How to Go to Disneyland on a Budget

If your family plans to go to Disneyland this year, use these tips to learn how to go to Disneyland on a budget and how to plan a trip to Disneyland.

Our family saved up money and went to Disneyland this year. It cost thousands of dollars, but it was a really fun family vacation that our family will always remember. I’m so glad we went!

I spent hours researching information about saving money and saving time at Disneyland. Since I gathered all of this information, I thought it would helpful to compile and share with you all the best Disneyland tips that I learned.

Many of these tips could be used to help your family save time and save money at Disneyland. These tips will also you figure out how to go to Disneyland on a budget.

Before we went to Disneyland, we saved money every month and placed the money in a “Vacation Envelope.” Sometimes we only saved $50 a month and other times it was $100 or $200.

We also used some money from our tax returns each year to set aside additional money. And we saved up our credit card points for the past 17 years and cashed them in to pay for the airplane flight and hotel stay.

How much money should I save for Disneyland?

If you are wondering how much money to save for Disneyland, remember that Disneyland isn’t cheap. It costs a lot of money to go to Disneyland, but there are things you can do to cut down some of the cost.

How much it costs depends on how many people are in your family, if you fly or drive there, how long you stay, where you eat, as well as other factors. Our family of 5 spent about $4,500, with the largest cost being the Disneyland tickets.

If we would have driven to California, instead of flown, and if we had planned our food better, we could have kept the total closer to $3,500.

But we flew to California because the kids have never flown and that was something they have always wanted to do. And we did splurge on food in Disneyland park because we wanted to try some of and experience the favorite foods there.

Here is the break down of what we spent on our Disneyland trip for 5 people:

Disneyland Tickets for 5 people for 3 days (1 Park Per Day Tickets): $1,605

Genie+ added on to our tickets for 5 people for 3 days: $300

Round Trip Airplane Flight for 5 people: $715

Hotel Stay (1 room for 3 days 4 nights): $971

Transportation to and from airport: $298

Food for 4 days: $600

Total cost: $4,489

As I mentioned, there are some things we could have cut out to save money at Disneyland, and I’ll share those Disneyland budget tips below.

Before Going to Disneyland:

Before you determine when you should go to Disneyland, be sure to use the Disneyland Crowd Forecast Calendar here to find out if Disneyland will be packed or if the crowds won’t be too bad.

I recommend not going the week of holidays or spring or fall break for schools. If you go during the peak and busy times, you’ll spend a lot of your time waiting in lines. Going to Disneyland will be more enjoyable if you don’t have to push through the crowds of people and wait in long lines.

But I will say that the afternoon and evenings tend to be crowded, even though we went in the middle of the week on what was considered a slower time at Disneyland.

Here are the best times of the year to travel:

Late January or February (after the holidays and before Spring break)
September or October (when the kids go back in school and there are no holidays)
Early November (after Halloween and before Thanksgiving)
First week of December (after Thanksgiving and before Christmas break)

Where to Purchase Disneyland Tickets?

When purchasing Disneyland tickets, be sure to purchase your tickets from a reputable source.

After I did a lot of research where to get Disneyland tickets and who had the best deal, I found that Get Away Today has some of the best ticket prices, and the tickets cost less than purchasing them on Disneyland’s site.

Get Away Today also has good Disney vacation packages. And if you use the promo code SCBC you’ll get $10 off a 2-night or longer Southern California vacation package including tickets and hotel stay.

Every small amount of money saved helps out!

My sister-in-law, who goes to Disneyland often, has used the site aRes Travel to get a good deal on Disneyland tickets and it saved her $135 off what it would have cost on the Disneyland site.

Both these sites have better deals than purchasing it on Disneyland’s site.

One friend shared how she saved money purchasing Disneyland tickets. She calculated how much Disneyland tickets would cost for her family, then she purchased multiple Disney $150 Multi-Pack (3 – $50 Gift Cards) from Sam’s Club for $142 each pack and paid for the tickets on Disneyland’s site using the gift cards. She said it saved her family about $80 doing it this way.

Other ways you might be able to get Disneyland discount tickets is through the following: Costco, if you are military, or AAA.

Park Hopper Tickets or 1 Park Per Day Tickets?

If you want to know how to save money on Disneyland tickets, then get the 1 Park Per Day Tickets, not the Park Hopper Tickets.

Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are right across from each other, and it’s easy to get between the two parks. But since there was so much to do in both parks each day and in order to to save money at Disneyland, we purchased a 3 Day – 1 Park Per Day Tickets.

We spent one day in Disneyland all day, the next day in California Adventure all day, then on the third day, we went back to Disneyland again.

Make Reservations with Disneyland After Purchasing Tickets:

Once you purchase your Disneyland tickets, you need to make reservations with Disneyland. In order to enter Disneyland, you need to have both a ticket and reservations for the days you plan to be in Disneyland and California Adventure.

What is Genie+ and How to Use It:

Genie+ is a paid add-on option to get front-of-the-line access to the Lightning Lanes for Disneyland rides. It saves you time by not standing in long lines.

When we went, the cost of the Genie+ was $20 per person per day. Genie+ can vary prices depending on days. When we purchased our Disneyland tickets from Get Away Today, we also purchased the Genie+ to go along with it.

The way Genie+ works is first download the Disneyland app and familiarize yourself with the app. Be sure to link your Disney account and tickets to the Disneyland app before going to Disneyland.

Once you are inside the park on the day you are scheduled to be in the park, the Genie+ will show up that it is available to start using. You can see all the Lightning Lane rides available, and it will show the next available time you can reserve a Lightning Lane, as well as show the current wait time of the line for that ride. That will help you determine which ride to choose to reserve to ride next.

Choose who in your family wants to ride the ride, then reserve that Lightning Lane pass for that specified time frame.

When it’s time to use the Lightning Lane pass, you’ll receive a notification on your phone. Head over to the ride, look for the Lightning Lane line sign, scan your bar code for each person from the app, then you can get in line for the ride.

You can only reserve one Lightning Lane ride at a time for your group. Once you either scan the Lightning Lane pass or 2 hours go by (whichever comes first), you can then choose to reserve another Lightning Lane ride.

And you can only reserve and use each Lightning Lane ride one time per day. Because of this, our family would try to ride the popular rides first when the wait times were 20 minutes or less, then we would use the Lightning Lane passes as the lines got longer and the wait times were more than 20 minutes. This way we could go on the popular rides again without waiting in the stand by lines.

Our usual wait time in the Lightning Lane was anywhere from 5-15 minutes. It saved us a lot of time so we could ride more rides.

To me, paying extra for the Genie+ was worth it because we didn’t have to wait in as long of lines, and we were able to ride more rides during our 3-day stay in Anaheim.

However, if you are going to Disneyland on a budget, then bypass purchasing the Genie+ and plan to wait in longer lines.

Hotels in Anaheim, California:

I researched many hotels to find the best deals. At different times when we traveled to Anaheim, we’ve stayed at Camelot Inn & Suites and the Tropicana Inn & Suites. Both hotels are across the street from Disneyland, and when I booked the hotels, I used Get Away Today.

And just so you know, Get Away Today price matches. When I was researching hotels, the price on Tropicana’s website was lower than on Get Away Today’s site. When I mentioned this to Get Away Today, they said that since Tropicana is one of the hotels they work with they would price match it, and so I got the better deal!

It makes it very convenient to choose a hotel across the street from Disneyland, so if you want to take breaks in the middle of the day you can. Staying at a hotel right across the street was worth it for us, and every night as we saw people getting on buses or shuttles, my husband and I were glad we didn’t have to wait for the shuttle.

The hotels across the street from Disneyland are located on South Harbor Blvd. When searching for a hotel that is in walking distance to Disneyland, look on South Harbor with the Howard Johnson Hotel as the furthest north and W Katella Avenue as the furthest south. There are many hotels to choose from. If you look up Disneyland in Google Maps, you can see the hotels on the map, which will help you determine where you want to stay and you can begin to look up hotels and prices.

There are less expensive hotels than the Tropicana Inn & Suites and the Camelot Inn & Suites that are farther away from the Disney parks, but you do need to factor in the cost of resort and parking fees, the cost of taking the bus, and the time it takes to go back and forth between Disneyland and your hotel.

If you want to save money at Disneyland, then choose a hotel that is farther away from Disneyland.

Another option that could save you money if you have a large group or multiple families is to rent a house or condo. By splitting the cost between three to four families, you could save money. Plus, there would be a kitchen which would allow you to cook your own meals there rather than eating out.

Airline Flights versus Driving to Disneyland:

Flying to California is definitely more expensive than driving to Disneyland. But if you are going to Disneyland on a budget, then drive there.

When we went to Disneyland for our first time in 2016 we drove. We spent $175 on gas for our vehicle, and about $200 for hotels along the way. It saved us so much money by driving to Disneyland compared to flying.

When we went to Disneyland this year, we decided to fly because our kids have always wanted to go in an airplane, so we made it a part of our vacation. The cost ended up being $715. We saved our credit card points for years and were able to use it to pay for our entire flight.

After researching flights, we chose Breeze Airline in Provo, Utah because they had really good prices for flights into LAX airport. You do have to pay extra money for baggage. So I calculated how much the baggage would cost our family of 5, and I also calculated how much it would be to upgrade our flight to get one free luggage for each person in our family, and it turned out that it was more cost effective to upgrade our flight.

Transportation from the Airport:

I researched a lot of transportation options, including public transportation, taxis, Lyft, and shuttles, that would take us from the airport to our hotel in Anaheim.

Karmel Shuttle turned out to be the best option to transport our family of 5 and luggage to the Camelot Inn & Suites in Anaheim. Get Away Today does have packages that include the Karmel Shuttle, so look at both the Karmel website and Get Away Today to find the best price options.

Have a Plan Each Day:

I think that it’s important to have a plan when going to Disneyland so you can ride as many rides as possible. It also minimizes walking time and the time you spend waiting in lines. Once you have a plan in place, it’s okay to be flexible as you are going from location to location.

You’ll need to download the Disneyland app prior to your trip. This will show you park hours, wait times in lines, allows you to use the Genie+, do mobile food orders, and create a basic plan for your day in Disneyland and California Adventure.

Find out when Disneyland or California Adventure opens up each day, then arrive 45 minutes before it opens so you can be there for the rope drop. You can enter Disneyland park 30 minutes early and walk along Main Street, but you can’t proceed further than that until the rope drops.

Most of the lines were 5-20 minutes long. In the afternoons, the lines become longer and it’s good to use your Genie+ for those lines that are longer than 20 minutes. Choose to ride the most popular rides as early as possible because the afternoons are always busy.

And the Lightning Lane reservations for California Adventure rides usually run out by afternoon, so get in as many popular rides as possible by early afternoon.

Disneyland Ride Itinerary:

For younger families, when first entering Disneyland, head to Fantasyland to ride these rides first, since they have longer wait times later in the day. Then start to go down the next list of rides.

Dumbo the Flying Elephant
Peter Pan’s Flight

For our family where all of my kids can ride every ride, the rides below are what we rode through the day:

As we were waiting in line for a ride, we would look at the next ride we wanted to ride. If the wait time of that next ride was longer than 20 minutes, and there was a Genie+ option, then we would reserve it so that we didn’t have to wait in the long line.

Rise of the Resistance (Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge)
- Genie+ is not included with this ride. In order to get a Lightning Lane pass, you have to pay extra money per person. Ride it first when Disneyland Park opens.
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (Genie+ option)
Big Thunder Mountain (Genie+ option)
Splash Mountain (Genie+ option)
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Haunted Mansion (Genie+ option)
Pirates of the Caribbean (Genie+ option)
Matterhorn (Genie+ option)
Space Mountain (Genie+ option)
Star Tours (Genie+ option)
Buzz Lightyear (Genie+ option)
Autopia (Genie+ option)
Finding Nemo
Astro Orbitor
It’s a Small World (Genie+ option)
Jungle Cruise
Tiki Room
Fantasyland rides

We wanted to ride Indiana Jones, but as of 2023, it was under refurbishment

California Adventure Ride Itinerary:

This is the order of rides we did when we entered California Adventure:

The Lightning Lane reservations for California Adventure rides usually run out by afternoon, so get in as many popular rides as possible before the afternoon.

Radiator Springs Racers –
- Genie+ is not included with this ride. In order to get a Lightning Lane pass, you have to pay extra money per person. Ride it first when Disneyland Park opens.
- Tip: To get on the Radiator Springs Racers ride faster, don’t go in the stand by line and wait the 60-90 minutes. Instead use the “Single Rider” line. You’ll get the ride almost as fast as the Lightning Lane pass.
Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure (Genie+ option)
Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout! (Genie+ option)
Monsters Inc. (Genie+ option)
Incredicoaster (Genie+ option)
Toy Story Midway Mania (Genie+ option)
Oher rides on Pixar Pier:
- Pal-A-Round Swinging
- Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind
- Silly Symphony Swings
- Golden Zephyr
Goofy’s Sky School
Soarin’ over the World (Genie+ option)

We wanted to ride the Grizzly Rapids, but as of 2023, it is currently under refurbishment.

California Adventure also has the World of Color show, which is amazing. Check to see if it will be happening on the day you are there. We had to reserve the World of Color virtual pass on the Disneyland app at noon the day of the show in order to view the show from the viewing areas.

Rider Switch Passes:

If you have young children, then you’ll definitely want to take advantage of the Rider Switch Pass. This pass allows the first adult to ride while the second adult stays with the child. Then the second adult can go on the ride, without waiting in line again, while the first adult stays with the child. It’s nice so you don’t have to wait in the line again. Just let the cast member at the ride know that you want to do the rider switch pass.

Purchase Souvenirs Before You Go to Disneyland:

Purchasing souvenirs in Disneyland is really expensive, so to save on the cost of souvenirs, my Disneyland budget tip is to purchase souvenirs before heading to Disneyland. This way you don’t feel like you have to buy something at Disneyland for your kids.

I have found Disney items at the Dollar Store, Walmart, and Target such as princess items and Disney t-shirts on the clearance rack, and more.

Also, purchase glow sticks and necklaces at the Dollar Store before your trip. You can give them to your kids at night in Disneyland so you don’t have to pay for the expensive glowing toys in Disneyland. When I pulled out the glow sticks our first night in Disneyland, the kids loved it! And then I didn’t feel like I needed to purchase a $20+ Disney glow items for each of my kids.

If you decide to purchase souvenirs while at Disneyland, check the stores outside of the Disneyland park or at a nearby Walmart or Target to pick up the souvenirs for less expensive.

We also purchased activities, books and other items to surprise our kids during our road trip when drove to California. I knew that 10 hours in the car was going to be hard for the kids, so we picked up items that we could give them as surprises every so often.

Every few hours we would pull out a new surprise such as coloring books, writing pads, a sticker book, inexpensive games, a movie or new snacks or drinks that I usually don’t purchase. It definitely made the 10 hours go more smoothly. We also broke the trip up in two days because it would have been too difficult for the kids to be in the car for 10 hours.

One other item you should purchase before you head to Disneyland is rain ponchos. Check the weather and if it looks like it might rain, you’ll definitely be glad that you brought them along. You can also use the rain ponchos at Disney California Adventure on the Bear Grizzly Run so you don’t get sopping wet.

I headed to the Dollar Store and picked up rain ponchos for $1 each, a much better deal than purchasing them for a crazy dollar amount inside Disneyland.

How to Save Money on Food at Disneyland:

When we first went to Disneyland year ago, we saved money by bringing our own food and snacks to Disneyland. Our hotel had a fridge and microwave, so every morning we would eat breakfast in our hotel room. Breakfast items included things such as cereal, bagels and oatmeal.

Each day we would pack peanut butter sandwiches, turkey sandwiches or Lunchables for lunch. Disneyland doesn’t allow hard sided coolers into the park, so we brought a soft-sided cooler to pack our lunches and water. And we had an ice pack to keep food cold during the day. We also packed a lot of snacks with us each day. And every 1-2 hours we would find a resting spot in he park and have a snack, or we would eat snacks while waiting in line for a ride or while waiting for the parades.

We made sure to bring lots of water bottles with us, some of which we froze the night before by placing the bottles against the back of our fridge. It was hot at Disneyland and we went through a lot of water. Even though it was the last week of September, the temperatures were in the 90’s.

One service Disney provides is that you can ask for a cup of water at any restaurant location, and it’s free of charge. They also have water fountain stations throughout the park to refill your water bottles.

If it’s time to eat lunch or dinner and you didn’t pack any food with you, don’t eat inside Disneyland. Take a break and head outside the park where you’ll be able to find better prices, or you’ll get more food for the same amount of money you would have spent in Disneyland.

One friend mentioned to me that she brought her griddle and crock pot with her so she could make simple dinners. With the griddle she would make pancakes, quesadillas and cheese sandwiches. With the crock pot, she prepared and froze the meals before going to Disneyland. Then she kept the meals in the freezer until the day she wanted it for a crock pot meal and would throw it in the crock pot before heading to the park. When they arrived back to their hotel in the evening, dinner was ready for them.

Another tip is before arriving to your hotel, order groceries online and have them delivered to your hotel room after you arrive. The cost to have them delivered is less expensive than eating meals and snacks inside Disneyland park. And you’ll have meals and snacks that you can take into Disneyland.

Foods to Try at Disneyland:

On our first visit to Disneyland trip years ago, we only ate one snack and one meal in Disneyland and California Adventure.

This year, I researched all the best foods and snacks to try at Disneyland and California Adventure. I wanted to know what the best foods were to purchase. And we decided we would splurge and try more snacks and food. It’s definitely an experience trying the different foods. So many of them delicious!

We tried some of the snacks and food below, and the rest are the best food at Disneyland that others have shared. Here are some favorites:

Disneyland Food:

Many of these options have mobile ordering, which makes it convenient to pick up your food at a time you want it without waiting in the long lines.

Churro Funnel Cake at the Hungry Bear in Critter Country
Mickey-shaped Beignets at Mint Julep Bar in Cafe New Orleans
Churros and Mickey Pretzels on any carts throughout the park
Raspberry Rose Mickey Macaroon, Matterhorn Macaroon, Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup Combo – Jolly Holiday
Pineapple Dole Whips at the Tiki Juice Bar (mobile ordering only) or at the Tropical Hideaway
Tropical Float and Lumpia at the Tropical Hideaway
Churro Sundae that is Cookie Dough Ice Cream with Caramel Churros at the Golden Horseshoe (seasonal)
Churro Gear or Twists at Maurice’s Treats in Fantasy Faire
Bathom Blue Milk at Galaxy’s Edge
Ronto Roasters at Docking Bay 7 Food & Cargo in Galaxy’s Edge
Cookie Butter Monkey Bread at River Bell Terrace in Frontierland
Monte Cristo Sandwich with Pommes Frites at Cafe Orleans
Jungle Skewers at Bengal Barbeque in Adventureland (mobile ordering available)
Corn dogs at Little Red Wagon (mobile order available)
Fried chicken, potatoes, biscuit and veggies at the Plaza Inn (mobile ordering available)

California Adventure Food:

Pixar Pier Frosty Parfait at Adorable Snowman Frosted Treats
Jack Jack Cookie Num Num by Incredicoaster
Funnel Cake Fries and BBQ Crunch Dog at Award Wieners
Churro Toffee at Trolley Treats
Broccoli soup and cream bread pudding at Pacific Wharf Cafe (seasonal food items)
Flo’s Famous Fried Chicken plate and Ramone’s Low and Slow Club at Flo’s V8 Cafe
Spotlight Nachos: Barbacoa and the 2319 drink at Lamplight Lounge
Soft serve ice cream at Cozy Cone
Churro milkshake, smoothies and shakes at Schmoozies in Hollywoodland

What tips do you have to go to Disneyland on a budget?