How Much Is A Disney Vacation For A Family Of 6

The Walt Disney World Resort is a magical place. Families flock to Orlando year after year to experience the magic and make memories that will last forever. But how much is a Disney vacation for a family of 6? The cost of a Disney vacation can vary wildly depending on the time of year you visit, many factors like whether or not you have annual passes, and the type of accommodations you choose.

The price of a Disney vacation can be overwhelming. After all, the whole family is coming along. You have to pay for those tickets and that hotel right? One of the best things about Disney vacations for a family of 6 is that there are so many options it’s easy to create one within your budget.

Hi there! I’m Lindsay. I’m a part-time travel blogger and full-time wife, mommy and nanny who writes articles in her free time. I love traveling around the world with my family, blogging about it and covering Disney World vacations. We’re just your normal, everyday middle class family who tries to get away a few times a year. Right now we’re living in Ohio, but we hope to move back to Florida soon.

Disney isn’t a company that does things by half. They have transformed what was once an orange grove into a storybook wonderland now known throughout the world. It’s the happiest place on earth because happiness is contagious! When you enter the gate of Disney World, it doesn’t take long to realize that the secret to their happiness is found in one place: The Magic Kingdom.

How Much Is A Disney Vacation For A Family Of 6

SUMMARY (2022 VISITS)

While I definitely encourage you to read this entire post, I’ll do you the kindness of summarizing where the three trips come out. Before you read them though—please, please understand these are jumping off points. Many items in here can be made cheaper (by deal hunting or downgrading), more expensive (by upgrading), or nicer but not much more expensive (by deal hunting and upgrading). Additionally, each of these trips is broken into line items at the end of the respective sections.

Our baseline Disney World vacation for a family of four (two adults, one child 10+, one child 3-9) costs $5,731 ($287 per person per night) in 2022. This includes flights, transportation to and from Disney World, a five-night stay at Pop Century, five day tickets without park hopper, Genie+ at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, and meals at roughly the cost of the old standard Disney dining plan, which is not available for booking as of this update.

For the baseline trip we also have figures for a family of three (two adults, one younger child)—$4,589, and a family of five (two adults, one older child, two younger children)—$7,045.

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The expensive trip is more complicated. There are a variety of ways to make your Disney World trip as expensive as you’d like. But for this summary, we’ll say that a family of four who upgrades to Wilderness Lodge, gets park hopper tickets, adds more days of Genie+ and a couple individual Lightning Lanes, and does one ticketed event OR upgrades their dining plan will spend around $8,468 ($413 per person per night). (About half that increased cost comes from the hotel upgrade.)

Our budget family is more flexible. They change their trip dates to value season and downgrade their hotel to All-Star Movies. They cut the dining plan, opting instead to eat three quick service meals each day. They do only four park days, and only one day of Genie+. As a result, they get their price down to $4,347 ($217 per person per night).

But a budget family that takes things a step further—cutting one day off their trip but upgrading to park hopper tickets (so they can still visit all four parks) gets their price down to $3,927 ($245 per person per night).

After a quick list of recommended posts, we’ll start with the baseline trip. If you’d like to jump to the expensive trip, click here. If you’d like to jump to the budget trip, click here.

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023

With 2023 right around the corner some of you are probably looking ahead to trips that year. Rather than double the word count of this post, we’re going to give you the difference in the baseline trip, with percentages, so you have an idea of what 2023 looks like compared to 2022. The bulk of this post still focuses on 2022.

• 2023 5 Nights Pop Century — $1268 (vs. $1228 2022, +3%)
• 2023 5 Day Base Tickets — $2167 (vs. $1988 2022, +9%)
• 2023 2 Days Genie+ — $128 (unchanged)
• 2023 MCO-Disney Transportation — $200 (vs. $200 in 2022)
• Assume flights and dining increase 3% — $2253 (vs. $2187 2022)
• Total Base Trip — $6016 (vs. $5731 2022, +5%)

RECOMMENDED READING

Since you’re at this post, there are a few others you might be interested in. Our Disney World Planning Guide is the place to start your planning. Our 50+ Best Ways to Save on your Disney Vacation post contains a variety of tips that can help when it comes to saving money. And our 70+ Tips for Disney World Trips contains a lot of information first timers (and some veterans) will need. We also have a post covering the best credit cards for Disney vacations—some of these (like the Chase Disney Visa) have signup bonuses that could bring down your Disney vacation cost a bit.

THE BASELINE DISNEY WORLD VACATION COST ($5,731)

A baseline Disney World vacation cost for a family of four (two adults, one child 10+, one child 3-9) is $5,731 in 2022. Let’s talk about how we got that number.

First, we pick our dates. I went with June 10 to June 15. It’s early enough in summer to avoid punishing heat, but many kids will already be out of school. This includes a weekend, to save the parents days of PTO. And it’s five nights, which will include four full days in the theme parks.

Next up, flights. Obviously you’ll see a lot of variance in flight prices. I’m flying out of Chicago and use that to estimate, and there are round-trip flights for $177 per person. That’s not on the low end of prices I’ve seen (I just booked for $80 per person, roundtrip), and I’ll assume you need at least one or two carry-ons or checked bags (not per person), so let’s just ballpark this at $824 total.

With Disney’s Magical Express ending in 2021, you’ll need to cover the cost of getting to and from Orlando International Airport. There are a few different options we’re not going to get into here, but we’ll estimate the cost at $200 round trip.

Onto hotel. Yes, it’s in the “value” category, so I’m doing myself a bit of budgeting help here, but it’s also my go-to Disney World hotel—Pop Century. As I write this, there are no discounts for the selected dates, so the hotel stay booked directly through Disney comes out to $1,228. (Note: I would not recommend booking directly through Disney when there are no discounts without at least shopping around for a better rate.)

Everyone needs park tickets. We’ll buy from Undercover Tourist, an authorized Disney ticket seller. I’m advising five-day tickets without the park hopper option. This means either arrival or departure day (not both) can be spent doubling up on a park you need extra time at. For the three adults (10+) and one child, the tickets come out to a hefty $1,988.

Then there’s the new add-ons, Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. Our current recommendation is to buy Genie+ for Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom, but not for Epcot and Animal Kingdom. At $16 per person (after tax) per day, that comes to $128. Since we picked Pop Century—a Disney hotel—we assume you’ll use Early Entry, which will help you avoid needing to buy individual Lightning Lanes.

Finally, food and drink. Now, I’m on the record as not being a fan of the Disney dining plans, and as of this update the dining plans haven’t yet returned to Walt Disney World. Even if they were available, we wouldn’t advise someone get it. But for this purpose, it provides a good baseline for food and drink budgeting. For three adults and one child, the dining plan for five nights will run $1,363 (a modest 3% increase over the 2020 prices, the last time the dining plan was available, so actual prices might be higher).

That totals out to $5,731. Roughly speaking, that could cover your entire trip cost, minus getting to and from your home airport.

You may need an extra meal or two, depending on your flight times. And—perhaps most importantly—this budget has no money for souvenirs.

If you were a family of three (we’ll subtract the older child), you’d be looking at $4,589. For a family of five (adding a younger child), you’d have to get a room at Caribbean Beach, and your total cost would go up to $7,045.

Other Possible Costs

While this cost includes all the essentials of a Disney World vacation, it doesn’t include much else. If you’re planning to have a car at Disney World, there are parking fees to consider. Rental cars also obviously come at a cost.

If you plan to do some shopping, be it merchandise from the parks or just vacation shopping at Disney Springs, you’ll need some spending money. The list goes on, and we’ll talk about some more items later.

Baseline Trip Summary Of Costs

• 5 Nights Pop Century — $1228
• 5 Day Base Tickets — $1988
• 2 Days Genie+ — $128
• MCO-Disney Transportation — $200
• Flights — $824
• Dining — $1363
• Total Base Trip — $5731

BEFORE WE GO ON…

Just as the baseline trip was a starting point, so too are the expensive and budget trips. For example, I can’t think of the last time I paid full price for a multi-night stay at a deluxe hotel. I’ve visited all of them for multiple nights, but I’d only ever book them with some sort of discount, be it from Disney or elsewhere. (To be clear, these are publicly available discounts, I’ve never taken anything from Disney that wasn’t available to the public.)

Relatedly, budget travel is a real rabbit hole. I’ll explain where I draw the lines and why, but you could push it. Do you want to find a room for $100 per night? $75? $50?! Dig deep enough and it probably exists, but it might not be somewhere you want to be (among other things, you always have to consider transit costs to the parks).

On either side of the spectrum, the planning strategy should be the same—figure out what you want, then figure out how you’ll get it. If you can’t get it, tweak and retry. Don’t ignore Animal Kingdom Lodge because of the first number you see at the Disney website—that number can often easily be bested by booking in off-season or by renting Disney Vacation Club points.