Face it. Planning any vacation can be daunting AND expensive; however, a trip to Walt Disney World seems to be at the top of the list when considering cost. The Ultimate Guide to an Affordable Disney World Vacation, written by Kevin Barry, is a guide to cutting the vacation cost without cutting out the experience of Walt Disney World.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I received this book for review. I guess I thought it would be some of the more common money-savings tips, but there are quite a few tips that I didn’t expect. Kevin uses quite a few examples of working credit cards to get free air miles, free hotel stays, and free meals. This isn’t something that I’ve really leveraged for money savings.
There were also some good tips about when and how to book some of the cheapest flights. Some of them make sense, but there was one that I’m not quite sure about. It almost seems to good to be true, and I’d love to hear from others who have used his tip for “hidden city” fares.
Kevin Barry, the author of this book, also runs a website called Frugal Mouse where he posts tips to cut costs on trips to Walt Disney World. The one main thing that I like the most in The Ultimate Guide to an Affordable Disney World Vacation is that Kevin is not trying to talk you into eating every meal in your room or lugging food with you to the parks everyday. He helps you find ways to save whatever you can save on from airfare to rental cars to hotels. Many of his tips would be applicable to most other vacations besides Walt Disney World.
I’ve never bid on anything, and his tips for bidding on rental cars make sense. I wonder if these tips could apply to hotels, too? Speaking of hotels, there is one of Kevin’s facts that concern me. In his DVC section, he mentions the cost of buying into DVC. Then, he proceeds to say that if you buy 140 DVC points for $100 each, you will be paying $14,000 every year. That isn’t true. There are yearly fees for DVC, but they are no where near $14,000. The other information about hotels in that section appear to be correct, so I’m sure this is just an oversight.
If you are interested in getting your own copy of this book, check out the Frugal Mouse website.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book free for the purpose of this review. I received no other compensation. All opinions are my own.
So many of the airfare tips and utilizing credit cards for things like hotel savings, etc. were new ideas to me. Not sure I could juggle all the credit cards and keep my (limited amount of) sanity, but it’s a great idea for those who think Disney is totally out of reach.