Orlando Theme Parks on a Budget: How We Made Our Wish Come True

How can families visit Orlando theme parks on a budget? Many families want to experience the magic of Disney and Universal Orlando, but need to keep expenses under control. With a lot of planning and a bit of flexibility, we were able to take a wonderful trip to Orlando. We visited both Disney World and Universal Studios. The best part was that we stayed within a careful budget. We paid many thousands of dollars less than you might expect. Here are our best tips for making this trip affordable:

Orlando theme parks on a budget tip #1: Use Credit Card Bonuses to Cover the Cost of Flying

A lot of people are nervous about using credit cards and trying to earn rewards points. But, if you have decent credit and are fairly organized, using points can save you large sums of money. Points can provide wonderful experiences that you may not be able to afford otherwise, especially with a large family. If you’re a beginner, check out our guide for how to travel with rewards points.

We plan our yearly credit card strategy carefully for the vacations we want to take over the following year. For Orlando, we used Southwest Rapid Rewards cards to cover the entire cost of flying for 8 people, from Baltimore to Orlando (with many points to spare). But there are many other options to choose from. See a list of great travel cards here.

Orlando theme parks on a budget tip #2: Stay Outside of the Park

There are some great perks to staying inside the boundaries of Disney World. But, if you’re on a budget, you may be able to save a significant amount by staying outside the park. You will need transport, but you can use points to rent a car. Even factoring in parking and a rental car, this is often the cheapest option. Since we were planning on doing both Disney and Universal, we found a resort within easy driving distance of both. We found a very fun resort with waterslides (a huge hit), mini golf and more. The cost was significantly less than even the most affordable Disney resort. We made sure it had a full kitchen, which leads us to our next tip…

Theme Parks on a budget tip #3: Pack Soft Coolers and Buy Groceries

We ate many of our meals in our resort from the grocery store. We also packed soft coolers to bring food with us into the park, which is allowed. Use frozen water bottles to keep your food cold, and pack plenty of snacks. This way you don’t need to stop for a meal three times a day, which also saves time. We still had a few meals in the parks, for the experience. But, every parent knows that small kids are constantly hungry! So, being able to access your own food on demand saves lots of time and money.

Orlando parks on a budget tip #4: Use Points for your Hotel

As a last note on our resort stay, we were able to cover this completely using our Bank of America’s travel rewards card. This card was offering a larger-than-normal bonus at the time. It was a new card to us, and it was nice because it is super flexible. The points act as a statement credit for any travel expense. We each got the card and used it enough on our regular, every day expenses to earn our bonus. The bonus was $500 toward travel expenses for each of us. Keep an eye out for these promotional bonuses as they do occur at different times throughout the year.

Tip #5: Go During Non-Peak Time

This one saves not only money, but frustration. Peak time can be so very crowded. If you are able to go at a time when Disney is less crowded, it will be a more pleasant experience. We went in the spring and the weather was great. We made sure it was after the rush of spring break, and prior to the rush of kids getting out of school. Yes, we let our kids miss a few days of school. We had to do a bit of planning and extra work prior to leaving to make sure everyone stayed caught up with their school work!

Tip #6: Save on Tickets with a Disney Rewards Card

Finally, the big expense of Disney tickets. At no less than $119 per person per day, Disney really adds up when you have a large family! So, we got the Disney® Premier Visa® Card to offset the price of tickets. This earned us a bonus of $300 each to be used at Disney, which will cover a couple days worth of tickets. The annual fee is less than $50, netting us $250 each for a total of $500 toward our Disney World tickets for our family. The cards also earn “Disney dollars,” which can be used at the park for food, souvenirs, and other expenses, as well as at Disney stores everywhere.

Orlando theme parks on a budget tip #7: Research What to Do, and What to Skip

The last way to save money, and maximize your time, is to do your best to figure out what is most important to you, and what you can do without. Don’t try to see everything! I started out with the desire and expectation to see every park. But after some careful reading, scrolling and talking with my family, we paired down to two Disney Parks and two Universal Parks. And frankly, even this was enough to exhaust us!

Each family will have different factors that influence this decision. I had childhood memories of Magic Kingdom and Epcot that I wanted to experience with my kids, and I was so glad I did. The nostalgia alone was overwhelming!

Another decision maker for me is that one of my all time favorite parenting experiences was reading the Harry Potter series aloud to my two older children. It was also the first time I had read it or seen any of the movies. We got to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter about a week after finishing the last book – it was perfect timing and I couldn’t have planned it that way if I tried!

t’s important to note that if you want to see the whole Harry Potter World, you do have to buy tickets to both Universal theme parks – the Island of Adventure (where you’ll find Hogwarts and Hogsmeade), and Universal (where you’ll find Diagon Alley.) Riding the Hogwarts Express allows you to go from one park to the other. It’s costly, but for us it was worth it!

The thing that amazed us about the Wizarding World was the level of detail. Everything, from the actual fire that shot out at intervals from the dragon on top of Gringotts Bank, to the delicious taste of Butter Beer served at the Three Broomsticks (and many other places throughout the park), to the unmarked brick alley entrance to Diagon Alley was just so perfectly executed.

But even within the park, you can be careful about where you choose to spend. You can experience Ollivander’s wand shop without buying a wand, enjoy Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes without purchasing an extendable ear, and even tour the Hogwarts castle without going on the roller coaster ride at the end if you’re not a roller coaster person!

For us, it was really about seeing all the details. The portraits of characters we recognized, the hourglasses where the four houses accumulated their points, the creepy shops in Knockturn Alley, and those sorts of fantastic details that made it so exciting and magical.

We still didn’t get to see every single thing we wanted to – there is just so much to see! But we sure did see and experience a lot, and had an amazing (and affordable) vacation.