How Expensive is a One-Night Stay at Disney's Contemporary Hotel

One of the highest-rated hotels on Disney property is the Contemporary. The price to stay for a week definitely reflects that Disney knows it’s good. How much money does it take to stay within walking distance of the Magic Kingdom? For this breakdown, we are going to take a couple from Jacksonville, Florida that wants to stay for one night at one of the most expensive hotels on property. Staying only one night means they value time the most so they will dine out all meals. We will be going on this trip 11/17-11/18.

Travel

Travel will take one fill of gas on average so we will say it is $45. 326 total miles driven so you'll be running on E getting back so let's kick it up to $60.

Tickets

Lovely Disney technology won’t even let me see the prices for a one-day ticket, but the website says $109-$189. Unfortunately, it won’t let me put our dates in so we will put the average which is $149 each. For two It will be $298.

Hotel

This hotel is classified as a deluxe so hold on to your wallets. One night. In the main tower. $1,029.38. This trip is racking up some expenses.

Food

We will be eating a breakfast/lunch buffet that will fuel us until our dinner after visiting the Magic Kingdom. We will be going to Chef Mickey’s. Which is an INEXCUSABLE $51 A PERSON for breakfast. You will be dining on buffet foods from the holiday inn but with characters all around. The total should ring you about $130 with taxes and gratuities FOR BREAKFAST FOR TWO PEOPLE. On a happier note, for our first dinner, we will be going to Steakhouse 71 which is my favorite restaurant at the Contemporary. I have tried several items on the menu, and they are all delicious, even the non-steak options. This last trip I took there was so good, and I had the porkchop. We paid a total of $82 with the tip but we are water and entrée people so your prices will vary. A grab-and-go breakfast before leaving should run $10-$15 a person depending on the selection. In total our food bill will be approximately $227 for one full day of meals.

Totals

A one-day trip to a deluxe resort at Disney in November has a final price of $1,614.38. For one night. Walking distance to Magic Kingdom and 30-minute early park admission. I am not sure if I would recommend this kind of trip to anyone. There are just several other trips around that price point for you to do. You could go on a seven-night cruise in the Caribbean for two people for that price.

How to save to pay

If you do have the Contemporary vacation on your bucket list, we can budget for it. If we start 12 weeks out, we would have to save $134 per week. If we started three weeks out, you would have to save $538.12 per week. If you knew this is what you wanted to do 52 weeks out, you would only have to save $31 a week. If you are bringing in $620 a week you shouldn’t be paying $1600 for a vacation but if you are, if you start saving a year beforehand you only have to save 5% of your weekly income for 52 weeks. If you bring in $1,240 a week you can save 2.5% of your income a week for 52 weeks. Or you can save 10% of your income for 13 weeks. Be smart with the math and you can take vacations that seem out of reach from the final price.