Financial Journey
(featured column)
Lessons
Learned on Our Trip to Disney World
by
Karen Kuebler
My husband and I
just recently returned from a family vacation to Disney World with my sisters
and their husbands. Being the frugal people we are (our family would
probably say cheap), I had to start noticing some of the things that were
happening that were costing us money that I didn’t want to spend. It
actually became ironical, so I started to track them! More...
Editor's
note: The purpose of this article is to point out money saving ideas that can be
used when traveling and should not be considered the author's complete summary
of her trip to Disney World... I assure you she had a wonderful time and spent
plenty of money, though probably not on coffee! ;o)
Afterall, I
bought our airline tickets at a great rate on special several months ago.
Then I budgeted ahead of time to buy our park hopper passes. It actually
only cost $4 extra per pass to buy a 7 day instead of a 5 day pass. We
were going for 5 full days, but in the event we wanted to go to a park the night
we arrived, or the morning before we left – we bought the 7 day pass. I
printed out menus from each of the restaurants where my sister had made
reservations so we could plan cost effective meals before we left home. We
were set for a magical (and as frugal as you can get) trip to Disney World.
The first full day went very well at the Magic Kingdom park. My husband
and I had our coffee in our room to save the cost of coffee at breakfast.
One of my sisters had wanted to treat us all to a special meal at Cinderella’s
Castle – it was magnificent and I felt guilty, but she wouldn’t take
“no” for an answer.
We arrived back to our rooms at 8:00 p.m. Thursday night. I had a message
from my son needing an original letter signed by me for a particular application
he had to submit by Monday. He wondered if I could go anywhere in Disney World
to type one and get it in the mail Thursday night. My son hasn’t been to
Disney World, so he has no concept how spread out it is. We didn’t rent
a car, since we didn’t need one. But to get a letter done by computer at
one of the Conference Centers would require taking buses across the park.
We were already exhausted from the day and felt like we were going to fall over.
I decided a handwritten letter would suffice, but that I would have to use
overnight service, in order to have it to him by the time he needed it. I
hate to add that I had reminded him at the beginning of December that he needed
to process the application at that time. But this letter was extremely
important for him to receive and I decided this wasn’t the time to try to
teach a lesson.
We had wonderful “magical” Disney service from the best Customer Service Rep
in the park. The only problem was, the technology was not responding as
magically as he was. By the time he had things ready to go, it was going
to go overnight by UPS for a cost of $60. I felt like banging my head on
the counter and then fainting! UPS wasn’t available for assistance by
phone, so he decided to try Fed Ex.
We ended up with it costing $28 and with an arrival date in time for what my son
needed. I was so happy I tried to offer him a tip, even though this was $28 I
shouldn’t have had to spend! He said he couldn’t accept tips in his
position as the concierge, and this was his job and the type of service guests
deserved. I wrote a letter to his manager instead. He had really
settled me down from a very distressful situation because I wasn’t sure I
could get this letter sent. Huge lesson #1 was learned here – don’t take my
cell phone on vacation in the future! Now, if I can just break myself of
this habit – I am always worried about emergencies.
I couldn’t get to sleep until 2:00 a.m. after getting back to our room at
11:00 p.m. so I only got 5.5 hours of sleep – which isn’t enough for me to
tackle Disney World at the speed my sisters can do Disney World! We met
for breakfast, and since my husband and I slept a little later, we didn’t have
time to make coffee in our room. I skipped it at breakfast, but my husband
really *needed* his coffee to get kick started, so that cost an extra $2.50 at
breakfast.
We both ordered eggs benedict (my absolute favorite). When the meals
arrived after a very, very long time – our eggs were cooked hard and the
potatoes were cold. When I spend that much for a meal, I expect to get
what I’ve ordered and everybody knows that eggs benedict are poached eggs that
are soft and runny. I asked to have mine redone. My husband didn’t
want to bother to have his changed, so instead he ate half his meal and didn’t
enjoy it at all. Lesson #2 – you deserve what you order, and if you are
paying good money for a meal there is absolutely nothing wrong with having them
take it back and redo it. As a result, my husband was hungry for a snack
in a couple of hours which cost an few extra bucks.
When we left home, I decided not to bring a water bottle because there would be
drinking fountains everywhere. That was a big mistake. I was so
parched on the first day, and the drinking fountains weren’t doing the trick,
so I bought a large bottle of water at $2.00 which irritated me to have to spend
the money. But I kept refilling it all day and it worked out well.
Lesson #3 – listen to your first gut instincts!
On the second day, I took the bottle with me and asked our server to fill it
with cold water in the restaurant at breakfast. As we were sitting at the
bus stop waiting for a shuttle to the Animal Kingdom, I realized I had left the
water in the restaurant. You have to understand me to get how these things
affect me. I hate wasting money on even the smallest things when it is
unnecessary! So, I had to plunk $2.50 in the machine at the bus station to
get another bottle of water. I’m not sure what the lesson here would be,
other than to work on improving my memory.
On the bus, I reached up to fool with my earrings and found one missing!
When we came home I called the restaurant where we had breakfast and the lost
and found in the main lobby – a missing earring had not been turned in.
So I tried to get over that one quickly by looking at the earring and realizing
I can add a jump ring to it and make a nice necklace out of it. But they
sure did make a beautiful pair of earrings! I suppose I can add a Lesson
#4 – never throw away a stray earring. You can make a great necklace
from a lonely earring.
My sisters love to shop, and Disney World is a haven for people who love
shopping! I have learned in my past experiences that shopping can become
contagious. When everybody around you is finding all kinds of wonderful
things, and you are in the store browsing along with them, temptation to buy
increases significantly. Especially when somebody shows you something and says,
“this is just perfect for you!”
I actually refrained very well from overspending and did not give in to my
temptress sisters! I purchased a couple of items that I thought would make
great gifts. And, then I discovered another way to use my time. I
walked around to get ideas for gifts that I might be able to make myself and
took digital pictures of them. Lesson #5 – don’t be drawn into
spending when you are around others who are spending freely. You do not
have the same budgets and resources – you need to be totally conscious of your
own spending plan and stick with it. Find whatever diversions you need to
keep you from making purchases you wouldn’t have made if you were by yourself.
We kept very close to ordering the meals that we had pre-selected from the menus
I printed out on the internet. The one area where we weakened and spent
unnecessary money occurred when others wanted to get snacks in-between meals.
The first day we skipped the snacks, not the least bit hungry. The second
day we started getting snacks when they did – it was too easy to give into
temptation. Lesson #6 – don’t snack if you aren’t hungry. The costs
of a snack for two at Disney World can easily run between $6 to $8.00.
With a seven day vacation, that can add up to over $50 for just one extra snack
a day!
We also came close to making another expensive mistake. Our rooms were
wired for high speed internet. My brother-in-law suggested we hook up my
laptop to the cable in the room. My husband assumed that if it connected
to the internet it would be free of charge, otherwise he thought we would need
to call the front desk to set it up. I had second thoughts and called the
front desk. There was a charge, and had we hooked up the cable, we would
have been spending an additional $10 per day plus tax. Lesson #7 – never
make assumptions without checking them out.
Vacationing in groups can add to your spending due to the temptations you’re
faced with that might not be there if you are alone. Preplan your
vacation. Know that you might be persuaded or induced to spend when you
really don’t want to exceed your budget and develop alternative plans to help
you avoid spending ‘while under the influence’ from others in the group.
For example, while others are shopping and snacking, walk around and take some
photos. After the vacation is over, present the others with photo albums
of the places where you have been. They will all receive a gift that they
will treasure, and you will still have extra money in your pocketbook!
* * *
Copyright
© 2006 by Karen Kuebler. All rights reserved.
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