Do you dream of visiting every single global Disney theme park? Here’s how much money the total cost would be for flights, hotels, food, souvenirs, transportation–everything. Plus the logistics of a trip, including when we’d visit and how many days we’d spend doing the 12 parks at Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai during this ultimate round-the-world Disney vacation!
Every once in a while, we see articles like this (mostly clickbait on mainstream sites covering the cost of tickets) and always find ourselves yelling, “no no no!” at our computers. Apparently, that doesn’t accomplish anything. Given that this is the type of travel we actually price out and do, we thought it’d be worth sharing how we’d approach this, and what it’d cost.
Actually, we would not do this. Don’t get us wrong–it’s fun to daydream about winning the lottery or falling backwards into a large inheritance from a mysterious relative and doing a whirlwind once-in-a-lifetime vacation like this. Dreaming and doing are two different things, though. We’ve taken a trip that encompassed three of these destinations once, and regretted even that!
It’s been several years since we last did a three destination Disney trip, and during that time, interest in this type of trip has absolutely exploded. Just within the last few months, Dude Perfect put it on the radar of mainstream audiences by setting a world record for visiting every Disney theme park around the globe in under 75 hours (and for charity!). Their video has amassed 5.5 million views and counting.
While Dude Perfect only did a single attraction in each park, dedicated fans have aimed to do every single ride, knocking out each park in a single day. One knocked out every operating attraction in just 12 days. He traveled over 20,000 miles, riding 216 attractions, and documenting his trip with photos and videos on social media. That likewise went viral on social media, and became an aspirational challenge for globe-trotting Disney fans.
Then there was the most aspirational of the bunch: Disney Parks Around The World – A Private Jet Adventure.
This bucket list Adventures by Disney international trip spanned 24 days, 6 countries, all 12 Disney theme parks worldwide, and other destinations (Taj Mahal, Pyramids of Giza and Eiffel Tower). That trip offered world-class accommodations and travel in a VIP-configured Boeing 757 private jet. All for the low, low starting price of $115,000!
We were highly critical of the Disney Parks Around The World – A Private Jet Adventure, mostly for the high cost and perplexing schedule that hit the parks during the hottest time of year. Despite that $115,000 cost, that Adventures by Disney trip sold out quickly when it was offered.
Clearly the demand exists for such a trip. Despite that, the Disney Parks Around The World – A Private Jet Adventure appears to have been quietly discontinued last year, and is not bookable for 2026. (Or perhaps it is, but is so exclusive and has such a long waiting list, that it’s no longer publicized?!)
With that in mind, we’ve decided to put our own version of this trip together. Just for fun, of course. We aren’t renting a private jet and we’re not actually going on a 25+ day trip spanning 6 countries and all 12 Disney theme parks. But we are figuring out how much such an ‘around the world’ adventure would cost when not paying the Adventures by Disney (or private jet) premium.
Unlike that, our hypothetical plan is more focused on finding the realistic costs of an Around the World of Disney trip, not the logistics of travel hacking or doing this trip as inexpensively as possible. You could do this trip for less money if you were aggressive with hacks and discounts, but we want a comfortable and ‘classy’ trip.
Not too classy, though! You could also spend a lot, lot more. There’s a version of this trip that costs more than $100k, as Disney has no shortage of ways to “help” you spend whatever your travel budget might be!
Warning: Do Not Try This At Home (Err…Away From Home)
From a practical perspective, there are a handful of problems to actually doing a trip like this. The first is that the climate of each location is different, with unique packing needs. The best time to visit Hong Kong is not the best time to visit Anaheim or Tokyo. Second, jet lag would wreak havoc on such an itinerary.
Finally, and most importantly, there’s way more to do in each of these places than Disney. You should not visit Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, or Shanghai and only do Disney theme parks. Even Los Angeles and Orlando deserve to be “explored” beyond Disney. (At minimum, go see Epic Universe in the latter.)
Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo are among our favorite cities in the world. In Japan alone, there are weeks worth of compelling things to do outside the parks; I can’t imagine traveling halfway around the world and only taking time for Tokyo. Same goes for France/Europe and the other Asia parks, too. It helps that all of these parks are connected to their respective cities with wonderful public transit.
As noted above, we’ve combined multiple destinations in the before on a handful of different trips. This has included California + Japan + Hong Kong, Hawaii + Japan + Hong Kong, Florida + Hong Kong + Shanghai, and other combos I’m probably forgetting.
We usually did so out of convenience (cheaper airfare), but in every case, we concluded that it was “too much” after we got home, and that we didn’t get enough time with each location. Most recently, we did Hong Kong and Japan with our toddler, and came to the conclusion that even that was overly ambitious at this stage in our lives.
With those warnings and caveats out of the way, let’s break down what we’d do and how much it’d cost for our global Disney Parks tour. Since this is for the sake of fun, anyway, we’re going to start in Paris for the sake of simplicity…
About Our Travel Dates
We’re dedicating 25 or 26 days to this ultimate round the world Disney trip (variable since we’re doing a redeye flight to start). Not because we think that’s a reasonable vacation duration (remember, this is only for fun) but because that’s how long it’d take to appropriately experience each theme park destination.
Oh, and this is longer than the duration of the Disney Parks Around The World – A Private Jet Adventure. It’s oddly important to me that we have a longer trip, better overall experience, and a bit of actual adventure–all while spending significantly less money. Take that, defunct AbD trip!
The travel dates for which we’re pricing out this trip are January 8 through February 3, 2026.
There are a few reasons for this. First, because a couple of the international parks only release reservations a few months in advance. Second, because the domestic parks only release discounts ~6 months in advance.
Finally, since we’re not going out of our way to maximize our savings, I want to at least price out travel dates that typically offer off-season pricing. The total cost of this trip is going to be (spoiler alert) far less than that Adventures by Disney private jet trip.
However, this is going to be far more than we would actually spend on a trip like this since we try to travel hack whenever possible. (To that point, we just stayed at the Conrad Tokyo and Westin Miyako Kyoto for $0 per night.)
We also view winter as a good time to visit all of these parks. But if we were actually going to take a trip like this, we’d probably time it so that we’d be at all of these parks in late Spring or Fall 2026. The problem with late Spring at half of the destinations is the risk of high heat–not something we’d be willing to chance on a trip like this.
While we prefer the holiday season at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, Halloween is good at both of the domestic parks, and amazing in the international parks (especially Hong Kong). If you can stretch the Japan portion of the trip out into late October through mid-November, that’s optimal. The one-two punch of Halloween and Christmas at Tokyo Disney Resort is pretty unbeatable.
The other reason we’d do this stretch of the year is weather. If you’re going to do this as an actual trip, the goal should be to hit Walt Disney World, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Shanghai Disneyland towards the tail end of Halloween or sometime during the holiday season for optimal weather.
Tokyo, Paris, and Anaheim are fine throughout the date range, although all those cities can get colder during the winter months (it snows at Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland from time to time). That might be a problem for some people with the dates we’ve picked, but I’d take cold temperatures over high heat.
We would not even consider a trip like this during the months of June through September. Ironically enough, that’s the most realistic timeframe for this type of trip for families with school-aged children, but we’re guessing they’re not the primary demographic for an Around the World of Disney trip in the first place. Anyway, a lot of this is going to be ‘your mileage may vary,’ and choosing the best dates is the first such example of many.
Okay, now this sounds like we’re putting an awful lot of “serious” thought into something that is (supposedly) “just for fun.” Moving along…
About Our Flights
From an airfare perspective, we’re essentially treating this as two trips for the sake of simplicity, priced out via the multi-city tools on Google Flights. We’re using Chicago as our home city somewhat arbitrarily–we don’t live there but it’s a popular Midwestern city for Walt Disney World visitors.
From Chicago, we’re flying to Paris to Orlando to Los Angeles as the first trip. For this itinerary, we had the option of using JetBlue on a bargain fare for a total cost of $860. We passed on that because we’re not keen on doing basic economy.
Instead, we’re opting for American (via codeshares) for a ticketed cost of $971 each or $2,913 total for all three of us. I actually really like this routing. We do a redeye from ORD that gets us into CDG first thing in the morning, so we can hit the ground running and save on a night of accommodations. Win-win!
The second trip is Los Angeles to Shanghai to Hong Kong to Tokyo to Chicago. In total, all four legs here cost $1,086 via Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Express, and WestJet. This is far and away the cheapest flight option (as of this search–airfare is ever-changing), costing $3,258 for all three of us versus nearly double that on other carriers.
I’m not happy with this set of flights. The times are optimal for the first two legs, but the return home involves an overnight in Calgary. Don’t get me wrong–Calgary is a beautiful city and I’d love to return to Banff–but I’m not sure the end of a nearly month-long trip is the time for that.
For the three of us, the total airfare cost for the entirety of the round the world Disney trip would be $6,171. Not terrible, but more than the $0 we’ve paid for our last few international flights via miles/points.
Note that we’ve always booked a seat for our daughter on longer flights, previously traveling with her car seat. (Now we use this inflatable toddler airplane bed, so it’s like she has a lie-flat seat in regular ole economy!)
We will sometimes upgrade to premium economy if the cost is reasonable, but never do business or first class. For this exercise, we’re doing regular economy.
Now let’s turn to the resort hotel, park tickets, ground transportation, meal and merchandise costs at Disneyland Paris, Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Shanghai Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Tokyo Disney Resort:
Disneyland Paris
- 4-Night Hotel & Ticket Package: $1,325.78
- Transportation: $75
- Food: $300
- Souvenirs: $50
- Total Disneyland Paris Cost: $1,750.78
As should be evidenced by the below rates, Disneyland Paris can have some really attractive package discounts:
We always look at the rates in Val d’Europe to see how inexpensively our favorite extended stay suite (Hipark Serris Val d’Europe) can be booked, but these winter off-season rates for on-site hotels are too inexpensive to ignore. With that said, DLP pricing is also highly variable since they already use airline-style dynamic pricing.
Even with the top to bottom resort reimagining, I’m surprised to see Sequoia Lodge priced on par with Hotel Cheyenne and Santa Fe. Alternatively, we could pay a bit more for Newport Bay Club, or exponentially extra for Hotel New York or Disneyland Hotel. If those don’t work out, Hipark Serris is perfectly suitable, and within walking distance of the parks–staying there would also help keep meal costs down.
Here’s the total cost breakdown with 5-day tickets:
One thing to note is that our food budget is lower here than it’ll be elsewhere because we don’t do much snacking or eating in the parks at Disneyland Paris.
Due to atrocious dining hours, we usually only do lunch in the parks, and eat dinner at Earl of Sandwich or Five Guys in Disney Village. Even so, for this amount we could splurge on one table service meal in the parks. Souvenir budget is also low because there’s rarely anything we want to buy at Disneyland Paris.
We could’ve done a dining plan, but opted against that as we can eat on our own for much, much less:
If this were a real trip, we’d purchase the lowest tier of Annual Pass and use it strategically while also doing the city of Paris, but that won’t work for this trip. Transportation costs are the TGV to and from the airport.
Actually, if this were a real trip…we’d do France by itself and visit around March 29, 2026 when Disney Adventure World and World of Frozen debut, and the weather is nicer (no threats of snow!). The prices would certainly be higher (in eyeballing them right now, we’re looking at another $1,000 or more) as would crowds, but it’d arguably be worth it. And in fact, this is what we’re doing in Spring 2026!
Now let’s head to the Vacation Kingdom of the World and our longest leg of the trip…
Walt Disney World
- 6-Night Package: $3,670.38
- Transportation: $67.20
- Food: $800
- Souvenirs: $50
- Total WDW Cost: $4,587.58
Unlike every other worldwide Disney destination, booking early tends to offer the best deals. Unfortunately, it’s too late for us to Save Money by Renting DVC Points. (Same goes for using the points we own to book a “free” stay. That would be cheating for this hypothetical, as would using our APs for admission or a deeper discount on accommodations.)
For a trip like this, we would not rent (or even use our own, for that matter) DVC points. There are just too many moving parts, and Disney Vacation Club isn’t sufficiently flexible. It’s also a rare case that we would purchase separate travel insurance as opposed to just relying on the insurance provided by our Amex and Chase credit cards. (We’d also use those to book all of this just for an added safety net.)
We’d also use a travel agent to the greatest extent possible. For one thing, so they could monitor the reservations and apply discounts. For another, so they could act as representatives to advocate on our behalf should an issue arise. To that end, we highly recommend requesting a quote from Be Our Guest Vacations, a no-fee Authorized Disney Vacation Planner. The exceptions to this would be at Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Resort, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Here’s the package we’d book for now at Walt Disney World, with the outside hope that something better is released in early 2026 (unlikely for our dates):
Booking through our preferred travel agent, we’ve chosen a general public room-only discount for standard view accommodations at Caribbean Beach, which totals $3,670 with 6-day tickets. We could have booked Animal Kingdom Lodge for $4,800 and came really close to using that for this example instead, with 2 non-park days for decompressing.
Dropping down to 4-day tickets only shaved a couple hundred dollars off the price, so we opted for this instead. The thinking here is that Skyliner access for Early Entry from CBR plus the full 6 day ticket duration will keep us from having to buy Lightning Lanes.
Another option here would’ve been the third-party Swan & Dolphin, which is also eligible for Extended Evening Hours and everything else Deluxe Resorts receive. We could’ve booked those for less money than Caribbean Beach and then used Money-Saving Tips for Buying Walt Disney World Tickets to save on those (our package price only discounts the room–we just bundled to keep the math clean).
No matter which hotel we choose, we’ll have transportation costs to and from the airport. Using Mears Connect, those would be $67.20 for two adults. We’re not going to bump that up since we won’t use Uber or Lyft–that’s the whole reason why we chose CBR, which cost extra over other Moderates!
We’re also keeping the souvenir budget at $50, which is somewhat arbitrary. In reality, maybe we’d take a rideshare to Disney Character Warehouse after the parks close one night and have an outlet shopping spree?! If this were a real RTW trip, we certainly wouldn’t load up on merchandise at the domestic parks (where it’s most expensive) or at the beginning of the trip.
We could’ve done the Disney Dining Plan for $1,185.79, but we can dine out of pocket for far less while still enjoying a nice mix of counter and table service restaurants. If our daughter were 3 instead of 2, we would’ve done this to take advantage of the Kids Eat Free in 2026 Deal. Regardless, higher prices and tipping (which isn’t a thing in Europe or Asia) push costs up here. All other costs should be fairly self-explanatory.
Disneyland Resort
- 4-Night Package: $2,143.77
- Transportation: $150
- Food: $600
- Souvenirs: $50
- Total DLR Cost: $2,943.77
Originally, we were only going to do 3 nights at Disneyland Resort. However, we wanted to stay at a nicer hotel than the across-the-street Harbor Boulevard options.
After all, we don’t want Adventure by Disney fans to claim it’s not an apples to apples comparison since we’re staying at motels as opposed to luxury hotels. (Obviously this isn’t apples to apples, regardless; we’re not using private jet!)
As much as we love the Grand Californian, the pricing for these dates was $684 per night–and that’s with a good discount for Magic Keyholders. We’re only doing general public rates to keep this comparison fair and realistic. Via those, we could’ve done Pixar Place Hotel for $443/night or Disneyland Hotel for $534/night, and those rates were tempting–but not good enough.
Instead, we turned to our partners at Get Away Today to price out either the Westin Anaheim or JW Marriott, which are the two nicest luxury hotels near Disneyland. In so doing, we noticed that we could get a 4-night free at the JW Marriott Anaheim, so we did that.
Here’s the package breakdown:
As you can see, we opted for standard 3-day tickets at Disneyland as opposed to Park Hoppers. It would’ve been +$220 to switch to that ticket type. On the other hand, it would’ve been considerably cheaper to switch to the 2026 California resident deal, but again, we’re only opting for what the general public can purchase.
We decided to splurge on the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass add-on for the duration of our tickets. I’m not sure that we’d actually do this, but with no Early Entry or Extended Evening Hours–and with LLMP being very valuable at Disneyland–it didn’t hurt to add on.
Winter at Disneyland can be surprisingly busy, so we think it makes sense to do either Lightning Lanes or Park Hoppers, potentially both. By booking with Get Away Today, we were able to take advantage of discounted ‘Adults at Kids’ prices on tickets, plus the 4th night free promo for select hotels, plus the DTB bundle savings.
We’re flying into and out of Los Angeles (LAX) here as opposed to John Wayne (SNA) in order to have non-stop flights. Consequently, our ground transportation costs via Uber or Lyft are going to be higher. Probably in the $50 ballpark in each direction. Add another $50 for getting around Southern California on our day outside the parks.
Food costs for Disneyland are set at $600, which works out to being $75 per person per day. This is a bit arbitrary, but it should be directionally accurate. We have one day outside the park here, when we’ll eat cheaper meals at In-N-Out Burger and Sidecar Doughnuts. Then we’ll probably do 1-2 table service meals in the parks. Or perhaps a character breakfast on our morning outside the parks, and counter service the rest of the time.
As for souvenirs, we’re once again not spending much in the domestic parks. More expensive merchandise coupled with this still being the start of the trip keeps that cost down.
Shanghai Disney Resort
- 2-Day Tickets: $288
- 2-Night Hotel: $1,013.42
- Transportation: $30
- Food: $300
- Souvenirs: $100
- Total SDR Cost: $1,731.42
First, since we’re doing a multi-stop flight, there’s no need for us to purchase a visa since we’re well within the 144-hour rule. That’s a big time and headache savings.
However, we would caution anyone doing this from a smaller airport to arrive early because it often trips up airline employees who don’t regularly deal with Chinese routing rules. Another reason to fly LAX as opposed to SNA.
Second, we’d be splurging on Shanghai Disneyland Hotel here. If Megatron got a vote and we instead did Toy Story Hotel, the cost would drop dramatically (see below).
Honestly, the only reason we’re not taking the savings is due to the Adventures by Disney comparison. We don’t want this to be Around the World of Disney on a Dime; by it’s very nature, this is not a budget-friendly experience. So we want it to be a realistic trip that someone looking to do this might actually take. Sure, Caribbean Beach is only a Moderate Resort, but at least it has the Skyliner–and we’ve upgraded our tickets and made other splurges.
Anyway, here’s the Toy Story Hotel cost for the sake of comparison:
Shanghai was actually the most challenging piece of the puzzle for pricing out this trip. Over the last couple of months, I’ve tried and tried to price out packages on hotels & tickets–only to hit a wall. Come to find out, that’s because tickets aren’t yet available for these 2026 dates!
In pricing out discount tickets on Klook, it appears that 2-Day Shanghai Disneyland Tickets will cost $144 each for these dates, judging by the same starting day for the previous weeks. This is actually the highest price outside of New Year’s and I wouldn’t actually want to do SDL on a weekend, but compromise is the name of the game with an exercise like this. This trip does a lot of things we wouldn’t actually do, hence it being hypothetical.
Good counter service meals are generally reasonable in price at Shanghai Disneyland, as is merchandise. Transportation is available via buses or the Shanghai Metro, but it’s convoluted. We’ll instead use a taxi–they’re cheap and direct.
Hong Kong Disneyland
- 2-Night Hotel + Ticket Package: $870.45
- Transportation: $30
- Food: $300
- Souvenirs: $200
- Total HKDL Cost: $1,400.45
As with Shanghai Disney Resort, we’ll be staying on-site at Hong Kong Disneyland. There are nearby off-site options accessible via the MTR, but we like to stay late, and those can be a hassle. Plus, deals often abound on both Disney’s Hollywood Hotel and Explorers Lodge, and we love both.
Here’s the total package price, which includes 2-day tickets for 2 adults:
There’s a 30% off sale on HKDL hotels, bringing Hollywood Hotel to ~$175/night. However, Explorers Lodge is not that much more expensive, and that’s an exemplar of Imagineering. Plus, we really want to get our “lodge fix” after skipping both the Grand Californian and Wilderness Lodge during those legs. Explorers Lodge is really nice and unique, and less than half the price of either domestic lodges!
Transportation is simply a taxi to and from the airport, which is surprisingly cheap ($30 round-trip is not a typo). Same goes for food and souvenirs, and with a lot of cool Mystic Manor and Duffy & Friends stuff, we’ll be splurging on merchandise and meals at Hong Kong Disneyland.
Tokyo Disney Resort
- 4-Day Tickets: $457.49
- 6-Night Monorail Hotel: $939.62
- Transportation: $60
- Food: $800
- Souvenirs: $600
- Total TDR Cost: $2,857.11
This is where things get tricky. If we were actually doing this leg of the trip (and we have done it before, multiple times), we’d do two weekdays at the end of the Halloween season, then spend time in the cities of Tokyo and/or Kyoto, and then return for more weekdays at Tokyo Disney Resort at the start of Christmas season.
We love this approach, and highly recommend that anyone serious about visiting Japan do this as opposed to a ‘bundled’ trip with multiple destinations. Even if you have 14-21 days, you can easily spend that amount of time in Japan. We love fall colors season and Christmas, and even with this year’s spike in crowds during our recent trip, we’d still recommend this timeframe to most first-timers.
The alternative would be April or May (avoiding Golden Week). Regardless, we can’t price out either trip this far in advance, so winter will have to suffice! We’ve also done this time of year and it’s generally fantastic for off-season crowds and prices, but with that comes cold weather–including the possibility of snow (also applies to Paris).
We would also recommend spending a disproportionate amount of time and money in Japan because your budget can be stretched to a far greater degree. The U.S. dollar is incredibly strong versus the Japanese yen, flirting with the 150 barrier. To put this into perspective for those are are unfamiliar with traveling to Japan or foreign currency, a good/normal rule of thumb used to be a 100:1 exchange rate.
Now, it’s above 150:1. I’m no mathematician, but that’s a massive improvement. It’s also on top of the lower baseline prices in Japan. Because of that, Japan is the place to splurge. It’s where you should spend the most time, do the nicest meals, best hotels, buy the most souvenirs, etc.
To that point, it’s worth pointing out that the ticket cost above is not a mistake. The cost of a 1-day ticket (the only type available) during our trip is approximately $57. Multiply that times 8 for our total of ~$457.
If this trip is a bucket list entry, you might consider booking one of the Tokyo Disney Resort Vacation Packages. Above are prices for 2-night, 3-day versions of those, which are the longest packages offered.
The ranges are pretty wide. You’re looking at a per person starting price of approximately $730 for Toy Story Hotel, up to $7,500 per person for Hotel MiraCosta! For standard rooms, budget a baseline cost of around $1,000 per person, which should be close to accurate once you start adding rides, restaurants, and (hopefully) a nicer resort.
TDR Vacation Packages have premium pricing but bring with them peace of mind. You have advance access to ride and restaurant reservations. This can be invaluable, as Premier Access (paid FastPass) sells out quickly for many attractions.
Staying in a Disney-branded hotel also gives you access to 15 minutes of early entry, which is shockingly huge. The entry process can be a huge hassle and headache for third party hotels.
What you’re actually paying for is convenience and comfort with the TDR Vacation Package. That’s not super valuable in late January, but if you actually did this trip at the height of Halloween or Christmas, we’d highly recommend it to first-timers.
Since it’s not necessary at this time in the winter, we’re forgoing the TDR Vacation Package and instead booking a monorail loop hotel. We love both the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay or the Hilton Tokyo Bay, and would equate these to Disney’s Contemporary Resort in terms of location (monorail loop), quality and amenities.
We almost always book Hilton Tokyo Bay since Sarah has Hilton Diamond Status, which gets us free upgrades, breakfast buffet, and concierge lounge access for meals. See Our Favorite Way to Stay at Tokyo Disney Resort.
For these dates, the Hilton Tokyo Bay works out to be about $157 per night after taxes and fees, which is about average. It might even be a little high for the winter off-season–we’ve had rates below $150/night recently during slower seasons, although that usually requires weekday stays (note the sharp spike in the nightly rate for Friday and Saturday).
Turning to the other costs, you’ll notice we have a low amount for transportation. That’s because getting from the airport to the hotel via the Friendly Airport Limo (actually a bus) is super cheap, as is using public transit throughout Tokyo and beyond.
You might also notice that we have incredibly high values for meals and merchandise despite the aforementioned exchange rates. That’s because we plan on going hard in Japan. Everything is (effectively) cheaper here thanks to the dollar’s strength and yen’s weakness, so you should make it rain.
We always pack an extra duffel bag, and bring home a lot from Japan. It’s also the last stop in this fictional trip, so it makes sense to not make excessive purchases at earlier stops and then make up for lost time in Japan.
If you’re considering doing the Japan portion of this trip, we highly recommend reading: Is It Cheaper to Visit Tokyo Disneyland Than Walt Disney World? That has a deeper dive into costs, along with recommendations and more.
Total Cost: $21,442.11
That’s a lot of money, but it’s arguably not that bad given the nature of this once-in-a-lifetime dream vacation. It also doesn’t tell the whole story. We’re going through the motions of booking this trip, but for our actual trips, we make more of an effort to book (and often rebook) and save money.
We also usually use miles or points. There’s absolutely no way we’d drop over $6,000 on airfare, even for a trip like this. And although some of the hotel rates are reasonable and around what we’ve paid for actual trips (Tokyo Hilton Bay being a prime example), it’s also rare for us to spend as much on accommodations for leisure travel (“research” stays are a different story–those cost what they cost).
In fact, we’ve done multiple Asia trips that have been 3-6 weeks in duration, and I can’t think of a single one that cost over $6,000 total. That’s everything–airfare, accommodations, transportation, tickets, etc. But in fairness, we’ve used miles for most airfare (unless it drops under a certain threshold) and either credit card points or Airbnb extended stays for accommodations. That cuts costs dramatically. Regardless, the point is that a trip of this duration doesn’t have to be this expensive.
Of course, it can also be much (much!) more expensive. We spent a fraction of the total cost of the defunct Adventures by Disney trip, and that’s for all three of us. Although it could be argued that this isn’t an apples to apples comparison (and obviously, it isn’t), I would rather do this type of trip on our own–the way we’ve done it here.
Even if we doubled our budget here for a true high roller ‘Around the World of Disney’ month-long vacation, it would still cost significantly less than that AbD. That would be a pretty fantastic trip, while still allowing the freedom of exploration and discovery that are essential to us. If we’re going to go around the world on an ‘adventure,’ we want it to be an actual adventure. Even if it is largely confined to the Disney Parks!
Planning a visit to one of the Disney theme parks? Check out our Disney Parks Trip Planning Guides for everything you need to start planning a trip to Walt Disney World, Disneyland Resort, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Aulani in Hawaii.
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about our Around the World of Disney global tour? How much do you think such a trip would realistically cost you? Any upgrades or downgrades you’d make for a better or cheaper itinerary? If you were going to do a RTW adventure, what time of year would you target? Other changes you’d make to this plan? Agree or disagree with our choices? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
