About MouseSavers.com

A Note from Mary Waring

If you’re like me, your ideal trip to Walt Disney World would include a stay at one of Disney’s Deluxe resorts for two weeks, with fabulous meals at all the best restaurants and unlimited passes to every attraction – which is exactly what my husband Mike and I did on our honeymoon, and it was wonderful. It also cost an absolute fortune — and I used every trick I knew at the time to keep the cost down!

In late 2000 I quit my job and started my own business. With my business in start-up mode, naturally we weren’t eager to shell out a big wad of cash on our vacation the following year. However, we had enjoyed Walt Disney World so much that we wanted to return. So I did a lot of research and discovered some ways to minimize costs while still having a great trip.

In the process I realized that I could have saved thousands on our honeymoon if I had only known a few tricks, such as using Disney World resort discount codes. The result of my research was a little website that later became MouseSavers.com®. My motto became “a first-class vacation at the best possible price.”

Since the site was founded in early 2001, MouseSavers.com readers have asked for information on all kinds of things besides Walt Disney World. That’s why the site now brings you great deals on Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, Disney books, music, movies and lots more.

MouseSavers.com has grown by leaps and bounds and has been praised by the likes of Arthur Frommer, author of the classic Europe on $5 a Day and probably the most famous budget travel writer in the world, who called MouseSavers.com “one of the best resources for significant Disney discounts” in his syndicated column.

I hope you enjoy this site and find it useful.

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MouseSavers.com History

In February 2001, Mary Waring founded the site that became MouseSavers.com®. It all started as a hobby site that was hosted on a private page on Mary’s business website. Only those who were “in the know” could get to the unlisted link. Mary collected information on good deals at Walt Disney World and posted them for her friends and relatives.

Six weeks later, much to Mary’s surprise, the “How to Save Money on Your Trip to WDW” page (as it was then known) had taken on a life of its own and had received over 23,000 visitors. So in April 2001 Mary created a new, more extensive site called MouseSavers.com and made it accessible to the public.

Two months later the site had quadrupled its traffic and Mary responded to reader requests by adding Disneyland (California) information. She also sent out the first issue of the MouseSavers Newsletter in June 2001. Soon after that, Mary began adding special deals on Disney toys, books and CDs.

By October 2001, MouseSavers.com began covering bargains at additional Disney vacation destinations, including Disneyland Resort Paris, Disney’s Vero Beach and Disney’s Hilton Head resorts. In late 2001 the site also began directing visitors to the hottest deals on Disney music and videos, and featuring specially-negotiated rates at top Walt Disney World-area hotels.

Since that time, MouseSavers.com has added hundreds of pages of information, including material about Disney sweepstakes, Disney Cruise Line bargains, Tokyo Disneyland and other Disney resorts around the world, and even savings on Disney’s Broadway shows. The site now also includes substantial sections devoted to deals at Universal Orlando and other major attractions in Central Florida and Southern California.

Since its founding, MouseSavers.com has received a large amount of coverage in the press and has been recommended by many major guidebooks. In January 2006, MouseSavers.com® became a registered trademark. In October 2010, MouseSavers.com was updated with a refreshed look (new logo, fonts and re-arrangement of the home page), as part of the lead-up to the 10th Anniversary of the site. In August 2012, MouseSavers.com was relaunched on the WordPress platform with an updated look and feel.

These days, MouseSavers.com:

MouseSavers.com Contributors

Mary Waring

Mary Waring is the founder and webmaster of MouseSavers.com.

After spending an inordinate amount of time pursuing various postgraduate degrees, Mary taught English and writing at the University of Southern California and Scripps College. She left academia to work as an independent marketing consultant in San Diego, where she also acquired a slightly disheveled husband named Mike and a somewhat overenthusiastic 96-pound dog. In 2005 Mary, Mike and the dog decided to set up house in a new location: beautiful Colorado.

A four-day trip to Walt Disney World in 1997 reawakened a lifelong affection for all things Disney, and led directly to the (ahem) megacorporation that is now known as MouseSavers, Inc.

Michael Waring

Mike Waring is a world famous explorer, Formula 1 racer, mountain climber, bon vivant and all around nice guy. The truly amazing thing is he has accomplished all this without leaving the comforts of his Laz-E-Boy recliner.

In the few minutes per day when fantasy is not in the forefront, Mike is a semi-retired engineer who likes to dabble in writing, and enjoys reading, traveling, and cooking. He also enjoys sampling brews from around the world and has a lifelong passion to explore the local deep fried snack foods of whatever strange place he happens to find himself in this week.

FoolishQuestions.com is Mike’s blog, launched in September 2007, where he explores travel, technology, the mysteries of life and the universe — or just whatever pops into his head.

Bob Munsil

Bob Munsil coined the name “MouseSavers” and, inspired by Edward Tufte, created the original minimalist, but fast-loading and highly readable web design for MouseSavers.com, which still provides the basis for the current site layout.

Don Munsil

Don Munsil is an internationally-recognized expert in making up complete hogwash for biographies. He has made it a priority never to sully his hands with actual physical labor, and hence spends his days arranging ones and zeros into profitable patterns. His hobbies include stereoscopic photography, finding and drinking interesting beers, and convincing his wife to go to Walt Disney World even though they just went, that’s completely true, but has she heard about this amazing fare sale? Just think about it, OK?

Where was he? Oh yes, he was writing about himself in the third person, another of his hobbies. Don has been privileged to watch MouseSavers.com flourish and grow from a tiny but useful web site to the unstoppable juggernaut of Disney discount knowledge we all know and love. Don gives a shout out to his peeps down at the bit factory. Peace out.

Sarah Stone

Sarah Stone has worked for a publisher, a bookstore and most recently as a children’s librarian. Some of her favorite books are Strunk & White’s Elements of Style and Webster’s Thesaurus, so she finds editing the MouseSavers Newsletter deeply satisfying. While her passion for Disney parks does not match her husband’s (and her weak stomach prevents her from enjoying Space Mountain), she does enjoy Walt Disney World, especially Animal Kingdom and the peach bellinis at Citricos. Gardening, baking, reading and raising two boys keep her busy.

Kris Borchardt

Kris Borchardt is an accomplished welder, sculptor and furniture maker, and collector of all things odd. She is a technical Luddite. Kris thanks Mary for reminding her that she was once upon a time an English Lit major and, indeed, worked as a marketing professional for more than a decade. With these varied skill sets at her disposal, she has overcome her technical difficulties and works hard to sculpt and weld fabulous hotel deals for MouseSavers Hot Deals and Newsletter subscribers.

Len Testa

Len Testa is the co-author of The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World and a contributor to other Unofficial Guide destinations, webmaster of TouringPlans.com and a co-host of the WDWToday podcast.

Growing up in Florida, Len’s siblings would have been known as “enablers” had they been as obsessed about something other than Walt Disney World. A two-hour wait at The Great Movie Ride while in college led Len to write his Masters thesis on computer algorithms for minimizing your wait in line at theme parks. Len’s pretty sure that any objective question about travel can be answered with the right set of data.

Charles Finn

Charles Finn was bitten by the travel bug at the age of 15, and has been roaming the world ever since. In order to finance this primal urge he has dabbled in education for the last twenty-plus years. Charles has traveled extensively throughout Europe, South America, and the Caribbean, and is a veteran cruiser. He has also been on some big ships. His favorite city in the world is London, where he indulges his other passions: theatre and Indian food.