Christmas time is a wonderful but expensive time to be at Disney World!

Today, we’re looking at how much it would cost for a family of four to visit Disney World during Christmastime this year!

For this article, we’ll calculate the cost for a family of four with two adults, a 7-year old child, and a 4-year old child! This is just an example, so of course, cost will vary for each family depending on where you stay, how old your kids are, how many are coming, what you all want to eat, and all the other choices you have at Disney! But we’ve chosen some basic options, including park tickets, dining reservations, and holiday events tickets for this example!

Let’s get started!

Park Tickets

For this example, the family is going to Disney World on December 23rd, 2021, and checking out on the 27th. They’re getting to Orlando early enough to go into a park on the 23rd, so they need a ticket for that day, but their flight is early on the 27th, so they don’t need a ticket then. In total, it’s a four-day trip that covers Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the parks!

There are several options for park tickets, depending on what you want to be included in your ticket. First, there’s a basic 1 park per day ticket! For this family, with two adults and two children, the 1 park per day ticket during these days will cost $2,300.04.

We also looked at the park hopper option, which would allow you to go into any different park after 2PM on each day. This option — for the same four days — would cost $2,662.14. We chose this option for our example because there’s so much going on at Disney that your family might want to have access to multiple parks in one day!

So far, our total is $2,662.14. With park tickets taken care of, now let’s look at hotel reservations for this time of year.

Hotel Reservations

Hotel reservations in Disney World are usually more expensive during the holiday season. 

We looked into one hotel in each of the categories, value, moderate, and deluxe. Here are the options at the time of writing:

Value: Disney’s All-Star Movies — $222.75/night

Moderate: Disney’s Port Orleans – Riverside — $369.75/night

Deluxe: Disney’s Grand Floridian — $1,023.50/night

Even though Disney’s All-Star Sports has the best price, our example family in this example loves visiting Disney Springs in the evenings after a long day in the parks. So we chose the Port Orleans Riverside room since it has a boat transport to the Springs!

At $369.75/night for these dates, that brings the total for the hotel (with tax added) to $1,663.89 for four nights. The total for the trip — including the park tickets and hotel — is now $4,326.03. We’re not quite done yet! Next up is all the food!

Dining

Dining for all three meals in the parks can get a little expensive, so we’ll assume the family in our example had groceries delivered to have breakfast in their hotel room each day!

Click Here to Learn About Grocery Delivery in Disney World

We’ll look at a quick service meal for lunch every day and sit down at a restaurant for each dinner. It’s not required to have a table-service meal every day, though! If you’d be happier with quick-service meals for dinner as well, it could save you some time and money! And remember, you can also bring your own food into the parks! 

Our family for this example is heading into Animal Kingdom on their first day. For lunch, we looked at Satu’li Canteen in Pandora. With two kids meals that come with drinks (one Cheeseburger Pod meal and a “Teylu” All-Beef Hot Dog Wrapped in Dough), a Combination Bowl, and an adult order of Cheeseburger Pods, and two soft drinks, the Satu’li Canteen bill was $52.54.

We chose the Tusker House for dinner, mainly because it’s a character meal, which is really fun for younger kids! It used to be a buffet, but it’s now a family-style meal with a variety of African-inspired dishes. The price is a flat rate of $55/adult and $36/child, so this will cost the family $182 total, plus tax and gratuity.

After the family’s day in Animal Kingdom, we’re up to a total cost of $4,560.57!

EPCOT is the family’s destination for Christmas Eve! The family is going to fill up on pastries at the Boulangerie Patisserie les Halles — the French Bakery — in the France Pavilion! They got a Croque Monsieur, a variety of cheese to try with the Fromages dish, the Bisque de Homard (lobster bisque), Jamon Beume (ham croissant), and a few soft drinks to share! The total cost for the meal here was $50.35.

For dinner, we sent our family to Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort to eat at ‘Ohana that evening! This family-style meal of Polynesian-inspired food is a flat rate of $55/adult and $33/child, so it costs a total of $176 for our family.

After the bakery and ‘Ohana, our total expense is $4,786.92.

Now it’s time for Christmas Day in Magic Kingdom! For lunch, we’re looking at Casey’s Corner, which gives the family a great view of the Cinderella Castle while they eat! They got a Chili-cheese hot dog, two orders of corn dog nuggets, a footlong hotdog, two orders of french fries, and four sodas to share! This meal will cost them $70.

Let’s say this family wants to splurge and go to Be Our Guest in Fantasyland for dinner! The three-course meal inside the Beast’s castle costs $62/adult and $37/child. We’re adding $40 to the budget so the parents can try a few wines off the extensive wine list here! The total for this meal would be $238.

After a busy Christmas Day dining in Magic Kingdom, the total cost for this trip is up to $5,094.92.

For their last day, the family is hanging out in Disney’s Hollywood Studios! We chose Woody’s Lunch Box for the family’s lunch. If they got two kid’s meals (which came with drinks), a BBQ Brisket Melt, and an order of “Totchos,” plus a couple of drinks, the meal would cost them $56.16.

For the last dinner of this trip, we chose the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant near Sunset Boulevard! It’s a signature restaurant, but you can save some money because kids’ menu items here are around $15/meal — much cheaper than the other sit-down restaurants! After ordering two kids’ meals, the Famous Cobb Salad, and the Halibut Veronique, the family in this example just had room to share a slice of the Grapefruit Cake! This meal would cost $150 total!

We’ve hit the end of our dining expenses for this trip! The total cost for tickets, hotel reservations, and dining for December 23rd through the 26th is $5,301.08!

If the family is planning to be at the new Disney’s Very Merriest After Hours event as well, it will be an added expense to this trip!

After Hours Christmas Party

Ticket prices for the new Disney’s Very Merriest After Hours event haven’t been released yet, but we can give it a good guess based on the cost of other holiday After Hours events and the Christmas party cost before! The Boo Bash this year would cost about $592 for a family of four on some days (but all the way up to $796 for the day of Halloween), and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party would have cost $546 in 2019. We’ll pick the cost of Boo Bash as our guess since it’s a similar event that’s happening this year! We’re guessing that tickets for the family to the After Hours Christmas event during the peak time period would cost around $796!

With that expense, our grand total is up to $6,097.08!

Other

We also took a look at the cost of stroller rentals! The cost for stroller rentals in Disney World is $15/day, so we’ll add $60 to the budget! 

That means our grand total for this Christmas time Disney World trip for the family of four is…(drumroll please)…$6,157.08!

Like we mentioned before, it’s a bit more expensive to be in Disney World during the holidays, mainly because of the park ticket and hotel reservation prices! Our family of four could do it for $6,157.08, which doesn’t include airplane tickets or other travel expenses to get into Disney World. Remember to check out any deals or offers that might come up for Christmas time in Disney! And remember that hotel prices may vary depending on when you visit and where you stay. Keep following DFB for more tips about the holidays in the parks!

Click Here to Learn More about Disney’s Very Merriest After Hours Event!

Are you heading to Disney for the holidays? Let us know in the comments!