DLP trip between DW trip how you do it?

[Elodie]

Originally Posted by Jessie2012

Thanks,I don’t know why it always seems so expensive when I look.With living in the North of England,it always ends up quite expensive trying to get the Eurostar,so we’ve always looked at flights from Manchester.

See more...

We’re in the north, and our trips for four of us have cost approx:

£800 (Cheyenne in August school holidays, inc 5 day tickets, standard dining, hotel and Eurotunnel, but not including petrol.)

£1200 (Disneyland Hotel in Christmas holidays, inc 5 day tickets, hotel and Eurotunnel, not inc food or petrol.
(We then added on premium dining and a night in the Princess suite at Explorers when we won a lot of money in a competition!)

£600 (Santa Fe in May half term, inc 5 day tickets, hotel and Eurotunnel, not inc food or petrol)

Obviously, I’m going back 2-5 years and things are different now. But it was a matter of looking out for deals and grabbing them.

Cheyenne was cheaper than expected because we went from 21-25 August, once prices dropped from high into moderate pricing, and we got two nights free.

Disneyland Hotel was my best deal ever! We went 19-24 December, but most European schools didn’t break up until 22 December that year, and your price is based on your arrival night. So we got super value season prices and a deal with two nights free and under 7s go free.

Santa Fe was cheap because we booked through the French site and their school holidays were different to ours so we got moderate pricing for what should have been high season. We just paid OOP for meals that holiday because it was a budget trip to keep us going while we saved for WDW 2020 (which obviously didn’t happen!)

p.s. We’ve never found annual passes cheaper because we’re tied to school holidays and don’t go more than once in a year. If you’re planning to go more than once in the year, then it can definitely be better value to stay offsite. With tickets included, staying on-site with good deals has always worked out cheaper than offsite + annual passes for us.

[kk20]

We made a decision to spread out our money quite a few years ago. Both me and OH had parent die quite young. Both were protracted illnesses where we saw all their savings and house used up for care. They impressed on us that saving for the future was prudent but living life whilst you were able to was also prudent.

So we stopped overpayments on our mortgages, lengthened all of them on renewals a little and use the extra money saved for holidays. This has enabled us to to a large holiday year then small holiday year.

We don't do huge christmases or birthdays as we prefer holidays and experiences as a family.

We also set budgets and plan to them. We chose Japan I atead of WDW (and have voted to do Japan again in 2022 although a big AI Maldives might pip it to the post) whereas this year is a staycation and maybe a cheeky canaria holiday later in the year if we are allowed.

DLP can be done very cheaply if you drive and stop in value d Europe. Ironically there were plenty of times that you could stay in Santa fe or Cheyenne cheaper when you factored park tickets. Annual passes have never been worth it for us as we would only go at best once every other year.

[Gill H]

Also, since Disney took full ownership of DLP the prices have rocketed, and they are no longer doing those sweet, sweet '4 nights for 2' deals that have served us so well in the past. But there are still flash sales, and you can still book other countries' offers.

[mikeishere]

Originally Posted by nursetina

I always do dlp on the cheap. We are ap holders so pay that monthly. Look or cheap flights on sky scanner, where we live we can fly from Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff or Heathrow so usually pay around £100 return. Then we stay offsite, there's a few places we like to stay at and always look for the best deal. We book through e bookers or booking.com. so a few nights at DLP cost us around £300 each.

See more...

As dlp annual pass folders do you go dlp more than once a year aswel as visit WDW every so often?

[Gill H]

We would have gone twice in 12 months (we bought our APs in Sep 2019 and intended to go back in June 2020). Once you have stayed about 5 nights over 12 months, the APs actually pay for themselves.

[mikeishere]

Originally Posted by Gill H

We would have gone twice in 12 months (we bought our APs in Sep 2019 and intended to go back in June 2020). Once you have stayed about 5 nights over 12 months, the APs actually pay for themselves.

See more...

You still go to WDW in the years you go to DLP too?

[400ixl]

We had a motorhome and with the annual passes you could stay on the car park for free and use the coach drivers facilities.

Started it in the middle of the summer holidays and meant we could get several trips in over a year including the summer holidays.

[Gill H]

Originally Posted by mikeishere

You still go to WDW in the years you go to DLP too?

See more...

No - we have only done WDW twice. Until last year we lived in London and our rent was 50% of our income. We could only save £100 a month. So we did DLP every year from 2003 onwards, except for 2010 and 2014 when we did WDW. In 2017 we did a couple of days at DLP then a train to Barcelona and a 7 night Med cruise on the Disney Magic.

Even now it takes us a good while to save up enough for WDW although we had saved £5k for our 25th anniversary trip to Japan (which of course has not yet happened) and also have £3k saved for WDW next year (which may or may not happen). If either of those looks unlikely we may use some of the money on the UK staycation cruise on the Magic this summer.

I don’t see France being safe to visit this year so DLP will have to wait.

[nursetina]

Originally Posted by mikeishere

As dlp annual pass folders do you go dlp more than once a year aswel as visit WDW every so often?

See more...

Yes we do. Pre Covid we would visit WDW or another long haul holiday once a year and then DLP a few times a year. I think the most we visited DLP in one year was 5 times it normally around 3 times. It's just me and my daughter as husband not into Disney and we are both nurses. I fully appreciate how fortunate we are and we didn't travel much when children were little, in fact our first Florida trip was 8 years ago when daughter was 21 and son was 19. We can only do it now as they pay for themselves.

[princess allie]

We have done both some years. But we do try to make all our holidays relatively budget conscious. When going to DLP we have always driven there and used the ferries or the tunnel. We have stayed both onsite and offsite, depends what deals I can find. Sometimes the on-site deals with free dining plans have been really good value. We also only usually stay for 2 days. When our youngest was a toddler we had annual passes for a couple of years and we went quite regularly. We usually stayed offsite then in one of the cheaper hotel like premier classe or Ibis, they are cheap and cheerful. I think the trick is to be as flexible as you can and keep an eye out for the special offers in both the Uk and other European countries. We also don’t give each other expensive presents for Christmas and birthdays and don’t eat out much either, we prefer to spend our money on holidays. We are also very fortunate that my husbands job provides lots of overtime, should he want to do it and he quite often works extra to pay for the holidays.