My Disney World Trip VOP Project - Cost (Part 1 of 4)

WHAT: Our Walt Disney World Trip in Orlando, Florida
WHEN: November 11-17, 2018
WHERE we stayed: POP Century Resort
WHO: Castillo and Ordaz Families

WHY: It's Mickey's 90th birthday, my 50th birthday and Alexus' 10th birthday and our 20th wedding anniversary celebration all in one and we all deserve an amazing vacation.

I will share our Disney experience in the context of Project Management and Lean Six Sigma concepts. Based on my notes from University of Toronto, a project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a product or service. For this blog post, the product will be the outcome of the trip. Now in order for a project to be successful, it has to be within the three constraints; COST, TIME and SCOPE but I will replace the last constraint with energy or effort as it is more applicable to this project.


1. COST CONSTRAINT
When you hear Disney, you know it is expensive. The biggest constraint for us is cost and I guess to most of you. This is my way to help those who are hesitant to go because of the cost. The Walt Disney World experience is expensive but still possible for those with less budget if you plan and organize well.


Rooms

Timing is important. Plan ahead, use the crowd calendar to see when is the least crowded and book those dates because that is when the value resorts are least expensive. There are lots of infographic images on Disney calendar at Pinterest. I used one and the room rates are cheaper but the crowd volume is still the same. I think there are no less crowded dates at the parks. Disney Value resorts are Art of Animation, Pop Century, All-Star Movies, All-Star Sports, All-Star Music and The Campsites at Fort a Wilderness Resort. Last week of August, January, February and hurricane season are less crowded. Get the Magic Your Way Package (Park Tickets, Room and Dining plan). There are offers for free dining and room discounts on certain dates. After you decide on a date and booked the MYWP and an offer like free dining or room discounts becomes available, Disney will apply that to your package. You can call Disney and ask an authorized Disney Travel Agent to assist you on these. One of the perks of getting the MYWP is the bounce back offer where a unique discounted rate for booking a resort room is available to resort guests currently staying for future dates.

Offsite hotels - I only mentioned about staying onsite because of the many benefits in staying with Disney hotels. Free airport transfers, airline checkin at the hotel for some US airlines, faster access to the parks - this is a perk for time constraint which I will discuss later but most especially the Disney theming in the rooms and the total Disney experience. There is a certain vibe when you are onsite, the smell, the theming, the personalized approach and ultimate service from Disney staff.  The hotels near WDW are okay, some of them have Disney themed rooms and free shuttles to Disney Springs, this is where the terminal of  buses going to the parks are located. The prices are cheaper all right but you have to check the fees.  When I was looking for hotels offsite, I discovered that most of them charge resort fees per day. This adds up to your hotel cost, the total would be more than the price of a value resort room per night. Cost and time going to the parks are cons of staying offsite. These made me choose to stay onsite. At the end of the day, we are only going to sleep there anyway.

By the way, we opted to remove housekeeping for the duration of our stay. That meant $10 per day per room. The replenishment of supplies will still be done, just call and request for towels, soaps or coffee. Because we had 2 connecting rooms for a family of 5, we received $100 worth of gift cards that we can use to buy souvenirs or even pay for food. All we did was took out trash and let the kids continue doing their chores of tidying up and making up their beds.

If you still choose to stay offsite, the hotels near Disney Springs are my best bet and also those near the entrances. For the villas or houses for rent with pools by VRBO, those from Windsor Hills are highly recommended by those who stayed from my Canadian Disney Addicts group.


Park tickets
The more park tickets per day you buy, the cheaper the cost. There are four parks and 2 water parks at Walt Disney World. You can also buy a park hopper where you can do 2 parks per day.  Depending on your family's preferences, you can choose to do whatever suit your needs. We are first timers in WDW that's why we chose to do 1 park per day and a 2nd day at Magic Kingdom.  We also availed the Canadian Residents Ticket offer, so watch out for that kind of deals. But you cannot convert it to Magic your way package, you can only choose one offer. You can also buy cheaper tickets at mousesavers.com or AAA/CAA.

Dining
Food is important because you need energy to do all those walking, standing in line, and waiting. But everything in Disney is expensive including food.  Because my kids are picky eaters and we didn't have MYWP, we decided not to include the dining plan and just pay as we go. We only had 2 Advanced Dining Reservations (ADR) Hoop De Doo Revue (Dinner Show) and Minnie's Holiday Dine at Hollywood and Vine (Buffet with character experience and reserve seating at Fantasmic Show). ADRs are one of the perks of staying onsite. You and your family are given priority to reserve for Table Service Restaurants 180 days before your trip.  I would say the first ADR was amazing and we got the value for money. I felt like our date was perfect except for very late showing and arriving late to our hotel.  The other ADR was just okay because of the character experience and Fantasmic show reserve seating. But when we think of what we paid for and compared it to the food that our kids ate at the buffet, the cost was too much for only chicken nuggets and fried chicken and ice cream that the kids consumed. Halos mahulog lang naman sa silya si Lito nung nakita niya ang bill, ano daw yun? yung tipong me usok sa tenga after the 2nd and 3rd look hahaha, even I myself couldn't believe that the cost per person was $60, the old rate was only 48 for adult price and 36 per kid. After the price increase this October, the total cost change   We are just thinking the cost is in exchange for the long queues at meet and greet for Mickey and friends and also for the Fantasmic show. If I were you, I would just use a fast pass to do these. It was not worth it. Other than these two which took most of the pie share of our food budget,  all our other dining were from Quick service restaurants and I found them to be more sulit (value for money). I chose those that serve more filling food like rice and pasta. I also chose kids meals or Lito and I would share an adult entree because the servings are big enough for 2.  If you plan to include a dining plan either Quick Service only, or Table Service and Quick Service, the following are recommended based on our experience and my friends from the Canadian Disney Addicts group.

Quick Service Restaurants we tried and must try food list:
1. Landscape of Flavours - Art of Animation (Grilled Fish, Chicken Bowl,  Tandoori Chicken thighs)
2. Everything Pop - Pop Century (Chicken Parmagiana, Pot Roast)
3. Captain Cooks -Polynesian Resort (Thai Coconut Meat balls, Asian noodles)
4. Aloha Isle - Magic Kingdom (Dole whip soft ice cream)
5. Pecos Bill - Magic Kingdom (3way tacos, fajitas, smoothie)
6. Columbia Harbour - Magic Kingdom (Lobster Roll, Seafood Platter)
7. Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe - Magic Kingdom
8. Gaston's Tavern - Magic Kingdom (Cinnamon Rolls)
9. ABC Commissary - Disney Hollywood Studios
10. Backlot Express - Disney Hollywood Studios
11. Satuli Canteen - Animal Kingdom (Beef Bowl with Rice, burger bun pao)
12. Eight Spoon Cafe - Animal Kingdom (Mac n Cheese with pulled pork)
13. Flame Tree Barbeque - Animal Kingdom (pulled pork burger, turkey leg)
14. Be our guest - Magic kingdom
15. Katsura Grill - Japan Epcot (teriyaki, maki rolls, green tea colada)
16. Sunshine Seasons - EPCOT (rotisserie chicken, pork loin, Mongolian beef, pasta)

Below is the summary of our food expenses, I ordered grocery (milk, eggs, ham, cheese, bread, jimmy dean frozen breakfast and snacks) online and have it delivered to the hotel lobby. There are microwave ovens at the food court for these. This saves time and money for our breakfast. Do not forget to order water bottles as each bottle at the parks cost USD3.99. You can also bring water container, fill it up with water and ice from the food court of your hotel and get a refill at quick service restaurants. Another must do to save on snacks is to buy a refillable popcorn bucket and get a refill of only $2 each time during your entire stay.

Other Essentials

Buy your Mickey Ears, Rain Ponchos, Autograph books, Souvenirs and other accessories like glow lights from a dollar store before the trip or at Walmart near WDW.  Wendy got our Mickey ears from Claire's. They cost Double or Triple at Disney, they are all made in China anyway. There are lots of matching shirts at Walmart with generic print shirts (Dad, Mom, Brother, Sister) in different colors) or you can order online too.

The weather in Florida is unpredictable and rain might appear anytime so bring the poncho, you could use that at wet rides like Kali Rapids or Splash Mountain. The cost of Poncho at Disney is $10 for a kid size.

Getting there (air or land)
I waited for Boxing Day to get a good deal. Choose the non-popular airlines, we chose Air Transat because of the price, it's nonstop and they have a good kids club where my birthday celebrator received perks. He is the reason why we doing this trip because he is celebrating 10 years. I'm happy because Alexus is happy.

Other airlines that are worth checking out are Southwest, Frontier, Spirit in US (BUF for those from ON). Airlines flying out YYZ with good deals are Air Transat, West Jet, sometimes Air Canada offers good deals, Sunwing (they have good Disney packages that are worth checking out).

More savings are in store for those who will drive down South.  You just need to plan on your vacation days, consider hours of driving, driver reliever, hotel to stay in the middle of the trip.

I hope this helps. Thanks for reading. I will discuss the next constraints "TIME" and "ENERGY /EFFORT" in my next post.