Our Disneyland Budget Breakdown

As with all things, I try to get as good of a deal as possible (and earn as many credit card points in the process). Here's the breakdown for what we spent for our 3 very full days at Disneyland/California Adventure for 3 people:

(When in Galaxy's Edge, drink the Blue Milk)

3 Day So Cal Deal Tickets that included weekend entry- $275 x3= $825 (too bad we weren't going the week after cause we couldn't take advantage of the kid's deal!)

Genie+ Day 1- $35x3= $105

Genie+ Day 2- $30x3=$ $90

Disneyland Parking= $30 (I only paid for 1 day, since my friend paid for the second day, and we walked from the hotel/monorail when we stayed overnight between the second and third day, and the hotel did not charge us for parking!)

Snacks/food Day 1- $68.28- we brought lunchables and salad, and bought snacks (cotton candy, popcorn, and Dole Whip Floats, and ate at Red Rose Tavern for dinner)

Snacks/food Day 2- $92.32- we ate at Pym's Test Kitchen for lunch (free soda refills, even with kids meals!), bought snacks (churros, cookies, cotton candy), and ate at Aunt Cass Cafe for dinner.

Snacks/food Day 3- $48.45- We got some blue milk in the morning ate at Hungry Bear Restaurant, and had some churros, cotton candy and popcorn when we watched the Tale of the Lion King show. My friend graciously paid for our dinner as a thank you for planning the ins and outs of the trip!

Total for 3 days at Disneyland/California Adventure for 3 people: $1259.05

Minus the $100 that I saved by purchasing Disney Gift cards at Costco= $1159.05

(for the amount that exceeded $1000 I used a Mastercard Gift Card that didn't have any fees, that I purchased at Staples with my Chase Ink Business Cash card for 5x points).

Hotel- Since we were doing 2 consecutive park days, we opted to stay at a near by hotel. Since I have an IHG credit card (generally no frills hotels but they have great benefits and locations), I have some status with them and there were some great discount stacking opportunities when I booked. If you're not into points, this will probably not be so interesting to you, so you can just skip over this :) But when I was first learning about how to use points, this was incredibly helpful to me!

I booked the Holiday Inn & Suites in Anaheim for $143.64 per room (I booked 2 rooms)= $287.28 total (plus taxes)- but my friend paid me back for 1 room.

There was a Chase offer on my card for 10% back, which I activated, giving me $28.32 back.

There was a Rakuten offer for IHG for 10% back (which I opt to get back in American Express MR points) giving me 2,832 MR points (when valued at 2 cents per point (cpp), it's about $57 back in travel perks.

I received 10402 IHG points for using the credit card to book the room- IHG points are usually worth about .5 cpp (a value of $52.01), but when I book a room I can usually get close to 1 cpp value (so $104.02)

At the end of the day, I probably made "money" on that hotel room, in terms of earning points and credits that could be used towards future travel!

Some bonuses of staying at this hotel was that gave me free parking for 1 day (on the website it says they charge $22 per day, but they didn't charge me), and it was about a 10 minute walk to Downtown Disney, where we went through security, got our tickets checked, then boarded the monorail straight to Tomorrowland! The kids loved the ride and it was so much easier than going through security at the parking lot, and checking tickets at the entry gate! I was a little nervous when booking this hotel because it wasn't right across the street like most of the hotels on Harbor, but I would 100% stay here again! We were really only there to sleep so we didn't need any frills.

While not a cheap trip overall, I felt that it was pretty reasonable for 3 days at the Disneyland, considering we ate all the snacks that we wanted and didn't feel like we were trying to budget too much (aside from not buying any souvenirs). We also saved by not doing Genie+ the 3rd day (and not buying it as a package with the tickets which would have required us to purchase it all 3 days).

I hope you found this helpful in planning your days, and how much you want to spend at the parks!