Hey Reader,

We are huge Disneyland people. Like, embarrassingly huge. It is basically a second home for us at this point.

But every single time we go, the prices have crept up again. Tickets, food, parking, the inevitable moment in the gift shop where your kid finds the one thing that costs $45 and looks you dead in the eyes. It adds up so fast.

I have spent years figuring out how to make Disneyland work without coming home feeling like we need to recover financially from our vacation, and I finally put everything into one post.

A few things that have genuinely made a difference for us:

We always book through Get Away Today instead of directly through Disney. Their promotions are consistently better and I have never found a reason to go anywhere else for Disneyland packages.

We eat a big breakfast before we go, pack our own snacks and water bottles, and have dinner outside the park. Disneyland is totally fine with outside food as long as there's no glass or alcohol. This one change alone saves us a noticeable amount every trip.

The special ticketed events are sneaky good value. Things like Oogie Boogie Bash and Sweethearts Nite often let you enter the park two to three hours early, so you can end up with six or eight hours of access for less than a regular day ticket. Shorter lines too.

And the souvenir situation: we set a budget with the boys before we ever walk through the gates. We also take photos of everything they want so they can look back at it later in the hotel room and figure out what they actually want versus what just looked good in the moment. This has prevented more meltdowns than I can count.

The full breakdown with everything we do is on the blog, including the Lightening Lane question (when it's worth it and when it isn't) and how to find hotels near the park that won't add another four hundred dollars to your trip.

​Read the full Disneyland budget guide here​

Summer is coming fast. If Disneyland is on the list, this one is worth a read before you book anything.

Marcie