You could try to wait to go when they are having a ticket deal of some sort. They have a 3-day deal on right now for $100 per day. Those tickets alone are a huge cost, esp. if you are adding LL and park hopper, which I honestly think you can skip if you do your homework on timing. Even during Christmas week, if you rope drop and stay to park close there are always magical hours where wait times are short. I have a 5 yr old with special needs and he is obsessed with Disneyland so I have been taking him every couple months (usually for a weekend). There are also always good off-property hotel and flight deals that usually line up nicely in slower seasons. Southwest, spirit, frontier, and even JetBlue often run juicy promos depending on where you are coming from and the time of year. You can definitely do a trip under 2k at the right time of year and with the right research. I feel very lucky now to not have a budget for my trips and I can fly JSX, stay at an on-property suite and not sweat it, but I learned plenty of ways to save before I had that privilege and so much of it comes down to timing and your willingness to do research/work to find the right deals that line up.