5 days and $300

[Belle4mygrl]

That ticker is old. I guess it refreshed from our trip in September.

We are thinking of taking an extremely budgeted trip in December to enjoy the decorations and shows.

Sept. we had the dining plan and we threw away alot of food. I think that was due to the heat which decreases our appetite. So this time in December that might not be the case.

Yes, I was thinking of bring food for breakfast (oatmeal, cereal, granola bars, and donuts) and PB&J sandwiches and turkey wraps for one meal. It might get boring, I know.

We still have a while until December to consider the dining plan. We have our reservations (50's Prime Time, Mama Melrose, WCC, CP, and 1900 PF) which we will need to cancel soon IF anyone can convince me I am not delusional.

 

[debbs0723]

Have you considered the CS or QS plan only for your family instead of the basic dining plan? Not only does it save you a little bit on the entire trip but those tips add up quickly also. we did all the math on what we could live with and decided if we wanted to drop the dining plan we would only do the CS plan. The math showed that we would be right at $80 per day for us (not sharing meals and eating breakfast in the room). This didn't include desserts or drinks. We typically don't drink sodas when we eat out but it is a long day and vacation and decided in the end we would rather have it all paid for.

 

[Belle4mygrl]

OK OK

we decided to purchase the dining plan since most of you think I am nuts.

Thanks to all of you helped in my decision making.

 

[SuzieN]

Good decision!! Seriously, my family of 5 can't even have 1 stinkin' meal at Denny's for under $50!!!! I LOVE the dining plan - it makes our Disney vacations soooo much easier - almost all inclusive!

 

[zhazhazsu]

If you shared 2 people in your family shared a meal, and your little one got a kids meal and you stuck to the cheaper items on the menu, with no dessert, your family could eat ONE CS meal per day in the parks.

I would stick with the dining plan as this does not sound like a fun vacation to me.

 

[ShellChelle]

I'm glad you decided on the dining plan to make life easier!

We, too are a family of 5 and we're not doing DDP on our trip leaving in 2 days! We are having "frugal days" and "splurge" days. We figure that we can't happily dine at Disney on $100 a day...we need at least $125-$150, so those are our splurge days (we've budgeted 2 of those). On the frugal days we are going to have breakfast in our room, pack lunch for the park, and have dinner CS.

 

[Belle4mygrl]

I never thought to have splurge days and frugal days.

To PPs, we were just there Sept. 27-Oct. 7. This trip is/was suppose to be really frugal considering just leaving there. I am sure we could do the frugal days but like many of you expressed it wouldn't be as fun.

 

[Nadjalu]

Sorry but to be honest it does like you have made up your mind to do it. Yes, there are more "your delusional" replies than "go for it". Basically it is your trip and if you want to spend your time so concerned with saving that money then do it. JMO
But my trips, eating is taken into consideration if I have to be so frugal as to barely eat or eat PBandJ constantly....why bother to go? Again JMO.

I hope your trip is awesome no matter what you choose!

 

[Belle4mygrl]

Mind is made up and bill has been paid for the DDP. Yall convinced me it wouldn't be as fun and I agree.

 

[PurpleTurtle]

Hi Belle4mygrl - I know you decided to do the DDP, but I thought you might be interested in this thread, too. Another DISer did a $100/5 day challenge (just she and her DH). It seemed to work for her.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2132416

Enjoy!

P.S. I'd do the DDP, too. Just thought the idea of the tight budget but still enjoying yourself was intriguing.

 

[Heidijs]

Glad you changed your mind. I haven't been there since 1982 and just researching and reading this forum, we are going in January and picked a dining plan with the one table service and counter service and I STILL plan on taking extra money for extra food and treats and it's just DH and I and my 4 year old "eat like a mouse" daughter!!! We love to eat on vacation so I don't like to have a tight food budget. It's no fun.

 

[marciemi]

Glad you changed your mind. I haven't been there since 1982 and just researching and reading this forum, we are going in January and picked a dining plan with the one table service and counter service and I STILL plan on taking extra money for extra food and treats and it's just DH and I and my 4 year old "eat like a mouse" daughter!!! We love to eat on vacation so I don't like to have a tight food budget. It's no fun.

Just wanting to add my opinion that you may not find this necessary. We did that plan during free dining with me and a 16 year old son and I was really worried about not having enough for him to eat. After our arrival day, I don't think the two of us ever had a moment again when we were actually hungry! It was SO much food! We ended up using a lot of our CS meals for him to just get a salad at the Japan CS restaurants since he loved them (not a good use of the credit money wise) and using many of the snack credits to bring home candy, etc. Other than tips, we never, not once, spent money on any food. I agree it's better to be prepared, and we had brought granola bars for breakfast, but we aren't big breakfast eaters so ate a quick granola bar in the morning and then did the earliest lunch each day and still wouldn't be hungry by dinner time (11am lunch and 5pm dinners roughly). Good luck!

 

[kiwicassie]

$50 dollars a day sounds stressful and not at all doable but to save money, I would eat cold cereal in the room, a counter service meal in the park, and sandwiches and chips in the room for dinner.

 

[yankeeGLEEgirl]

maybe as a way to help defray trip costs,
not certain if this was posted, but if you use coupons, the amount you save on an item you use, like 75 cents on a bottle of ketchup or 1.00 off detergent or whatever, what if you put the "savings" in a jar, to help with the meal plan cost? nickels and dimes DO ADD UP.


one year as kids my sister volunteed to roll pennies in a bucket. she took no silver. asked if she coud use what she rolled. mom thought, oh, 20 bucks.

yeah- 100.00 (yes one hundred bucks later) guess who had the happy face?


~just a thought

 

[Jerry@dvcstore]

I think your plan will be impossible unless you bring your own food and pack lunches. You may be able to pull off for 2 days with a family of 5 and $300, but that's about it.

 

[Golf4food]

In 2005 DW and made our first married trip, just the two of us, after getting an unexpected tax refund, and had to be as cheap as we could. Double cheeseburgers with an extra bun and water at America or Pecos Bill's, split a chicken & fish basket at CHH, etc. We ate one buffet (Biergarten). Breakfast in our room that we picked up from Publix. I would never want to do that ever, ever, ever again.

If the two of us both order a combo from a CS place it runs in the $20 range, or roughly $10 per person for a meal and soft drink. Water would save you a couple of bucks. Splitting a meal would save but not be a lot of food (they've cut back some of the CS portion sizes, I think).

Glad we can afford to eat now, lol. We upgraded from free dining to deluxe in September and had a blast. So nice not having to worry about what we'll be eating - just order and enjoy! That's the best part about the dining plan to me.

Enjoy your trip!

 

[Belle4mygrl]

Thank you all for the kind and informative advice.

DH and I agree we want to be stress free even though we were just there. We won't be going next year so we want this trip to be memorable.

 

[Tink-n-Belle]

Why is it the DDP or $50 a day

If you eat breakfast in your room and pack some lunch meat /tuna/PB&J for a few days you could probably all eat and eat well for $100 a day. Won't the DDP cost you $200 a day? You can eat Table service for lunch (its alot cheaper) and get cs through the world for a lot less than the DDP.

We have never gotten the DDP, I thought about it this time but the most expensive meal we are going to have is Ohana's and 1900 park Fare. There is no way I will eat $130 worth of food for 7 days. For example, we are going to Germany for lunch. That will be about $80 for 4 of us -3 adults and 1 child. and then get a pizza for Dinner(at the BW -where we stay) for $19 and have breakfast in the room. Total cost for the day is $100 max.

If we eat CS for 2 meals or eat a packed lunch it will save us more. Last year we went to Disney for 7 nights. We only spent $450 on dining, however we do stay in a 1 bedroom at the BW (DVC) and we ordered about $150 worth of groceries for the week. If we had gotten the DDP we would have spent $910 for the plan. We ate at Germany for lunch, the prime time (which is relatively cheaper then most restuarants), Yak & Yeti (lunch), spoodles twice for dinner(at the BW) and CS one night at the noodle station. We also got Pizza at the bW Spoodles window for $19 per pizza (cheese) twice.

 

[shonnons]

"Sometimes my readers' cleverness just astounds me. Consider this discovery by MouseSavers.com reader Lisa C: "In the resort food courts... you can buy two slices of bread (white or wheat) for $.69 plus tax." Peanut butter is about .50, and in some food courts it's free because there are packets of it with the condiments. Jelly can be obtained for free because it's a condiment. So for around a dollar or less, you can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

I think it can be done, it just will not be easy

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

In 2005 DW and made our first married trip, just the two of us, after getting an unexpected tax refund, and had to be as cheap as we could. Double cheeseburgers with an extra bun and water at America or Pecos Bill's, split a chicken & fish basket at CHH, etc. We ate one buffet (Biergarten). Breakfast in our room that we picked up from Publix. I would never want to do that ever, ever, ever again.

Your story reminded me of our honeymoon! We were fresh out of college and didn't have a big budget for our honeymoon. My aunt had gifted us with her Westgate Villas timeshare for a week as a wedding present, so we had accommodations. My parents gave us enough money to buy the Florida Resident Seasonal Passes, so there was our admission. We took a few hundred $ for food for the week. (This was back in 1997, so it wasn't quite as expensive as today!) The first day, we took the money for our passes and knew we'd have about $15-20 left over and we figured we could eat lunch on that pretty easily. We wound up at Cosmic Ray's, with 2 burgers, one order of fries and one large drink to share! After that, we made sure we took more than $20 to the parks to eat!

OP, I'm glad you went with the DDP. Have a great trip!