What do people spend on food and extras

[youngb1978]

I have booked our universal vacation for next year beginning of Nov. We have a 3 park unlimited pass and plan to spend one day at wet and wild and half a day at Gatorland
We are staying at CB. Any thoughts on rough estimate what I should budget for food and little extras
There will be 5 of us 7, 8 and 12 year old. They are going to have their souvenir money. I was figuring 200 a day on food but didn't know if that was high
Will do breakfast in room.

 

[Godaime]

Food is very expensive at Universal... I'm not sure what your eating habits are like but even Burger King at City walk is sooo overpriced compared to its normal prices. $9 for a burger at burger king (not a meal). It depends a lot if you are eating fast food or sit down restaurants, but even fast food in Harry Potter land costed us $50 for our family of 3. Meals were like $15 + $5 drink like butterbeer. $200 a day is not high at all!

Oh and If you plan on getting your kids the interactive magic wands that you can do spells around Harry Potter land...it was $50ish per wand! I have to admit it was a lot of fun though!

 

[schumigirl]

We don't find the food at Universal expensive.

Have a look at damo's thread, it has menus and food options for parks, Citywalk and the hotels. Linked it below.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/wh...do-including-menus-updated-regularly.2681315/

Places like Margaritaville have the Nachos that four people can share easily. Plenty of other places have good sized portions too you could share.......Thunder Falls has chicken and ribs that are a large portion.

You'll have plenty of choice.

 

[youngb1978]

Yes I didn't think the food was to badly priced...I am hoping to split some meals for sure as my daughter doesn't eat that much.
As for the wands we told the kids that is am extra and they can use their souvenir money to buy one and they are ok with that.
We have to figure in exchange as well so 2000 dollars us turns into 2700 cdn

 

[dixonsontour]

If you are going to do the minigolf at citywalk get the golf and dine deal. You can buy it on the universal website $23.99 each. Golf is $14.99. The $9 gets you an entree, soda tax and tip at some citywalk restaurants. I'd recommend margaritaville. Golf and dine can be used separate days. The golf and dine menu is limited but the cheeseburger in paradise is on, the fish sandwich is good and we also liked the mango chicken with rice. The entree alone is $17 ish.

 

[dixonsontour]

If you are going one of the potter restaurants then the all day dining deal is good. You can buy in advance or at the counter. 19.99 adults and 12.99 child. DD's kids breakfast at 3 broomsticks cost that plus she got an extra snack worth $5 (big pink!) and a drink. Again meal/snack/drinks don't need to be used all in one day.

 

[youngb1978]

If you are going one of the potter restaurants then the all day dining deal is good. You can buy in advance or at the counter. 19.99 adults and 12.99 child. DD's kids breakfast at 3 broomsticks cost that plus she got an extra snack worth $5 (big pink!) and a drink. Again meal/snack/drinks don't need to be used all in one day.

My son will be 12 can he order of the kids menu or does he have to use the adult on for the dining deal.

 

[dixonsontour]

Not sure sorry, hope someone will know.

The kids pancake breakfast at 3 broomsticks my dd had was a big portion, think it is only 1 pancake smaller than the adults.

 

[squirrel]

My son will be 12 can he order of the kids menu or does he have to use the adult on for the dining deal.

10 and up is considered adult for food and admission. I think it's ridiculous that they don't have a junior price for the dining plans. There is no way my niece (will be 10) will eat as much as an adult. Heck even for me it's not usually a good deal as I don't eat the more expensive items.

I do like having the option of the plans pre-paid, but unless there is a sale I doubt we will do any. Maybe share an adult plan one day.

 

[youngb1978]

Do you need your park tickets to buy the quick service plan. If I bought 3 kids meals and made it the pass for the day how would they know.

 

[kohlby]

Do you need your park tickets to buy the quick service plan. If I bought 3 kids meals and made it the pass for the day how would they know.

I've never had to show tickets but never actually bought the kids plans - just the adult plans. The math didn't make the kids plans a good deal for us. Since we didn't have to get quick service plans for all, we would get two adult ones. That got us two butterbeers to share that way as well as 4 additional drinks. There are some very shareable meals - like the chicken and ribs at 3 Broomsticks. However, we may need to do 3 plans adult plans the way my eldest eats now.

For food, we have always spent way less than $200 for our family of 5, but we probably do more quick service than the average. We also go off-site sometimes. But even with lunch/dinner/snacks in the park, we've always been way under $200. I'd say around $100 would be about right for my crew in the past. (Normal eater adult, lighter eater adult, human vacuum 12 year old, bird-like eater 9 year old, feast-or-famine eater 6 year old). We do breakfast in our room with food from home. We also bring some snacks - so that helps keep the cost down. When we do buy snacks, we share. Sharing meals also helps us not waste food. The eldest child gets any leftovers.

 

[angierae]

We're planning on doing all quick service except dinner at Margaritavilla (two adults) and for Friday dinner through Tuesday lunch, I've budgeted $250. (We'll eat breakfast in the room, so this is lunch and dinner)

$15 each per meal. We're also buying refillable cups but those are in a different $ budget. But for our three full days in the parks, we have $60/day budgeted for food, and that's pretty high. Two entrees at Thunder Falls + splitting some fries comes to $22 before tax. If there were four of us, that'd be $44. I don't think that's expensive at all.

 

[wdwfan51]

I didn't consider the food prices all that bad when we were there in September and we did find many of the portion were large enough so we could share. I believe that, just like Disney, you can ask for a glass of water at the restaurants which is free. May be healthier and cuts down the cost. Have a great trip!

 

[squirrel]

Do you need your park tickets to buy the quick service plan. If I bought 3 kids meals and made it the pass for the day how would they know.

If you bought kids meal plans, I would guess that you would have to order from the kids menu like at WDW. I plan on doing an adult meal plan if it works out to be a good deal and share it with my niece.

 

[HM]

We don't buy many souveniers, under $200 total for the four of us, I'm pretty sure, but that's just us. If you like to take things home with you or plan on buying HP wands for the kids, plan on a lot more than us.

As far as food, we do one sit down meal a day which is probably about $130 for four adults with tip. Then we do one quick service and that runs $60. We each get a snack at some point (ice cream or pastry or butterbeer) so plan in about another $30 for that. We ask for ice water from CS places when we get thirsty ($0).

 

[angierae]

Also remember you can get water out of the Coke Freestyle machines with any cup, so if you have a refillable cup but you just want water, you can get it from the Freestyle machine even if you don;'t have an activated freestyle cup.

 

[VacaPlanner2012]

You are in the correct ball park for sure. As mentioned above, look at the menu sticky - I can almost budget food to the penny with it. We are a family of four - kids 12 and 8. $200 per day for two meals breaks down to $20 per. That is plenty. We have our signature meals that are pretty expensive, but we have found that we are not a 3 standard meal a day family while on vacation, so we may hit Confisco and get a pizza and some hummus, and that is good for the 4 of us. Or hit Louie's for some alfredo and a meatball sub, or grab a chicken finger basket and a butter beer and keep moving. We actually enjoy buying food throughout the day and splitting it up - a little taste of a lot of things and plenty of snacks. $10 bucks for a Big Pink and some chocolate milk...yum!!!

Most important, stay hydrated. Any time of year, if you get behind the 8 ball of dehydration - it is so hard to catch up and can make for a miserable day. Plenty ideas above on how to do that on the cheap.