Budget ?

[DisneyFirstTimer10]

Thank you all. We were budgeting a minimum of 2000$ so you helped reassure us that we are on the right track.

 

[Bellamouse]

I am perplexed as to why those of you on DDP would still budget $100+ per day (per adult!!) more for food? That's near our whole budget for the day without DDP? And we eat when we go to the parks. We don't bring in sandwiches or snacks or water or anything at all. We have at least one CS and one TS per day. Plus F&W Fest and snacks.

I can't imagine what you'd be spending all that extra money on if your meals are already paid for via DDP.

Maybe you are using that budget for the gift shops as well?

 

[jennylyn_b]

For myself, DH and our dd who will be three we find our average daily spending for food and souvies, snacks drinks etc works out to be $225 per day. We have breakfast in our villa and that's not part of the daily $225. We do cs lunch and TS dinner.

 

[Nancyg56]

I am perplexed as to why those of you on DDP would still budget $100+ per day (per adult!!) more for food? That's near our whole budget for the day without DDP? And we eat when we go to the parks. We don't bring in sandwiches or snacks or water or anything at all. We have at least one CS and one TS per day. Plus F&W Fest and snacks.

I can't imagine what you'd be spending all that extra money on if your meals are already paid for via DDP.

Maybe you are using that budget for the gift shops as well?

When you are on the DDP, you are still responsible for certain aspects of your meals. We enjoy a glass or two of wine with dinner, will often share an appetizer, and do leave a tip, which we base on our entire bill. We will also add one or more TS meals onto our plan because we go to some of the signature dining restaurants. We will often come home with money, but if we want to have a cocktail while wandering around Epcot, or if we want one or two out by the pool, that money needs to be available in our food and beverage allowance. We do not generally buy many souvenirs, but we take enough for them JIC.

 

[Bellamouse]

When you are on the DDP, you are still responsible for certain aspects of your meals. We enjoy a glass or two of wine with dinner, will often share an appetizer, and do leave a tip, which we base on our entire bill. We will also add one or more TS meals onto our plan because we go to some of the signature dining restaurants. We will often come home with money, but if we want to have a cocktail while wandering around Epcot, or if we want one or two out by the pool, that money needs to be available in our food and beverage allowance. We do not generally buy many souvenirs, but we take enough for them JIC.

Well that makes sense. Thank you for the explanation. I have never done DDP (we are off-siters), so I wasn't thinking about the alcohol/tip aspect of things. And I guess there probably wouldn't be enough snack credits to cover every little thing. I get it now.

 

[Nancyg56]

Well that makes sense. Thank you for the explanation. I have never done DDP (we are off-siters), so I wasn't thinking about the alcohol/tip aspect of things. And I guess there probably wouldn't be enough snack credits to cover every little thing. I get it now.

It depends on a lot of things when we are in the park. If it is hot, we will end up buying more cold drinks or ice cream. If it is cold, you know we will want hot beverages or soup before a meal. If my husband is with us, we tend to spend more, ( he thinks a light breakfast is eggs, bacon and toast with home fries) and if my family all comes the amount per person is reduced because we tend to share more of the extras.

 

[Bellamouse]

Yeah. I'm just thinking the DDP makes even less sense (for us) than I thought. If you're spending pretty much what we spend for all our food just for the extras, I can't see how we'd save very much overall if we tried onsite. Especially since the onsite rooms are so much more than what we pay offsite.

A typical day for us is

Eat breakfast in the room (yogurt, hard boiled eggs, juice, coffee)
Eat a snack of some sort in the park (coffee, rice Krispie treat or whatever)
Eat a CS lunch (like a lobster roll at CHH or this year we will do BOG)
Eat snacks here and there (Dole Whips, or whatever I feel like! ).
Eat a TS dinner (this year we have 'Ohana, Cape May, Biergarten, Raglan Road and Via Napoli booked). This year we didn't book any signature dining, but in years past we usually do.

Add in F&W Festival and lots of bottled water throughout the day, plus beer for the DH.

All of that usually adds up to about $900 total for the week. That comes to $150 per day for both of us. Which is what you mentioned you bring in "extra" cash.

So that is why I was perplexed (and it still seems to me like you guys have a LOT of "extra"!).

 

[snorkelyn]

We are a family of 5 on DDP and just returned from a 10 day stay. We spent about $900 over and above DDP (tips, tax, souvenirs, alcohol, etc)

Our kids discovered pin trading.....that really added up with 3 kids!! LOL

For you, I'd bring $2000 to $2500 just to be safe.

Have fun!!

 

[angierae]

When I'm on the DDP I generally don't buy extras, so all I have to budget for is tips. When DD, her friend and I went I think I spent $300 on tips for the whole week, but we only had one TS per day. (And I tip 18-20%)

This next trip we will be at WDW for three days, and I have budgeted $300 for DD18 and I.

10/20: Kona Lunch (late, just before party) ($55), snack during MNSSHP: ($12)
10/21: Teppan Edo Lunch ($85), Pizza Planet Dinner ($18), snack ($12) (Pizza Planet is so cheap because we're eating a late lunch at Teppan so we think we should be able to split a salad/pizza)
10/22: 1900 Park Fare breakfast ($60), CS lunch somewhere ($30)

This is highly rounded up, and totals $272. I rounded up to $300. Anything either of us wants beyond that can come out of our personal spending money.

(I plan on having things in the room to eat for breakfast)

I would highly recommend heading over to AllEars.net and looking at what you're likely to eat in order to budget out the stuff you KNOW you'll have to pay for, and then decide on a budget for "extras".

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Yeah. I'm just thinking the DDP makes even less sense (for us) than I thought. If you're spending pretty much what we spend for all our food just for the extras, I can't see how we'd save very much overall if we tried onsite. Especially since the onsite rooms are so much more than what we pay offsite. A typical day for us is Eat breakfast in the room (yogurt, hard boiled eggs, juice, coffee) Eat a snack of some sort in the park (coffee, rice Krispie treat or whatever) Eat a CS lunch (like a lobster roll at CHH or this year we will do BOG) Eat snacks here and there (Dole Whips, or whatever I feel like! ). Eat a TS dinner (this year we have 'Ohana, Cape May, Biergarten, Raglan Road and Via Napoli booked). This year we didn't book any signature dining, but in years past we usually do. Add in F&W Festival and lots of bottled water throughout the day, plus beer for the DH. All of that usually adds up to about $900 total for the week. That comes to $150 per day for both of us. Which is what you mentioned you bring in "extra" cash. So that is why I was perplexed (and it still seems to me like you guys have a LOT of "extra"!).

When we went in 2008 we took 1500 cash and no dining plan. We ate well for the week and bought souvenirs.

2009 and 2011 we had the ddp and still took about 1500 and spent a big chunk of it.

This trip we will not be doing the ddp. I am budgeting 2000-2500 for the week for food souvenirs and any extras.

Ddp doesn't make sense for us anymore.

 

[hookedonears]

We (my wife, daughter and I) normally spend about $325-350+- per night of our stay for meals/drinks/snacks/souvineers. That typically includes:

Breakfast - Granola bars and cokes before we leave the resort.
Lunch - Normally split between counter service and table service.
Dinners - Signature table service.
Snacks/drinks - Water, cokes, wine at happy hour, etc.
Souvineers - Normally around $100 for the total trip.

 

[asmit4]

Ok let's do some math..

In room breakfast- if you bring it with you- say $100 bucks total for the 8 days. If you do CS at the resort say 10 total for the 2 kids and 20 for you guys for 30/day...so 240..
Breakfast- anywhere from 100-240 budgeted

Lunch- figure on 10 per kid, and 15 for each of you....so that's 50 per day for lunch...
LUnch- 400 budgeted

Snacks- figure on 1 snack per day and 1 drink per day per person on the fly...so 8 bucks per day per person....32 per day.
Snacks ....around 240 budgeted

Dinner- figure on 50 for CS just like lunch, and 125 for table service...3 table services is 375, and 5 CS dinners is 250
Dinners = 625

Drinks- figure on 25 per day for beer/food/wine festival etc ...that's another 200.

I'm getting around 1700ish and I think I'm being generous as I'd bet you will find you won't be needing all the snacks, and you might even share CS meals like at Cosmic Rays. The meals are HUGE. (and that's coming from a pooh sized mama who can EAT!)