FREE Disney Parks Vacation Planning DVD (+ Tips to Save on Disney & More!)
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If you have yet to request your FREE Disney Parks Vacation Planning DVD, it is still available! Just click on the banner above and fill out the short form.
Your FREE Vacation Planning DVD will include:
* A complete tour of the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida
* A tour of the Disneyland Resort in California, including 2 enchanting Theme Parks and 3 Resort hotels
* Affordable ways to play and stay during your Disney vacation
* Pocket-sized planning guides, planning tips, and information on special events, and more!
Note that this offer is only available to U.S. and Canadian households. One per household.
And check out these comments left by Hip2Save readers on a recent post for ways to save at Disney…
Bring a water bottle and refill at drinking fountains! Take a break in the middle of the day. Sign up for the Earl of Sandwich club for freebies if you’ll go to downtown Disney. And pack snacks- there’s no reason to buy them there, they’re no tastier. I just got back and it was HOT- bring umbrellas for portable shade & rain!
We brought a small cooler (purse-like cooler) and filled it with ice & drinks. We also brought our own snacks and some Subway (they have $5 footlongs this month!) to save on eating costs. Because we decided to do this, we saved TONS of time (the lines were always long at the Disney food places to eat) and a lot of money. We used that money to go to Typhoon Lagoon instead. The Disney water parks AND Aquatica are A BLAST (and I’m picky!)!
Ride the popular rides when the park first opens the lines will be the quickest in the morning. Eat before you go the park. Food can be expensive in the park. Bring a poncho it rains a lot and it will be cheaper to buy one outside the park rather than having to buy one inside the park. Local Walmart sells Disney souvenirs for a lot cheaper than if you were to buy souvenirs at the park.
A tip for anyone ever going to Euro Disney (Paris): If you get a ISIC (International Studend ID Card, $25) you get 50% off Euro Disney tickets.. plus TONS of other discounts. So, if you have kids.. buy one of them a ISIC card and you get all the tickets for 50% off. I’m planning a 3 month trip around Europe and was excited about that. 
Also be sure to check out these informative guest posts (and all the comments!):
* Hip Tips to Maximize the Value of Disney FREE Dining
* 20 Hip Tips to Save at Disney
* Hip Tips to Save on a Disney Cruise
* Hip Tips to Save at Disney
Do you have any additional tips?! Please share them with us below!
This has been shared before… Was very useful to me. The Starbucks at Main Street and Epcot Florida accepts Starbucks gift cards.
Get a Target Red Card and save 5% on the purchase of Disney Gift Cards – which you can use on your tickets, room, food, souvenirs, anything! Also http://www.undercovertourist.com is the cheapest way to buy tickets. It may seem that staying on site is more expensive, but if you stay at a value resort, it’s really not much more expensive at all and it’s MUCH more convenient. So many perks like extended park hours, totally free (and very frequent and convenient) shuttle services from the airport and around the parks, fast pass benefits, special bracelets that allow you to charge *EVERYTHING* in the park to your room and so much more. Our room was only 108/night. If you’re going to Disney, do it right! Bring your own snacks and drinks. Get there before opening and rush to the BEST, longest wait rides then fast pass three others. Busiest times are 12-3 so that would be a good time to go back to your room and take a break. Disney really can be very affordable if you take the time to plan and research. We’re going next week. Can’t WAIT!
how do you save 5% on Disney gift cards? the target red card discount isn’t supposed to work on gift cards..I’ve been buying a Disney gift card every payday but didn’t know this
The Disney gift card is considered an “entertainment card” at Target so it does qualify for 5% Red Card discount. I’ve done this several times before!
When you buy the tickets thru http://www.undercovertourist.com. How much are you saving. I see maybe like a $10 difference is that how much it usually is? Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Just curious how much you save.
I’m a certified Disney Travel agent if anyone needs help planning their magical vacation ºOº
My email is jeanette@madhattertravel.com
My services are always 100% free and I have lots of tips to share with my clients since my family and I travel to WDW a few times per year 🙂
Jeanette, Any idea if Disney is going to offer the Free Dining promo this year? When is that usually announced? Thanks!
How do you get an International student id card?
The big thing to have at Disney when I was there during the hot summer was those spray bottle fans to mist yourself with. You can buy at Disney for $20 but we purchased some for a just few dollars at the local Walmart or even a plain spray bottle would work well. Also, freeze bottled water to carry in that will melt and be perfect later. It was so hot while we were there that I put some of those frozen bottles behind my daughters back in her stroller to cool her off. A stroller was a huge money saver because you can put tons of frozen bottles of drinks and snacks in a bag underneath and save your cash. Also, put a few ziploc baggies in there to put cameras, phone, etc. in when you get on wet rides or if you were like us the sweat alone could have killed a phone! A few more things to bring in the bag is Tylenol, sunscreen, a few bandaids,and lip balm( in a squirty tube like carmex, not chapstick will melt if summer). Members of our group got chaffed in between the legs because of riding wet rides then having to walk so much and had I not had that tube things would have been miserable. Some of the kids got blisters on their feet so I actually used all my emergency bandaids.Never doing Disney in the summer again and I sound really negative right now but we really did have fun, lol! With a tiny bit of preparation ahead you can save alot of money and not have to buy these overpriced things in the Disney Stores.
we are going june 23rd to june 30th and I’m hoping it’s not overly hot…I’m a fat red head, I hate being hot lol
Good luck!! We went over July 4th last year and OMG HOT!! My kids said NEVER again. I prefer over Thanksgiving.
We went around June 12 and I promise you I thought my husband was going to have a heat stroke and he isn’t even overweight. Orlando is a sauna in June. We did have fun but you may want to pack some extra frozen water bottles to stuff in your clothes, lol!
We’re going in August so I’m expecting it to be HOT HOT HOT!!
Tilla, get one of those battery powered spray fans before you go and you will be the envy of every hot bystander I swear. I was spraying kids and elderly people I didn’t even know the whole time I was there, lol.You can thank me when you get home!
Luckily, there are rain showers to cool it down pretty frequently but then it heats up and becomes the sauna again. Disney was very magical at night and we had most of our fun then.
Invest in Frogg Toggs Chilly Pads to beat the heat. You can order them off of amazon or buy them at most sporting goods stores.
Anyone been to Disneyland the first week of May? That’s when we are going, and hoping the crowds aren’t bad and the weather isn’t too hot. We have 3 little ones, and standing in lines too long with them, may not be fun. Thoughts??? Thanks 🙂
Disneyland in California first week of May could be cool weather. I’m not sure about crowds. I know California schools don’t get out until June. I was there in June a couple of years ago and it was chilly enough at night to need a sweater. Check out Touring Plans or Mousesavers. They have lots of great tips and info on crowds. Have fun!
We’re going April 28 to May 2. It is suppose to be nice and slightly lesser crowds. At least that is what I heard about that week and the next. I hope it is true! Weather should be good, too. I’m pretty excited. Good luck! If anyone has experience with going during that time, I’d be interested to know the crowd level, too.
We took our boys (6 and 3 at the time) to Disneyland last year from April 28 to May 3 and it was great! We had only previously been in the summer, so the crowds to us were not that bad at all. Of course you still we have long waits for major attractions, but for the most part the lines were doable for little ones. I suggest you see what rides have the longest lines on day one (for us it was dumbo and nemo) then hit them up first thing the next day. Also, Cars Land and most of DCA were far less crowded in the evening time. And the weather was beautiful! It was cloudy for a bit in the morning, then warmed up to the 80s. The day we left it got to 90 degrees! We were not prepared for that kind of heat (we are from Oregon). I hope you have a wonderful vacation!
You are the best! Thanks for the information. It is always nice to know what to possibly expect (especially with crowds). I’m surprised that it got that hot! And thank you for the tips!
Another thing I remember is the water parks close at 5:00, I think. We got up late one day and took awhile to get dressed and were planning on going there to cool off only to find out they close in a couple hours. My kids were so frustrated with the heat they really wanted an ALL water day. We went to a pretty big water park there in the area called Wet and Wild that stays open late if you need a cool down day. My kids really wanted to go to a Disney water park so we missed out but if you get in a crunch we had one of our most memorable days at Wet and Wild.
The park sells those 20-oz. Coke products everywhere. MANY people choose to leave them outside all along the lines to the rides if they finish drinking it while they are in line. People drop them on the ground and in flower planters and stuff. Well, i saw this as an opportunity to recycle and collect TONS of MCR points. Yep, i dropped the lids in my bag, and then put the bottles in one of the many recycle bins. At night back at the hotel, i entered the Coke reward points from the lids online.
We were on vacation with my brother-in-law, who used to work as custodial staff at Disneyland for a while in college & used to pick up that litter and recycling everyday, so he helped me. We felt like we were helping out the other current hard-working custodial staff, beautify-ing, recycling, AND snagging free MCR points. True, it doesn’t really “save” money, but it was like a contest for my kids to see who could spot the empty bottles and get lids for me and get the bottles to the proper bin. Gave them something to do once in a while during the wait times in line. 🙂
We did Disneyland in February. It was perfect weather! Not too hot, but too cold either. I packed an entire suitcase of just food from Costco. Everyday we divied up tons of snacks and water bottles and threw them in a backpack. By midday everyone was ready for a break anyway, so we just found a nice shady spot to sit down, rest and eat our snacks, or as we called it, lunch. We stayed a Guest hotel across the street that offered free continental breakfast every morning. We only ate one meal out every day. I didn’t stress too much about how much it cost since this was the only meal we were paying for. A couple nights we stayed in the park and ate, but we found we all enjoyed walking over to Downtown Disney better and finding a nicer place to eat. We did Rainforest Cafe, ESPN, and a really yummy Mexican place. We did splurge one day on lunch and ate at Pirates of the Caribbean. I wanted my kids to have that memory. It was expensive though! Any way you do it, have FUN and don’t stress too much about the costs. You’re creating priceless memories that are worth EVERY penny you spend! 🙂
What is the Earl of Sandwich club and how do I sign up?
We got our tickets from Orbitz. They have some options for extra days free. Go through Ebates for an extra 6.5% rebate. That’s how we did it, and saved a lot.
We just returned from our third family trip there. The best money saving tip I have for you is to go to Walt Disney World in October! On our first two trips we went in September and October. This time we were there for Spring Break. Although the weather was gorgeous, we paid almost twice as much for this trip as we did our previous trip, it was a shorter trip and we got less value for our money because the lines were so long that we missed many of the things we would have otherwise done. The weather in October is nice, the vacation packages are cheaper, and the park is not crowded at all. During this latest trip, I truly got a sense of why so many people who do Disney in the summer say that they hated it and wouldn’t do it again. We were almost thinking that ourselves and we didn’t even have the horrible summer hear to deal with! If Disney is a family goal for you, do yourself a favor and PULL YOUR KIDS OUT OF SCHOOL in October to go. You will enjoy your trip so much more then!
Here is an article from KSL Utah news about food in Disneyland, and some comments from other people as well.
https://www.ksl.com/?nid=1268&sid=28919460
also
https://www.ksl.com/?nid=1268&sid=29096109
I think it had some good thoughts on places to eat.