What do you *really* spend on your disney vacation?

[punkin]

Then for the people who are "well off", (and more power to them!!!) who seem to think nothing of spending $6,000 for two adults on a week's vacation........i guess I'm not a Disney fanatic, cause with that kind of money budgeted, you an bet i'd be in the Caribbean or Hawaii.

I would be in Europe, baby. My DDs have been begging for a trip to France for a couple of years now.

 

[southtexasmom]

We are now DVC members but before joining we would budget $3500-$4000 per trip. That includes airfare/hotel/park tickets and all meals.

 

[suevee]

I would be in Europe, baby. My DDs have been begging for a trip to France for a couple of years now.

I don't speak the language and I am to old to learn....

Really we just like to know what to expect and WDW gives us that. We did not start taking vacation until we were in our late 40's and we like the tried and true. We also do not like to pinch pennies so our vacations are probably a little higher than those more budget minded folks. We budget at home to afford our trips.....

 

[joellyn23]

We probably spend about $5000 per trip (me, DH, DD (10) and DS (8)):

1200 - House rental
200 - rental car
850 - airfare from chicago
1050 - Park hopper tickets
400 - Universal tickets
160 - limo to/from airport
1200 - spending (food, souvies)

 

[MELSMICE]

We average $20/person/day for food for the 3 of us, but when DD was little, the average was lower because she didn't eat that much. She'd often just share off of our meals, or get something small like a fruitcup for lunch, so we spent more like $40-45/day.

I have to ask how you an adult an only spend $20/day on food? Are you eating all your meals out, just snacking, just CS, any table service at all, always eating off-site, never eating in the parks or at a Disney restaurant?

I ask only because for us an adult per day would be as follows:

If always eating out............

Breakfast - $5 per person for bagel, muffin or sandwich & drink
Lunch - CS at about $7-$10
Dinner - TS betwween $15-$20 depending on where we go & what we have
Snacks - $5 per day

Even if we eat breakfast in our DVC unit & occasionally have leftovers for lunch we are probably still averaging about $40/day. That would include any food we purchase such as drinks, lunchmeat for sandwiches, snacks, etc.

$20 per day for an adult seems low. Does that include any drinks?

For our family of 5 (all considered adults) to eat a TS - whether on-site or off, we now budget at least $25-$30 per person. Could be less, could be a little bit more. We love the Orlando Ale House because you can get a great meal & it's reasonable! Keeps our dinner costs down the 5 of us, but we are still spending some good money.

 

[rdevine10]

I've noticed, after starting this thread, that some people obviously exaggerate how inexpensive their trip is.....and there's other people who just have a much different idea of what "inexpensive" is to most people.

I've seen numerous posts where people claim numbers that was way too low to be realistic. Stuff like "we're a family of 4 staying on Disney property, and we allot $50 a day for food". Yea right! *Maybe* if you drove offsite and got McDonalds every meal. There's some other obvious "under exaggerations" as well, but food and souvenirs seem to be the most common.

I'm not sure why people do this. It might be denial. It might be just to "look cool", maybe even cause they're used to lying to their spouse about the cost. hahaha. It might even be that some people are just ignorant to what "total cost" really is.

Then for the people who are "well off", (and more power to them!!!) who seem to think nothing of spending $6,000 for two adults on a week's vacation........i guess I'm not a Disney fanatic, cause with that kind of money budgeted, you an bet i'd be in the Caribbean or Hawaii.

I said we spent about 100 total for souvies. But, thats the honest truth. We go often enough... buy our shirts on clearence at the Disney Store or online, so its just a couple for the kids (and none for DH and I). We dont buy the overpriced photo souvies. (Well we did before kids!). As for food... Id agree, tough to eat at parks for 50 for 4! We usually do the dining plan, but this next trip (Orlando and only Disney if P and P party is ever accounced!), we wil do breakfast in our condo, lunch as well (if we are there), and inexpensive restaurants for dinner... some MCDonalds, some sit down.

I have to say Im glad I am able to keep our costs down right now, or we might not be able to afford to do Disney yearly!

 

[SleepyatDVC]

I take the initial buy in price divide that by number of years left on the contract from buy-in and then divide that by number of points bought. So, for me it was around $1.60 per point. This amount does NOT account for time value of the money or any interest lost. We paid cash so no interest costs either.

For maintenance, I take the annual maintenance fees and divide it by the number of annual points. For me, it was $4.53 per point in 2007 and $4.55 per point for 2008.

So, $4.55 + $1.60 = $6.15 per point for me. But I am conservative and like to round up so I would use $6.50 or $7.00 per point as "how much DVC costs." In reality, when we purchased DVC, each one of our contracts included mega banked points or developer incentive points which would further lower the total price per point used costs but this will not be counted in.

I guess for those that financed, I would calculate initial buy in price as down payment + [(monthly payment - monthly maintenance fees) x total # of months of loan] to try to get an rough idea.

OK - answering this question, got me curious about how much my multi-trips to WDW are exactly costing. I am a great bargain shopper BEFORE we leave for our trip but I don't add it up AFTER we get back. Not sure I really want to know... but here goes.

The last few trips were just my 2 girls (under 9) and myself without DH. Our last trip was 8/07 where we purchased APs with the DVC discount with the intention of getting 3 trips out of them. The 3 of us went 8/06 and 2/07 also, but I'm too lazy to go back and figure out the costs so I will be calculating the costs for our 8/07, 4/08, and 8/08 trips only.

8/07
1 adult & 2 children - 5 nights BWV-studio w/DDP & 3 nights AKV-1bdrm

Airfare: $506.40
Transportation: free (ME and got dropped off & picked up at home)
Park Passes: APs w/DVC disc. $349.49 [($377.12+335.68+335.68)/3 trips]
Total room charges: (We charged EVERYTHING to the room - no cash OOP)
BWV: $411.47 (includes 5 nts DDP of $60.97 = $ 304.85)
AKV: $98.02 (no DDP - this includes all food for 3 nts. - we use up DDP credits on check-in day)
Misc Cash: (Airport Porter, water/snack at airport, tips to ME, Bell services, Resort airport check-in, etc.) = $30.00
DVC: 206 points for 8 nts (206 x $6.50 see above) = $1339.00

Total cash paid: $1395.38 rounded up to $1400.00
Total prepaid (DVC) : 1339.00 rounded up to $1350.00
Total Expenses for 8 night trip for 1A+2C: $2750.00

4/08
1 adult & 2 children - 6 nights BWV-studio
2 adults & 2 children - 4 nights AKV-1bedroom
(disclaimer: DH will be joining us the last 4 nts and will be only doing 1 park day)

Airfare: 681.99
Transportation: $13 (ME + drop off & pick up by parents + DH bus to airport after work)
Park Passes: APs w/DVC disc. $349.49 [($377.12+335.68+335.68)/3 trips] + 1 day from old PH pass for DH $35 (guestimate) = $384.79
Meals & Expenses: estimated at $150/night x 10 nights = $1500.00 (This will come in less than estimate - the girls and I spent $65/day for our 8/07 trip - will be higher when DH joins us for the last 4 nights) This will include $65 for the DDE card which will be used over the next 2 trips.
Misc Cash: (Airport Porter, water/snack at airport, tips to ME, Bell services, Resort airport check-in, etc.) = $50.00
DVC: 261 points for 10 nts (261 x $6.50 see above) = $1696.50

Total cash expenses: $2629.78 rounded up to $2650.00
Total prepaid (DVC) : $1696.50 rounded up to $1700.00
Total Expenses for 10 night trip for 1A+2C (+1A partial trip): $4350.00


8/08
1 adult & 2 children - 5 nights BWV-studio
2 adults & 2 children - 3 nights BWV-studio + 4 nights Miami
(disclaimer: DH will be joining us the later and will be only doing 1 water park day)

Airfare (est): 800.00 I refuse to pay more than $200/pp
Transportation: $13 (ME + DH bus to airport after work)
Car Rental (est): $150-$225 (have always gotten great rate: 1 week - DH to pick up at MCO)
Park Passes: APs w/DVC disc. $349.49 [($377.12+335.68+335.68)/3 trips] + 4water park plus from old PH passes $20x4= $80 (guestimate) = $429.49
Meals & Expenses: estimated at $175/night x 12 nights = $2100.00 (This will come in less than estimate - the girls and I spent $65/day for our 8/07 trip - will be higher when DH joins us - we always bring home $$)
Misc Cash: (Airport Porter, water/snack at airport, tips to ME, Bell services, Resort airport check-in, etc.) = $100.00
DVC: 136 points for 8 nts (136 x $6.50 see above) = $884.00
Miami: free (family owns home there)

Total cash expenses: $3654.49 rounded up to $3700.00
Total prepaid (DVC) : $884.00 rounded up to $900.00
Total Expenses for 12 night trip for 1A+2C (+1A partial trip): $4600.00

Totals for 3 trips in one 12 month period:

Total cash expenses: $7750.00 (I would say that this is over estimated by at least $1500 since our OOP costs are usually no more than $1000 each trip for the last gazillion - just don't want to dig them up)
Total prepaid (DVC) : (603 points x $6.15 = $3708.45) rounded up to $4300.00
Total Expenses for 30 nights trip for 1A+2C (+1A partial trips): $11700 rounded up to $12,000.00

OMG, sounds horrible when on paper doesn't it? I guess I DO spend a LOT of money on travel!!

That averages out to $4000 per trip. I try to keep the OOP costs to $2000-$3000 per trip. $7750/3 = $2583.33 and like I said, I estimate WAY up to be conservative. DVC is paid for in full and the monthly fees are around $156 and we don't miss it.

So, I spend OOP approximately $210-260/night for an all expense vacation. Including DVC costs would bring it up to $400/night.

Still a lot of $$$. But I probably wouldn't cut back. We will take 2009 off from WDW. Not because of my math here but because it was our plans all along and that's why I did 3 trips in 12 months. DH had a very good year at work, his bonus has already paid for all the trips and then some, so we been blessed.

WDW is decretionary, so if things change, the DVC could be rented out or sold.

 

[snomofinn]

I haven't scanned back to see if anyone actually claimed that. I agree that $50/day for 4 sounds low, though if 2 are little kids, it is possible. We average $20/person/day for food for the 3 of us, but when DD was little, the average was lower because she didn't eat that much. She'd often just share off of our meals, or get something small like a fruitcup for lunch, so we spent more like $40-45/day.

I think some of us keep track of exact spending (see my earlier breakdown) and others just estimate, and some estimate better than others. I don't think anyone is intentionally lying about their spending, though.

I want in on the secret! How do you only spend $20 per day for food for 3 of you? Were a family of 4 and I spend $20.00 on just breakfast! and believe me we don't eat lavish. I allow about $200.00 per day for food, drinks and snacks. We always eat dinner at a TS restaurant which runs us around $100.00 - $125.00 for the 4 of us including drinks. Between breakfast and lunch that runs us around $60.00 and the rest is used for drinks at the parks or snacks. I always over estimate our food, but I would rather money left over then no money at all. Please let us in on your secret!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

When we go for 9 nights (me, DH, and DS11 who has counted as an adult for the past several trips) if we purchase APs we spend about $6000. That cost includes everything from the minute we leave our house until the minute we get back to the house - airport parking, tips, pet sitter, and EVERYTHING at Disney.

This year we're going for 16 nights and it will cost about $7500. We still have valid APs and DS and I are flying on miles. I have a AAA discount on 6 of our nights, and I have a 30% Bounce Back discount on 7 nights. 3 nights are club level at rack rate. But it's my birthday. And I am hoping to get an AP rate on them as the trip gets closer. We'll have the DDE card to use on TS meals because the DDP doesn't really save us any money.

 

[disneysteve]

I have to ask how you an adult an only spend $20/day on food? Are you eating all your meals out, just snacking, just CS, any table service at all, always eating off-site, never eating in the parks or at a Disney restaurant?

Breakfast is always in our room/condo/house. That will be juice and cereal with milk. We buy the perishable stuff when we arrive and bring some of the non-perishable stuff from home (but I do include those costs in my total).

Lunch will be in the parks on park days, usually nice CS like The Land food court in Epcot, Cosmic Rays in MK, Tusker House (formerly ) or Flame Tree BBQ in AK, etc. Some trips, we'll do lunch at Crystal Palace one day.

On non-park days, it depends on where we are. Last trip, for example, we went to the Poly one morning and rented speed boats, then had lunch at Captain Cook's. We'll usually have lunch or dinner one day at Beaches and Cream every trip. That's a family favorite. Another day, lunch or dinner might be Wolfgang Puck Express at DTD.

We will also do some offsite meals. We usually get Flippers pizza one night (in Old Town). Last trip, we had dinner at Olive Garden one night and Sweet Tomatoes another night.

We didn't do it last trip, but on several previous trips we had dinner at Boma one night.

We also carry some snacks with us (bought at the supermarket when we arrive) - things like pop-tarts, goldfish crackers, granola bars, etc.

Big things that keep costs down are eating breakfast in the room, drinking mainly tap water, sharing food and drinks - for example, we'll get one Coke or one order of fries for the 3 of us. And no alcoholic drinks at all.

I'll see if I can find my post of where we ate each meal on the last trip.

 

[disneysteve]

I want in on the secret! How do you only spend $20 per day for food for 3 of you?

Not $20 per day. $20 per person per day, so about $60/day total.

 

[disneysteve]

I can't seem to find my food post from 2006, but here is the one from 2005.

"We drove down from southern NJ so this meal report includes travel days.
All breakfasts were eaten in our room. On the travel days, the hotels included breakfast so that cost isn't in the food spending total but rather in our hotel spending total (see my other post for that).

Our total food spending for all meals, snacks and beverages came to about $550. As we have previously, we averaged about $20 per person per day.

I'll list lunch, then dinner. On 11/6, however, we actually ate 4 meals due to the timing of our meal reservations.

11/4: Dinner only - Popeye's chicken $18.10
11/5: Wendy's $12.93; Publix $22.29 (included food for dinner and supplies for the week)
11/6: Cosmic Rays $19.55; Crystal Palace $72.87; Flippers Pizza $12.82
11/7: Land food court $22.65; San Angel counter $14.88
11/8: Wolfgang Puck Express $16.99; Beaches and Cream $35.37
11/9: Tusker House $19.46; Fantasmic concessions $23.24
11/10: Prime Time Cafe $41.71; Boma $75.24 (had CM discount here)
11/11: Tomorrowland Noodle Station $20.94; Electric Umbrella $16.59
11/12: Wendy's $12.80; Pizza shop $8.19
11/13: Lunch only - KFC $14.04"

If you look at just the 6 Disney days, the average is just over $25/person/day, but that trip was more expensive than most, especially 11/10 when we did Prime Time and Boma in the same day and the one day with 4 meals. That's not our usual pattern.

 

[becca011906]

This is the planned budget for the trip Next month...
Me, DH, DS7, DD5, DD3

$3400 POR room 7 nights, dinning 7 nights, 7 day base tickets
$350 gas in the van there, back, while there (also driving to cape coral last 3 day of the trip)
$200 hotel down and back
$500 Food budge for travel, grocery stop (also 3 days in cape coral)
$500 Bibbity Bobity Boo for both girls
$500 in souviniers for all of us
$200 Tips for room cleaning and TS meals

Grand total: $5650.00 I'm sure we over budgeted for quite a few things but we'd rather over budget then under. typically we don't say now to anything the kids want while on vacation.... me and dh also get what we want as well.

 

[momof2disneybabies]

We spent $2500 on our trip for the two of us and our 3 yr old dd in Oct 2006. We got our room & tickets for $850! It was a week long trip.

We are spending about $3400 on our trip next week. We're paying for it all in cash, so we can't go over that very much (maybe $100 or so).

Room for 8 days & 5 day passes for 3 of us- $1650
Universal Studio tickets for 1 day- $250
Sea World tickets for 1 day- $165
Food- $500
Gas- $100
Rental van- $250 (splitting van and gas with parents)
Souveniers- $300
Tips, parking at Universal, etc- $30
Road hotels- $150

Jennifer

 

[cnj]

For our October 2008 Disney cruise, we should pay a total of $6200 for everything. That is 7 nights in a balcony room, all food, airfare, tips, alcoholic beverages, stuff we buy in the ports, one night at the hyatt before the cruise, and transportation for family of 4. Plus, I should get a $250 costco gift card when we get back.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

I've noticed, after starting this thread, that some people obviously exaggerate how inexpensive their trip is.....and there's other people who just have a much different idea of what "inexpensive" is to most people.

I've seen numerous posts where people claim numbers that was way too low to be realistic. Stuff like "we're a family of 4 staying on Disney property, and we allot $50 a day for food". Yea right! *Maybe* if you drove offsite and got McDonalds every meal. There's some other obvious "under exaggerations" as well, but food and souvenirs seem to be the most common.

I'm not sure why people do this. It might be denial. It might be just to "look cool", maybe even cause they're used to lying to their spouse about the cost. hahaha. It might even be that some people are just ignorant to what "total cost" really is.

Then for the people who are "well off", (and more power to them!!!) who seem to think nothing of spending $6,000 for two adults on a week's vacation........i guess I'm not a Disney fanatic, cause with that kind of money budgeted, you an bet i'd be in the Caribbean or Hawaii.

Nope, not lying. We really can do a week vacation for 4 for under 2 k. Sometimes under 1500. We watch *every* penny.

I agree, you're definitely not a Disney fanatic.

We HAVE done 6k trips to Disney. We've also gone to Europe, Asia, and all over the Caribbean and we still like Disney the best.

We're not well off, either, even by government standards. No debt except for the house. We just like Disney so we make it work.

Other than email you all my excel spread sheets for each vacation, I doubt I'll convince you. But the cool thing is, who cares! I'm happy, I know I can do it, goody for me

And yes, we can eat for 50/day. Breakfast in room, lunch at Cosmic Ray's (buy 3, kids split), dinner at Subway. No problem.

And yes, we have a HUGE amount of fun!

 

[MELSMICE]

Breakfast is always in our room/condo/house. That will be juice and cereal with milk. We buy the perishable stuff when we arrive and bring some of the non-perishable stuff from home (but I do include those costs in my total).

Lunch will be in the parks on park days, usually nice CS like The Land food court in Epcot, Cosmic Rays in MK, Tusker House (formerly ) or Flame Tree BBQ in AK, etc. Some trips, we'll do lunch at Crystal Palace one day.

On non-park days, it depends on where we are. Last trip, for example, we went to the Poly one morning and rented speed boats, then had lunch at Captain Cook's. We'll usually have lunch or dinner one day at Beaches and Cream every trip. That's a family favorite. Another day, lunch or dinner might be Wolfgang Puck Express at DTD.

We will also do some offsite meals. We usually get Flippers pizza one night (in Old Town). Last trip, we had dinner at Olive Garden one night and Sweet Tomatoes another night.

We didn't do it last trip, but on several previous trips we had dinner at Boma one night.

We also carry some snacks with us (bought at the supermarket when we arrive) - things like pop-tarts, goldfish crackers, granola bars, etc.

Big things that keep costs down are eating breakfast in the room, drinking mainly tap water, sharing food and drinks - for example, we'll get one Coke or one order of fries for the 3 of us. And no alcoholic drinks at all.

I'll see if I can find my post of where we ate each meal on the last trip.

We do a lot of this also, but seem to come out at more than $20 per day per person.

We eat breakfast in the room, eat leftovers from dinner, usually order Pizza Hut one evening & will even sometimes skip a meal if we've had a big breakfast.

Oh well...............maybe we're bigger eaters!

 

[snomofinn]

Not $20 per day. $20 per person per day, so about $60/day total.

OHHHHHH, I read it wrong...that's still cheap...good for you, if you could do it.

 

[jennypersons]

We just got back on Saturday (the 2nd) from our 10 day, 9 night trip and was going over how much we spent when I saw this thread. Here is our rundown for our family of 4 (me, DH, DD (5), DS (2))

9 nights at POP, 10 day park hoppers w/ water parks and more option - $1274
Airfare for 4 from Oregon - $800 (used ME and got a ride to the airport from family)
Had a Disney Rewards card for $225 - used it for the first half of our trip on food and mickey ears.
Used our key to the world card for the rest of our purchases/food - total at check out was $187
Another $97 on souveniers and gifts for others...
We ate breakfast in the room and usually either lunch or dinner in the room (PBJ sandwiches, waffles, ect.) We had one character Meal at Garden Grill and ate at Planet Hollywood (we got $15 for booking w/ Disney) and the rest were counter service. We also had a few snacks here and there (lots of ice cream, pastries, etc), but mostly took our own snacks with us...
Ordered 2 cases of water from Costco- $14

Total out of pocket - $2372
Including our Disney Rewards - $2597

 

[SandraVB79]

Our costs in October:

- Flights: 395 EUR pp (Brussels - Orlando - Brussels)
- Disney package (7 nights at AS Mu, 6 day park hopper): 950 USD (could have been a dollar more or less)
- Car to come from Port Canaveral to WDW and car from WDW to airport: about 200 USD for those two days. Insurance is making rental cars very expensive!
- MNSSHP: about 45 USD per ticket I guess?
- Backstage Magic tour: 199 USD per person
- Magic behind our steam trains: I think it was about 65 per person
- Luau at the Poly: about 59 USD per person + 50 USD for the cake

- Meals. Ok, I don't know what it costed, and i'm too lazy to calculate. But we had character breakfast with Minnie at Cape May and character dinner with her at Liberty Tree Tavern.
We had lunch at 50 PTC, dinner at Rainforest Cafe (just an entree), dinner at Coral reef (lobster bisque + entree). We ate twice at AS Mu food court, and twice at Columbia Harbour House. Breakfast and midnight snacks were our cake from the Poly. We also had a variety of F&WF snacks.

- Souvenirs: No idea. We spent quite a bit, however, part of it was ordered by my brother who wanted a lot of stuff from the Lego store, an dmost stuff I bought, it's my family who paid for it since it will all be presents for Christmasses and birthdays and what not.

To me, the vacation was rather cheap. We also added a cruise, some days at Port caneveral, shopping, ... But then, we have the good exchange rate EUR/ USD.