HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO GO TO DISNEYLAND: Creating a Disneyland budget is an important part of your vacation. Being able to enjoy yourself in the parks (vs counting every penny) will allow you to absorb in the magic. We are going to talk about expcted expenses in the categories of travel, hotel/lodging, tickets, food & souveniers.
How much does it Cost to go to Disneyland?
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Oh, sweet vacation. A time to not worry about a thing, and just enjoy family time, right? The only problem is, that often turns into me paying way more than I should for stuff… and not being mindful of my spending OR being TOO mindful and it cutting into our fun. The Disneyland budget is serious stuff.
I think I did pretty doing Disneyland on a budget — balancing it all.
AND, if you’re into listening, I have a podcast on my #1 tip for family travel.
I even made a video that shares the 6 areas you should consider:
This post is part of my Disneyland Tips series.
How much money should I bring to Disneyland?
In true Pulling Curls finances style, the budget will be shared with explicit #’s and everything! I have always felt the more transparent we can all be about how we spend, the better off we all are.
Of course, My favorite way to spend less, is to book with Get Away Today (we have used them since 1998).
Using Layaway for your Disneyland Trip
Budgeting is great, but If you’d like to use a payment plan — you can do that for a Disneyland trip with Get Away Today trip Layaway. Makes it so convenient (and you can lock in the hotel you want early on so you don’t miss out).
If you’re looking to keep track of your budget — don’t miss my Disneyland Trip Calculator:
Disneyland Budget
All vacation budgets can be split into 5 distinct categories
- Transportation (can include getting to the destination, as well as around the destination)
- Hotel
- Entertainment (for Disney, that’s ticket costs)
- Food
- Souvenirs
Transportation to Disneyland
For us, this was a car ride (Disneyland is only about 6 hours away, that’s almost as long as we’d spend at the airport anyway). I used the AAA gas calculator to figure out how much this was going to be. If you’re flying, I’m sure you know about sites like Kayak or Southwest air. We’ve flown on Allegiant a few times with good results, but I know plenty of people who hate them, so take that for what it’s worth. Anyway, transportation is a fixed set cost that you will most likely know fairly well before you go.
I find that the best tickets (balancing purchasing TOO far in advance) is 6 to 8 weeks in advance.
Transportation around Disneyland
As for getting around Anaheim, you may need to rent a car (don’t forget parking costs if you do that), or you can use things like the Art Shuttle (it’s a bussing system that is fairly low-cost from most area hotels to Disneyland — you can learn more here, and tickets can usually be bought at your hotel — I don’t find a benefit for buying them in advance).
Other options include using your own car (Disneyland parking is $25/day when I last checked), or using an Lyft/Uber.
I also talk about all your transportation options in my Disneyland Budget Calculator.
Disneyland Hotel Budget
Picking a great hotel can make or break a Disneyland vacation. BUT, it is sort of different than picking a hotel in other locations.
Keep in mind that most of the walkable Disneyland hotels are not that great. They base their business on location vs a great hotel.
The further away from Disneyland you get, you often can find a lower price point (I have a post that shares the least expensive Disneyland hotels), and some of them are a bit nicer (think Embassy Suites). I talk about all the hotels I have stay at in my Disneyland Family Packages post. I am really honest in there, and I’ve stayed at quite a few hotels in the area.
Things to keep in mind as you book your hotel:
- Location — The further you are, the more time it takes (and often more cost), traffic is HEAVY in the area so just because you’re less than 5 miles away doesn’t mean it won’t take 30-60 minutes to get to the park.
- Room size — As location is KEY in these areas, they are trying to pack in as many guests as possible. If you need some room for kids to run around (oh, for that energy), a pack and play, or just to put luggage out — some of these rooms are TIGHT (and Get Away Today knows the ins and outs of every room for this type of thing – one of my favorite parts of them, be sure to call if you have questions on that.)
Way to Safe on Hotel:
- Book at a less-busy time. Hotels are most expensive at the busiest times, so picking a less-busy time will help you save!
- Pick a hotel that’s further out — the further away you are, often the less expensive.
- Forgo amenities. While I mentioned the hotels just aren’t super nice around Disneyland, the reality is that you are in your room for VERY little time (and when you are, you’re so tired you sleep).
Did I mention you can save an extra $10 with code CURLS10 when you book with Get Away Today? You can use it online or over the phone! They can help you with every facet of your Disneyland trip!
Disneyland Ticket Budget
I 100% ALWAYS recommend people by tickets with Get Away Today!
Do NOT buy tickets at the park. It is SO much more expensive (plus, you’ll waste time at the ticket booth). Buying tickets at Disneyland is one of my BIGGEST Disneyland mistakes.
The most popular ticket purchase is a 3-day ticket. You can buy a Hopper (which allows you to traverse between both Disneyland & California Adventure), or a 1-park-per-day which limits your traversing. However, when we buy a 3-day ticket we often just do one park per day anyway…. walking between both parks as a family is draining (both in energy and excitement).
Don’t forget to check out the Disneyland MaxPass! It’s going to add to the price of your tickets, but you might be able to spend less time at the parks with the time you save with it!
Pro Tip: If you’re visiting other parks like Knotts Berry or Universal you can buy at combo ticket with Get Away Today that allows you to save even more on your total park budget (just scroll down a bit past the Disneyland alone tickets).
Disneyland Souvenir Budget
Frankly, this can be as high or as low as you prefer. I tend to buy a few things in advance, so kids are less tempted to buy, and then they can use their allowance to purchase if they’d like in the stores. Last time I even made matching family shirts.
Our kids always buy a pin on each visit, so that is something we always consider, and or souvenir budget is around $100.
Again, steer clear of the souvenir shops, and you can save a lot on this budget!
I am also a big believer in letting kids use their allowance money if they want to make a purchase!
For us, we buy a few Disney items before we come, via Walmart or Amazon — so my kids already have those, and feel less pressure for a special shirt (that costs a ton). Packing the right things can actually save you a lot!
Disneyland Food Budget
Disneyland allows you to bring in as many snacks if you’d like. We often eat snacks through the day and eat one meal (which we split).
Or, you can get plenty of snacks and eats at the park — it’s kind of all up to you. I have a whole post about all the places to eat at Disneyland & CA Adventure.
** It is really hard to put a FIXED cost on your food budget. I believe a conservative food budget (which is how we do it) is about $100/day, but you could obviously spend a lot more than that. For us, each meal (for 4 of us) costs around $50 (except when we make reservations, and those meals are usually double that), and I splurge on some snacks at around $40 each day. I would say, unless you are planning at eating at one of their nicer restaurants $100 for a party of 4 is good, and maybe add around $25 for each additional person.
Pro Tip: Portions are often HUGE and when we had 5 kids we would buy two main items for us to split, and we were all very satisfied. Consider splitting!
How much spending money for Disneyland
{you could split this category into several, food, souvenirs, etc — but I do choose to keep them together and then set a daily budget}
I do this exactly like I did when we were staying with family, but the amounts are larger.
Let’s take a few days:
Monday we were in Hollywood, and I knew food there would be pricey, but we would eat breakfast at our friend’s house and the hotel had some munchies we could utilize as well. So I budgeted 125… that gave us a meal and a few souvenirs.
Tuesday I was taking Princess P to Ariel’s Grotto and the boys would eat a meal inside the park, so I budgeted 150 for the day as I knew that all was going to cost quite a bit!
Wednesday the park was closing early so we would eat outside the park, so I only budgeted 75.
Thursday I planned to just live on our snacks all day with maybe some supplementation by the food carts in the park, I budgeted 50 dollars (and we did it, and just bought some popcorn to eat during the parade).
Friday we were eating at the Blue Bayou, and I planned a lot of souvenir buying so I budgeted 200 for the day.
And so on, for each day.
I put each day into an envelope in GoodBudget, which syncs between my own and my husband’s phones and it’s easy to keep track of spending that way. I find that a daily “envelope” type system works better for me in my head, as I can keep track of what we’ve spent each day — but have NO idea what was spent yesterday. I had to wipe that from my memory banks. 😀 And it’s not like the excess from each envelope can’t spill into each other. We didn’t spend the whole 125 in Hollywood, and some that covered my 14-year-old buying a LOT more souvenirs than I had planned on (he uses “his” money, but it’s still “my” money and comes out of my budget).
This is similar to how I do our weekly budget at home.
The cost of a Trip to Disneyland
Our Budget looked something like this for Disneyland (these are the actual numbers from a recent trip):
- Gas 250
- Disney hotel 400 (this is obviously on the lower end)
- Hollywood hotel 275
- Disney Tickets 1300
- Spending Money 775
The grand total from all this was 3,000 dollars and we came in at $2975!
Keep in mind that included a night in Hollywood to see Jimmy Kimmel. The LA area has a LOT of fun things in the valley, so don’t JUST think you need to do Disneyland!
If you removed that stay it would take off about $400 from our total.
** Keep in mind that we got a GOOD deal on a REALLY cheap hotel around Disneyland. This trip, we tried to really save on the hotel, and that took a big chunk out of our budget. I just checked their website, and depending on when you go — you can still get a room in a similar price range. It’s just not going to be a luxury room.
Looking to figure out what your own cost will be — don’t miss my Disneyland Trip Calculator!
Disneyland Budget FAQ’s
As far as actual CASH, you don’t need much. Every food cart takes credit, unless their machine is broken (I did find that once).
How much money to bring to Disneyland for a day? — As I said above, we budget about $100/day for a party of 4, and I’d about $25 for each person above that if you plan to eat conservatively (limit snacks, split meals, etc).
Clearly, you could do it for less — but in this post about Disneyland food, you’ll find that I am so in love with their raspberry macaroons, it’s almost embarassing…
The good folks at Get Away Today gave me an average price per person of $140/night/person when I was creating my Disneyland Trip Calculator post.
Now, that JUST includes what you’ll need for DISNEYLAND.
Not, transportation costs, as that varies quite a bit.
Also, depending on your room, you could go cheaper or more expensive. Also, if you only have 2 people in your room, the hotel costs per person are likely to be higher. So, that’s just a vague idea to get you started.
To find out the price of a trip to Disneyland, you can easily look on the Get Away Today website, plug in your dates and see how much your trip will cost!
YES — of COURSE you can. I would say that my budget is currently “conservative” — but when we were young parents doing Disney on a wing and a prayer, our budget was VERY different. I have a whole post on my favorite ways to save at Disneyland.
I think we’ve talked about this one, but I wanted to share that we actually have a separate account JUST for family vacations. Each month, after all of our expenses, are paid — we put a small portion of the “extra” money into that account so that we can afford these types of trips and still follow my #1 rule for Disneyland. You could also consider trip layaway instead of a separate account.
Nope. But, you can get a free badge at town hall — that IS free! #blessed 🙂
It really depends on:
How many days you plan to go
Time of year (busy times of year are more expensive)
If you want a park hopper ticket, or just one park.
I always get my tickets from Get Away Today.
Yes, it is – and it’s even cheaper when you buy Get Away Today!
Snacks vary from $5-$10, and basic meals are around the $20 mark (with some cheaper fast food options closer to $12 or so).
You can bring most things into the park — but NOT full meals!
FastPasses are currently free — the MaxPass costs $15 — and I talk all about that in this post on Maxpass tips!
Yes — up to age 2, kids are free.
People 3 and up have to pay. There are children’s tickets an adult tickets (but frankly, there isn’t a big price difference).
Keep in mind that adults start at age 10!
Looking to not scare the kiddos at Disneyland — don’t miss my parent’s guide:
I am a big believer in preparation before the parks pays off big (I have a very simple Disneyland trip planning guide). And, don’t forget….
If you’re considering a Disneyland trip — try out Get Away today! You can save $10 by using the coupon code CURLS10.
And, check out my other Disneyland tips right here:
Benefits of Staying at a Disneyland Resort Hotel: Perks of Staying at the Parks
Read More
What to Bring to Disneyland: Theme Park Walking Pharmacy
Read More
Disneyland Backpacks
Read More
Best Disneyland Restaurants for Families
Read More
Crowded at Disneyland: What to do to keep it magical on busy days
Read More
Best Time of Year to go to Disneyland: All Four Seasons
Read More
Emily says
Just tried to use the code curls10 on get away today and it said it was invalid! Do you still have a deal with them?
Hilary Erickson says
It needs to be a full trip including tickets (at least two) and I believe at least a 2 night stay at a hotel.
Jens says
I don’t know whether it’s just me or if everyone else encountering
issues with your website. It appears as if some of the written text on your posts are running off the screen. Can somebody else please comment and let me know
if this is happening to them as well? This might be a issue
with my internet browser because I’ve had this happen previously.
Kudos
Hilary Erickson says
oh no — no — no one else has mentioned it. 🙁