Between reading this week's edition of "the Bleat" (James Lileks' blog) and watching two specials on the Disney parks on the Travel Channel last night, including one called Disney on a Dime), I was inspired to go to the Disney Vacations site and plot up a week's trip. I started with just a week's worth of stay at one of the value hotels and the 8-day pass with Park Hopper in the first full week of December (when you can see all the Christmas decorations but not run into the Christmas crowd—and my birthday week, coincidentally) and came up with $1,300-something. I suppose that's not bad after paying over $1000 for a week at that miserable Amerisuites in Chantilly, Virginia, a year and a half ago.

Then I started playing with it. I think I ended up doing the Caribbean Beach Resort because the rooms had ceiling fans and mini-fridges in the price (we could keep some milk and fruit in the fridge), the pass/Hopper, the meal deal with all the meals, airfare and the pickup service and got $2,800.00 (plus $160 because that's how much it would cost to board Skye and Wil for that time). I suppose these days it's not a lot. Are the Deluxe Meal plans worth it, I wonder? I know how expensive the food is at Disney and I would want to eat real meals, not burger crap and fattening junk. I think the meals worked out to $50 per person per day. Most of the time we use coupons to go out to eat, so this seems like a ton of money (the most we ever spend is when we indulge and go to Longhorn, which is about $30 for the two of us, and we usually come home with leftovers for at least one lunch). Anyone done the meal thing? The two times we drove down to Disney ('85 and '89, as I remember) we brought a cooler and sandwich/soup fixings for supper, got a cheap motel in Kissimmee with a breakfast buffet, and only ate lunch at the park.

Incidentally, I noticed you have to pay for high-speed internet at Disney, something most hotels now offer as a perk in their price. Gosh, and I thought Disney was a civilized place...LOL.

Of course one of the most fun things to do at Disney has cost us almost nothing at all: we bring a hamburger bun with us and sit down in the shade somewhere and feed the sparrows. :-)

They have a really good deal for late August/September, but (a) can't go anywhere July through September because of end-of-fiscal-year, and (b) August in Florida...we're talking Dante's Inferno here, one of the rings on the route to Hell. No thanks...

Labels: vacation

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:21:00 AM

Comments: Post a Comment