When I pulled the blog up it was fun to read all the old posts from years past and see the photos I had not seen in forever. Looking through all that reminded me of how quickly time passes. Tyler was so small when I started blogging and now he is going to high school next year.
My last post was about Disney World! So I think that is where I will start today. YES, we went again. In the last post 5 years ago I wrote "I don't think we will ever go to Disney World again." Wrong! Last February we decided to go again. We planned out trip for the Christmas / New Years holiday. Again we spent a full 10 days in the park. We had a great time and because we had been before we knew our way around and knew what we wanted to see and do. Not much had changed. The one thing that did change was how much money we spend! Holy guacamole. Below is a copy and past from five years ago.
2009
The grand total out of pocket for everything for 12 days was:
$2,980.06.
Food & Drinks: $408.76
Grocery delivery: $101.71
Resort fee: $95.00
Airfare: 1,255.50
Disney 10 day passes: $445.72 (was $676 before Disney rewards)
Disney All Star Sport Resort: $284.79 (4 nights,was $424.79 before Disney rewards)
Timeshare exchange fee & Insurance: $203.00 (7 nights)
Souvenirs: $145.88
Tips & misc: $40.00
2014
The grand total out of pocket for everything for 12 days was:
$2,607.26 without park entry
$3748.86 with park entry
Food & Drinks: $793.16
Grocery delivery: $107.88
Airfare: $641.70
Timeshare exchange fee & Insurance: $243.00 (7 nights)
Souvenirs: $94.60
Country Inn & Suites: $529.72 (4 nights)
Car service to and from airports: $197.20
Park tickets are a whole different kind of math this time! Last trip we just bought a 10 day pass. This time we bought the premier annual pass that gave us unlimited access to all Disney parks in Florida and California. It also included water parks and parking in all parks. So I did some math and came up with the following to figure out what the 10 days in Disney World cost us. Here is a math problem and a little peek into how my brain works.
Todd and Donna bought premier annual passes for their family of three. The total for all three passes was $2,629.80. How much was each annual pass?
ANSWER: $876.60 per person. ($2,629.80 divided by 3 people)
Tyler and Donna both spent a total of 28 days in Disney parks during the year they had their annual passes. How much per day did their park entry cost based on the amount of days spent in the parks and the price they paid for each annual pass?
ANSWER: $31.30 for every day they went into a Disney park. ($876.60 divided by 28 days)
Todd spent a total of 17 days in Disney parks during the year that he had his annual pass. How much per day did his park entry cost based on the amount of days spent in the parks and the price he paid for his annual pass?
ANSWER: $51.56 for every day he went into a Disney park. ($876.60 divided by 17 days)
Todd, Donna and Tyler spent a total of 10 days in Disney World. Based upon the number of days they spent in the park and the amount per day already determined for them to enter the park, how much did it cost the Glover family to get into Disney World for 10 days?
ANSWER: $1,141.60 for all three people to go to Disney World for 10 days. (Todd's daily cost of $51.56 times ten and Tyler and Donna's daily cost of $31.30 times ten)
Take that AIMS test! and I failed 5th grade because of math. The difference between the two trips was $768.80. I know we drank a lot of coffee. Being older we needed it to keep the almost park open til close schedule that I kept the boys on. Tyler and Todd were not coffee drinkers five years ago so adding more addicts to the mix increased the food and beverage budget. Disney has gotten so expensive. We did not renew out annual passe this year. Tyler and I spent the last 4 days of our pass in the park this month. We even got a unexpected surprise when we were each given a three day park hopper ticked that does not expire for two years! So we were thinking fall break 2015.
We did not take many photos. Honestly it all pretty much looked the same and no one wanted to carry the camera. That on top of a 14 year old that is to cool for pictures. I added a couple from this trip and a couple old ones from the 2009 trip just because you can see how much Tyler has grown. Both trips were very different even though the parks were mostly the same. The parks were super busy! Some days had parks closed due to reaching capacity. I did come to the conclusion on this trip that I would never visit or recommend visiting Disney World unless you are staying on a Disney property. We did not rent a car either trip. We relied on the shuttle system. Using the Disney shuttle system is super convenient and easy. Especially when staying Staying on a Disney property. This time we stayed off property and that meant we had to use crappy hotel shuttles on stupid schedules to get to the only park their shuttle went to, Epcot. Then from there we had to use the Disney shuttle system to get to the other parks. It was crap! Plus I like the Zip a Dee Do Da service you get from Disney when you are on their property! There was no Zip a Dee Do Da where we were this time!
So yeah.... This was a pretty boring post! But in a few years I will look back and be glad I have the information posted somewhere!
