Yes, Mrs. TouringPlans. Wife of Len, sporadic blogger, not-taker of requests, and the world’s most exhausted non-traditional grad student.
It’s time to start talking about the reality of what Disney vacations cost. Why? Because it helps people plan, combats all the bad info out there, and also it’s really, really fun to judge other peoples’ spending. I’m calling it the Disney Dollar Diary.
I’ve published an example of what one would look like at Three Nights at Disney World for $4054.49 – Hank Lonely. First, give me feedback here or in the comments of that sample article. Is this something you’d like to see on the TP blog? Are we asking the right questions up front? Am I ripping off Refinery 29’s Money Diaries? (Answer: yes. Yes I am.) Is that site a URL I’ve been sitting on and not using and therefore completely devoid of any formatting? Also yes.
My hope is that the content is something y’all will enjoy and contribute to with your own submissions. Everything would be anonymous, and we will pay for anything we publish. I have a really bad Google form linked at the sample for taking submissions, but if we run with this it will be slicker and on our own site [edit - fixed setting where this was only viewable by TP.com people]. We would get several articles lined up before testing the content on the regular TP blog.
If you have any questions, ask me here or in the comments section of the sample article on hanklonely.com. Thanks, guys.
My made up 3-night trip came in a hair under 2000 words, so I think 5000 words for 7 nights? It’s probably one of those things that would get worked out as we test content. Or if your name rhymes with Smerek Smurgin, 25,000 words
I think this is super helpful. Before I went I thought it would be super expensive. Turns out the only thing expensive about it is our international flights.
I would love to contribute to this. I tracked nearly every cent on our 2023 trip and will plan to do the same on our 2025 trip.
I won’t go into debt for vacation so I have to plan and prepare accordingly for each trip I take. I think it would help people tremendously to know what is possible - and to break the stigma around costs.
It does depend on how far you have to travel and how many people you’re taking. Last year we went to WDW as well as UOR and we would definitely classify it as a very expensive vacation. There were four of us myself and my hubby along with our two sons (20 and 17). We are from Canada so the exchange rate makes a big difference for us. We did not stay onsite and we did not use G+.
This is a great idea! Budgeting is a huge aspect of planning vacations and determining whether a family can go at all. I might be willing to contribute at some point if this catches on. I meticulously record our spending for our trips.
Yes! It makes me angry all of the false information out there. Not only because it makes me feel like people now look at me a certain way (“how the heck is she spending 40K multiple times a year on this?!”) but also because I feel that it is making people shut down the idea of a WDW vacation before they even start to consider it.
Hi @LaurelStewart , it is great to “see” you, you are missed!
I know many of us would love to help but how do we get around our own special Disney Crazies, Disney math (trip cost after purchasing DVC , APs, flights booked on reward points). Our DVC points for this trip x cost per point (on contract) plus estimated AP daily cost?
I think our low starting cost also can, at times, have some of us add extras in meals, tours, or “enchanting extras”.
I dunno if my help would be useful. We were first time trip in September, and were as much budget as we could, as we were travel from Spain. I think I can rescue all cost spent because we were 3 friends using Splitwise to control the payments. We were 5 days Disney and 4 days universal, both on site
Yes, all of this I would love to help. We do a variety of trip types(couple, nuclear family, extended family) in all the seasons, but as DVC and AP holders, our out of pocket is not comparable to “the average guest”
You guys are the best. I knew there would be some lead time to get the material together. It was highly unlikely that anyone was taking a trip tomorrow or just finished one and had all the receipts ready to go.
@PrincipalTinker raises good questions about Disney Math. Off the top of my head:
DVC: count the dues for sure and the contract payment if that’s financed
AP: say what your pass costs per year
Flights: say “I used points”
etc. this is a work in progress and will probably change
@DumboRunner ALL those are helpful. People take all kinds of trips to the World.
Don’t think your trip isn’t interesting or helpful because it’s not 2 adults/2 kids on a 5 night onsite vacation.
This is a work in progress because 1) we need to bank some content for it ahead of time and 2) I’d like to work on the formatting of the text and ask you all what you’d change and what you like from a reader perspective.
Right now you can help by sending me trips to work with. I can do “A Day at A Park” if that’s what you have to work with. I can do “this is the crap I’m buying before my trip.” I can do “here is a mostly complete record and I’ll do my best to fill in the blanks.” Don’t worry too much about the prose, IRL it’s going to be edited and anonymized by our team, probably me.
If anyone can help, email me laurel @ touringplans.com and I will get you going. Don’t write everything up yet, just give the bare minimum details of the who, when, and where. I’ll then send you a template for the rest.
To set expectations, I’m not kidding about being an exhausted grad student and I do have midterms this week. I hope this made sense. Len just showed up with my Nitro Cold Brew ($7.48 including tax and tip) from Starbucks, but I’m not caffeinated yet.
Thank you so much to the people who have reached out and volunteered to track their spending for us. I’m still open to getting more data, as complete or incomplete as it is.
My next steps will be trying some different formats. If anyone wants to flex their creative muscles and make up a fake trip like I did for the family of 3 weekend trip, feel free to. It will help me to see different data sets when looking at article formatting.
Once we get more info, I plan to put it in a database for easy querying and comparisons. That ties in nicely with my database elective next semester LOL.
More disclaimer. Not only do these great ideas come to me during mid-terms, but also as a hurricane is headed for Central FL. I’m not just worried about my own home (we are not in FL right now, but are supposed to be in a week and a half). I’m worried for everyone in the path and the ones who are still cleaning up from Helene. Apologies for my distraction the next few days and most importantly, stay safe, peeps.
I would love to help. We do a variety of trip types(couple, nuclear family, extended family) in all the seasons, but as DVC and AP holders, our out of pocket is not comparable to “the average guest”