$300 enough for 5 days?

[Soccer Princess]

I will be in WDW April 7-11 and am trying to figure out how much money I will need for food/souvies/other. Will this be enough?

Thanks

 

[dahess]

How many is in your party?

 

[Soccer Princess]

Well I just need to figure out money for me, I am going with friends.

 

[disneysteve]

Hi Mandy. On our last trip in November, we averaged $18 per person per day for food. That included eating breakfast in our room (cereal, milk, juice, pop-tarts, etc.) that we bought at the supermarket. I would add a few more dollars if you plan to eat breakfast in a restaurant. Also, if you are of drinking age, add money for alcohol.

As for souvenirs, that can vary greatly, but I think $300 total should be plenty for 4-5 days.

Have a great trip.

Steve

 

[MHopkins2]

Mandy - Food can vary by a huge amount, depending on your schedule and tastes. Steve just posted that his last trip averaged ~ $18/pp/pd; he is apparently a much better budgeter than I am, because I usually average $60-75/pp/pd. It totally depends on where you eat. A dinner at one of the nicer sit-down restaurants can easily set you back $30-40, and that's not including alcohol or a full blown appetizer / salad / entree / dessert extravaganza. Comparatively, a very good counter service meal wouldn't be more than $15 or so, even with all the "extras."

Having said all that, I'd think you'll be fine with $300, but if you have any idea where you're going to eat (and what your souvenier shopping/spending habits are), you might check out the menus. If you've never been before, there is a bit of "sticker shock" involved. Deb Wills site has menus for almost every restaurant at WDW, and is a huge help in creating a food budget.

 

[kilee]

I found that for a my family dh, ds (10), and I we were able to eat one full meal and have snacks throughout the day at the park for around $75.00 per day. This included many, many bottles of water. We usually tried to stick with just one full meal a day at the parks and aimed to get a pizza or something else in the hotel room at night.
Also, as far as souviners, of course that depends on how disciplined you are. I have a hard time saying no to all those pictures they take. Of course we have to have the newest hats, and stuff too (lol).

 

[The Sybah Shelstah]

Souveniers is all relative... it just depends on what you like to buy and how much!
As for food- same thing but that's something we can atleast relay to you how our eating habits are and what it cost.
For us?
Trip of 2 adults/3 children (only one that actually ate well-but boy does she eat well. LOL) it was around $75-100 a day... and that is with me trying to budget! (which btw is a lot to me since $100 is about how much I spend in groceries at home for a WEEK. LOL) But with children you can't skip meals and they always want snacks, popcorn, etc. during the day also. This dropped quite a bit after the first few days when I bought breakfast for us to eat before going to the parks though.

For myself on my solo trip? It varied from $18-45 a day depending on what I ate that day (ofcourse). MOST days it was around $30-35. That is with a small inexpensive breakfast in the foodcourt before heading to the parks then one counter service meal and one sitdown meal per day. Ofcourse the sitdown restaurants is where it was most costly (including character meals)

$300 divided by 5 days = $60 a day. So if you ate the same as I did, you would vary between $40 to $15 a day to spend on souveniers.

 

[rip109]

My daughter just went in January with her boyfriend, she went with 400.00 for 8 days for food and souveniers. she acutally came home with 20.00. they did however buy gatorade and water and snack food for the rooms before they went down.

 

[Lucky4me]

I just got back with dd. Big, sit down meals were definitely not our focus. (I lost 5 lbs!) We ate breakfast in the villa and had counter service the rest of the day. DD had to have her ice cream, and I love Disneys baked goods. One character breakfast was $40. The grand total was under $300 for a week. I'll never have such a cheap vacation again.

 

[kilee]

One of the joys of Disney is that you can eat all that "bad" stuff because you walk it all off!!

 

[yecats]

Hi, I was just there this past December with a relative for an extended stay (10 days and enjoyed almost every minute) On average, we each spent about $50 per day. Some days we ate breakfast at Shoneys (about $5 to $7 per day, breakfast bar price goes up on weekend) and as we drove, we brought our own water, snacks and soft drinks (we had a refrig in our room) and ate breakfast in our room some days as we also brought cereal and purchased milk and juice there.

My budget sort of worked like this, $5-10 for breakfast, $10 for lunch (fries, burger and drink will cost anywhere from $7.50 to $10, pathetic) and up to $30 for dinner (this can vary depending on if you eat at one of the better sit down restaurants.

This past trip, I had scheduled a number of sit-down rest. for later lunches, ie. 2:00 p.m. (you get the same meal you would for dinner but at the lunch price), and ate better food. We got real sick of the fast food. However, we did have some late dinners at great rest. just for dining experience (LeCellier, Alfredo's, etc.) on average these dinners totaled abou $25-$35 per person (not including alcohol or desserts).

As for souvenirs, we did the majority of our shopping outside of the Disney property. There are plenty of shops that sell licensed Disney merchandise (esp. in Kissimmee on U.S. 192). We bought some light jackets (it was cold when we were there), disney t-shirts, disney hats, small stuffed animals for cars and a few other things and in total spent $125.00 for licensed merchandise. I bought two things while at the Kingdoms and I think they totaled about $35-$40.

Lastly my advice to you is to be conservative maybe the first 2 days your there, that way the last two you know exactly what you have and probably a pretty good idea how you want to spend it by then. Suppress the urge to buy (this can be very hard at times, trust me I wanted to wear so many of the diff. disney hats) and think what you will do with them when you get home.

Have a great time.

 

[disneefamily]

Disnee Dad Says............................Wow, either you have rich parents, or you are working your a$$ off to get the coin to take that many trips! Either way, good for you. Most of this equation will be where the other peeps want to eat. If they want to do all the good stuff, you will be hurting. I'd guess that they want to save money too, and splurge a time or two. (the prudent way of thinking!)
So 2 days scrimp at 25-35 dollars, and 2 days splurge at 50-60 dollars. $100 for souvees and $20 for snacks.
Yes you can do this, but bring an extra hundred to buy gifts, for the friends who don't have the chance to go to WDW. WDW is fantastic, but true friendship is "priceless".

 

[Soccer Princess]

Thanks to everyone for the advice..all this is helping me so much!!

Disnee Dad-My mom gave me $100 toward the trip..I am paying for the rest(includ. hotel) I had a free airfare voucher from all of our trips last year and I have an AP. Not that bad I guess....lol I wish they were paying for it all!!

 

[Disney Doll]

DH and I budget about $100/day spending money.