Disney Savings Guide: Which Is The Right One For You?
It seems like only yesterday that we let our then 7 year old daughter know that we were finally “going to Disney World”. The memory of her squeals and excitement are with me to this day. We had saved for a long time in order to be able to take this trip, and had a wonderful time when we went. I learned a great deal about the best way to plan a Disney vacation, and quickly realized that in order to have an affordable Disney family vacation, there was a lot of research involved. And I also learned that a Disney savings guide was essential if I wanted to save any kind of money on this trip at all.
The challenge though is in choosing the best Disney travel guide for your family, as there are so many out on the market. And each seems to be so promising, with all those colorful pictures of happy families enjoying their happy vacations. How do you know which will actually help you save money on your Disney vacation? This article will hopefully provide some help as I share reviews of a few of the most popular ones and offer some opinions on what each has to offer.
First of all is Birnbaum’s Walt Disney World, which is the “official”, Disney-approved travel guide that appears in book stores everywhere. It is a nice little book and was, in fact, the guide that I bought for our first trip. I found all of the pictures, maps, and ride/attraction guidelines to be very helpful, especially in helping me to get comfortable with all that the Disney parks have to offer. I highly recommend this book to anyone on their first Disney World visit, as it is a great starter guide. But, it is important to know that there is very little helpful information on how to actually save any money on a Disney vacation, as there are no real options presented beyond the Disney resort for food and lodging. With this in mind then, while this is a great guide to start the planning process, especially if it is your first visit, it would not be my first recommendation for a Disney savings guide.
The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World may be the best-known of the many Disney World vacation guides. And at over 800 pages, it is certainly the most comprehensive. With the author covering nearly every aspect of a trip to central Florida, this is an informative, and very detailed guide. Many people also like the fact that it is completely unbiased in a way that Birnbaum’s guide is not, and so offers other points of view beyond Disney. What is especially helpful is that there are a number of options for saving money throughout this book, making it a useful Disney savings guide. It is important to realize however, that with the amount of information presented, this is not a little guide that is quick and easy to refer to. Think “phone book”.
The travel guide that I have found to be the most useful in terms of saving money on a Disney vacation is the Ultimate Disney World Savings Guide. This is actually an e-book that was written by a former Disney castmember, and I have appreciated the “insider” information that has been very helpful in planning an affordable Disney vacation. The author shares a great deal of cost-savings tips and ideas that can potentially save the Disney vacationer hundreds of dollars. This book provides the money-saving strategies that make it an excellent choice for a Disney savings guide. Now if an e-book is a new concept for you, let me just say that I love the flexibility that an e-book offers: being able to download it immediately, reading through, and then printing out only what I need/want to take to the parks with me for reference.
While there are probably hundreds of Walt Disney World travel guides, if having an affordable Disney vacation is important to you, then the Ultimate Disney World Savings Guide is my recommendation for a truly excellent Disney savings guide. Well organized, easy to use, with lifetime access to the author’s website for the most current Disney updates, and literally hundreds of money-saving tips and strategies make this guide, in my opinion, a must-have for saving money on your Disney vacation.
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