Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Disneyland vs. Disney World

In case you haven't been reading my personal blog, i'll catch you up.  My husband and I are thinking of taking a little trip out to California in the fall.  His aunt lives in San Luis Obispo... about 4 hours away from Disneyland.  The thought recently came to us that it would be a fun trip to fly into Anaheim, spend a few days at Disneyland, then drive to San Luis Obispo for a few days.

I decided today to price it out and see how much we're actually looking at.  This trip is very different for us since we normally just have to pay for a big WDW package and then our flights to Orlando.  There are a lot of seperate factors going into the west coast idea.  This is what it looks like budgeted out roughly.

Flight = $550.00 roundtrip for two people
This is just what i'm getting right now.  It could go down.  It could go up.  We normally pay about $250.00 roundtrip flying to Orlando.

Disneyland tickets = $300.00 - 2 day Park Hopper for two people
I'm quite shocked with this number but... it's Disney so I really shouldn't ever be sticker shocked, right?  There is a chance that we could knock it down to a one day base ticket.  But, that's really not worth the trip to me if i'm not actually "seeing" everything.

Gas money = $100.00
Rental car =  ???
I haven't looked into the rental car thing yet but with having to drive quite a bit I went high with $100.00 for gas.  Now, gas and rental car would be split with Matt's parents IF they decided to go. 

Food in DL and food in SLO = $100.00
I'm not totally sure on this one.  I know that Matt's aunt with end up cooking breakfast and dinner so all we'll have to pay for is lunch when we're out sight seeing in SLO.  I can assume we'll do no table service restaurant at DL and just do counter service in an effort to save money.

Not counting the hotel in Anaheim, rental car, and spending cash the total comes to be $1050.00. 

Just for kicks I decided to price out what a 5 days (Tuesday through Sunday) in WDW would be.  Assuming free dining will occur at this time frame I chose, the total would be $1100.00.  The only thing not added into that would be the flights. 

I really thought that DL would end up being cheaper and now... i'm not so sure. 

3 comments:

  1. Our Disneyland trips are cheaper than our WDW trips. But that's mostly because we don't normally stay for as long when we go to California. Our hotel in Anaheim is about $60 a night as opposed to the $82 or $145 we paid at WDW. Eating in CA if cheaper for us as well. Flights are about the same for us (roughly $225 a person.) We don't have to rent a car in WDW so that does save us some money.

    One thing I think it totally worth it at Disneyland...is a park hopper. You can walk back and forth between the parks which is so convenient. We'll easily go back and forth a couple times in one day (whereas at WDW it's kind of a pain to hop with the buses.)

    I've known some WDW people who go to Disneyland...and HATE it. I've known some that can appreciate it but would rather go to WDW. And then there are people like me....who LOVE it. WDW was very much my "home" park. I went there in 1987, 1991, and 1995. I didn't go to Disneyland until 2004. But now, Disneyland is more of a "home" park for me. I remember the first I went there I was just kind of "eh" about it. But after the second time...I loved it!

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  2. We've been talking about if the park hopper is worth it or not at DL since it IS only two parks and we have never been to either. So, ideally, we could spend a full day in each park. I just don't know if they're both full day parks or not.

    I think i'd definitely appreciate Disneyland. Being a huge fan of Walt himself i'm sure i'd feel emersed in old time Disney magic. I would absolutely HAVE to do the "Walk in Walt's Footsteps" tour... or, whatever its called.

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  3. If you do decide to do both parks (which I think you should)...you have to do a park hopper. It's totally worth it since you can walk between the two parks.

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