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Frugal Style: Weekend Family Vacation

Once I had kids, most of my traveling ceased so I fell off on knowing what was out there. However, when looking for some deals for a few gifts, I stumbled across an interesting Eversave “save”, (Eversave isn’t around anymore). It was a deeply discounted vacation package. WHAT?! Yep. So, I decided to plan something for my little sunflower family. Why not head off to a mini vacation with my family?! I deserved it.

weekend family vacation on a budget

Weekend Family Vacation for less

Planning a frugal mini weekend family vacation starts with sites offering discounts, like Groupon, booking.com, and the lot of them. All of them have vacation goodies at some point or another! Just keep your eyes open, and always hunt for them! Since I was an affiliate with Eversave at one point, I chose to use Eversave to find our family a cool place to head to for our weekend family vacation. Not only was I an affiliate, but I also scored a $3 credit for joining Eversave. The original cost of the save was $299.00 – but I got it for $296.00.

In order to get into the resort, you have to pay a one dollar toll. Totally not a big deal, because you can use that $1 credit towards food and drinks, or ice cream at the resort snack areas. (Donuts are a buck, by the way-even swap for your credit).

Other ways we saved on our weekend family vacation

  • Instead of flying, which costs more, we went through ONE full tank of gas for our round trip (it was a little less than a full tank, actually).
  • Used Restaurant.com gift cards for a couple of meals. We found two great places: one place right outside of the resort, where we went to lunch (we made sure we could do that by reading the fine print;) and, one for dinner for our Saturday evening IN the resort. BONUS!!!

Split Rock

Since my kids are young, I didn’t want to drag them all over the place once in our bathing suits for the indoor water park. After chatting with the booking agent at the resort, she booked a room in the Galleria building. The Galleria building has the Indoor Water Park H2Oooohh! attached to it. With two little ones, it was the easiest choice, even though the resort does need a bit of updating. I would NEVER pay the full price to stay in the resort if I was going to be in the Galleria building. I’d use one of the other buildings, in warmer weather and walk up to the water park. Which is fine, when the weather warms up.

Another bonus of staying in the Galleria building: the pool. Kids love to swim in indoor pools! The pool is big, but not overwhelming. Plus, it doesn’t take over the entire hotel with a horrible chlorine smell. The water park does a bit, but you expect that with an indoor water park!

Eating on a budget

Food, and snacks, are reasonably priced within the resort. Knowing this, we still chose to save on food cost by bringing breakfast, along with lunch items. Our suite at Split Rock included a fully stocked kitchen.  We’re talking pots, pans, dishes, utensils, toaster, blender, measuring cups, bowls, glasses, pot holders, dishwasher and even a rack for dishes to dry in. The microwave, and other appliances, are old, but they work and that’s all that mattered to us!

Sure, the TVs are old, but we still have the same kind of TVs in our house, so we could care less. There’s a DVD/VHS player in the living room. We found all the kid stations my kids love (DISNEY and NICKELODEON). Everyone was happy, the kids loved it, and it was well worth the money we spent!

Definitely want to return one summer, because there’s so much to do outdoors at the resort! Golfing, miniature golfing, an outdoor pool, the beach on the lake…..it’s a fantastic family resort super close to Long Island! How can I not go back??!!!

PS-This was something I paid out of pocket for. No sponsorships!

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By | 2023-12-26T16:47:59-05:00 March 24, 2011|Travel|Comments Off on Frugal Style: Weekend Family Vacation

About the Author:

Staci loves to write, and loves to share her "take" on everything thrown her way. Movies, entertainment, food, fashion, shopping, money, travel and family. There's nothing off limits at NovemberSunflower.com, and Staci's always telling it like it is: good, bad, and all that lies in between!