How Much Does it Cost to go to Disneyland: Your Disneyland budget & how much spending money to bring

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 how much you need to save for your Disneyland trip — including expected expenses in the categories of travel, hotel/lodging, tickets, food & souvenirs.

How much does it Cost to go to Disneyland?

I boiled down a trip with my travel partner and said that if you booked a budget hotel it was about $150/night per person. Of course, that varies by the ages of those in your party, how much you plan to spend etc — but that gives you a beginning idea. This article will cover all these areas of your Disneyland Budget:

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 when you’re visiting the happiest place on earth.

I think I did pretty good doing Disneyland on a budget — balancing it all with our vacation package.

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 numbers’s and everything! I have always felt the more transparent we can all be about how we spend, the better off we all are.

But, if you want the cliff notes, I came up with a VERY low end of $25/person (if you plan to split a lot) up to $50/person. However, I’ve also done Disneyland for almost no spending money by bringing snacks and eating at the hotel.

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).

Disneyland Vacation Budget Categories:

The best way to do your vacation budget is to split it into 5 distinct categories for your total cost:

• 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 this 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 that compare the cost of flights.  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 a rental car (don’t forget parking costs if you do that), or you can use things like the Art Shuttle (it’s a busing 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 stay 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 fancy (at all). They base their business on location vs a great hotel. Many of the close hotels are considered “Good Neighbor Hotels”.

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. Hotel costs vary quite a bit.

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.)

Ways to Save 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 (Disney Hotels seem to be the most expensive)
• Forgo amenities. While I mentioned the hotels just aren’t super nice around Disneyland, the reality is that you are in your hotel room for VERY little time (and when you are, you’re so tired you sleep). Some even have water parks (which you may not even use if you’re at the parks all day).

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!

If you want to stay at the on site hotels, I have a post on the perks of staying on property hotels.

Disneyland Park Tickets Budget

I 100% ALWAYS recommend people by tickets with Get Away Today!

Do NOT buy tickets at the Disney resorts! 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 Park Hopper ticket (which allows you to traverse between both Disneyland & Disney California Adventure park), or a 1-park-per-day which keeps you in just one park. 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). The Park Hopper Option can be handy (and those parks really are quite close especially compared to Disney World).

Sometimes 3-day tickets offer magic mornings (where you get early admission) and other perks as well.

Disneyland theme park ticket prices tend to rise each year, and they have started having higher prices during peak seasons & summer months (due to demand).

**A note on park hoppers — you can really save a lot doing just one park/day. If you have small kids it’s quite a trek back to the other park — so, that is something to keep in mind.

Something to consider is that a one-day ticket will be your most per day ticket price — each additional day you add makes the per day price drop (but overall price rise). The cheapest could be an annual passes — so consider your plans.

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 is starting to have more special events (at Halloween and Christmas) which can add additional cost, so that’s something to keep in mind as well.

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, a great way to save is to steer clear of the souvenir shops! However, the lure of Star Wars, Mickey mouse, Marvel an be hard!

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!

… Says the woman who bought $30 dollar sunglasses last time….

Although, I have to say those $30 sunglasses made me SO happy during quarantine when I couldn’t go to the Disneyland parks. I’m so glad I got them. But I digress… 😉

Another pro tip I heard is that you can buy Disney gift cards at Target using your Red card and get 5% back on that purchase, which saves you a bit.

Disneyland Food Budget

Disneyland allows you to bring in as many snacks if you’d like.  When we are on a tight budget we often eat snacks we bring through the day and buy 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 cost.  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!

Anyone who’s visited Walt Disney World Resort might be wondering about a dining plan — but in the past few years Disneyland hasn’t had that.

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 (remember there’s a LOT to do in Los Angeles) 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 (not open anymore — was a dining experience with the princesses) 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 $1,300
• 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

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.