How I Saved Nearly $2000 on Our Disneyland Vacation
This vacation has been on our family’s bucket list for a long time, but because of the cost, it has always felt so out of reach. I’m excited to report that it’s finally happening and with my frugal skills, I saved nearly $2000! Here’s how I did it:
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Savings Breakdown:
Travel - $0
Tickets - $514.12
Hotel - $1,156.12
Food - $120
Total savings - $1,790.24
Travel
We’re lucky to live within driving distance to Disneyland Resort. Using this gas calculator, I figure we’ll be spending about $90-$100 round-trip on gas (from Phoenix to Anaheim.)
If you are needing to fly to California, I highly recommend applying for a Southwest Rapid Rewards Premiere card or AAdvantage Platinum Select card, depending on which airline you’d be traveling. We recently discovered travel reward cards and we’re using the AAdvantage Platinum Select to save up points for our next trip to Iowa.
Total savings: None in this area
Tickets
Tickets to the park are arguably the biggest expense, especially for a larger family like ours (with four kids all over the age of free.) I found two avenues that allowed us to purchase adult tickets for child prices.
USAA - If you’re a USAA member, you can take advantage of these discounted tickets through their USAA Perks program. By purchasing through this channel, we also scored six $20 certificates to diningdollars.com (which I’ll talk about further down in the food category.)
ID.me - If you are a student, military, teacher, first responder, government employee, or health care provider then you can create an account on ID.me to score the same discount offered by USAA (adult tickets at the child price.)
Of course, no matter which vendor you purchase from, more days = more cost efficient. It’s also cheaper to purchase one-park-per-day passes, rather than park hopper tickets. We opted for a three-day one-park-per-day pass at Disney and a single day pass at Legoland.
I realize that not everyone will be able to access these offers, so if you have another member program where you’ve found discounted ticket prices (with a legitimate vendor) please share in the comments!
Cost breakdown:
Disney (six 3-day-single-park tickets) -
Through Disney - $2,754.00 | Through USAA Perks - $2,321.94Legoland (six 1-day tickets) -
Through Legoland - $574.00 | Through USAA Perks - $491.94
Total savings: (Disney $432.06) + (Legoland $82.06) = $514.12
Hotel
Last year we applied for the Marriott Boundless rewards credit card. When we applied, the welcome offer was five Free Night Awards! As I’m writing this (April 2025) the welcome offer is three Free Night Awards. We still had two free nights left and only one month before they expired, which is what sparked the idea for this trip. Between our two free night awards and the points that we’ve saved up over the last year, we aren’t paying a dime for our four-night hotel stay (full disclosure, on-site valet parking does cost $27/day and is not covered by points.) And we’re within walking distance to the park, which means we don’t have to pay a second parking fee to drive and park at Disneyland!
Cost breakdown:
4-nights Marriott Hotel without points: $1,051.12
4-nights Marriott Hotel with free nights and points: $0
Disneyland parking: $35/day
Total savings: (Hotel $1051.12) + (Disneyland Parking $105) = $1,156.12
Food & Souvenirs
As mentioned above, by purchasing our tickets through USAA Perks, we received six $20 certificates to diningdollars.com (one $20 gift certificate for each of the six tickets I purchased.) After a quick Google search, this offer sounded disappointing. People were claiming it was scam or “no better than a Groupon deal.” I decided to check it out for myself and actually found it really exciting!
You can purchase Disney gift cards to use at the park (a majority of the food vendors within the park are owned by Disney and will accept this form of payment.) With my six $20 diningdollars.com gift certificates, I was able to get $600 worth of gift cards for $480.
Not only will this $600 worth of Disney gift cards cover our food at the parks for three days, but we’ll even have some extra money to splurge on souvenirs!
Our hotel does not offer complimentary breakfast, but I’ll be packing a ton of healthy food, so we’re not having to eat three square meals at the Park.
Total savings: $120
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