Disfans

So what is a Disneyland bound traveler to do when their budget is small.. and travel packages are waaaay too expensive? That’s the question I asked myself after I finished breathing into a paper bag. I freaked out a little, pondered… fiddled and tweaked the packages online, and moped and fretted. After I was done, I shook myself, got a grip and went back to work.

I consulted my trusty copy of “The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2006″ ..

I took some of their advice, and checked with AAA, Costco, and Expedia. I changed my flight, and I changed my hotel, and I saved a lot of money.
Normally, when traveling with the entire family, we will choose, for the sake of convenience, a non-stop flight. With 3 kids and a wheelchair, and various paraphenalia required for our Special Needs child, its so much easier to travel if we don’t have to deplane, and find another plane, etc. You can imagine the hassle we avoid by paying the higher price for a non-stop flight.

This time, it will just be me and 2 able bodied children, ages 12 and 8. They aren’t toddlers anymore, and can manage quite well with minimal assistance from me, so a stop in Denver won’t kill us. These kids have traveled quite a bit, so they know they will have to tote their own backpacks, and they’ve experienced the joys of Airport security and air travel before.

So instead of flying on the pricier American Airlines, non-stop round trip, we’ll be going on Frontier Airlines, and making a stop in Denver. The plane also leaves bright and early, Thursday morning, at 6:50am. My husband is not so happy to drive us to the airport at 4AM, but he did volunteer.

In addition, I skipped the pricier hotels, and went for a 2 star hotel, that I haven’t stayed at before, The Comfort Inn, Maingate, in Anaheim. They offered a Kids Suite, with 2 bathrooms, and include Continental Breakfast. My kids love to partake of a hotel breakfast, so we’ll check it out.

With an economy car from Hertz, the total package cost $1409.63. Thats right… I’m under my budget, by $90.37. Yes, its a 2 star hotel, we’re making a pitstop in Denver, and I haven’t bought my Disney tickets yet… but I’m happy.

I really, really, really wanted to stay at Paradise Pier. I love staying at Disney hotels. HOWEVER. The only room available, was a standard room, for which I would be paying a premium price. If this was a trip just for me, I’d be fine and happy. Picture me in a room with two arguing kids, hot and sweaty from Disneyland, and nowhere to go. All there is in the room, is a bathroom and 2 beds. That’s no fun. I’m not one of those people who goes to bed early on vacation. I like to sit up and watch tv or read and relax, and with 2 kids with me, I often have one of them go to sleep first, and send the other in after that first child is sleeping. In a one room, two bed situation.. its lights out for everyone at the same time. None of us would have been happy with that, and I sure don’t want to pay extra money for it.

Right now, I’m happy with the room I chose. Its a Kid Suite, with a bunk bed, and two bathrooms, microwave and refrigerator. I have not stayed at this hotel before, but I don’t mind trying a new place, so I can tell y’all about it. I’ll write about some of my other favorite places in another post.

So here are my money saving tips for this post.

1. If you don’t mind changing planes, do it. Non-stop flights are more expensive, you pay for the luxury of flying straight through to your destination. Also, early morning flights are less often chosen by travelers, and airlines will give a better price for them.

You should keep in mind, however, who you are traveling with. Young children and toddlers, and special needs children and adults will not do as well on a 1 or 2 stop flight. Don’t torture yourself and your fellow passengers, opt for a nonstop flight, you will be glad you did. I’ll also try to schedule flights for young children, when they are more likely to nap. If you have a way to upgrade to First Class, by all means go for it. The extra space is so worth it when you are traveling with children.

2. There are sooo many hotels to choose from. Shop around and find one with a price and comfort level you are happy with. Don’t settle for a Standard Double room at Disney, when you can find a much nicer room for less money, less than a block from the park. One of the main differences between Disneyland and Disney World, is that there are many more hotels that are “offsite” to choose from, and competition is a good thing. There are many different price ranges, and different rooms and accommodations to suit any need. It just takes a little legwork to find the best deal.

3. When you have tons of time to plan, check with Costco and see what travel plans they offer.

4. Automobile Club (AAA) can get you discounted hotel room rates, and upgrades and discounts on rental cars.

Now, I have to pack.. our flight leaves in the morning.

I want to add as a footnote to my last post, that I’m not leaving out one of my 3 kids on this trip. She’ll be perfectly happy to spend that vacation time at home with her Daddy. My little girl has cerebral palsy and is also developmentally delayed. While she would love going to “Its a Small World” with us, the summer heat would be too much for her, so my husband and I made the executive decision to have her stay home with him. They are both perfectly fine with this.

When we made the decision that I could make the trip, I got right into planning. I had a budget for air, hotel and car rental in mind as I got started, realizing I was booking sort of late in the season, and also sort of close to the 2 weeks notice the airlines like. I was somewhat limited in that I needed to plan around the start of the upcoming school year. I have a 12 year old starting 7th grade, a 10 year old starting 5th grade, and an 8 year old starting 3rd grade, and here in Texas… we start school in August. My eldest goes to private school, and starts on August 22. She is home schooled on Tues/Thurs, and goes to school on Mon/Wed/Fri. Orientation for me, is on Aug 15, and since we home school part of the time, orientation is important for me to attend, and I can’t send my husband instead. The 2 younger ones start August 27, at public school. Their orientations aren’t until the 21st. So that gives me a window of Aug 16-20. Whew. I need a nap after all that.

So, now that I have my dates figured out… I start planning. I’ve heard that Disney has some good deals if you order through their website, so I start there. I’ve stayed at the Grand Californian once, and I loved it. I remember it being extremely pricey though, so I’m doubtful that I’ll be staying there on my meager budget this time. I’m game to stay at either the Disneyland Hotel or Paradise Pier, since I’ve never stayed at either one, and there are advantages to staying on Disney property. I thought it would be fun to compare the prices I got from the Disneyland website with the prices I got from Expedia or Travelocity.

I fired up the trusty laptop, on August 4, and here’s what I found out. Inexplicably, Expedia was down, so I got no information from them for this comparison. I wanted to try and stay at the Disneyland Resort, but I am on a limited budget so I was going to consider Disney Good Neighbor Properties as well. After digging around a bit, I thought for this comparison I would choose 2 hotels, one at the Resort, and one Good Neighbor.

Here’s how it broke down. For the first comparison I went with the Paradise Pier Hotel, round trip tickets on American Airlines, non-stop, and an economy rental car. I’ve done a little chart for easy comparison, but I noticed a few differences when booking the details. On Disneyland’s site, you can only choose a rental car from Alamo, the official car rental for the Disneyland Resort, and there is no option to choose not to purchase park tickets. I also noticed that through the Disneyland site, the only hotel at the resort with rooms available during my stay were at Paradise Pier. Travelocity showed some rooms at Disneyland Hotel, as well.

A Standard View, Standard Room at Paradise Pier is your basic 2 Double Bed, 1 bathroom, no frills room, with a view of… something other than California Adventure. Probably something akin to the backside of water. I don’t give the breakdown of how much each item cost.. because it wasn’t given on the Disneyland site. Travelocity did give their breakdown, and there is a lot more flexibility and choice on the Travelocity site. For instance, I could choose any car company I liked, and if I wanted to try and find less expensive park tickets, I didn’t have to buy them from Travelocity.

I took one look at the bottom line for Standard Rooms at Paradise Pier, and after a short, unscheduled nap, from which my husband revived me with smelling salts, I started over with Good Neighbor hotels in mind. Y’all, I looked high and low, and carefully considered many Good Neighbors. The Disneyland area is chock full of hotels in the immediate area and there are many, many good choices in many different price ranges. For the purposes of our little exercise here, I decided to pick a Good Neighbor Hotel that I found on both Disneyland’s website and on Travelocity and kept as many of the details the same as possible.

I had another unscheduled nap, and when I was finally revived, I started to freak out just a little. Let me see if I can draw a picture for you here.

Do you see that tiny, little number in the green box on the left? That’s my budget for air, hotel, and car. Now, I know that the packages I quote all include park tickets, and I have a separate budget for tickets and food, but y’all.. those numbers to the right of my budget are unspeakably high. 3 out of 4 of them are over my total budget for the trip, and we haven’t eaten anything for that price. I’m going to have to go for Plan B.