5 Nights, 4 Parks
Budget: $2,000
Cost Breakdown for 1 person
Duration:
Hotel & Tickets Package:
Food:
Transportation:
Genie + & Lightning Lane:
Flights:
Total:
5 Nights
$1,214.04
$322.43
$67.20
$168.28
$231.24
$2,003.19
In April 2023, I travelled to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL with a friend. We gave ourselves a $2,000 budget for the entire trip — flights, park tickets, hotel, transportation, food, drinking around the world in Epcot, Genie Plus, Individual Lightning Lanes, and any souvenirs.
Hotels and Park Tickets
I bought a package from Costco Travel which included the resort and 4-day park tickets (we opted not to do the park hopper). The resort we chose was the All-Star Movies Resort. Unpopular opinion: I loved it! I have stayed everywhere from off-site properties to Port Orleans French Quarter, to Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort. While some people refuse to stay at value resorts, I think they offer the best bang for your buck — the only thing I’d love to change is the transportation to and from the parks. Those TikToks you see of people struggling after a full park day to make it to their bus stop which is the furthest possible stop… yeah… that was us.
The overall theme of the resort was incredible! We were in the Mighty Ducks wing which had its own swimming pool. The washrooms were themed as locker rooms and the pool had big hockey nets so the pool looked like a hockey rink. It wasn’t an overly long walk from the front of the building to our room, and it was also very accessible without walking through the main building, which worked in our favour the one night we took the All-Star Music bus by mistake.
We toured the different themes one night, and I would say my favourite themed section was Toy Story. It was awesome! The entrance was a giant door as if you were going to Andy’s room, and there were massive Buzz and Woody statues inside.
The Fantasmic theme was also amazing — but I think that was more of a nostalgic feeling for me, whereas the Toy Story theme really blew me away.
Genie Plus & Individual Lightning Lane
For those who don’t know what either of these words means or how they differ… here’s a quick recap (and I’ll include Virtual Queue in this list although it’s not a paid service)
Genie Plus: A paid service that you can buy at 7 AM for whatever park you have reserved for that day. It ranges depending on park demand and/or events happening that day (Hollywood Studios on May the 4th would cost more than on May the 3rd). It was typically $22 per person, per day for our visit. I have seen it as low as $15 per person, per day on previous visits, so there isn’t a set amount that it will cost.
Individual Lightning Lane (ILL): You can purchase this with or without Genie Plus. They are not connected in any way. ILLs allow you to ride the most popular rides in the parks without waiting in the loooong standby line (but please note that there are still occasional lines for ILLs, but it is nothing compared to the standby line). These are also available for purchase at 7 AM the day of your park visit, but they must be purchased separately from Genie Plus so if you have multiple adults with smartphones, you could have 1 person buying Genie Plus and making your first few selections, while the other buys Individual Lightning Lane for the ride you want.
Virtual Queue: This service is UNPAID (yay!). This is a service that allows you to join a queue for the newest ride, without actually waiting in a standby line. If you are quick enough to get a Virtual Queue, you will be given a boarding group number and an estimated time (this time can change throughout the day. Have your notifications turned on for the MyDisneyExperience app in case your time gets moved up. You are given 1 hour from the time your boarding group is called to make it to the ride, so you can do whatever you want in the parks until your boarding group is called! I personally like this Virtual Queue idea, I just wish there were more opportunities to get them. You only have 2 chances — 7 AM and 1 PM. They sell out fast, so be ready!
Money-Saving Tip: Don’t buy Genie Plus for Epcot or Animal Kingdom (unless you’re visiting during a really busy season). It’s really not necessary. There are 1 or 2 rides that will have long lines but it’s manageable!
We opted to buy Genie Plus every day and we only bought ILL’s for 2 rides. This is NOT a necessity, especially for Animal Kingdom and Epcot, but we had already budgeted for it before we got there and we really wanted to make the most of our time. The next time I go, I will not purchase Genie Plus for AK and Epcot.
Food & Drink
We did not have a meal plan so everything we ate was purchased a la carte. We also opted to not have any dining reservations. The quick service meals are more than good enough, and we wanted to stay within our $2,000 budget. To us, the rides and shows were more important than sitting down at a restaurant. All of our meals were somewhere between $10 - $17, and snacks were around $5 - $8.
*The Pulled Pork Mac n Cheese from Flame Tree Barbeque in Animal Kingdom was INCREDIBLE. 10/10
Money-saving tip: Pack some snacks from home for your park day! I packed some Goldfish crackers, Welch’s fruit gummies, and granola bars.
We decided to Drink Around The World which is definitely one of the most frivolous things I’ve ever done in the parks. This is where you have 1 drink from each pavilion in Epcot. The drinks range from $6 - $19 per drink, so it can get a bit pricey. We did our research beforehand to figure out the best drinks. Again, we budgeted this, so we could have done this trip even cheaper if we didn’t do this. But it was fun! I would recommend doing this once, but if you’re not a big drinker (like me), then you probably won’t need to do it again.
La Vie en Rose was definitely the best drink we had. So light and refreshing!
Transportation
Transportation to the parks from on-site resorts is free, but transportation to and from the Orlando airport is not. We decided to book through Mears, but we could've chosen Sunshine Flyer, Uber or even a Taxi. We just felt that Mears would be the most reliable choice at a reasonable cost.
As for on-site transportation to and from the parks, the All-Star resorts only have busses. Most of the reviews I saw before going was that the bus service was terrible… but I disagree! We never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus, with our longest wait being 10 minutes because the bus filled with everyone in front of us. If we were 2 minutes earlier, we would’ve made the first bus — so that was our fault.
The biggest downfall to the busses as I mentioned earlier was that we were always the furthest bus stop when we were leaving the parks. When you’re at any park from open to close, that final walk to the furthest bus station feels like a marathon! But I would do that long walk over and over if it meant staying on Disney property for as cheap as we can!
Final Thoughts:
All-in-all, while we went over budget (by $3.19… but a budget is a budget!), I would do it again in a heartbeat. The All-Star Resorts are the cheapest way to stay on Disney property unless you want to camp at the campgrounds. We had access to extra magic hours every morning, and we made the most of our time. I also think that our stay was the perfect length since we have been to Disney World many times and we knew our way around the parks like the back of our hand. If it’s your first time going, either plan for extra time or just plan to do fewer attractions. Just don't be afraid of the value resorts! I promise they are just as good as the fancy resorts on-site. Unless you’re planning to only stay at the resort, the All-Stars will definitely work for you!