2 week holiday - accomodation sorted, cost of the rest?

[amystevekai&bump]

Hi - it is time for my monthly ' how long is a piece of string?' question!!


I have offered to share our DVC accomodation with friends in Oct 2012, and they need to work out roughly how much the flights, food, tickets (I guess they will want 14 day WDW passes, and Seaworld, but not sure about Universal) & spending, before they can decide.

We always spend far too much, and I am ashamed to admit, I rarely shop around - so don't know how to even guestimate how much it will cost them - there are 4 of them (they have two children who will be 5 and 8 yo)

They in effect have 31 months to save, so I am hoping that they will find that they can afford to join us.

So what do you think it will roughly cost a family of four where they have two weeks worth of WDW accomodation already paid for?

Many thanks for any help!!

 

[wayneg]

You are right, how long is a piece of string.

All you can do is look at this years flight price, will they go indirect or is direct only option?

Just did totally random dates 12-26th Oct
Indirect £405
Direct £554

Disney & SW £300

Food/snacks/drinks anything from offsite budget dining £20pppd upto expensive onsite £50pppd

14 nights indirect and budget dining approx £1,000pp
14 nights direct all onsite could be as much as £1,500pp

Can't see how you can be much more accurate than that really so far out and not knowing what they like to eat.
These are for adults, a little less for children.

 

[Elise79]

I would go with Wayne suggestion but maybe add on say 10% for flight increases.

Also might be worth considering the DDP - might be better if you are considering a lot meals onsite & for kids it is bargin. It also has the added benefit that most meals are paid for in the fixed cost. This year it is $41.99 for 10+ & $11.99 for 3-9 year olds. If you add on say $6 per increase over the next 2 years (guessed on historic increases) you would be looking at $48 10+ and $16 for 3-9. Using $1.50 as an exchange rate you would be looking at around £1200 for 4 for food except for tips and any offsite meals.

Added bonuses that you could take them to the more expensive Disney restaurant without them worrying about the prices.

Just food for thought (pun intended )

 

[wayneg]

I am not so sure about paying for DDP, yes great free but its not easy to get value from it at $42pp,
We averaged $50 value last August, eating a dessert with every lunch and TS meal, used every CS and every snack credit. Myself and DS ate most exxpensive items most meals. I estimate if we had being paying OOP we would not have spent anymore than $40pppd, we would not eat a dessert at lunch, we would share a drink not 1 each and share a dessert for eve meal.

Too many thing to factor in like exchange rate, price increases etc but I would not pay for it but thats partly because I would prefer to eat offsite if no free DDP.

I posted more about it in this thread
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2404948

 

[Miffy2003]

I am with Wayne 100% about the DDP - great if it's free but not if you are trying to be vaguely economical; it's not the best value for money IMHO.

As a guide Amy, we spent about $200 per day onsite this trip which included a little bit of shopping (really not much though) and four TS meals*. We had the TIW card which saved us some money for those. We definitely watched the pennies a bit more than usual this trip but I wouldn't say we went without (we ate at the Yachtsman's, Chefs de France, Le Cellier & Raglan Road for example). Bearing in mind Amber is now an adult in WDW terminology your friends would probably not spend that much. as their children wouldn't be.

Flight prices seem quite unpredicatable at the moment but the trend is definitely upwards - you might hang on and get a bargain (but you need to have nerves of steel, and frankly I don't have them!).

Guessing again but I'd suggest it could look something like this:

Flights: £2k
Tickets: £1k (probably more if you are going to do all of them)
Spending money including food: £1500
Car Hire contribution: £200
Getting to LGW & staying overnight £150

I reckon you could be looking at £5k? Might be room to save a bit on flights / spends.

So I'm not a million miles from Wayne's estimate though I think we've gone about it differently.

Did you have a figure in mind?

ETA * The 4 TS meals were over the course of the week, not every day

 

[amystevekai&bump]

thanks Wayne, Elise and Karen - sorry I haven't replied before, for some reason I didn't get an email telling me I had replies to this thread (I post on so many different parts of Dis, some days I only manage to look at the ones I get emails from!!)

Anyway, that was a big help from all of you - I think you are right about the dining plan Wayne and Karen, especially in the case of my friends - they are not big eaters anyway and would rarely choose a dessert - so I think OOP will be the way to go for them certainly. Although Elise, we are trying the DDP for a week this time (and paying for it unfortunately!!) and I am quite excited about paying in advance and then pretending I have 'free' food when I get there!!

So £5000 over 31 months is roughly £160 a month they would need to save - I hope that they can stretch to that - It will be fun seeing WDW with another family & having playmates for our two - brings yet another new dimension into our holidaying at wdw!!

 

[Elise79]

Amy - had another thought on saving some $$ on dining - are you going to be going back within a year yourselves? If so you could consider an AP and TIW card. This would save you 20% on your TS meals so effectively covering your tips.

This might be worth considering even if you will not be going back within the year but will require some calculations to see if it would be worth it.

The TIW card covers upto 10 people - so you would only need one AP and one TIW card to get the discounts.

 

[amystevekai&bump]

Amy - had another thought on saving some $$ on dining - are you going to be going back within a year yourselves? If so you could consider an AP and TIW card. This would save you 20% on your TS meals so effectively covering your tips.

This might be worth considering even if you will not be going back within the year but will require some calculations to see if it would be worth it.

The TIW card covers upto 10 people - so you would only need one AP and one TIW card to get the discounts.

thanks Elise - that would be a great idea, as we have already planned on getting an AP as we are looking to go with them in Oct 2012 and then by ourelves in Aug 2013 - thanks for the great suggestion!!

 

[Kath2003]

We budget - and do not meet - £20pppd for food. We grab snacks for the room for breakfast (cereal bars - less than $10 for a week); we eat CS in the theme parks for lunch (slice of pizza - $4) and we eat at a range of places for dinner - anything from TGI Fridays (usually around $10-15 for dinner & drink each) to Hard Rock Café (nearer $25 each). That brings our average daily cost in for under $30pppd. What we DON'T do is buy endless soda at $2 a go - ice water is free everywhere. That saves us $5-10 each day.

 

[amystevekai&bump]

We budget - and do not meet - £20pppd for food. We grab snacks for the room for breakfast (cereal bars - less than $10 for a week); we eat CS in the theme parks for lunch (slice of pizza - $4) and we eat at a range of places for dinner - anything from TGI Fridays (usually around $10-15 for dinner & drink each) to Hard Rock Café (nearer $25 each). That brings our average daily cost in for under $30pppd. What we DON'T do is buy endless soda at $2 a go - ice water is free everywhere. That saves us $5-10 each day.

thanks Kath, that looks like the type of eating I suspect they will want - not too much food!! (I see we are both from the same hometown!!)

 

[Kath2003]

thanks Kath, that looks like the type of eating I suspect they will want - not too much food!! (I see we are both from the same hometown!!)

Gotta love the Devon

The thing to remember is the food portions are HUGE. I often order an appetiser, or we order a sharer starter and then dessert.

Oh: don't forget to budget for your travel days too. You probably won't spend anywhere near £20 but you can either make a saving or spend the money elsewhere.

 

[Miffy2003]

Amy, I will say that we find the CS options much more expensive this time around. I would not be able to meet the budget Kath comes in on with 2 adults and 2 children. In the past we have spent approx $80 per day in total on food (for 2 adult and 2 children) but I really don't think we could do that now.

One example from last week was our purchase of a really vile frankfurter in a sourdough roll from Min & Bill's at DHS. We tried (and failed) to buy just hotdogs for $3.50 and instead opted for these inedible things instead. They were over $8 each (!!!!) and came with chips. Well, we already had about 8 bags of chips in the room as nobody likes the Lay's plain flavour so I asked if we could leave the chips and have some money off the bill - nope. So for four of us, with two drinks between us this came to over $40. I felt really ripped off I have to say.

I just don't think personally I could exist on a cereal bar and a slice of pizza for the day when walking about eight miles or more a day in the parks - but fair play to Kath if she can

 

[Kath2003]

I just don't think personally I could exist on a cereal bar and a slice of pizza for the day when walking about eight miles or more a day in the parks - but fair play to Kath if she can

Have you seen the size of the pizzas?!

There's lots of good, cheap stuff to be had: large pieces of fruit are around $1; pizza breadsticks for $4 (there were loads!); a whole mini-pizza which could easily be shared for $8; huge pretzels for $4 or just split stuff - you can usually get a double cheeseburger and a huge portion of fries for less than $10. We also like the bakeries - huge slices of cake for around $3-4.

Trust me, we did NOT go hungry - this was our brunch one morning at Sea World (it came to about $10). I'd like to point out also at this point that this is NOT my normal breakfast fare and also that I HATE flavoured milk so did not partake in that part of the meal!

 

[Miffy2003]

Even with that in mind Kath, I don't see how a family of two adults and 2 children could do it so cheaply these days. Man cannot live on cake alone


We've been to WDW most years as a family since 2003, and the prices last week were definitely up IMHO.

Offsite we have done it in the past relatively cheaply ($80 a day for food for four of us), but I struggle to see how we could manage that now.

Again, just an example, but we bought four cereal portions and four mini milk things and one banana for breakfast one morning from the food court at our resort, and it came to $17. I blame the DDP

 

[Kath2003]

Even with that in mind Kath, I don't see how a family of two adults and 2 children could do it so cheaply these days. Man cannot live on cake alone

If we had that for brunch at say 11am, and I'll admit since we were on vacation it did happen (), there was no way we were hungry before 5pm, certainly not enough to spend more than a buck or two on an apple or a sandwich to share.

Offsite we have done it in the past relatively cheaply ($80 a day for food for four of us), but I struggle to see how we could manage that now.

We did offsite last year for 11 days and budgeted $30pppn and walked away with over $50 each to spare at the end of it. We didn't hold back either!

Again, just an example, but we bought four cereal portions and four mini milk things and one banana for breakfast one morning from the food court at our resort, and it came to $17. I blame the DDP

That's NUTS; you could get a huge pizza in Disney for less than $17 and it would be more filling than cereal! Tax on healthy food or something? We found that the portions were so big there was no way either of us (both adults and we consider ourselves big eaters!) could finish a cs meal alone comfortably.

 

[amystevekai&bump]

!

Thanks Kath and Karen for highlighting how much the food is costing these days - I must just add that those cupcakes happen to be my very favourite food item in the whole world - this is one girl who COULD live on cupcakes alone!!!

 

[Kath2003]

Thanks Kath and Karen for highlighting how much the food is costing these days - I must just add that those cupcakes happen to be my very favourite food item in the whole world - this is one girl who COULD live on cupcakes alone!!!

I couldn't finish that cupcake! Soooo much frosting!

 

[Elise79]

I know you where deciding between 2 studios and 2 bedroom - if you took the 2 bedroom you would have the kitchen so you could fix a few more meals in the villa to save money. You could get stuff for breakfast and you would have the proper table where you could all sit round and eat.

We tend to do a supermarket run where ever we are staying and buy a couple of boxes of cereal and a gallon on milk. We pick up some other snacks suchs a box of doughnuts and fruit. The other thing we buy at the supermarket is water. Last time we bought water in the parks it was $2 or $2.50 and you can get a pack (i think it was 6) for $3-4 in the supermarket.

This doesn't help with a budget but it might help you with a few ways to save money!

We are budgeting $120 a day for 2 adults and DD (age 2) for our next trip for food (& adult beverages). We have 5 ADRs booked (only 1 is breakfast the rest are a la carte dinners) - when we get back I'll let you know how we got on

 

[amystevekai&bump]

I know you where deciding between 2 studios and 2 bedroom - if you took the 2 bedroom you would have the kitchen so you could fix a few more meals in the villa to save money. You could get stuff for breakfast and you would have the proper table where you could all sit round and eat.

We tend to do a supermarket run where ever we are staying and buy a couple of boxes of cereal and a gallon on milk. We pick up some other snacks suchs a box of doughnuts and fruit. The other thing we buy at the supermarket is water. Last time we bought water in the parks it was $2 or $2.50 and you can get a pack (i think it was 6) for $3-4 in the supermarket.

This doesn't help with a budget but it might help you with a few ways to save money!

We are budgeting $120 a day for 2 adults and DD (age 2) for our next trip for food (& adult beverages). We have 5 ADRs booked (only 1 is breakfast the rest are a la carte dinners) - when we get back I'll let you know how we got on

thanks Elise - you've been a real help!

I think we are settled on 2 x studios for the first week and then a 2 bed the second week - so that we have the kitchen but also somewhere to wash the clothes etc!! - so I guess we could budget a bit better the second week - especially for breakfast, drinks and snacks - many thanks