Hellobee Boards

@winniebee: I think that's a great choice. Staying on property keeps the magic going and also provides transportation to the parks and to and from the airport as well. BIG PLUS! At least for us it was. However how much do you wanna spend you have value resorts which are the cheapest and than the price goes up as does the luxury. I know Art of Animation has suites that can accommodate your family and they're a value resort so it's a win win especially in you don't plan on spend a bunch of time in the resort. As far as the meal plan I say do it!! It saves soooo much money and is a great way to get table meals at a cheaper rate (if you choose the meal plan that includes table service). I would say an on site hotel and meal plan for 4 ( the baby doesn't choice because he/she will be free for all for everything) I would budget at least $3000+

We are going next month for 4 days/4 nights, staying at the Port Orleans Riverside resort in whatever the name of their deluxe room (it wasn’t that much more than the standard river-view rooms) and have park Hopper tickets for 3 days for 3 people and we paid $1924 for the room and park hopper tickets.

We also have reservations at Cinderella’s Royal Table for dinner which you have to pre-pay for and which was $195 for the 3 of us.

I didn’t do a dining plan because it didn’t seem like a decent enough deal for the restaurants we wanted. I estimate we’ll spend another $1k on food.

I thought of one other thing that you might want to include in your budget...the photo pass. I don't know about you, but whenever we go on vacation, our photos are terrible, so one year, we got the Disney Photo Pass package, where you can get your photo taken by any of those Disney photogs. My husband and I were able to also be in all of the photos, which was really great, all things considered.

@winniebee: I am not sure, to be honest, and I can't find it easily on the site. I'd guess it's somewhere around $200.

@Charm54: Yes, Memory Maker! We had one photog that told us that he always take a picture of just the parents together, that alone was worth the cost, lol.

If you're onsite, you can link it to your magic band. We've not stayed on site recently, but I imagine that's very convenient.

We spent around 5k for the 3 of us to stay at the Polynesian in a garden veiw room in October for 7 nights. We had a 6 day park hopper, memory maker for $149 & meal plan. We also paid for a dinner show and Mickeys not so scary halloween party.

It was a splurge but we don't plan to go back for a few years. I do have to say that it was SO worth it to stay on the monorail since DS did nap a couple afternoons and he loved going to the pool in the afternoon too and staying on the monorail made it so easy to go back and forth between parks and hotel.

Good luck, planning is so overwhelming but fun too!

@petunia354: When did you book your trip? I am curious if the free dining was included at time of booking, or if they opened it up after the fact and added it retro.

@winniebee: We stayed in a standard room with a garden view but were able to still see fireworks from our room which was cool. I think the Poly has some of the biggest standard rooms, it was more than enough room for the three of us and I think 4 ppl would be fine but it would be tight for the 5 of you. Have you looked into renting DVC points and staying in a suite? I know the Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary and the Villas at the Grand Floridian have multi bedroom suites and kitchens which would be perfect for you guys!
ETA: I just looked at our bank statement out of curiosity and it cost closer to 6000 for the 3 of us. Completely insane but it was a gift to ourselves after our 2nd loss and was worth every penny for our family
@looch: We booked in March and traveled the first week in October. Free dining opened up in either April or May but Disney has started putting exclusions on the free dining and wasn't available to people staying at deluxe resorts, so we couldn't apply it to our reservation. I didn't know that ahead of time so I was pretty bummed when I found out but we were already staying at a discounted rate because of the time of year so I couldn't complain too much!

@winniebee: For our family of 3 and 1 infant we spent 5 days and nights. Single park tickets and stayed in the suite at the Art of Animation (highly recommend!) and the total was right at $3,000. We did several character lunches and dinners and ate in the park or the resort for meals. We did not do the dining plan, but it would be have been about even.

ETA: We drove from NC and had a room in SC for 2 nights total. That was also included.