How We Did Disney on the Cheap

It’s no secret around here that we are huge Disney fans! Since we’ve got married in August of 2015, my husband (Nick) and I have been to Disney four times (at the time this blog post comes out!), and multiple times before then with Nick’s family. It’s also no secret that a trip to Disney can be dang expensive, but through our love for Disney and our frugal nature, we’ve accumulated some tips and tricks throughout the years that allow us to visit Disney for a fraction of the cost (but really, many of these tips can be applied and help you save money on any vacation). This past visit, we wanted to see how cheap we really could go – so, below are all of the tips and tricks we used to keep our trip cheap!

 I’d also like to add that this blog post is not sponsored by any of the companies listed below. We just genuinely believe that they have an excellent product and experience to offer!

1.     We opted to stay off-campus at an Airbnb.

While we absolutely LOVE staying on campus and being close to all things Disney, for this trip, our goal was to keep things cheap, so we found a nice little Airbnb about 10 minutes from the Disney parks for $60 a night. It was totally a steal! Rooms at Disney typically begin at $120+ per night (depending on where you stay), but most cost a few hundred per night. Staying off campus is a great way to save a little (or a lot!) extra money!

Another great option for larger groups who want to stay together is FlipKey. Similar to Airbnb, FlipKey allows users to find and book vacation rentals at a reasonable price, especially if you’re splitting the rental amongst other couples, family members, or friends! We rented a FlipKey property for a trip to Orlando in February of 2018 and were so impressed with the customer service, cleanliness, ample space, and beautiful property! I would highly recommend checking it out.

2.     We used a credit card (wisely!) to earn free airfare.

We’re big Dave Ramsey fans around here, but the one point of contention we have with him? Credit cards. It’s easy to let spending get out of control with a credit card in tow, but if you’re the type of person who pays off a credit card on a monthly basis without accruing interest, this suggestion might be beneficial to you.

We signed up for a Capital One Venture card and ran everything we could through it, and by doing so, earned enough points to purchase tickets to Orlando at absolutely no additional cost to us!

3.     Instead of renting a car, we used Uber.

Nick is a vacation planning guru, but when he told me it would be cheaper for us to use Uber for the five days we were in Orlando (opposed to renting a car), I was a bit skeptical. But it turns out he was right!

To rent a car in Orlando, we would’ve paid a minimum of $180 for five days. With two park days, we would’ve had to pay $25 a day for parking ($50 total), not to mention parking for our day in Disney Springs (ranging from $13 to $24 – we’ll stick with $13 for the sake of this math!), not to mention tolls and gas, which we’ll estimate at around $50, modestly. Altogether, the cost of renting a car would’ve been about $293. During our time in Disney, we spent only $189.22 total on Uber, saving us a grand total of $103.78. For us, it was totally worth it!

4.     We utilized Disney’s free transportation via Disney’s busses and monorail system.

Did you know that Disney has a free bus system that, while mainly used by resort guests, is free for park visitors to use, too? Since we opted to use Uber instead of renting a car, we needed all the help finding free transportation that we could get! So, our plan was simple: get onto Disney property, and use the busses to get to places like: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney Springs. We saved money by first Ubering to the nearest Disney resort with free transportation available (which, for us, happened to be Disney’s Boardwalk), then from there, we utilized their busses to get to our final destination. It took a little extra time and planning, but in the long run, it definitely saved us a chunk of change!

5.     We brought our own store-bought snacks and drinks in the parks.

Have you ever tried to eat or drink on Disney property? A cup of coffee costs nearly FOUR DOLLARS, and a hot dog costs around NINE. Full disclosure: we did eat in the parks more than I would’ve liked, but we did majorly cut down the cost by bringing our own snacks and drinks with us to eat for breakfast, lunch, and in between meals. We even brought our own coffee to our Airbnb with to-go cups so we could take our coffee with us in the morning!

6.     We visited the parks and bought tickets on “non-peak” days.

Did you know that Disney instituted a new system of buying tickets with a rising and falling price point? Essentially, this means that it’s more or less expensive to visit the parks at certain times of the year when Disney is busier, or less busy. Disney actually makes it quite easy for you, with a full calendar for the entire year listed on their website with a specific price point for each individual day.

We purchased our tickets for non-peak days (i.e., the week before Christmas instead of the week of Christmas) to help out a little bit with the cost. If you’re planning a Disney vacation, I would highly recommend looking on their calendar to choose a non-peak time of year, to take advantage of lower ticket prices!

Shortly after Nick and I got married, we decided that instead of giving gifts to each other, we wanted to have experiences with each other. One of the biggest decisions that’s helped make Disney possible for us? Forgoing Christmas, anniversary, and birthday gifts, and putting that money towards our Disney trip instead. That may or may not be a feasible option for you (and your family!), but for us, our memories and experiences together have far outweighed any physical gift we could’ve bought each other. Those memories together – they’re priceless. I hope with these tips you are able to go make some memories of your own together with those you love most!

Wedding Photography Bucket List

We all have those crazy, far fetched dreams - bucket list items, if you will - that don’t seem real until you put them out into the world. The more I’m alive the more I realize how much of a team sport life is - I’m learning over and over that I can’t do it all on my own. Sure, that might seem obvious to some who are naturally awesome team players, but the control-freak inside of me wants to do it all on my own. I think starting a business points to the fact that, sometimes, you have to be willing to do it all on your own.

But that doesn’t mean you have to stay there.

And it doesn’t mean I have to stay there.

So today, I want to share one of my huge wedding photography dreams with you! If you’ve been following along on the blog or over on Instagram, you might’ve caught onto the fact that my husband and I are BIG Disney fans. We’ve gone a total of three times since we’ve been married (don’t worry, we’re still big time killing our debt!), and we’ll have only been married for three years in August. We talk about going other places for vacation, but somehow, we always seem to end up asking each other, “what if we just went to Disney?!?”

You might be wondering, what does Disney have to do with your wedding photography dream?

Well… the current biggest item on my wedding photography bucket list is to photograph a wedding on Disney property. At one of the resorts, or in the parks - but, the ultimate dream would be to photograph a wedding at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort!

We recently went down to Orlando (February of 2018) and for the last few days of our trip, we treated ourselves to a few nights at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort. It wasn’t the first time we had stayed there (actually, it was the third!) but every time we walk away loving it more and more. And GUESS WHAT:

One evening as we were strolling around on the Boardwalk at twilight, eating some free ice cream samples (we might be able to afford staying at the cheapest room at the Boardwalk by a hair but affording the food is a whole ‘nother story!) I saw a white vision out of the corner of my eye and whipped around to see a bride, a groom, and a photographer all walking towards the “Dance Hall” reception venue on the boardwalk. I immediately told Nick “we’re following them” and as he started to protest how much of a creep I was being (which, I totally admit, I was) I pulled him along with me and we walked behind the threesum all the way to their venue, watching as they stopped to take photos against the gorgeous Boardwalk Bay along the way.

I was being a little bit of a creep, but I realized something that night: how much I want to photograph a wedding at the Boardwalk. It seems a little silly to even type because I know how much of a long shot it is without family or friends in the area to pass along my name, but nonetheless - it’s still a dream, and if it’s meant to be, it will be!

I also thought this would be the perfect time to share a few of my favorite photos from our anniversary photo session at the Boardwalk for our first year of marriage (taken in November of 2016). Enjoy (and see some of the little reasons why we love the Boardwalk so much!)

What Disney's Boardwalk Taught Me About Grace

Shortly after our honeymoon in Disney, Nick and I started waking up and asking each other “do you want to go to Disney today?” It’s a little inside joke we have – every day feels like a good day to go to Disney, but one day in February of 2018, the answer was finally a “yes” – we were actually going to Disney!

Nick had surprised me with my first stay ever on Disney property for our honeymoon at Disney’s Boardwalk Inn. We stayed in a corner room and could see fireworks from both Hollywood Studios AND Epcot from our balcony. It was stinking EPIC.

Honestly, I thought we would never stay at the Boardwalk again. A friend of ours who worked for Disney had been incredibly kind to help Nick get an amazing discount on our room for our honeymoon. But, low and behold, since our honeymoon we’ve stayed there twice more, but our third visit is what brings these words to you today.

After spending some time with family and friends at a house in Orlando, Nick and I decided we wanted to stay at the Boardwalk for a couple of nights, just the two of us, as a birthday/Christmas/Valentine’s/anniversary gift (gotta do what you gotta do to get back to Disney!). We decided a few years into our relationship that we’d rather gift each other experiences with one another than objects, so this was one of those experiences we couldn’t wait to share (again)! I think, out of the two, experiences tend to build a stronger relational foundation than any sort of gift might.

We chose the smallest, most inexpensive room – we just love the experience of being on Disney property (and being within walking distance to the parks was a bonus, too!!), and checked in on Nick’s birthday, which, for Nick, was probably one of the best birthday gifts he’s ever received.

We checked in a couple of hours before our “official” 3PM check in (well – actually 5 hours before!), so we had a LOT of time to kill. We hadn’t really planned anything special for Nick’s birthday (besides checking into the Boardwalk!), so while Nick went to grab a drink, I slyly made my way to concierge service desk to ask if they could help. I explained that it was my husband’s birthday, that his favorite place ever is the Boardwalk, and asked if she might be able to give me some ideas for things around the Boardwalk we could do for his birthday while we wait.

The woman smiled, gave me a couple of suggestions, and said that she would have someone send a birthday card to his room – which I knew he would absolutely love! She also took our name and reservation number - so she knew where to send the card, I assumed.

About an hour later, we received a message that our room was ready. We were both confused – we had stayed at the Boardwalk before, and never had we ever been able to check into our room so early. Regardless, we went, picked up our luggage, and headed off to our room. At first – we couldn’t find it. We went through one hall of rooms, down a set of stairs, and outdoors, wondering if they had made a mistake.

After a few more steps, we spotted a little mailbox that had our number on it. Behind the mailbox was an archway with a fence and a little courtyard with some of the most beautifully manicured flower gardens I’d ever seen. We exchanged a glance of confusion and excitement, muttering that “there must be some mistake!” but when we got to the French doors, past the garden, and tried our keys – the most insane thing happened. They worked. The door opened.

We swung open the door to find a beautiful, two story room – Disney music softly playing in the background, natural light pouring in through the large windows hanging above our heads. My first thought was that they had gotten something wrong. We had stayed in the cheapest room at the Boardwalk before and it in NO WAY resembled this masterpiece, with a living room, kitchenette, staircase, master bedroom, and master bathroom with a Jacuzzi. Concerned that there had a been a mistake and that we would somehow have to pay full price for this immaculate suite, Nick called the front desk to confirm that we had the correct room number.

The kind voice on the other line assured us that while we had payed for the smallest, cheapest room – but somehow we had been given this suite and were meant to enjoy it. While Nick was on the phone, I started looking up how much this type of suite usually costs. The answer: about four to five times (per night) what we actually paid for it. We were both FLOORED. We had heard of “Disney magic” before and of cast members doing incredibly kind things for random guests, but we had never ever expected to experience this sort of kindness. My mind immediately went back to the woman in concierge who had taken our names and reservation number, and I knew it must’ve been her – it couldn’t have been anyone else! I tried multiple times during our trip to go back and find her to thank her, but I couldn’t find her. She just seemed to have disappeared.

To make things even crazier, we found out that with this room came something called “club level service,” which basically means that we were able to visit and utilize a particular room in the hotel that served complimentary breakfast, lunch, dinner, wine, beer, espresso, and dessert – all for free. Like, are you kidding me?!

As we filled up our plates that first night, it dawned on me: we don’t deserve this. We don’t deserve any of this. We haven’t paid for it, we hadn’t planned for it, and we were able to tell pretty quickly that we were certainly of a much different crowd than those who normally frequented “the club.” Someone had gifted a youth pastor and a photographer from Pittsburgh one of the best, most undeserved vacations that we had ever had – for nothing. There’s nothing we could’ve done to earn it, and there’s no price we could’ve paid for it. And then it dawned on me – this is exactly what God’s grace is like.

It’s undeserved. There’s nothing we can do to earn it, and the price has already been paid for it. And it doesn’t have anything with who we are. It has everything to do with who God is. Truthfully, there’s no way we could’ve upgraded ourselves with money or with position, because in the eyes of Disney, we didn’t have either (haha!). But because of grace – because someone gave us something we in no way deserved – we were able to experience an amazing gift that cost us nothing.

That’s what Jesus calls us to every day. All he wants is for us to accept the gift he’s already laid before us. That’s why we celebrate Easter, for Pete’s sake – because Jesus died a death he didn’t deserve, so we could live a life we don’t deserve. But only because Jesus makes us worthy, because of the grace he’s given to us.

As I started to eat my free dinner, tears started streaming down my face. I felt so humbled in and by the face of grace of the woman who had been so kind, but so much moreso by the God who has given me this life – this gift – no strings attached.

The Story of Our First Date

My first date with my now husband, Nick took place over NINE years ago when we were both only fifteen years old. We started dating in August of 2008 and never looked back! One of my favorite stories to tell about our relationship is our first date because it is absolutely ridiculous! But why, you may ask?

Our first date included all of the clichés that you might expect from a first time high school date – my dad, literally cleaning his guns on his kitchen island (I was so embarrassed!!), Nick’s mom, driving us around telling embarrassing stories from when he was a kid (which just made me like him more! ;) ), and us getting scolded by the waitress for trying to order an alcoholic beverage that we just thought was just a milkshake (it was a mudslide, in case you were wondering) are just a few of my favorite memories from that first date! 

Maybe that last one’s not much of a cliché, but it’s pretty hilarious if you would’ve known us in high school – probably the last underage kids in the world who would’ve tried to order alcohol! I have to say, I feel like some of our seemingly most embarrassing moments we’ve experience together have turned into some of my favorite memories.