Theme Park Savings Part 2

So, you’ve decided to take your summer and plan a vacation. We all know by now that summer is the most expensive time to travel, so finding ways to save money can be a challenge, especially at theme parks where they charge your $7 for a pretzel without cheese. If you take every opportunity during the day, you could easily spend hundreds of unnecessary dollars. You want to make sure you budget for everything, including souvenirs and those all-important kiosk goodies, like Mickey-shaped ice creams and kettle corn. It’s never easier to waste money than when it comes to food. If you missed how to save in general, check out my last post.

Bring your own snacks

As you well know, grabbing a snack every time you’re hungry or your kids say they are can quickly add up and bust your budget. Yes, I want to eat all those fries and hot dogs and ice cream sandwiches, too, but I try not to give in each time I feel that stomach twinge – which is nearly every time I pass a kiosk or food window. I’m aware that I want to eat all the time when I’m on vacation and children are no different. Pack your day bag – I suggest an Ameribag or Urban Tour Bag from Travelon, as they save your back, have  pockets for everything and thwart thieves – with granola bars, veggie sticks and peanut butter, crackers, cookies and the like to satisfy your hunger pangs.

Things like fried chicken can also double as lunch items if you don’t want to spend the money on (sometimes) ridiculously priced meals. This is especially helpful if you kid orders the same thing from the menu everywhere you go, like PB & J or chicken nuggets. Save your $10 and bring it in with you.

Don’t forget the water

Bottled water is the biggest rip-off. $5 for a bottle that you can buy a whole case of at Target or Safeway and still get some change back? Buy them before you head to the park, put them in the freezer or fridge – or buy one of these Cool-it Caddies to keep stuff cool on-the-go – and save yourself some aggravation by having to buy 32 drinks throughout the day. Not only will you have fresh water, but you can refill the bottle at water fountains (and Disney employees will refill your bottle at any of the counter restaurants) to save even more all day long.

Not loving less that icy H2O or need some variety? Purchase some of those drink packets and turn it into tea or punch or lemonade. Universal also has a new beverage plan that enables you to pay one price and get a souvenir cup that you can have refilled all day long at any of the participating food locations in the park.

Eat breakfast before getting to the park

If you have a vacation rental or a hotel that includes continental breakfast makes this pretty easy. If you just have a regular room with a microwave and fridge, make some instant oatmeal, have cereal, eat a bagel or load up on pastries or those Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches. That meal alone will save you $10-20 per person each day.

Leave the park for meals

It’s no secret that you can eat more cheaply if you leave the park and eat at a restaurant off-property. If you don’t have the budget to eat within the park, then do some research and plan out where to eat each day. I enjoy trying different places inside the park and save time by not leaving, but during the summer Disney and other theme parks can be open 14+ hours a day, so if you are gone for a couple hours, you won’t miss out on much.

Look for restaurants that have kids eat free options. You can also have the children share a regular size entrée. Not only is this cheaper than two things off the kids’ menu, but they are more likely to eat a vegetable. Sharing a meal with your child can also save money since most places serve much more than one person should eat.

Sign up for the meal plan

Got teenagers with you? They seem to be eating machines. While I don’t find the meal plans worth their price normally, if you have teenage boys who have bottomless stomachs, this might be just the way to go for you. You get a certain number of meals, beverages and snacks included each day and you don’t need to be around to give them money every time they claim they’re hungry, since they either just need their ticket or wristband.

Have you found a good way to save money on food when traveling to theme parks? 

Need more tips to make your summer vacation affordable and awesome? Download my Summer Savings ebook. Spend a little to save a lot!

Theme Park Savings Part 1

Summer is here and the kids are out of school – or will be soon – which means that summer vacations are not that far away. I, myself, will be going on a trip, too, but unlike the majority of travelers this summer, I will be headed to Las Vegas. Not that I’m not jealous of everyone willing to wait in increasingly long lines and enjoy Disney and other theme parks. Though I will miss the opening of Universal Orlando’s Diagon Alley, I hope to be able to beat the crowds by planning my trip next fall. If you’ll be headed to a theme park this summer as well, then you probably want to make the most of your time and money. Today we’ll talk about how not to empty your wallet before you even get there.

Get discount tickets

While I know a lot of people just buy their tickets at the gate, not only does this waste time when you arrive – you could be riding It’s a Small World! – but you can also end up spending more than you have to. Why not save wherever you can and then have a few dollars leftover for a churro (or four)?

You can save money by buying your tickets online at various locations. Search online for promo codes, too. I prefer to buy my tickets through the local AAA travel store, because I find they have the best deals, but you can also get Disneyland park hopper tickets through Costco and many credit unions sell discounted ones as well. If you’ll be purchasing a vacation package, check out BookIt.com and add your park tickets on that way and save big. Besides AAA, they have the lowest prices on Disney tickets out there. For great deals on Disney World, use OrlandoVacation. Going to Universal? The best deals on tickets, including adding the front of the line pass, is on their website.

Purchase a park-hopper ticket 

These can save you money over buying individual day tickets and you can use the same one over the course of your visit. They just scan your fingerprint now, instead of the old school way they did it before where you needed to sign the back of the ticket and present ID each day. Much quicker. You still need your ticket for them to swipe and also to be able to use the FastPASS machines.

Many theme parks have deals that can save you money the more days you go. In fact, Universal generally has a buy one day, get the whole year free, which means you can go for the day and then come back whenever during your trip without paying again. I love this! Some have deals where you just pay a little extra and get unlimited visits throughout the year, which might actually save you a ton if even if you plan to just go twice.

Book a vacation rental

Though there may be a whole slew of hotels right across the street from the theme park, you might find that a vacation rental with similar rates can actually save you money. First of all, you will probably find you have more room, which might make it easier live with everyone you’re traveling with. Cramming 4-6 people in a room with only two beds does not make for a loving environment and paying extra for adjoining rooms or a suite just may be out of your budget. A vacation rental is likely to have more than one room, which also means you don’t have to go to sleep just because the kids do.

You’ll also have a kitchen, so you can make breakfasts and save a ton each day. If you want to save even more, come back to the room for more meals. Eating lunch and taking a nap is always a lovely afternoon activity. A quick trip to the grocery store either before checking in or once you’ve settled in is pretty easy. You can also make use of grocery delivery for a few bucks and have food brought straight to you while you’re unpacking.

Some rentals have washers, so while you’re resting or waiting for the kids to take their daily nap, you can do some laundry, which will also save you from packing a bunch of unnecessary clothing or having to spend a handful of quarters down at the Laundromat. Yep, even if you end up spending a little more on a rental than on a hotel, the savings may far outweigh what you would end up spending in the long run going with the cheaper option.

Who needs a Luigi's tire hat anyway? No seriously. Who?

Buy souvenirs ahead of time

Yes, I know this sounds weird, but if you have little ones, they are going to want toys and shirts and balloons and candy. You can try to evade some of these costs by stopping at one of the grocery or discount stores around Disney and stock up on some inexpensive souvenirs (many of which you will find at the parks for much more) and dole out a bit each day before you leave. Or keep them in your bag until the kids are getting restless and cranky. You're sure to make some happy faces. The Disney Store online or in your local mall often has great sales on stuff your kids will love.

My best friend, and mom of (now) five, has some fantastic tips for doingDisney as a family on the cheap (or as cheap as you can get without compromising the fun). If they can find it in their budget, on one income, to make the magic happen for their family, you can too.

We’ll talk about more ways to save money on food during your theme park vacation in the next blog post. Do you have favorite ways to save at the theme park?

Need more tips to make your summer vacation affordable and awesome? Download my Summer Savings ebook. Spend a little to save a lot!

Talk Instantly with Prip

I don’t know about you, but when I’m on vacation (or at the farmers’ market or the mall), I don’t want to have to keep calling my travel mates to find out where they are in a crowd or where they want to meet. You could text, but sometimes if it’s loud or in your purse you can’t hear it and if you don’t have unlimited texting, then you probably don’t want to do that either. Enter Prip’s push-to-talk. It’s the way to turn your mobile into a walkie talkie.

Do you remember being a kid and getting a set of walkie talkies and thinking it was the coolest thing? As an adult, we have often thought about getting a set to use at the theme parks or on a cruise ship, but then that is just another thing to have to carry around. By turning your phone into a push-to-talk device, it gives you the best of both worlds, only requires you to carry around one thing instead of two, has an unlimited range instead of only 200 feet and even makes you feel a bit like a kid again.

Save all your minutes for something truly important and download the Prip app to connect to all your friends and family for just $1.99 per month (the first month is free!). When on vacation, make sure all your travel buddies have Prip on their phones. It’ll definitely make finding each other during that Disney parade or figuring out where to meet up for lunch that much easier and less difficult to coordinate, since it’s faster than texting and you won’t be subjected to the miscommunication that can often occur…or waste time text-arguing when it could be easier to just use your words.

Make your phone use more personal, too. Texting is great, but without voice or inflection, things don’t often come across as well as we would like. You aren’t limited by characters either. If you’re like me, you always want to say more than 140 or 160 characters. I don’t want to write 9 different texts. With this, I’m happy, my message gets across and people can hear my actual voice, so no need to use emojis and emoticons, even though they are fun. What exactly do you mean when you post a banana, a steamboat and a top hat??? While cute, they don’t make much sense if you are using them as a language, right?

Prip works via your 3G or 4G network, on roaming and with WiFi. You don’t even have to just use it with people you are traveling with. Use it to ask your husband if you need peanut butter when you’re at the store, find out where your kids are, talk to friends and family across the country or even in other countries (including users of Nextel Mexico, Nextel Brazil, Nextel Peru, Nextel Argentina and Nextel Chile), across cell carriers and on iPhone and Android devices. If they are near their phone, you can instantly communicate with anyone who has the app installed. Want to use Prip outside of the U.S.? No problem! You can use Prip anywhere WiFi is available.

You can add multiple lines to an account, so you can easily pay for your whole family on one account, employees for your business or manage the lines for everyone you are traveling with. At only $1.99 per line per month, that’s pretty darn cheap and better than all those overage fees you could end up paying when you have to constantly call or text each other to find out where they are or when they’re going to show up. Each user has their own login and password for their individual app, making it personal at the same time, even if one person is in charge of managing and paying for all the lines. There’s no commitment either, so if you decide you no longer need Prip on a phone, you can quickly cancel the plan online.

Doesn’t Prip sound like a great app that you could be using all the time? If you think so, then try it now! I think you're going to like it as much as I do. You can download Prip directly to your phone from iTunes or the GooglePlay Store and start using it right away.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post, but all opinions are 100% my own.