In this series, we plan to focus on a quick money or time saving tip related to Disney, travel in general, shopping, kids, etc.  If you have a tip and wish to have it published, please send to disonadime@disonadime.com.

On to the tip….

When visiting the Disney parks, bring breakfast items (individual cereal boxes, cereal bars, fruit) to eat in the hotel.  You will save not only money, but valuable time in the morning.  More time for rides in the park instead of standing in line for food at park opening.

Welcome to our latest edition of Dis on a Dime 101! Today we’ll be talking about transportation to the Orlando, Florida area. Generally, it is more cost effective for families to drive to WDW than to fly. However many families will want to save time – and in many cases, sanity – by flying.

Here is a strategy we use when looking to travel by air:

Lesson 1: Be flexible

Flexibility on your departure date, your return date, and the time of day your flights take off are easily the biggest ways to save money on airfare. Of course, it requires a certain degree of coordination with your lodging reservations in order to truly realize savings. Sometimes flexibility just isn’t practical due to school and work schedules, however when you free yourself from the box of what days and times you can travel, you have more room to find the best deal on your airfare.

Lesson 2: Plan early and watch trends using Bing Travel / Farecast

Use Farecast at Bing Travel to watch trends and help determine the optimum time for buying fares to Orlando International Airport (MCO). Farecast uses historic fare data to determine a confidence level of how likely a fare will increase or decrease and by how much. Using this information, you can determine the optimum time to purchase your airfare. For example, I looked for flights from Atlanta to Orlando leaving on September 1, 2009 and returning September 8, 2009. Farecast explained that today’s round trip fare of $119 was the lowest price in the past 7 days. It also explained that there was a 94% chance that fares would be raised by $53 to $97 within the next 7 days. Obviously, today would be the day to buy these tickets if these were your dates and departure location for a Disney World vacation!

(I am planning a special trip to Disneyland the following month, so I can’t go. Shucks.)

Lesson 3: When it’s time to buy, use SideStep to find your fares

SideStep is an airline flight aggregator. You enter your travel dates and times and SideStep searches all of the airline’s direct websites to find you the lowest prices on your travel. It has handy filters along the left side of the screen to filter your results in real time. Bing Travel, Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz all have a similar capability, however some of these services tack on extra junk fees and service charges. I have been using SideStep for years and prefer their site when the time comes to pull the trigger on an airfare purchase.

Enrichment: If you have frequent flier miles and other airline perks, use them!

I’ve seen it happen more than once: you have a free companion flight or a plethora of airline miles, but you forgot to use them because you were focused on the lowest price. Don’t forget those miles! One certainty in air travel is that airline loyalty programs are reducing the benefit per frequent flier mile regularly, so use them as soon as you can. Make sure you factor any savings or free flights in with any other searching you may do.

This is a fairly general process but it is a strategy that works well for us. Be sure to search the web for other resources on saving money on airfare. Go forth and get yourself flying!

Going to Infinity and Beyond to see what topics folks are buzzing about:

• Jack Spence at AllEars.net explores Name Tags for Disney Parks cast members over the years.
• Scott Thomas at AllEars.net gives tips for photographing an empty Disney park.
• WDWMagic.com brings news of a new Tequila Bar at the Mexico Pavilion in Epcot.
• Mark Goldhaber of MousePlanet fills us in on the latest at WDW with his Resort Update.
• The WDWToday crew explore Maelstrom and the after-show at the Norway Pavilion in Epcot in their latest podcast.

With kids it’s inevitable — you’re going to be buying stuff when you get to the parks.  But what if you don’t want to sink your entire 401k into Disney merchandise?  I have a couple of ideas:

1. Set a souvenir budget for each person in your party.  This includes you!  Think about splitting the budget across each day you are at the parks.  Each day you have a whole new set of money to spend!  This is a great lesson for kids.  They can only spend the money they have so they really have to analyze whether or not the purchase is worth it.   If you see a more expensive item you want to purchase, save your entire allowance and buy the big item at the end of your trip.
2. Don’t think you have to buy an item the day you see it.  Unless you’re at the World Showcase in Epcot, chances are you will see the same Goofy hat 8976 times on your trip.  If you wait until the end of your trip you will probably spend less.
3. Consider buying some Disney toys at home (Walmart, Target, etc) and surprise the kids in the hotel.  Coloring books and crayons will be much cheaper OUTSIDE the parks and they are virtually the same.
4. If you are staying at a Disney Resort, consider getting the refillable drink mug.  For about $15, it’s good for your entire stay for soft drinks and coffee AND the mug is yours to keep — Insta-Souvenir!  I use mine every weekend!
5. Shop at the $10 and under store at Downtown Disney — need I say more?
6. Don’t buy the Photo Pass photos.  Get a Photo Pass and have the photographers take your picture but also have them take a picture with YOUR camera.  I’ve never been turned down once.  You will get the same picture they are taking for free!

What are your techniques for saving money on “stuff”?  I’d love to hear your ideas and how you fend off the “I want! I want!” from the kids…or husbands…or wives as the case may be.

Welcome to Dis on a Dime 101! In this series we will discuss strategies for saving money on your trip to Walt Disney World. Let’s start with probably the most difficult place to save money, Walt Disney World theme park tickets.

First, a brief overview of the WDW theme park ticketing program, called Magic Your Way. Magic Your Way first starts by choosing your base ticket. You can purchase base tickets with a number of theme park entry days available, ranging from a 1-day ticket to a 10-day ticket. After buying your base ticket, you can purchase add-ons such as Park-Hopping (multiple theme parks on the same day without using multiple days on your ticket), Water Park admission, and the valuable No Expiration option.

Lesson 1: Be Prepared to Buy No-Expiration Tickets in Bulk

Each base ticket “day” gives you entry to one of the four WDW theme parks for one day. The money saving tip here is a little like going to your local warehouse club – if you live outside of Florida and you intend on taking more than one Disney World vacation in your lifetime, you save big money by buying in bulk – but only when buying more than 3 days per ticket. Now, there are some options here:

• If you plan on spending 3 days or less at WDW theme parks in a single trip: buy 4 or more days per ticket with the No-Expiration option.
• If you plan on spending more than 3 days at WDW theme parks and intend to use ALL of your ticket days during a single trip: buy only the tickets that you need without the no-expiration option, which expire 14 days after using your first day.
• If you fall outside of these two situations, buy the maximum number of tickets you can afford with the No-Expiration option.

So, how much more do you really save? Let me illustrate based off of today’s prices:

• A one day base ticket costs $75.
• A four day base ticket with No-Expiration costs $67.25 per day – about a 10% per day savings.
• A six day base ticket with No-Expiration costs $50.83 per day – a 32% per day savings!
• A ten day base ticket with No-Expiration costs $43.70 per day – a 42% per day savings!

Obviously, Disney is banking on the fact that most families will only be visiting 2-3 theme parks per visit. While Disney tends to change prices every year and may change the structure, the fact remains that you need to buy more than three days per ticket today to truly save money.

Lesson 2: Other Ticket Add-ons Are Mostly Useless

A bold statement, for sure! Here’s the scoop:

• Park Hopper should only be considered if you are staying in a Walt Disney World Resort offering Extra Magic Hours (EMH) and everyone in your party intends on taking advantage of that privilege. Generally speaking, when a theme park offers EMH, you should either be hopping out of the park when the park opens for all guests after Morning EMH, hopping to the park when the park starts Evening EMH, or avoiding that park all together as it will be the busiest of the four WDW parks that day. We typically avoid EMH all together, therefore we never need Park Hopper.
• Water Parks and More should only be considered if everyone in your party plans on visiting Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach AND will be visiting DisneyQuest or Wide World of Sports or will be playing golf. Otherwise, I recommend buying admission to each of these separately.

Lesson 3: Consider Buying Tickets Online Before Your Trip

A word of warning: there are quite a number of “gray-market” tickets floating around on the web and in the Orlando area. Disney World tickets are non-transferrable once the first day is used, and your thumbprint is stored by the theme park entry turnstiles and verified each visit after that. Do not buy “used” tickets, they will not work!

Instead, before arriving at WDW, consider using a ticket wholesaler such as Maple Leaf Tickets, Official Ticket Center (not really “WDW Official”), or Undercover Tourist. These wholesalers may save you even more money in addition to buying in bulk.

Also, be sure to have examined Disney’s special vacation packages before buying tickets. The recent “Buy 4, Get 3 free” promotion is an example of one of those rare packages that is very difficult to beat, even with with careful planning.

Lesson 4: Plan in advance!

Like anything else in WDW, you will get the best value by knowing what to do long before you get there. Do not go to the ticket counters not knowing what you intend on purchasing – you are assured to pay more than you intend that way. Some planning resources:

• The Walt Disney World tickets web page.
• TouringPlans.com Least Expensive Tickets Calculator

One thing you may be thinking about: what about Annual Passes? There are situations where Annual Passes can make more sense than buying a 10-day No-Expiration ticket, especially if you live in Florida. We will talk about those in a future post.

Taking a quick jaunt around the web to see what topics folks are buzzing about:

• Deb Wills at AllEars.net takes us on a tour of the new DVC Treehouse Villas.
• WDWMagic.com gives us photos from the opening of Paradiso 37 at Pleasure Island.
• Steve Russo at MousePlanet talks with the writer of Stich’s Supersonic Celebration, Jason Surrell.
• Wade Sampson at MousePlanet gives us the Empress Lilly Story.
• The WDWToday Podcast focuses on Counter Service Values in episode 574 – a topic near and dear to our heart!