How Much Does It Cost to Go On a Disney World Vacation in 2024?

One threshold question many people ask before planning is “how much does it cost to go to Walt Disney World?” This answers that with updated 2024 pricing for park tickets, hotels, dining, transportation & more. It also covers a discounts that are available and how much you can reasonably expect to spend when all is said and done. (Updated November 8, 2023.)

The goal is to help you avoid overspending and plan a Walt Disney World vacation that’s within your budget. Fair warning up front: prices have increased by thousands of dollars in the last few years, so be prepared for sticker shock. Walt Disney World has long had a reputation as being pricey (e.g. ‘exit through the gift shop’ jokes or ‘Most Expensive Day Ever’ shirts), but it’s gotten worse lately. That’s the bad news, but there’s also good news–more on that in a minute!

Another warning is that there is no single, all-inclusive price that a Walt Disney World vacation costs. Some people are fine with budget accommodations and the cheapest options just to get in the gate, whereas the wealthy might want luxurious accommodations and pampered treatment. The latter trip could literally cost $50,000 or more, whereas the former might cost 10% of that. The good news, though, is that the wealthy are probably not reading a post like this. So we’ll stick with average vacations, not extravagant ones!

With that said, we also don’t want to simply price out a bottom-dollar, bargain trip to Walt Disney World. There’s a lot of ground in between budget motels and Presidential Suites plus VIP tours, and we’ll try to cover a few different ‘tiers’ of trips here. But even with hypotheticals it’s impossible to pin down the actual cost for every set of circumstances.

Beyond the basics covered in our breakdown, there are a lot of variables that are beyond the scope of this post: Lightning Lanes & Genie+ vs. standby only? Rental car & paid parking vs. Mears Connect airport shuttle? Travel insurance vs. discounted non-refundable reservations?

Instead of tackling every possible scenario and ending up with a War & Peace length treatise, we’ll look at price ranges for key aspects of visiting Walt Disney World, come up with totals based on those, and let you extrapolate for your own conclusions based upon that information. Given that the thing most readers report surprise over to us via comments and emails is cost, this is a topic worth addressing, even if we can’t give any hard numbers for every possible scenario…

The good news is that after two-plus years pent-up demand, Walt Disney World is finally seeing a slowdown. The company has reported lower attendance and hotel occupancy, and has started pulling “levers” (their term) in order to entice people to visit the parks and stay in the hotels. In plain language, this means discounts.

Special offers have accelerated and improved in the last several months, with general public discounts this Christmas season for the first time since 2019 and the best discount for that timeframe since 2018. Looking forward to next year, Walt Disney World has now released several discounts for the first quarter of 2024, all of which were earlier than their counterparts in 2018 or 2019. They also offer superior savings, albeit not as pronounced as going from nothing at all during the holidays to the best deals since 2018!

If weak discounting and late releases were a sign that pent-up demand had still been running strong, all of this is a sign that the opposite is no longer be true for 2024. Although there the parks are still busy, the dynamic has changed considerably as compared to 2021-2022. A corner has been turned and visitors are no longer going on spending sprees to make up for lost time. Not only that, but Walt Disney World does not have any major, marketable additions coming in the first half of 2024.

Add to that the possibility of a recession or broader economic slowdown, and that means even more discounts to lure people to the parks. Many readers have asked about the return of Free Dining, which is one of Walt Disney World’s most popular and best deals. There’s a pretty good chance of that happening, but even if not, great deals are to be expected. We will be closely monitoring what’s released and will notify subscribers of our free email newsletter when any Walt Disney World discounts are released or rumored!

With that said, there’s even more bad news. Even as attendance and hotel occupancy are decreasing, Walt Disney World is raising sticker prices. Since the start of the fiscal year in October, Walt Disney World has increased prices on Annual Passes, Memory Maker, parking, water parks tickets, miniature golf, and more.

In addition to this, Walt Disney World bumped up the price of hundreds of menu items all around the parks & resorts at Walt Disney World and also on most character dining experiences in the parks and resorts. They also hiked prices on the “Enchanting Extras Collection,” meaning things like dessert parties and special tours.

Prior to this, hotel prices increased when 2024 vacation packages were released over the summer. If you look at 2024 Walt Disney World Resort Price Analysis, you’ll also notice that room rates are up around 3-7% depending upon the hotel and season.

Obviously, we don’t love paying higher prices, but none of these increases are that bad by historical standards. There are several silver linings here, with the first being that regular park tickets did not go up–the first time in several years that hasn’t happened. (There’s still time, so let’s not jinx it.)

Additionally, almost all of the other price increases are avoidable. Most of the “Enchanting Extras Collection” exists due to FOMO and is for people who want to splurge or go all out. It’s all completely nonessential (well, a Walt Disney World vacation isn’t “essential” in the first place…but this stuff is really unnecessary to enjoying the trip).

Of the price increases, there are only two that are unavoidable. The first is on menus, and the upside there is that the price increases are pretty minimal–and below the rate of inflation on food. (It’s to the point where we no longer have sticker shock looking at Walt Disney World menus, as real world prices and other entertainment venues have outpaced Disney.)

The second is on hotel rooms, and as noted above, there are more discounts for this year and 2024. Due to better deals, the effective prices most people pay for resorts or vacation packages have actually decreased year-over-year despite higher prices. This might lead you to wonder why Walt Disney World didn’t just lower sticker prices, which is a fair question.

We’ve half-joked for years that Walt Disney World uses the “Kohl’s Pricing Model,” where the sticker prices are almost meaningless due to discounts. Even during the Great Recession, Walt Disney World kept raising prices…while also ramping up the special offers. As Kohl’s learned ages ago, if the base price is higher, it makes the discounted rate look like even more of a bargain. It’s all about perception and the illusion of a killer deal.

It’s not really much of a joke, because it’s 100% true. Walt Disney World almost never lowers base prices, and almost always increases them in October or February without regard for attendance, bookings, or the U.S. economy. They dial up or down discounts as demand (or lack thereof) dictates. In the last few years during pent-up demand, discounts were dialed down. Now they are very much up!

Regardless of deals, visiting Walt Disney World costs a lot of money. We’re not trying to downplay the prices–it’s undeniably priced as a premium vacation destination and one of the more expensive family destinations in the United States.

Of course, travel costs are all relative. You could travel to one of the U.S. National Parks and pay a $30 entry fee for your entire vehicle for a week, camp on-site for $45/night, and cook food by campfire for $60/day for a party of 4.

As avid National Park enthusiasts, we’ve done exactly that many times and highly recommend it–one of the best vacations you can take that’s incredibly relaxing and allows you to disconnect, recharge, and see America’s Best Idea. It’s also very different–also incomparable–to Walt Disney World.

You could also travel to New York and spend more than the cost of theme park tickets seeing shows and visiting points of interest, pay $350/night for adequate accommodations, $75/night for parking, and an exorbitant amount eating at some of America’s best restaurants.

Although equally chaotic, that too would be very different from a Walt Disney World vacation. Not necessarily better or worse–different. The point is that great trips can be had at a variety of price points; even though it’s easy to compare them quantitatively, doing so on a qualitative basis is a different story entirely. Even trips to other theme parks aren’t apples to apples comparisons with Walt Disney World.

Anyway, let’s get down to brass tacks and actually start pricing out a trip…

This post assumes a 5-night Walt Disney World vacation for a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 kids) that is not within driving distance to Walt Disney World, with no rental car unless otherwise specified. Airfare is not included. Unfortunately, flight prices vary so widely based upon origin city that there’s really nothing meaningful to say–just know that it’s another cost that’ll probably add another $250-600 per person to your trip.

In the last year, airfare prices have been all over the place, but higher across the board. We travel a lot between the Orange Counties (Florida and California) and we’ve paid anywhere from $250 to almost $600 per round trip just this year. Thankfully, prices are starting to fall again. Hopefully that’s the start of a return to normal, rather than a short-lived thing for the off-season.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the range of costs you should expect to incur for each element of your Walt Disney World vacation…

Park Tickets

After precipitous increases for several years that have seen the cost of a 1-day Walt Disney World ticket for the Magic Kingdom nearly triple in price since 2004, expectations v. reality for park ticket prices can differ dramatically. This is no surprise, especially among infrequent visitors who last went when tickets were more affordable. Note that all groups are following our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets, so we aren’t going by gate prices.

Frugal: For this tier (we’ll call it ‘frugal’ since that has a more positive connotation than ‘budget’), we’re opting for 3-day base tickets without the Park Hopper option. The other 2 days of the vacation, the family will enjoy some of the free offerings around Walt Disney World, such as Disney Springs and visiting the Boardwalk, among other things. Total cost: $1,634.

Value: At this tier, we are getting base tickets for all 5 days, meaning the family can spend every day in the parks. Note that the difference here isn’t as large as you might have expected because the incremental cost of park tickets decrease for longer duration visits. Total cost: $2,197.

Moderate: This steps up to 5-day Park Hopper tickets, so the family can leverage park operating hours to their advantage (for example, heading to Magic Kingdom and staying until park closing on a day started out at Animal Kingdom when that park closes early). Total cost: $2,492.

Deluxe: This levels up to the Cadillac of park tickets: the 5-Day Park Hopper Plus. This is a good ticket option for a 7-10 day trip, but for a 5-day visit, there’s more than enough to do in the 4 theme parks and other areas of Walt Disney World without adding the “Plus” option. Nevertheless, for those who like to make it rain, Disney-style, this is an option for a 5-day trip. Total cost: $2,855.18.

Many of you were probably a bit taken aback when you saw the cost of the ‘frugal’ option, shocked that it was so high. Perhaps you were also surprised that the longer duration tickets were comparatively lower in price per day. That’s the thing about Walt Disney World tickets: the per day cost decreases the longer you stay. (Of course, accommodations, dining, transportation and overall costs increase with a longer trip, so they get you one way or another!)

For example, the total cost of a 10-day base ticket for this family would be $2,337.56, which is right on par with the moderate option and less than the deluxe option above. The cost of tickets will probably be the most surprising aspect of your vacation, especially if you’re going for only a few days. This makes the relative ‘value’ of a 7-10 day Walt Disney World vacation better than a 3 day trip.

Hotel

The cost of your hotel is the single biggest variable in a Walt Disney World vacation, with prices ranging from $30/night for an off-site hotel on I-Drive to over $1,000 for luxury accommodations that are on-site and near the Walt Disney World theme parks. Let’s take a look at the different options…

Frugal: Staying off-site is the only true budget option, and fortunately, the Orlando area has a surplus of hotels, which drives down cost. In reviewing Hotwire’s Hot Rate option for a variety of dates, there are often 3.5 star and above hotels in the Lake Buena Vista or Disney Springs areas for around $75/night.

There are cheaper hotels elsewhere with lower ratings or farther from the parks, but I think this is a good compromise in quality and location. There are some shady hotels in the Orlando area–Florida Project is more reality than it is fiction–so unless you want experiencing the mean streets of O-Town as part of your vacation experience, splurge a bit. Total cost: $559.03 after taxes & fees.

Note that only some third party or off-site hotels offer free shuttles to the parks. This means staying in the frugal option will almost certainly incur additional transportation costs above and beyond the higher tiers, whether that be for a rental car and parking, or for twice-daily Uber or Lyft expenses. This is not insignificant, and could add $40 to $100 on top of accommodations costs, depending upon when you visit.

Value: For anyone looking to get the true “resort” experience at Walt Disney World, this is your lowest entry-point. Depending upon when you travel, rack rates for the Value Resorts at Walt Disney World range from $118 to $307 per night for most of the year (excluding peak season dates). The more popular your travel time, the more expensive the rates. Total cost: $1,184.50 after taxes and fees.

Moderate: Same idea as the Value Resorts above, except for the middle tier of on-site Disney hotels. Rack rates for these hotels will range from around $248 to $324 per night for most of the year (excluding peak season dates). Again, the more popular your travel time, the more expensive the rates. Total cost: $1,537.75 after taxes and fees.

Deluxe: The on-site Walt Disney World Deluxe Resorts are the hotel tier where there’s the most variance, with it costing $425/night just to get you in the door, and prices quickly going upward from there. At Wilderness Lodge, regular season rack rates start at $555/night. By contrast, regular season rates at the Grand Floridian start at $857/night. Prices can go up from there. Total cost: $3,433.25 after taxes and fees.

On top of all this, Walt Disney World discontinued its Magical Express airport shuttle. Visitors now need to find their own ground transportation from the airport to their hotel, and we cover the range of options in our Guide to Airport Transportation for Walt Disney World. There is no one-size-fits-all perfect solution–it depends on your party size, budget, and other factors. No matter which option you choose, it’ll cost you.

When doing a cost-benefit analysis, one thing to keep in mind depending upon your circumstances is the restoration of free parking at Walt Disney World resorts. For those who are driving or renting a car, not only are these savings more significant than discounts during the same timeframe last year, but there’s also the added bonus of not having to pay for parking. This coupled with better discounts should amount to a fairly hefty year-over-year decrease in total prices, which is exceedingly rare for Walt Disney World!

Dining

Speaking of things being restored, the Disney Dining Plan is also back for 2024! This is great news for a lot of fans who love the DDP for its ease of use, preplanning, budgeting, and other reasons beyond the scope of this post.

Without question, purchasing the Disney Dining Plan will cost you more than it would cost you to eat at Walt Disney World on a tight or even reasonable budget. What the Disney Dining Plan offers is peace of mind in paying for your food in advance and knowing that you don’t have to worry about it when you arrive. If you can budget money, you are usually better off skipping the Dining Plan and paying out of pocket.

Some people can save money using the Disney Dining Plan, but those are people who like to eat “aggressively,” not those who are trying to be frugal. With that said, those who take advantage of the Free Dining discount are much more likely to come out ahead, especially at our example party size of 2 adults and 2 kids in one room. As noted above, Free Dining is likely to be offered at some point in 2024.

With that little cautionary note out of the way, let’s take a look at a few options in terms of eating on a Walt Disney World vacation…

Frugal: Purchase groceries and bring your food to the parks. Many people don’t realize that, unlike sporting events and your local library, you can bring outside food into Walt Disney World. Not only that, but they’re pretty liberal with the rules: you can bring a soft-sided cooler (now don’t get too carried away, you can’t bring in a pony keg to make ‘it’s a small world’ more enjoyable). Figure that the cost here can be as low as what you’d eat at home, plus allowances for occasional snacks. Ballpark cost: $400.

Value: Eat a huge breakfast in your hotel before you leave for the parks each day, then have a counter service meal in the parks in the early afternoon costing around $20/person, bring snacks to get through late afternoon, and have dinner in your hotel each night. Alternatively, the Quick Service Disney Dining Plan would cost just over $800 and allow for lunch and dinner inside the park. Ballpark cost: $700. 

Moderate: For the sake of simplicity, we’re going to assume the average family would be inclined to purchase the regular Disney Dining Plan, and that its price would be roughly analogous to what they’d spend on doing a counter service meal, table service meal, and snacks each day. Of course, paying out of pocket is usually cheaper than doing the DDP. Ballpark cost: $1,250.

Deluxe: In the past, we’ve used the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan (DxDDP) as the baseline for this cost. This is basically the “all-inclusive” version of the Disney Dining Plan that allows you to do multiple table service meals, character dining, and even Signature Restaurants if you so desire–and budget the time for it. Unfortunately, the DxDDP is not returning for 2024…but we’ll still use it as a baseline for these costs, which should be accurate within $100 or so. Ballpark cost: $1,800.

Total Costs

Even within the different tiers of vacations we’ve priced out for the hypothetical family of 4, there’s a pretty substantial range to the price of their Walt Disney World vacation. Still, we thought it worthwhile to give a rough approximation of totals…

Frugal: $2,593.03

Value: $4,081.50

Moderate: $5,279.75

Deluxe: $8,088.43

On-site hotel pricing is based on regular season, when prices are at their average rates. If you’re visiting in September, you’ll find lower rack rates and you might benefit from more aggressive discounts. Conversely, if you’re visiting during the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s, you will almost certainly be paying considerably more.

Regardless of what your actual costs appear to be when you crunch the numbers, it’s always a good idea to build a 15-20% cushion into the budget for unforeseen expenses–that’s a savvy move with travel in general, regardless of the destination.

As high as these totals might seem at first blush, we’ll reiterate that ‘total’ isn’t an actual total since it does NOT take all costs into account. Airfare, rental cars, parking, shuttles, or other ground transportation will likely add another $1,500 to $3,000 onto each bottom line. That’s not to mention other add-ons you might elect to purchase upon arrival!

The cost of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes is also not included, and this is something we’d recommend adding for at least Magic Kingdom–and possibly Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Again, this service now uses date-based pricing, and has almost doubled in price for the most popular dates of the year as a result.

Hard ticket events like the After Hours, Halloween, or Christmas parties are also not part of the budgets. Prices for those are all over the place, but you could easily spend $125 to $175 per person on those event tickets. Dessert parties and other upcharge offerings–such as building a lightsaber in Star Wars land–also add up fast. If you start adding on these things, your costs can easily ballon by thousands of dollars more.

Some of these things are totally optional, but some form of transportation–both to Florida and around Walt Disney World–is not. When all is said and done, you could easily spend double the above amounts for your trip total. It really depends upon your circumstances and travel dates.

For our 2024 Walt Disney World vacation budget update, the base prices have seen the smallest year-over-year increase in the last 3. In fact, some of these rates are exactly the same as last year. Once you factor in discounts, 2024 Walt Disney World vacations have effectively decreased for the first time since 2019!

Don’t get too excited about that, though. This decrease comes after 2 years of massive price increases. As compared to March 2020, the value and moderate tiers have each increased by over $2,000 and the deluxe tier has gone up over $3,000. It wasn’t long ago when a value vacation total was ~$2,000 and a moderate cost $3,500 with a deluxe costing around $5,000. As noted above, base prices have increased every year for the last decade.

Again, this is exacerbated by the end of Disney’s Magical Express and free MagicBands, plus paid Genie+ and Lightning Lanes replacing free FastPass+ and other on-site perks that have been eliminated. That’s right–not only is a Walt Disney World vacation thousands of dollars more expensive, but you’re paying more and getting less. Double whammy!

With so many caveats, it might seem like these numbers are rendered meaningless, and this post is just an exercise in futility (like most things I do!). However, the info and numbers here should at least provide a good baseline so that those of you who have never planned a Walt Disney World vacation have a ballpark idea what kind of costs you’ll encounter.

There are numerous (clickbait) blog posts with headlines like “How to do a Walt Disney World Vacation for Less than $1,000.” Those make big promises that are incredibly misleading, disingenuous, and ultimately lead to disappointment or unrealistic expectations. For 95% of guests, $3k is the bare minimum needed just to get in the door, and even that’s really pushing it. You’d have to visit during the off-season, stay off-site, and be exceedingly frugal with your food and other purchases.

Obviously, this isn’t one-size fits advice or vacation budgeting. Frugal traveler-hackers may scoff at the “high” prices here, and luxury travelers may find that they spend significantly more than the amounts set forth here. There are obviously going to be outliers on both ends of the spectrum.

We’ve heard of high rollers easily dropping $25,000 to $50,000 for a luxurious Walt Disney World vacation, and that could pretty easily turn into $75,000 for a longer trip, with additional people, or more upcharge add-ons. More than a few readers have reported dropping $40k (!!!) on their Walt Disney World vacations after all was said and done.

In our case–and likely in the case of many readers of this blog–we can be outliers on the low end of things, as the sunk costs of Annual Passes make our tickets $0* and we can get our on-site hotel costs down to as low as $100/night with via Disney Vacation Club Point Rentals if we move our dates around a bit and work around deals.

However, this is impractical to a lot of people, especially those without flexible schedules or planning their first trips. (*Of course, the AP itself has a very high upfront cost, but the per visit basis drops dramatically given how often we are in the parks. Obviously, your circumstances are going to differ considerably from ours as bloggers who write about Walt Disney World!)

Ultimately, this is simply a jumping off point with specific numbers that are only meant to give you a rough idea of 2024 Walt Disney World vacation costs. Hopefully this topic can be an open dialogue about Walt Disney World trip expenses and budgets, as the way we vacation certainly differs for others.

There are tons of hacks that can bring the cost down–see our Best 13 Tips for Saving Money at Walt Disney World for ideas on that front. Additionally, if your travel dates are flexible and you want to choose the least expensive times to visit (which also tend to be the least crowded dates), see When Is It Cheapest to Visit Walt Disney World in 2024?

To that end, Walt Disney World veterans who are willing to present some information about your own budget, such as how many people, duration of trip, hotel, dining, etc., when you visit would be much appreciated. Like I said, this post is only meant to be a rough baseline, and the more actual data points and examples newbies have before starting to plan for their own trips, the better. So thanks in advance if you choose to help.

Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!

Your Thoughts…

How much do your average vacations to Walt Disney World cost? Have you noticed an effective price decrease when pricing out 2024 Walt Disney World vacation packages as compared to the previous few years? Think Disney is still worth the money, or has it become unreasonably overpriced? Where do you splurge and where do you “trim the fat” from your trip budget? Do you veterans have any data points of your own to help newbies out? If you’re a Walt Disney World first-timer, do you have any questions after reading this? We love to hear from readers, so if you have any thoughts or questions, post them in the comments!