How much money should I I budget for Disneyland is something every parent asks before they take their trip. Let’s get your Disneyland budget in shape to have a great trip — complete with how much spending money you’ll need for food & souvenirs!
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.
Disneyland Budget
How much money should I bring to Disneyland?
In true Pulling Curls finances style, the budget will be shared with explicit #’s and everything! Maybe this will answer your question to “How Much Should I Budget for Disneyland?” — or “how much spending money for Disneyland?”. Let’s find out!
My favorite way to spend less, is to book with Get Away Today (we have used them since 1998).
You can spend hours and hours on the phone comparing and contrasting different hotels in the Disney area. Or, you can call them, find out TONS of info and book in one step. I bet you’ll even save money. I can wholeheartedly say that Get Away Today is the WAY for overwhelmed moms to book Disney. The end.
You can even save $10 with the coupon code CURLS10
If you’re looking to keep track of your budget — don’t miss my Disneyland Trip Calculator:
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How much money do you need for Disneyland
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
Disneyland Transportation Budget
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.
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.
I talk about all your transportation options in my Disneyland Budget Calculator.
Disneyland Hotel Budget
We always use Get Away Today for our Disney reservations! They guarantee the best price, and if you find it cheaper, they will beat it. I have a whole post on how I picked out Disneyland family vacation package. That post shares all the hotels we’ve stayed at and liked or didn’t like.
One of the last times we went to Disney I was able to get the tickets through my work for a deal I couldn’t pass up (which, has since then, stopped), so we booked those on our own. But, after calling around to 20 different hotels to get the best price, I realized I should have saved the time and just made one phone call to Get Away Today!
Disneyland Ticket Budget
They offer hotel only purchases and ticket only purchases along with their amazing Disneyland Family packages. And, they have amazing customer service (need to know if the room has a full fridge or half, or if it has a wall between you and your kids — they know EVERYTHING about their hotels, love that about them!). I have always enjoyed using them.
Don’t forget to check out the Disneyland MaxPass!
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.
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!
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 eals 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 5 of us) costs around $50 (except when we make reservations, and those meals are usually doublethat), 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.
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 our trip in 2014)
- 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!
** 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 luxuyr room.
Looking to figure out what your own cost will be — don’t miss my Disneyland Trip Calculator!
Disneyland Budget FAQ’s
How much spending money should I bring to Disneyland?
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…
How much Money do you need to go to Disneyland?
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!
Can you do Disneyland on a Budget?
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.
We didn’t get ANY snacks, and I don’t think we actually ate any meals in the park. Sometimes we’d grab dinner at the MacDonalds, or one time our hotel provided a lite dinner, that we bolstered with some microwave popcorn and our food budget was almost zero at the parks.
Your ticket price will be fixed, your hotel price will be what you can make it with Get Away Today. After that, it’s really up to you how much you spend in the parks!
Btw, did I mention Get Away Today has a best price guarantee. If you find a better price, ask them about it because their phenomenal customer support is there to back you up during your ENTIRE trip. I think it’s 100% worth it!
Another perk is that you can book your trip for just $125 down, and pay your trip off as you approach travel. It’s almost like they HELP you save to afford a trip to Disneyland!
If you STILL think that Disneyland is out of reach, check out my family budget series. There might be small things you could start cutting out to afford a trip sooner than you think.
To sum it up — a few ways to save on your Disney Trip:
- Use Get Away Today (did I mention a lot of their packages include FREE parking, that usually costs around $20/night at some hotels?)
- Decide how much you’d like to spend on souvenirs — possibly buy some Disney items in advance at a big box store so your kids still feel special, without that “special” price tag in the parks!
- Take snacks so you’re less likely to splurge on food in the park
How much should I save for 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.
Looking to not scare the kiddos at Disneyland — don’t miss my parent’s guide:
Thit post is part of my Disneyland tips series….
I am a big believer in preparation before the parks pay s off big. 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:
Five most common questions I get about Disneyland
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Disneyland While Pregnant: Tips from The Pregnancy Nurse
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When the Disney Magic is Gone
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Disneyland on Busy Days: What to do to keep it magical
Read More
Scary rides at Disneyland: A look at Disneyland rides & if your kids will like them!
Read More
Disneyland Family Packages: Finding YOUR Hotel at Disneyland
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. 🙁