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Welcome to my guide for saving money at Disneyland! If you’ve ever been before or done some research, you’ve noticed that it’s not the cheapest place to go.
It can be hard to stay on a good budget with how much it costs for tickets, hotels, souvenirs, and food.
This article will show you where you can save money on your trip without giving up any of that Disney magic that you’re going for.
We love going to Disneyland and saving money any way possible, so I’m going to share my best tips with you!
As a larger family, we’re always looking for ways to save money on our Disney trips while still having a super magical time. I believe that you can do that with the tips in this article!
1. Buy your park tickets from Target
Target’s website has Disneyland tickets for sale. Choose the options that work for you as far as adult or child, how many days, and whether it’s a park hopper or single park ticket.
Use a Target credit card aka RedCard to save 5% on your purchase. A Disneyland 2 Day 1 Park Per Day Ticket Without Genie+ (Ages 10+) is $310 on Target’s website.
It’s the same price as buying from Disneyland’s website, but using a RedCard will save you 5%, which is $15.50, making your ticket cost you $294.50!
Saving $15.50 might not seem like a ton, but it definitely adds up when you’re buying tickets for multiple people.
2. Buy Your Park Tickets From An Authorized Retailer
Sometimes you can save a little money buying your Disneyland park tickets elsewhere instead of buying them through Disneyland’s website.
One option for saving money is to buy tickets through Undercover Tourist. It is a legitimate company that started in 2000 and is known for offering discounted tickets to theme parks across the U.S.
How much you save depends on which ticket option you choose and how many days your ticket is for.
You can often save about $4-9 per ticket per day. You will have 365 days to use the discounted tickets.
3. Look At The Single Day Tickets Option
There are certain days throughout the year where buying a single day ticket without the park hopper is $104.
If you’re going for multiple days and the days you want are all $104, then it’s cheaper to buy a few single day tickets rather than a multi-day ticket.
The days that are $104 are less popular days to go on. They’ll be during the week, not on holidays, and probably not during any special events.
4. Buy Disney Gift Cards At A Discount
Disney gift cards are sold on Target’s website. You can get 5% off these gift cards using a Target RedCard credit card.
If you buy a $100 Disney Gift card and get 5% off you’ll spend $95 on it and the gift card will have $100 on it that you can use.
You can use these gift cards to buy your park tickets from Disney and you can also take the gift cards with you to Disneyland. Use them on dining, souvenirs, and anything else you buy in the parks.
Sometimes Costco’s website sells Disney gift cards at a discounted rate, so that’s another place to check if you have a Costco membership.
5. Consider A Multi-Day Ticket
Multi-day tickets can save you money depending on when you’re going, especially the longer you go.
5 day tickets start at $96/day, 4 day tickets start at $112/day, 3 day tickets $130/day, and 2 day tickets $155/day.
So if you’re able to go for more days, you’ll save on park tickets. You’ll of course have to pay for more food and more hotel nights though.
6. Bring Your Own Food And Drinks
Disneyland has some really delicious food and I believe that eating it is part of the fun of visiting Disneyland.
The cost can add up really fast when buying meals, snacks, and drinks for a family though.
We always bring lots of snacks with us to save some money. You can also bring meals and drinks with you too.
If you’re bringing drinks with you, you can ask for a cup of ice from the quick service restaurants so you can have a cold drink.
Some ideas of meals to bring into the parks are Lunchables, Uncrustables, salads, pasta salad, sandwiches, and prepared foods from the grocery store.
You can stop at a grocery store to get them or you can have them DoorDashed to your hotel room.
We usually bring muffins and fruit pouches for our kids on our trips so that we can eat breakfast in our hotel room before heading out for the day.
7. Use A Disney Rewards Credit Card
If you have a Disney Rewards Credit Card, you can earn points for every purchase you make, which can be redeemed for Disney merchandise and park tickets.
When you use it in the parks at the Disneyland Resort you’ll save 10% at certain dining locations on most days.
8. Staying Off Property
Disney has three hotels at Disneyland that are amazing, but they are very pricey. Staying at an off property hotel will save you a lot of money and you can still find really nice hotels that are close to the magic.
We love staying at the Fairfield Inn Anaheim Resort. It’s a great hotel and we can’t recommend it enough.
For our next trip we’re planning to stay at the Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel. They have an amazing looking water playground and it looks like a really family friendly hotel.
Book your stay at the Howard Johnson through our link and receive 10% off the regular rate when you use this coupon code: 1000022077
Another way to save money is to find a hotel that has breakfast included so you don’t need to buy it in the parks.
9. Stay At A Hotel Within Walking Distance
We always stay at hotels that are close to the parks. This way you don’t have to spend $30/day to park at Disneyland or pay for an Uber or Lyft to take you between your hotel and the parks.
The Disney hotels are all within walking distance and so are a lot of hotels on South Harbor Blvd.
The Fairfield Inn Anaheim Resort is about a 5-7 minute walk to Disneyland’s security. The Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel is about a 7-10 minute walk. Use this coupon code to take 10% off your stay: 1000022077
There are also other hotels in the area that are a little farther away and offer a free shuttle.
10. Plan Your Visit During Off-Peak Times
If you can be flexible with when to take your trip, you’ll be able to save some money.
Hotels and flights are more expensive during the summer, holidays, and weekends. If you can go during off-peak times then you won’t have to spend so much on those parts of your trip.
A neat way to find the best time to go is to take a look at Undercover Tourist’s crowd calendar.
11. Look For Discounts
Check Disneyland’s website for current discounts and promotions, such as special offers for military personnel, annual passholders, and more.
They’ve even done sales where child tickets are $50 on certain days, so those would be great days to look out for.
There are also certain days where tickets are cheaper than others if you do a single day pass. I’ve seen as low as $104.
12. Bring Your Own Souvenirs
Disney souvenirs are expensive, but they’re also really fun for kids. You can bring new Disney toys with you to give to your kids while you’re in the parks.
The bubble wands are very popular and also expensive, like $30 each. You can buy some online before your trip and bring them with you.
You can also bring glow sticks for your kids to have during nighttime shows, like fireworks.
Disneyland will have Cast Members selling them before the event and chances are good that your kids will see them and want them.
If you’re into pin collecting and trading, you can buy pins on Amazon or eBay before going on your vacation.
My favorite souvenir is a Christmas ornament. You can get Disney Christmas ornaments at a lot of stores and add that to your tree to remember your trip.
13. Don’t Buy Water
Don’t buy water bottles in the parks, instead get free water from quick service restaurants.
They’ll give you a free cup of water and you can pour the water into your water bottle to keep it cold, so make sure to bring a reusable water bottle with you on your trip.
14. Skip The Park Hopper
Our family never buys the park hopper add-on to our tickets. It’s an extra $65 per ticket per day. That adds up quickly for multiple people for a few days!
Disneyland and California Adventure both have a lot to do, so you can easily fill a day in each theme park. Really, you can fill a few days in Disneyland park alone no problem.
The two parks are pretty close to each other, but going back and forth hopping from park to park would also add on a lot of unnecessary walking.
15. Take Advantage Of Free Entertainment
There are so many things to do that are included in your park ticket. You can go on rides, watch parades, shows, fireworks, meet characters, and so much more.
Check the Disneyland app to see which events are going on and at what times. You can also see which characters are in the park that day.
The app will tell you where to find them and at what times. We love meeting Minnie Mouse in her house in Toontown!
The line can be a bit long though, so we suggest having one parent wait in line while the other takes the kids to play in the Toontown fountain till it’s time to go into Minnie’s house.
We also really enjoy watching the Disneyland parades. We suggest finding a good spot about 30 minutes before the parade starts. This can be a while for kids to wait for the entertainment to come though.
What we like to do is bring treats and coloring books to keep our kids busy and save a little more money.
16. Share Meals
Portions at Disneyland can be large, so consider sharing meals with friends or family members. You can ask for extra plates at quick-service restaurants and split your meal.
Something we’ve done before at Royal Street Veranda is get soup in a bread bowl, buy an extra bread bowl, and split the soup up.
We’ve found that most of the kids’ meals are too big for our kids to eat alone.
A lot of the time we’ll have our 3 kids share 2 kids meals or share 1 adult meal instead of buying 3 kids meals.
If it ends up not being enough food we can also get a side of fries or a snack soon for them to eat.
Flo’s Famous Fried Chicken at Flo’s V8 Cafe in California Adventure is a great meal for two adults to share because it comes with a lot of food.
If you have two kids wanting popcorn who won’t want to share one, order one popcorn and ask for an extra popcorn carton. Then you can split the popcorn in half for two kids to share.
If your family loves ice cream, then go to Gibson Girl on Main Street USA in Disneyland. A single scoop of ice cream is $5.79 and a double scoop is $6.79.
A really cool hack is that you can add a 3rd scoop for 50 cents! Ask for an extra cup or two to split it into for multiple people to share.
17. Bring Your Own Ponchos
Check the weather in Anaheim before leaving for your Disneyland trip to see if rain is in the forecast. Whether it is or not though, we suggest bringing some ponchos just in case you need them.
Buying ponchos in the parks is waste of money because they charge a lot for them. It’s also a waste of time because the lines can get long since a lot of people will be buying them.
Buy ponchos online or at the dollar store before your trip. They’re usually folded up super small and can fit into a backpack or the bottom of your stroller no problem.
18. Skip The Extras
If we’re being honest, doing extra things at Disneyland is a lot of fun, but you don’t have to do these things to have a magical vacation.
Some of the extra things that get expensive are character dining, building a lightsaber in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, VIP tours, and getting a makeover from Bippity Boppity Boutique.
While these are awesome experiences, there are already so many things to do that are included in the price of your park ticket.
Like fireworks, rides, parades, character meets, playing in Toontown, finding Hidden Mickeys, and more.
19. Don’t Buy Genie+
Genie+ is a service you can add that will save you a lot of time waiting in lines because you will wait in a shorter line rather than the standard line for rides.
Genie+ is an extra cost that you’ll want to skip if you need to save some money. The prices varies depending on the day you’ll be there. It starts at $30 per day per ticket though.
Another way to save money is to not purchase Lightning Lanes. This is like Genie+, but it is for a certain ride rather than multiple rides.
It’s very nice to save the time by buying these, but a great way to get around that and still go on a lot of rides is to Rope Drop.
Rope dropping is where you get to the parks early and wait at the rope they will drop that blocks off access to the rides.
The rope drops when the park opens and guests can then get on rides pretty much right away. The lines for rides will be much shorter for usually about 2 hours after the parks open.
This is a great time to go on the rides that typically have longer wait times and you can usually do a lot of rides, like all of the Fantasyland rides before it gets busy.
20. Bring Your Own Stroller
If you’re taking babies, toddlers, or little kids to Disneyland with you, it’s going to be too much walking for them, so you’ll need a stroller.
Disneyland stroller rentals are $18 for a single stroller or $36 for a double. These are not great strollers and are uncomfortable for kids to nap in.
Airlines will check your stroller for free, so it’s worth it to bring your own even if it’s a bit of a hassle to fly with and travel with.
We always bring our Zoe trio stroller. It can also be converted into a double stroller. It has cupholders and plenty of storage underneath. We love bringing it to Disney!
21. Use A Travel Agent
If you’re planning a Disneyland vacation, consider using a travel agent. They can often help you find discounts and deals that you might not be able to find on your own.
They’ll know which dates the park tickets and hotel prices will be lower. They can also help you with flights and other parts of your trip that you need to plan and want to save on.
They’ll help you get reservations for restaurants if you need it, and will sometimes even throw in a free gift basket for booking with them.
Travel agents are free to use, so you do not have to pay them for their services.
Conclusion
Congratulations on making it through this post! I hope that the tips and strategies I’ve provided will help you to save money and have an enjoyable experience on your Disney vacation.
By following this advice, you can make the most of your time at the parks without overspending.
Remember, there are many ways to save money at Disneyland, from choosing the right time of year to visit, to being strategic about your park tickets, to planning your meals in advance.
By doing your research and planning ahead, you can make the most of your budget and have a magical Disney experience.
Whether you’re a first-time visitor or a seasoned Disney fan, there is always something to discover and enjoy at the most magical place on earth.
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