Disneyland/CA Trip Budget

I've had several people ask me about the deals I found for our trip. We had 6 people, 2 adults, 4 kids (7, 5, 2, and 11 months). Going just before J turned 3 saved quite a bit because we didn't have to buy her a ticket for everything. We drove 2,572 miles.

GRAND TOTAL: $2,702.76 for 15 days

Here is a breakdown of our expenses, which includes the things I bought before the trip to go.

Hotels: $765.57
$71.67 Fresno-- Roadway Inn, 1 night
319.60 San Diego-- Days Inn, 5 nights I got lucky and got a suite through Hotels.com
$345.00 Anaheim-- Super 8 on Katella, 6 nights, 2 blocks from Disneyland Entrance, about a 12 minute walk.
$29.30 Las Vegas-- Arizona Charlies- Boulder, 1 night, away from the strip, and separate from the casino. hotels.com

Gas: $364.40
Started out full. It took 8 1/2 tanks of gas for the entire trip.
$40.65 Lodi, NV
$47.78 Lovelock, CA
$47.25 Caustic, CA
$52.18 La Jolla, CA
$51.52 Barstow, CA
$44.42 St. George, UT
$31.86 Sanaquinn, UT
$27.54 Salt Lake, UT area
$42.39 Jerome, ID (had over 1/2 a tank left, so I'm only counting 1/2 $21.20)

Food: $294.21
$28.00
I bought several gift certificates through restaurants.com Usually they are $10 for a $25 gift Certificate, but I used a coupon code I found online and got them for $4 each. Some of the restaurants were awesome, only one was a flop (Indian food is WAY too spicy). One fun restaurant was called Azteca and it was a Mexican Restaurant, but every inch of wall and ceiling was covered with Elvis memorabilia. Elvis movies, Elvis jukebox. Quite interesting. You have to spend $35 at the restaurant, plus pay tax and tip, but we could get tons of food for the same amount we'd pay elsewhere. The restaurants were a couple miles from Disneyland, so we had to drive. I don't know that I would do it again, even though we got a ton of food for the money, other than the Azteca restaurant which was just fun. like a mexican Hard Rock Cafe.
$13.00 Samari Sams in Sacramento with gift cert.
$17.00 Rastal's-- real Indian food, very spicy
$30.19 Sals Bit of Italy-- one of the gift certificate places. The food was awesome, but he was offended that we used the certificate and overcharged us on things.
$19.07 Azteca Restaurant.
$19.00 Seafood Kingdom
$19.51 In-and-Out Burger in San Diego
$8.99 Subway-- 2 footlongs to share with coupon from home
$34.87 IHOP kids eat free, right across from Disneyland
$35.72 IHOP again, the kids favorite restaurant
$8.52 Suckers at Disneyland, 2 days
$6.00 Cotton Candy at Disneyland, 2 days
$5.00 Cotton Candy and a bucket at Sea World-- which was perfect for playing in the sand and collecting shells-
$4.27 tortillas in Disneyland. This is one of the best deals in the park. Bring in some jam or peanut butter and eat roll-ups. One
$4.71 McDonalds-- ice cream on the drive
$8.53 Jack in the Box-- breakfast in Las Vegas
$17.00 Subway in Utah driving home
$14.83 Pizza Hut, Twin Falls, ID used Book its and Coupons from home


Attractions: $1019.10
$172.80 Sea World-- Used Code BOEING for 2 days for the price of 1 with a 20% discount (you can also get the 20% off using Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards card, which is free.) We didn't use the 2nd day, but it is valid until next Jan, so who knows. . .
$10.00 Sea World Parking

$119.00 Zoo and Wild Animal Park. It was cheaper to buy a diamond membership for Stephen and I which is valid for 1 year, it comes with 2 free guest tickets to each park which we used for the boys, and the little ones were free. It also includes free parking at the wild animal park and our tour ride.
$12.00 for the boys tour ride tickets. You can use them over and over, and it was VERY worth it. I think we rode 3 times.

$105.30 Medieval Times-- they were offering a promo 1 free kid with a paying adult, and the two little ones sat on our laps. It is a bit tricky to eat with your hands with a baby on your lap, but they were really good and gave us extra bread and stuff for them.

$600.00 Disneyland-- promo of buy a three day park hopper get two days free. Best deal was through arestravel.com. Look for deals on www.mousesavers.com That is where I found most of the Disneyland deals.

All the Museums were free because we have a annual pass to the Discovery Center in Boise. It was $60 and all of the Museums are reciprocal members.


Miscellaneous: $259.48
$164.05 at Walmart before we left buying snack foods, microwave dinner foods, rain ponchos, toys and treats for in the car, games, and misc trip stuff.
$7.00 tip at Medieval Times
$29.71 Souvenirs-- t-shirts and surprises for all the kids and our autograph book-- we went to the Character Warehouse in the Orangefair Mall about 4 miles from Disneyland, stuff was way cheaper there-- about 1/3 of the Disneyland price for the same stuff. Selection was limited though.
$28.55 Swords for the boys
$12.93 Princess figures for J--Great grandma sent each kid $10 and we gave them $5 more
$17.24 Plate and Ice Cubes-- my souvenir. I've wanted a "special" plate that we can use to celebrate someone doing something, so I bought a Mickey one. And mickey shaped reuseable ice cubes.