$40 a Day for Dining at Disney

[stayhomemom77]

Eyore's Wife: I don't eat like a bird at all under normal circumstances, but in the heat and humidity I drink so much water and "feel" the heat so intensely that I find my appetite really changes.

I've seen the lettuce cups and I know they would be more than enough for a meal for me at Yak and Yeti and as the PP said, maybe even too much. I've never had the Rainforest Cafe Quesadillas but after a snack of a jalepeno stuffed pretzel, I don't think I'd be overly hungry.

But to cater to those who might want/need an actual entree for dinner, I've adjusted the day accordingly:

ANIMAL KINGDOM
Kusafiri Bake Shop Bagel with Cream Cheese $2.76
Yak and Yeti Lettuce Cups $16.17
Rainforest Café Natural Burger $16.17
Snack Carts Mickey Bar $3.50
Harambe Fruit Market Orange or Apple or Banana $1.37
Daily Total: $39.98

 

[jgates]

Haven't finished this all yet, but wanted to say thank you. My plan is to try to actually 'inventory' what we eat on our May trip to see if we can come close. We only have 2 TS meals planned (Prime Time for lunch & Crystal Palace for supper) as we are not a heavy TS group. I assured DD's boyfriend he would be able to eat at $45 per day (I know - slightly over your budget) so I would love to be able to equate to $40-$45 per day average per person. He is a bit more of a bottomless pit so he plans on cereal in the room too, but DD & I will be either food court or park for breakfast.

Hopefully a month from now I can post our summaries & keep within the budget!

 

[Uncleromulus]

Good job.
But I'm afraid to say that I could hardly make do on such a small amount of breakfast and dinner food--especially on vacation at WDW!l

 

[Eeyore's Wife]

Uncleromulus,

We would never want you to go hungry. Here is a plan with three substantial meals per day. No snacks included, but it does include tax and tip.

Plan One: $39.58
Trails End for breakfast. All you want to eat. $19.91
Joy of Tea Stand for lunch. Pork bun, chicken pocket, egg roll, ice cream, and a soda. $10.63
Yakatori House for dinner of Japanese curry with rice. $9.05

Plan Two: $39.90
Grand Floridian Cafe: American. Two eggs, biscuits, bacon, sausage, potatoes, and juice. $16.18
Cosmic Ray's for lunch. Half of a Chicken, mashed potatoes, veggie side & water. $10.32
Dinner at Pecos Bills. 1/3 pound cheeseburger with apple slices. Chili cheese fries 13.40


Plan three: $39.90
Captain's Grill. Breakfast Buffet. Eat all the yummy breakfast food with drink. $19.91
Starring Rolls for lunch. Turkey sandwich on focaccia bread with either fruit or chips. $9.79
Dinner at Pizza Planet.pepperoni pizza, side salad, apple slices,and water. $10.20


Plan four: $39.09
Pizzafari for breakfast. Platter: eggs, hash browns, biscuit, bacon or sausage and a hot cocoa. $9.25
Flame Tree BBQ for lunch. 1/2 slab of ribs with beans and corn bread. Water. $11.17
Rainforest Cafe for dinner. Bamba's BBQ wrap. Shredded chicken in mojo sauce, cilantro, onions, four cheeses. Served with sweet mango sauce and a side of Cole slaw. $18.67


These are large meaty meals sure to please.

 

[Mickey2013]

Can someone please "Sticky" this thread?

Great idea!

 

[Eeyore's Wife]

Mickey2013, since prices fluctuate so frequently, and restaurants change their menus so often, this thread is not sticky worthy.

Jgates, $45 a day is totally "doable" even for a hungry guy. My bottomless pit son tends to run around $50, but that is tied to eating four square meals plus snacks per day.

If he enjoys counter service, here are a few ideas at the $40 level. If he went to $45 he could easily add another good sized snack, or dessert and drink.

Animal Kingdom: $39.56
Tamu Tamu for breakfast. Egg, ham, and cheese bagel sandwich with coffee. $8.61
Harambi Popcorn Kiosk for snack one. Cinnamon roasted almonds. $3.73
Safari Turkey for lunch. Smoked turkey leg, chips, iced tea. 12.86
Dino Bites for snack two. Ice cream sandwich cookie. These things are huge. Two big cookies and three scoops of ice cream. $4.25
Flame Tree BBQ. 1/2 smoked chicken, two sides, water. $10.11

Hollywood Studios: $40.03 (oops three cents over)
Writer's Stop. Double Chocolate Muffin, mocaccino. $7.07
Anaheim Produce. Pretzel with cheese sauce. $4.79
Starring Rolls. Black Forrest Ham Sandwich, fruit, Napoleon, iced coffee. $14.99
Rosie's Cafe. 1/3 pound angus cheeseburger with fries or slaw, soup of the day, water. $12.87

Epcot: $39.49
Sunshine Seasons: bacon, egg, cheese croissant and espresso. $9.46
Yakatori House. Tonosama combo, miso soup, green tea. $14.88
Boulangerie Patisserie. Napoleon. $3.94
Sunshine Seasons. Roasted Pork Chop with herb potatoes and fruit compote, water. $10.86

 

[2qtkids]

I love this thread!! Thank you so much!

 

[jgates]

Thanks for the great new suggestions for hungry guy! He has threatened to only eat breakfast in the room & starve the rest of the day. My DD has threatened him that he WILL BE EATING OR ELSE. If it comes down to that I will pay for his food to make sure he eats, LOL, but he works so he can easily pay $40-45 a day himself. His only costs are airfare (already paid), park ticket & his own food. And I did volunteer to pay for the 2 TS meals we are doing (Crystal Palace supper & Prime Time lunch).

 

[jbuey22]

I too love this thread. I have just read the entire thread and it does not even matter for me since
#1 i am aleady on the DDP
#2 I dont really like most of the foods mentioned.

but my family is strictly simple meall eaters. Hot dogs, chicken strips(do they still have these or are they all nuggets now?) pizza, burgers, steak, chicken breast sandwiches or chicken parmesean or 1/2 chickens, fries, corn, mashed or baked potatos alot of times we get a full pizza at our resort, like the all star resorts and it feeds 2 of my kids for like 16.00. and for breakfast we are good with scrambled eggs, mickey waffles, omletes, muffins, bagels, breakfast sausage, bacon, breakfast potatoes, fruit, etc. snacks we love the simple stuff, popcorn, ice cream bars, soft serve, muffins, we love muffins hence the 2 categories.

So I am not as good as you guys, and we dont neccesarily need any TS options, but try to make a budget with my simple foods, I think it would be pretty easy since these are usually the cheapest options. Plus 1 meal a day we usually (but not always) eat at the resort, usually fast breakfast or like I said earlier the Pizza for 2. We usually get 2 pizzas for the 4 of us with leftover snack for later. But gather a group of teenagers and most will enjoy these choices.
I think the 40.00 per person per day is an easy do. Thats 160.00 a day for our family, and using these menu items I think I could get it closer to 120-140

thanks for the great thread

 

[jbuey22]

I see I killed another thread. pay no attention to my last post keep this thread going. you dont need to figure out my math problem.

 

[brenalexacamp]

I would spend the extra few dollars, get the snack credit, and then order whatever I wanted- I tend to LOVE the steaks, seafood- more expensive items.

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

Cool thread!

 

[XGrumpy1]

Breakfast - Cherrios and coffee in room before I go out, $0.00, Always drink water, and carry your own refillable bottle, get a half chicken for lunch, split it with the wife $10 or so, for dinner order 1 entree and 1 appetizer and split it with the wife $30 or so, microwave popcorn in the room when we get there.

That's been my plan for a long time now.

 

[Eeyore's Wife]

BRenalexacamp, it is not just that $5 more gets you a snack and whatever you want to eat. The plan you are referencing is $45.99 during regular season, and $47.99 during peak.

In addition, it provides one table service meal where you must supply the tip. Given that you enjoy ordering the more expensive items, that tip can easily run $8.00 per day at almost any one credit restaurant.

The additional costs mean that you have paid an additional $14 for the day, and you got only two meals and one snack. My original thread plans provide for three meals per day, plus a snack, for under $40, including tax and tip, plus eating at a table service meal.

There are a few plans later in the listing which look at how much meat/volume can be had for three meals, including tax and tip, which came in under $40 per day. There is also a plan for high volume consumption at counter service only.

There are times I still use the dining plan, but I personally enjoy at least three meals per day and a snack. Yes, the meals are smaller, but that way I do not end up with feeling over full and "stuffed" because of the big meal and grumpy with low sugar because I went too long between eating.

There are certain trips, for us, where the dining plan makes sense, but there are numerous eating styles where paying OOP is by far the better choice.

I am not denigrating the regular dining plan, and if it works for you, wonderful, but it is not as simple as adding in just $5 and suddenly getting a great deal more of higher quality for everyone.

 

[Pumba's Truth]

Awesome take on the whole DDP vs OOP - it really does breakdown the dollars and cents of it all quite nicely.

Thanks.

PS. We're doing OOP for the first time in 4 trips - it's going to be interesting to see how we fare. We'll be doing an assesment vs. the dining plan options after we return to see which would have been better.

BRenalexacamp, it is not just that $5 more gets you a snack and whatever you want to eat. The plan you are referencing is $45.99 during regular season, and $47.99 during peak.

In addition, it provides one table service meal where you must supply the tip. Given that you enjoy ordering the more expensive items, that tip can easily run $8.00 per day at almost any one credit restaurant.

The additional costs mean that you have paid an additional $14 for the day, and you got only two meals and one snack. My original thread plans provide for three meals per day, plus a snack, for under $40, including tax and tip, plus eating at a table service meal.

There are a few plans later in the listing which look at how much meat/volume can be had for three meals, including tax and tip, which came in under $40 per day. There is also a plan for high volume consumption at counter service only.

There are times I still use the dining plan, but I personally enjoy at least three meals per day and a snack. Yes, the meals are smaller, but that way I do not end up with feeling over full and "stuffed" because of the big meal and grumpy with low sugar because I went too long between eating.

There are certain trips, for us, where the dining plan makes sense, but there are numerous eating styles where paying OOP is by far the better choice.

I am not denigrating the regular dining plan, and if it works for you, wonderful, but it is not as simple as adding in just $5 and suddenly getting a great deal more of higher quality for everyone.

 

[eliza61]

Great job. the only thing I would probably change and it may add 3 bucks more to my breakfast tab is the sweets for breakfast almost every day. I'd probably substitute it for a bowl of cereal but that's just taste preference.

 

[estherhead]

Alright, I'm taking a stab at this and hope I don't get in trouble for incorrect math. I used Allears prices, not in high season.

We have young children and feel a need to do one character meal just for them. One of our favorites is Tusker House at AK because it is a fun environment for the kids and has decent and interesting food for adults.

So here is my AK with a character meal.

Breakfast: Husafari; Coffee and Cheese Danish: $4.48

Lunch: Tusker House: $24.76

Snack: Harambe Fruit Market: Jalapeno pretzel $4.29 (or any ice cream treat in the park if you prefer.)

Dinner: Yak & Yeti Counter Service: Chicken Fried Rice (delish! to quote Rachel Ray) $3.99

I believe this adds up to $37.52 which is good because if we are talking reality I would have a Diet Coke with my fried rice. But that made 3 non-water drinks so I left it off.

But these are all things I regularly eat and would be PLENTY for me or my dh for the day. In reality we would order egg rolls and the fried rice and split them AND we would split the one jalapeno pretzel and I would probably get a banana.

 

[estherhead]

Also, we tried to do a kid under your guidelines, have to eat kid's meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, tips and taxes and struggled to get it under $20.00, let alone the $14.99 that is the DDP.

So for us these past few years, with 3 kids and 2 adults, the DDP has made sense. As our kids cross into the double digits age-wise (not 9 anymore) we will have to re-work our numbers. Our eldest was 10 this past year, but still eats smaller amounts allowing us to share many of her adult meals. So the DDP still worked for us.

But if the exercise of $40.00 a day ($5 under the DDP) is applied to kids, it becomes an impossible exercise. Even hitting $14.99 wasn't possible.

 

[Tigger's ally]

I could do it with just food...but alcoholic beverages ruin the entire thing. And I'm not going without a margarita. Or two.

Did you just say "alcoholic beverages ruin the entire thing" ? Blastphemy Nala!

I say lets do a thread where $40 alchoholic budget for a day and let food "ruin the whole thing"!

 

[Eeyore's Wife]

Ah, doing a plan with kids. Yes, when we had a three year old and a nine year old, who both LOVED character meals, the DDP was great for us. We usually wanted three to four of these meals whether or not we were on the plan.

In that case, especially when the plan included tip, it was a great deal. We saved money over what we would have spent OOP.

Now, we have two teenagers and a toddler who freaked out when meeting several characters, so those meals (and their very high prices) are on hold.

I am working on a diabetic/low sugar/lower carb plan, but should also look at putting together a kids plan that focuses on variety and better food options as well.