My goodness, thank you for posting this, we have been talking about the same thing! We share your price pain!
My family have been over 10 times, our last trip in December 2019.
Our "sweet spot" has been trying to always go early December, after the American Thanksgiving.
So we have been doing some non-scientific research on our past trips, more like OMG this is getting more expensive than ever before!
We were lucky to find a west jet deal for our immediate family of four ($1300 CDN round trip YYZ to MCO) for first week of December 2023.
But now the rest of our "usual planning" has now changed drastically.
Not sure if others will be in the same boat, but our previous trips (over 10 of them) have been heavy with visits to Disney, and not much time for anything else. Occasionally would be a trip to Universal, Busch Gardens, Legoland, beach day at Clearwater etc.
But now we are now going to be immersed in Universal! It helps that our daughters love thrill rides and roller coasters and water parks (hearing and researching great things on Volcano Bay), so not sure if I can call it taking advantage but we have gone ahead to booking the 3 day purchase at Universal Orlando Resort and get 2 days free entries.
This came to approx. just over $1,400 USD for the 4 of us (all adult level tickets). Plus we booked with Touringplans travel and you get early entry added, even though we aren't staying at Universal or Universal related properties.
Pricing out just ONE day during our trip (picked the lowest posted ticket) for Disney Hollywood Studios (our favourite park), no Genie +, Lightning Lane additions, came to over 700 USD! So as tough as it is going to be to do, we won't be visiting any Disney parks outside of maybe one of Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach (as my daughters love water parks).
The other interesting part is on our previous trips, we would always vacation with one other family from my side or my wife's side, stay offsite and go in together where possible to split/share costs for a rental house, car, food, etc. Generally just having one extra family (so 4 of us and up to 4 of them on average) on these previous trips would make it quite economical for the overall costs (we normally stay 8-10 days).
But now we have gone ahead and have added an extra family to our trip, so about 12 of us total. Call us cheap, but it is actually making a significant difference with our price points (I guess my wife and I are getting old, we love it when our price points go down)!
We are still finalizing our rental home, but most likely our share is going to be $75 USD per night for a 6 bedroom. Plus we are going to share one big van rental and thankfully we all get along quite well and will share food costs from groceries amongst other things. A big bonus too is all of us are on the same page with going to Universal and everyone has that interest for the thrills and spills we will experience there. I know this can be quite rare when travelling with other families
So for us, outside of visiting a Disney water park or going to Disney Springs, we are dealing with different emotions, as much as we love Disney, it is pricing us out and is going to be surreal to not visit any of the main 4 parks when we are there. It will have to wait for another trip, probably another 2-3 years at least for us!
I wish everyone all the best with your planning, whether in 2023 or beyond!