How to Plan a Walt Disney World Adult Family Vacation

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It is time! After weeks of blog posts prepping for this post, I’m finally ready to explain how to plan a trip to Disney World for an adult family vacation. I wrote this guide with an adult family in mind (as mine is), but tips from this guide will also work for families with all ages, solo trips and even romantic couples trips.

I planned an entire family vacation for 7 people with 5 separate internal groups and budgets. It was a lot but if I can do it, so can you! This guide is designed to give you the most budget-friendly options so if you’re staying at a Disney hotel (which are more pricey), you might need to consult some outside sources on lodging details. If you’re overwhelmed by the whole process, keep reading! And if you have any questions that I didn’t address shoot me a comment below, turn on your notifications for responses and I’ll get back to you. I want you to have the best family Disney vacation possible!

Step 1: decide which month you will be visiting

Walt Disney World (and every Disney park) has different ticket prices based on capacity. For example, on low capacity days where they predict that parks will be less crowded, tickets are cheaper at $109 per park per day (as of spring 2020). In the summer or holiday season however, tickets can get up to $139 per park per day! So, in general the cheapest months to visit follow school schedules and holidays, meaning the cheapest times to visit are January (after the first week), February, end of August, September, and October. The other times of the year correlate to spring break, summer break, Thanksgiving, and winter holidays.

If you aren’t dependent on a school schedule or you are squeezing in a couple parks during the school year, I recommend the above times of year.

In my case, my family isn’t super dependent on school schedules. I have one cousin who is in high school and she is the youngest. We decided that if we went in October, she could miss a Friday or Monday and make a long weekend work.

If you have to visit during crowded seasons, the rest of this guide still applies, so keep reading!

Step 2: decide how many parks you will be visiting and go from there

(this will help you narrow down the dates)

The entire purpose of our trip to Walt Disney World was to show my 86 year old Grammy Pandora in Animal Kingdom because Avatar is her favorite movie! SO this made deciding which parks to visit an easier choice. Plus, we are from Los Angeles where we have Disneyland and California Adventure.

We didn’t feel like we would be missing Magic Kingdom if we didn’t all go as a group. We ultimately decided on Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios (for our beloved and dearly missed Tower of Terror). Once you have an idea, you need to decide on some dates to really get a feel for your budget. These don’t need to be 100% locked in, but having an idea of days of the week will help.

For example: once we decided on that our baseline was a long weekend in October, I started looking at Airbnb prices for a Tuesday to Thursday. We ultimately had three groups of people visiting:

(1) school bound cousin and aunt who were confined to a Friday through Monday

(2) Grammy and my mom who could do Thursday through Tuesday

(3) myself, Tobin (my boyfriend), and my other cousin who weren’t limited by time at all

My whole family would be visiting Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios and after they left Tobin, my cousin, and I (group 3) would visit the last two parks. Is this a lot to keep track of? Yes. But, it helped to separate everyone into groups. The final conclusion was that the people who were staying the longest would need lodging for 5 nights.

Here’s the best tool for keeping track of all this: Microsoft Excel! I truly think it is the easiest tool to plan a trip. If you’ve never used it, you can read my how to plan a trip in Excel here.

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Step 3: Hone in on your budget

While you are figuring out what parks you want to visit and when you want to go, you’ll start to notice a budget coming into place whether you realize it or not. I found it helpful to write down numbers I came across as I was researching for steps 1 and 2. In Excel, I wrote the total cost to visit 1, 2, 3, or 4 parks. I cross referenced Disney tickets online with discounted websites. We used “Tickets At Work,” which is a website that pairs with employers (including my boyfriend’s) to provide employees access to discounted tickets. If you don’t have Tickets at Work, you can find some discounted tickets here. Either way, this is what I was getting for the prices of park tickets for October:

Park Days	Discounted Site	Disney Online
4 days	$323	$333
3 days	$334	$350
2 days	$233	$243
1 day	$139	$139

When we got our tickets, Disney was having a deal on 4 park tickets, which is why those tickets are cheaper than the 3 park ones.

Another big part of the budget was the accommodation. I was already looking at Airbnb’s because I knew we wanted a house and space to ourselves to wind down. For 8 people for 5 nights I found one at ~$800 total. It had 4 bedrooms, 5 beds, and three bathrooms — essential for a bigger family. It was pretty good deal.

I also looked into every other aspect of the budget that I could so my family was financially prepared. I fake ordered Ubers to see how much it would cost from our accommodation – it was about $17 each way.

I also gave a rough budget for food including groceries so we could cook when we weren’t at the parks. I gave that a $400 budget for the whole 5 days. Cooking saved A LOT of money. We had breakfast at our Airbnb every day and on our days off from the parks, we had every meal there. Again, this was the best way to maximize our budget for Disney World.

Once I had every element of the budget planned, I could start working with my family to get things booked and run it by them. Our grand total was $3100 (not including flights) for 7 people where 4 people went to 2 parks and 3 people went to all 4.

Step 4: get things booked

It’s time! Once you have a budget, dates, and you’ve narrowed down some lodging options, it’s time to book!

For your Walt Disney World tickets, you want to book these as soon as you can because when it’s 30 days out from your visit, you can reserve your Fastpasses. More on that here! The key is setting up your “Disney World Experience” App to be able to make reservations for your whole group including getting in the virtual queue for Rise of the Resistance. Read this full guide on Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, which includes detailed info about how to get on!

You can also make dining reservations 180 days out from your trip, so if you know the dates you’ll be visiting, I recommend trying to nail down those dining reservations. This includes Oga’s Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge, which fills up fast!

Step 5: Pack!

Once it’s time for your trip, it’s time to pack! I personally love packing because it means I’m traveling! Yay! If you aren’t sure what to pack, check out my free Disney World printable packing list.

A couple things I do recommend regardless of what time of year you plan to visit:

• Light jacket
• Sunscreen
• Day bag (or small backpack)
• Sunglasses
• Poncho (the weather in Florida is fickle…don’t ever doubt that it might rain)
• Biker shorts for the ladies to prevent painful thigh rub

Definitely do not underestimate the rain. It was beautiful most of the time, but we caught some heavy rain on our first day in the parks.

Step 6: tips to save money at Walt Disney World

Tickets

I already discussed buying discounted tickets from websites like Tickets at Work and Undercover Tourist (linked above), but here’s another trick to keep in mind. If you have a Target card, you can purchase Disney gift cards at get a 5% discount (from your Target card) and then use those gift cards for everything you purchase at Disney World, including your tickets. 5% might not sound like much, but that’s $50 saved per $1000 spent, which is pretty easy to do for Disney trips.

Food

Aside from cooking your own meals when you aren’t at the parks, I recommend bringing in your own snacks and a reusable water bottle to save on food costs. Since I had a small backpack, I brought a kid-sized insulated reusable bottle that could fit in my backpack. It was perfect and I never had to purchase a drink! You can also make PB&J’s to bring into the parks for a makeshift lunch. When you’re in the parks, you can always get free cups of water at any restaurant location (not the kiosks that only sell bottled drinks).

Souvenirs

My top tip (more Disney World tips here) for getting authentic Disney souvenirs is to visit the Disney Character Warehouses in Orlando. These are Disney World outlets that have a highly discounted Disney parks merchandise that is being transitioned out of the parks or sometimes they contain overflow merchandise. I bought all of my souvenirs here including a discounted mug that was originally $17 and I got for $6. I got patches worth $30 for $12! I also got my very first pair of Minnie ears that were originally $28 for $6! It’s worth the extra drive, but it’s hard to walk out of there without spending money. If you weren’t planning to buy souvenirs at all, just skip it.

If you have kids, I also recommend buying cheap Disney souvenirs from stores like Target or something so that when they’re begging you for expensive souvenirs in the parks, you can hand them something you’ve already purchased. Buy a few cheap things, stash them in your day pack, then have them ready!

A final tip for souvenirs is to make use of the pressed penny stations location throughout every park. All you need is $1 for your very own pressed penny souvenir – the machine provides the penny. I got a few of these to use in my shadowboxes* and I got three – one for each hitchhiking ghost from the Haunted Mansion so I could make a necklace and earring set. There are lots of creative ways to use pressed pennies, so don’t count them out.

*If you’ve never heard of shadowboxes, they are frames with a depth of ~1 inch to place thicker souvenirs inside of. For my Disney shadowbox, I added photos, one of our tickets, a pressed penny, coasters from Oga’s Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge, and Tobin’s “1^st Visit” pin. It’s a fun way to remember your trip and put cheap/free souvenirs to use!

I hope you found this step-by-step guide on how to plan a trip to Disney World helpful. If you have any questions, drop me a comment below and turn on your notifications so you can see my response!

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• Get Your Guide – Check out Get Your Guide for a one-stop-shop for booking travel activities.
• Booking.com – This is my favorite hotel search aggregator, specifically for reading reviews. On Booking.com, the reviews can be searched for keywords like WiFi, breakfast, pool, amenities, etc.! So helpful!
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