Save on Vacations by Being Flexible

As I've said before, after the invasion of Normandy and sorting through the U.S. tax code, planning a trip to Disney has to be the most complicated thing in life. ;-)

Fortunately, we're making progress in our planned trip and eventually we'll either get there this year or die trying.

We're learning how to balance saving money and doing everything we want to do along the way. In particular, there are a couple money saving tips we've learned already that I wanted to pass along. These are also highlighted in Kiplinger's piece titled 10 Tips for an Affordable Family Vacation. They are:

Travel after peak season. This might not be an option if you have school-age children. But families with infants and toddlers can take advantage of discounted rates by traveling in the fall. If you want to head south of the border, off-season comes conveniently during the summer months. Caribbean and Mexican resorts and hotels are much cheaper from April or May through the fall, Plowright says. And some have kids-stay-free promotions for children under certain ages during this time.

Be flexible. You can save money by letting the available deals on flights and lodging determine where and when you'll go rather than picking a location and timeframe then trying to find affordable flights and lodging there.

These are kind of one in the same -- if you can be totally flexible, you can save a ton of money.

We're doing this by being flexible on when we travel (in September -- a low-traffic month for Disney) as well as what day we leave and return (we can leave any day and return any day -- as long as I get the vacation time cleared well in advance.) I realize that this isn't a viable option for many families with kids in school (which makes it a low traffic time for Disney), but since our kids are home schooled, we have total flexibility. We'll simply start the school year a week earlier than usual and give them a "fall break" on our trip. ;-)

Comments

[Kelly Goode]

Those tips are great!

[Lost Oportunities]

We went to Disney Orlando last year, arriving Wed before Thanksgiving and staying until the next Wednesday. The place was packed and the queues were unbelievably long. Same thing with Universal Studio. Yet, on Monday, the place cleared up completely. What used to be a standing queue, now became a foot race through the long but empty queue line.

[Lance]

We went the week prior to Easter (no flexibility) and found the without using a fastpass it was a long wait. So one person would go get all of our fast passes and the others would wait in line for the 'other' favorite ride.

I would say skip any 'character' dining as it was bad. At least the one at the garden in Epcot, and over priced.

Animal Kingdom was our least favorite park, poorly run etc. (and we expected it to be our favorite.) MGM was our favorite and we almost skipped it.

Make sure you see the stunt show at MGM, we didn't and wish we had after catching a glimps from behind on the backlot tour.

We packed snacks and water in a backpack and that came in very handy.

Our kids favorite activity (age 9 * 11) was collecting the disney pins from staff, and now they have neck lanyards with a ton of pins to help them remember their trip!

[Livingalmostlarge]

Are your kids not school age?

[plonkee]

I've heard (but don't know for sure) that Disney is busier on weekends in the off-season, but busier on weekdays in the peak season, since in the peak season, people travelling for a week have their changeover days on Saturday or Sunday. In the off-season, people who live relatively near Disney (inc. weekenders) make up a larger proportion of visitors.