Travel Tips

Ten Travel Tips for Saving Money in Orlando, Florida

10. Book your trip with as much advance notice as possible. This allows you to obtain the best deals, and you will avoid nasty surprises such as ticket prices and hotel rates going up.

9. Find a hotel or resort with free transportation to the parks. With this feature, it enables you to save a TON on taxis or shuttles and the parking fee at the theme park parking lots.

8. Buy supplies in bulk such as water and snacks. There are usually supermarkets around your resort that allow you to pick these staples up that you know for sure that you will be buying on a daily basis. Buying them in one shot guarantees you a good discount, and no midnight trips to the store when you realize that you ran out of something.

7. Bring food and snacks to the parks. There is absolutely nothing wrong with brown bagging it at the parks. A hotdog and a soda usually run about $7 per person which is insane (or really good depending on which side of the window you are standing on!)

6. Buy your souveniers outside of the park. There are plenty of gift shops in the area surrounding the theme parks where they sell pretty cool merchandise at huge discounts. Rule of thumb: Buy stuff for yourself at the park for the memory, buy your friends mugs at the gift shops.

5. Avoid room service. Unless you're on your honeymoon, avoid this because you usually end up spending about 3 times as much as you normally would for food. Why spend $20 on pancakes when you can spend $3.99 on a huge breakfast buffet at Ponderosa or Perkins? Or stay at a resort with a kitchen in the room, you'll have a place to put all of that water your bought in bulk and a place to cook.

4. Bring DVD's to watch. Most hotels/resorts have dvd players in the room, that way the kids have something to do while the parents relax other than spending their parents money. This way you can take all that money you saved and blow it at the gift shop!

3. Explore the other smaller Orlando area attractions. There are numerous other attractions that you can go to and have a blast at without having to spend a ton, and in some cases, nothing at all. Gatorland is a good example of this, as well as Old Town in Kissimmee and Downtown Disney in the Walt Disney World resort where you don't even have to put out money for parking.

2. Drive to Orlando instead of flying. If you live a tolerable distance away from Orlando, it makes better financial sense to drive 5 people on the same tank of gas than to have to spend money on 5 plane tickets. Besides, if you see something of interest to you, it is a lot easier to pull over and park than to parachute over a spot and walk the rest of the way!

1. Never, ever, ever buy your tickets at the gate of the theme parks. There is always a discount available for your tickets. If you don't believe me, come check out our dream vacations. Didn't think it was possible to stay in a resort for 3 days and visit one of Orlando's major theme parks for $99 did you? 

 

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Photo: Nancy