Rising Gas Prices and Altered Travel Plans

[Kerry823]

As I drove by the gas station today, the price of gas here in upstate NY has risen to $3.35 a gallon:eyes:, I wondered if anyone has altered their plans to go to Disney. The rise in price has affected not only travel by car but travel by air.

Has anyone changed their mind on their mode of travel or decided to stay closer to home instead?

[BronxTigger]

Kind of. Plane ticket prices are so high that I can't go home to my parent's house for Christmas. The cheapest tickets I saw were around $550 per person round trip, but those are long gone. More typical are in the $800+ range round trip per person, and I just can't afford that right now. So, we are staying home.

Hopefully, we can make it out to Disneyland next July but I don't know if that will happen or not yet. Time will tell...

[mttafire]

We havnt altered ANY of our driving OR disney plans. There are 4 of us. It would be much more expensive to fly rather than drive. Honestly, We dont even pay attention to gas prices anymore. Its just one of those things you need so we just fill er up. Now, When we goto Disney and if gas prices were a concern to us, Then we would stay at a value or not buy park hoppers (we dont anyways) to save $$ to offset the cost of gas. You can eat less $$ meals also to save $$. Anyways, Thats how we do it.:thumbsup: But in short: No, We dont let gas prices affect us at all.

[Disney Lynn]

What a timely thread! We just decided to return to WDW when we saw the packages and room rate "deals" for January. (And many thanks to Debbie at MJ for once again being so helpful!). So off to the POP Century!!! We had planned to drive, since we're retired and have the time and love having the flexibility of a car. But with this latest jump in gas prices, DH decided to check flights- just for the fun of it! And he found a great price on Southwest. So we did the math- with gas prices skyrocketing (and who knows how much more they'll go up and when they'll come down?), plus a motel and meals on the way down from NJ, we decided that Southwest's special looked really special! So now we're flying! (And hoping that DME has improved since the last time we used it LOL)

There are deals on flights in some markets and for some dates. It does help if you can be flexible in your travel plans.

Have we changed (or modified) our travel plans- yes, in some ways- but fun family vacations - especially for those of you with young kids - are really important. I know a lot of you may be having trouble "making ends meet" by this jump in gas prices- my heart goes out to you and your families. But try to cut from somewhere else (that's not too important!!) to make time for fun with your kids. And they'll remember Dumbo & Fantasmic rather than where you stayed or whether you drove or flew.

[PirateLover]

Rising gas prices in conjunction with my boyfriend's increasing fear of heights actually has us driving down in less than a month. Airfare has become out of control. There are 4 of us driving down, so splitting the cost of gas will be much easier on the pocket than 4 roundtrip airplane tickets.

[SurferStitch]

I am totally sickened by how gas prices have been allowed to spiral out of control. I always hear about how lucky we are, and how much gas costs across the pond. I don't care how much Europeans have paid for fuel in the past....we didn't, and we shouldn't have to now. It's ridiculous.

Whew! Okay, I feel better now! :whew:

No, we haven't altered our plans. It was much, much cheaper for the two of us to fly, so driving was not even considered. We are flying non-stop PHL-MCO for only about $138 per person round trip (and that includes fees/taxes). We can't drive to Florida and back for that.

Higher gas prices lead to higher prices for everything, but I refuse to give up our very much needed annual vacation because of it. I just pull the money belt a little tighter to prepare for it.

[Tinkerfreak]

We have not altered any vacation plans to Disney but decided against a trip to my MIL's for Feb. vacation week. The cheapest tickets we found were $600 per ticket and I just can't see spending that much. We just came back from Disney a couple of weeks ago and will hopefully be going back again next year so we said no way to the feb. trip.

[Deesdisney]

We have not altered our plans at all. Instead I think we might do a suprise visit to WDW in 4 wks. I have res. for Jan. and feb. but since my DH can not go then we might through one in. My dd is going to start school next year which means I am going to have to go to work to keep my self sane. So this might be the only time we can actually do this. Even though we take our dd out of school every once and awhile.