Quick poll on splitting travel expenses.

In My Humble Opinion
1

We are planning a trip to Disney, taking advantage of their “buy 4 get 3 free” deal.

Me, wife and 2 kids costs: $2400 (with hopper and dinner)

Then my wife suggests bringing along her stepbrother. Good idea, he will just love it (and my FIL is still fuming about his actual brother going to Disney last year and not taking him).

Cost for the 4 us of plus BIL: $3700.

I think we should still pay $2400 and BIL should pay the $1300 difference (the big difference is due to going from regular room to mini-suite). My wife hesitates but agrees to it after a couple of seconds.

Then I suggest inviting my mom since we now have a mini-suite where she could fit. (plus we could use her help with essentially 3 kids since BIL is mentally retarded)

Cost for the 4 of us plus BIL plus Mom: $4200

I think my mom should pay $500 difference, BIL his $1300, us the original $2400. Now my wife is not looking so happy. She is unsure of what she wants but is not happy with this.

Now my dad wants to come (Who the hell said this is the happiest place on Earth?).

Cost for the 4 + BIL + Mom & Dad: $7000

I think my dad should pay the $2800 difference (difference so huge because now we need to move up to a deluxe Villa with camels and trapeze artists in the room). IF he wants us all to stay together, which I doubt. The logical thing would be for us 4 + BIL to go into the suite and my mom and dad in a separate room.

Anyhow, what is the best way to split costs in a situation like this? I think nobody should pay for other people’s decisions and pay the difference his inclusion is making in the cost of the package. My wife seems more inclined to just divide the total among the number of people and keep it simple.

Your take?

2

This is a bit of a tough one.

Ideally, you and your family shouldn’t pay more than the $2,400 you originally planned for. On the other hand, if you move into a larger suite or villa, you will get some benefit from it, and so should probably pay some more.

As for the added people, i tend to agree with your wife that, however you apportion out the whole amount, those three people should probably each pay the same amount, rather than paying just the marginal increase associated with their addition to the group. So, for example, if just your BIL and your mother come (total cost: $4,200), they should each pay $900.

There’s also the question, though, of what type of accommodation each of you has during the stay. For example, if you take the villa, there might be a large main bedroom with an en suite bathroom, which is bigger than all the other rooms. Should the couple who has this room pay more, proportionally, than the couple that has a smaller bedroom with no bathroom of its own? (Note: i know nothing about the rooms at Disney; i’m just speculating about possibilities.)

I guess, if you’re all about equally financially comfortable, the easiest thing to do if you all go would be to just average out the cost per person. If your BIL and both your parents go, and if you stay in the villa, then you have 7 people at a cost of $7,000, or $1,000 per person. Easy.

This means, though, that the cost for your own family has increased by two-thirds, which is quite a substantial amount.

Why don’t you present the options to your relatives? Tell them what the trip is costing you now, tell them how much more the suite and the villa cost, and make clear that you don’t want the cost of your own vacation going through the roof. If your family is close enough to all take a vacation together, surely you can work this out among yourselves amicably.

3

We have all discussed it (never in a plenary session because we all live in separate countries) and we are mostly agreed that we will pay our $2400, my BIL will pay his $1300 and my parents will get their own room (this one still subject to change).

This is more to get a feel of what else is out there than trying to have the sdmb arbitrate our differences.

Our BIL making us move to a suite means we will now have a kitchen, which was not essential to us since we are getting the meal plan. Still we might find ways of making that of use and my wife and I are considering the option of sneaking some money to my FIL (who insists on paying more than his share because we are taking the BIL which is a charge nobody else will take).

And FTR, if we went with the $7K villa, and wanted to split it evenly, $4K is over our budget for this vacation, so that’s a no-go.

4

I’d try to do this, on the assumption that the separate room will cost less than the villa. Plus the kids can spend time in the grandparents’ room and have a “sleepover” there. I’d ask Disney to put them in a room nearby, so they can easily visit.

Or go off-park and rent a condo or house, for probably a lot less than $7,000.

5

Out of curiosity - what’s a hopper?

6

Somehow your math seems wonky, since you went from a $600/ person vacation to a $1,000 per person vacation, when one might expect economies of scale. I realize 2 of the original people were kids, but still, the per-person cost almost doubled. I think with the $2800 your dad would be upgrading everyone’s vacation accommodations quite a bit.

7

A Disney ticket that allows you to “hop” from one theme park to another within the same day (there are four parks on property, six if you count the water parks).

8

We go to Disney every year and I would second the opinion about staying off property. You can get a LUXURY four bedroom house with its own private heated swimming pool and jacuzzi for around $2500.00. You’ll be about 3 miles away from the park, but you’ll have a lot of extra money to take care of that transportation. You do have to factor in buying your Disney tickets separately, but I think you’ll see you still come out a lot better, especially when you have a lot of folks in your party.

We book one of these homes every year at Christmas and will never stay with Disney again. The communities we like best are Windsor Palms and Acadia Estates, but there are many others.

9

We definitely want to stay inside the park this time.

Both my wife and myself were Floridians at some point, both with close friends working in Disney. We went to Disney 6-10 a year (for free) every year for years, but we have never stayed inside and we wanted to try it, even if just for once.

The reason the price per person increases with the number of people is that the level of accommodation is indeed increasing. We are going from value room for the 4 of us, to value suite for 5-6 to moderate villa for 7. The thing is that we are happy with “value room” and we don’t need/want the kitchen or the luxury. The only reason we are moving up is because of the number of people, so I feel it is unfair we end up paying for features we don’t want.

And sorry, yes, the hopper is a Park Hopper ticket that let’s you “hop” from one park to the next. Good for ending every day in Epcot with fireworks and good dinner. Also good for seeing Animal Kingdom in small pieces always early in the morning when the animals show some signs of life.

10

This. The separate room will cost $1700, so it is a lot cheaper than $3300. And yes, the option of separate rooms where we can dump the kids for at least one night of privacy has been considered.

And it is a good option to do all the window shopping on the website but then call for the reservation to make sure of details such as adjacent rooms.

11

The other thing is if you’re booking the special meals, make sure to book them in advance for everyone. I liked the princess dinner at the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in the Norway Pavilion at Epcot (particularly if you have a daughter) and the Crystal Palace meal (with Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet), because the food was actually pretty good at both. And from the commercials, it looks like there’s some sort of pirate-theme meal (although I can’t find it on the fan websites), which sounds like fun.