Six-Month Price Check: Checking Prices at Disney World for 9/20-9/23

Price check on Disney Vacations at the 180-day window

Disney vacations are extremely expensive today. To be able to afford them you might have to plan a few months out. However, this is a good thing because you get to make dining reservations six months out as well. So, I dug around with hotels, flights and the price of tickets for six months out for the weekend 9/20-9/23. Friday- Monday. 

Of course, the site crashed on me the minute I tried to research this. So, before we talk about hotels let’s talk about the variable cost of tickets. 

Now, if you are a passholder skip right through here because it is for nonpassholders. 

During this weekend, Florida residents qualify for a 3-day Discover the Magic ticket that is good for one park per day for $233.24. This doesn’t include parkhopper or sports and water park option or any other add-on. Valid through 4/12-9/28. Considering the price for a single-day ticket is sometimes well over $150 this price is decent for 3 days. 

As of right now, that is the only offer for tickets available to Florida residents. Could change closer we get to the date. 

Into the out-of-state pricing.

There is a 4-day offer for non-Florida residents and the cost for that is $396 plus tax. A way to enter all theme parks. Please note that some tickets don’t allow Magic Kingdom to be a choice. 

Like the offer for a 3-day ticket for $267 plus tax that does exclude the Magic Kingdom. If you only want to go to the other theme parks, it could be a good option for you. 

Now entering the one-day ticket territory these are varied.

A base price for a 1-day ticket on Saturday 9/21 is $144 for Animal Kingdom, $164 for Epcot/Studios, and $169 for Magic Kingdom. 

9/20 and 9/22 share similar pricing for Studios/Magic $159 Epcot $154 and Animal Kingdom $139. This has no other add-ons because a park hopper ticket jumps to $223 a ticket. 

It is no secret that these prices reward long vacations. 

It is $190 cheaper to do the 3-day version of No Magic Magic Kingdom as the price to do the one-day version of this is $457 without Magic Kingdom. It is also 61 dollars cheaper to do the 4-day pass of $396 plus tax. And just not even use a day and be able to have access to Magic Kingdom. 

                           Passholder Checkpoint!

My site finally loaded so let’s talk about hotels. 9/20-9/23 we put 2 adults 2 kids so let’s get into it.

Starting with deluxe options one of the cheaper options in this category is the Wilderness Lodge. A resort view pretty basic room is $556.67 excluding taxes while the total adds up to $1878.76 with tax for three nights. If that is in your budget it is a great hotel.

Another deluxe is the Boardwalk and a resort view room, pretty standard for most hotels is $691.67 excluding taxes for a total of $2,334.39 for a 3-night getaway. If it is in your budget and you love the proximity to Epcot and the skyliner this is a good hotel for you. 

The last deluxe hotel is the Grand Floridian, the FLAGSHIP hotel, with a resort view, is $831 a night excluding tax when all is said and done, the total is $2,804.64. For three nights. 

Entering the Moderate category, we have several options that are much cheaper. Caribbean Beach is another hotel if you want to prioritize Epcot and Hollywood Studios because there are two skyliner stations surrounding this hotel. The cost for it is $338.67 a night with a total of $1,143.01. This proximity of the skyliner makes it one of the best choices in this category. 

The cheapest moderate is tied between Port Orleans Riverside and French quarter, coming in at a nightly rate of $333. For a total of $1,123.89. If you love Disney Springs, they have a direct boat to take you there but you will be riding a bus to every theme park. The theming though is better in my opinion than Caribbean Beach. Walking around French Quarter is a nice way to spend an afternoon. Gotta love those beignets too. 

Just because there is one moderate left I might as well add the price. Coronado Springs comes in at $352.67 for a total of $1190.25 for a water-view room. This makes it the most expensive moderate and just on theming alone let alone the price I’d rather take the other options. Having to take a bus to every location on the property isn’t my favorite thing.

Dipping into the value these were the hotels my family and I went to on school field trips and family trips. I get good nostalgia there, but the rooms all are pretty standard as what you get at a motel. A standard room at All-Star music is $199 a night for a total of $679.88 for your trip. This price is consistent for the rest of the All-Stars. 

A slight upgrade is the Pop Century at $246 a night for a standard room will be $830.26 in total. This has great proximity to the skyliner so that is nice. 

Another slight bump is the art of animation which has a total price of $963 for your three-night trip. A $133 price jump from Pop and a $284 jump from the All-Stars. A big perk of this hotel is the skyliner but Pop Century has the same access. I would say Pop Century is the best choice in values because I don’t love the buses. Take a walk around Art of Animation though, they have some good theming for the kiddos. 

Next, we have to get transportation wrapped up. Even while living in Florida growing up traveling to Disney was always the worst part. The 6-and-a-half-hour drive with my parents bickering about drivers. For this situation, I got some pricing from different cities for flights with no Florida residents here. 

Minneapolis, Minnesota to Orlando

A nonstop round trip with no luggage is $148 on Sun County airlines and you arrive in Orlando at 1027 AM. Early morning but you’ll be able to enjoy a theme park. 

Same trip but riding on Delta nonstop is $259 with luggage and arriving at Orlando at 239 PM. This would be unbelievably cheaper than the 1530 miles and 23-hour drive here. 

Austin Texas to Orlando

I figured this would be less, but I was shocked to see that it was more expensive. $317 per person round trip on Delta arriving at 1054 AM a 2 hour and 30-minute flight time. 

American Airlines is $325 round trip with 2 hours 43 minutes nonstop arriving at 1213 PM. With the mileage count, depreciation on the car, maintenance, and gas it might be cheaper and MUCH easier to fly. 

The last one will be Seattle to Orlando hop on the red eye and pay 407 nonstop on Delta for 5 hours 24 minutes and arrive at 619 AM.

Alaska Airlines 850 AM to 532 PM for $447 nonstop. 

All of these options are much easier and cheaper at times than driving from these cities so far away. Luckily growing up I got to drive there with my DVD player in my lap. 

Using our totals, we will hit an approximation for some of these trips’ totals without food and merch. 

This can fit in a 50/30/20 income distribution rule with wants to come in at 30% of your post-tax weekly income. If you make a household income of $100,000 post tax weekly income would be $1923.07 post-tax dollars. Meaning if you max out the wants category for 26 weeks you would have 576.92 per week leaving almost 15,000 dedicated to the wants category. This means no going out for dinner, no subscriptions, no anything. Just strictly saving 100% of your wants category. Quite the sacrifice. Usually, this is only done in emergency mode when you lost a job or trying to go crazy in getting out of debt. 

The total of a 3-day that excludes Magic Kingdom tickets for non-Florida residents staying at Pop Century flying from Minnesota of a family of four comes to $2490.26 and split up in our 30% wants it takes about 4.3 weeks of sacrifice. But if you want to have a bunch of other wants you can save more weeks along the way. If we save a little bit until the vacation, it would cost us $95 a week for 26 weeks to afford these categories. 

If you bought a four-day ticket to get Magic Kingdom you would pay $3,006.26. 

Want a nicer hotel, a Caribbean stay three-day ticket is $2803.01 or $3319.01 with the four-day ticket.

Reminder this is only three categories. No food cost which can expand this budget and rip it open depending on which restaurants you go to. Disney World dining can get pretty expensive rather quickly so there will be more budget-friendly food option blogs coming soon. 

If you want to go big most expensive in every category. 

$396 for a four-day ticket

$2804.64 for Grand Floridian stay 

And flying from Seattle on Alaskan Airlines for $447.

These categories alone for a Disney trip with no merchandise, no food, and no drinks for a family of four the total cost for that would be $6176.64. 

Having to save the 576 dollars a week for 10 weeks to afford just these categories. 

Disney does open discounts periodically and these rates can change in the six-month window mark, but these are the costs to go to Disney in three categories! Hope it helps!