How Much Extra Cash? Have the Dining Plan!

[Delilah Bleu]

I was planning to bring about $500 for souvenirs, snacks and food not included on the plan. My DD (8) will have about $80 of her own money to spend on whatever she would like (not food or snacks as I will pay for that). I am sure she will think about the things that she wants since she earned that money!

 

[Hope73]

We stayed at the Poly last year and are returning again in Jan 06. I really tried to save money past the meal plan. I bought one mug which our family shared at our resort. The kids liked running up and filling it. I think it is crazy to see a family of 5 buy muge for each kid and adult. Alcohol you can buy really expensive drinks or beer at the bars or we just bought canned beer at the resort which turned our to only be 2.00 per can and had that by the pool. With the meal plan you got so much food at the counter restaurants that we shared with the kids. Every morning I would go down to the walk in restaurant at Poly and order 2 of the largest meals that were included in the plan and take them back to the room and share. I think we all bought one shirt, kids 15.00 each and my husband and I bought nice sweat shirts that were 50 each. One thing we didn't do were the pins that can get so expensive or for the girls they have these crown things that you snap things onto. I let the kids look all they wanted and just said we can't get them. My kids were so excited about the rides and all of the other things the didn't care.

Make sure to make reservations ahead of time and for many character dinners and your kids won't miss all of the extra stuff you can easily blow money on.

In the delux resorts you can have a fridge for free and keep stuff in there.

There are plenty of WalGreen's to buy food at or I have heard of people ordering food from grocery stores and having it sent to the hotel.

I think you can do without the rental car wiht the ME.

For you Young-ins bring beer with you to the hotel.

 

[Hope73]

I first had Dole whip in Hawaii and when I saw it at MK I was like we have to get this and the largest serving. My husband thought I was nuts then ate most of it. Must try

 

[madge]

We want our DD to have great and wonderful memories of these times and being told NO all the time just doesn't fit in there. Are we wrong??????

Wrong? That's not for me to decide. Only you can know what is best for your family.

Great and wonderful memories do not necessarily mean buying things. Pictures are fantastic memories...

For example--DD3 & DS9 love to collect autographs. We do the pictures, the autograph books, etc. In April, I had quite a bit of white cardstock left over from an old project. I had the paper bound into a spiral bound book (cost about $1) and used that to collect our autographs. When we got home, I made a scrapbook out of the autographs & pics. It is one of the most treasured souvenirs from the trip.

 

[agotta]

We are planning around $200 not counting if we decide to rent a car. We aren't on the dining plan the first night so we have some OOP there. It is just DH and I. There are 2 other meals on our last day that will be OOP and a couple other things like pastries in France and Dole Whip!! Oh and since the dining plan doesn't include alcohol, we needed some money for that.

 

[madge]

I didn't even answer the OP's question, LOLOL...

We are staying at the Dolphin the first 2 nights of the trip, so ours is not a "dining plan exclusive" budget:

~ Food & Wine festival goodies
~ treats not covered by the dining plan....but honestly, we'll probably try to eat those before we make the switch, LOL
~ rent mouseboat
~ Christmas ornaments (get one every year for each of my children)
~ sterling charm for DD charm bracelet (get her one every year for her birthday)
~ tips

That's about all I can think of right now. Stuff like film, sunscreen, etc. I already have here and will pack to bring with us.

 

[dawnball]

I've got a rough budget of $100 for 10 days/9 nights (just me and a toddler). I think that will work out to..
$18 for mousekeeping
$10 for one boozy drink (I'll probably actually split 2 of them with my sister, since we're both lightweights)
$45 for souveniers (most likely a pair of mouse ears for the toddler if she'll tolerate them, and a CD for me)
$27 for misc (possibly more souveniers, extra tips, snacky things, etc. This is the trip slush fund.)

It's all pretty flexible though, if we want more snacks, we'll get less souveniers, if we want more stuff, we'll have less snacks. If we have a major problem (I'm recalling rotavirus here), then I'll blow the budget, but I don't anticipate that.

DME for transit to/from the airport, bringing our own stroller, no refillable mugs, etc.

Edit: Oh, I forgot, the other souvenier thing is pressed pennies. I'm bringing about $8 in change for that, and extra cleaned pennies. If she likes it then we'll get a book and I'll get more quarters. So I suppose the real budget is $108.