A few ?s for the budget conscious

[jstbcuz94]

Here is the background info. We will be staying in FL from Aug 2-12. With only the 2nd to the 9th being at WDW. We have rented a car. Everything so far is paid for (airfare, hotels both on and off resort, car, tickets to WDW and SW are also paid for). We are a family of four.

My first question is this: How much do you think would be a realistic amount of $$$ to bring. I want to be able to pick and choose what we do, but dont want to go broke doing it?

Also: are the character meals really worth it? If you are able to catch the characters by watching where they will be, is it a waste of money to do the meal?

Anyone have any suggestions on what to do on our off days after we leave the world? What is the best beach to go to? What about Kennedy Space Center?

Thanks!

 

[Microcell]

Well, we are planning on $150 a day spending on souviners and food with a toddler included in the family of four. We may be kind of high, but we do not want to worry very much about money.

You can wait in line for the characters, but they have to take breaks so you could be standing there quite a while so at least with the meals you get to eat and they stop at your table! We like it but we wind up doing both because DD6 wants every autograph she can get even if she does not know the character!

 

[WillAndFinn'sMom]

Kennedy Space Center is interesting, but expensive (I think it was $120 for two adults and one child). It's interesting, but not a super thrill. If you do go, take the bus ride first thing. They stop running the bus and if you miss it, you don't get to see much of the center.

We really enjoyed the character breakfast. It's the only time we ate breakfast out of our room, but it was well worth it. The lines for most of the characters can be very long.

As far as how much money to bring, it varies so much with individual families. I will say this, you can easily spend a lot of money on food and souvenirs. We ate only counter service (except for one character breakfast and one sitdown at the Rainforest Cafe), but splurged on souvenirs. Most of the counter service that we ate was very good, especially in Epcot. We budgeted $100 a day for food for me, dh, ds (10) and ds (11 mths) and usually didn't spend it all (again, we ate breakfast in the room). We didn't buy many (if any) snacks, though.

I'm not sure how much we budgeted for souvenirs, but I know we bought way more than we planned to. We don't regret it one bit, though. If I had to guess, I'd say the kids each got about $150 worth of souvenirs and we each got about $100. Then, of course there's those you want to buy for the people back home.

 

[Disney Debbie]

You don't say how old your children are - that makes a difference in whether the character meals are worth it!

Assuming they're fairly young then I'd say that yes - it is worth it to do at least one. They spend much more time with you at the meals then when you have 100 people behind you in a line! One of my favorites is the Liberty Tree Tavern at the MK because it is rarely full (when we go anyway!) so they have plenty of time to tease and play with the kids. Another good one is the Garden Grill at Epcot - it's not a huge place so once again there's fewer people - in fact we went one time and they came to our table 3 times - it was almost overkill!

But I wouldn't do more then one.

 

[sk!mom]

We are a family of 4 who loves character meals. On our last trip our children were 5 and 16. We thought that we were doing the character meals for our DD5, but we all found them to be really fun and just more of the Disney experience.

This next trip we will do Cinderella's Breakfast, Chef Mickey's and 1900 Park Fare for dinner, and the Ice Cream Social. We only want to do one breakfast because we are going in the summer, also and want those early hours for the parks.

The way we figure we have to eat, sit down rest. at WDW are expensive and with character meals we get entertainment with the meal.

 

[HaleyB]

Go knowing you will spend more than you plan on, and plan accordingly. We budget an overall souviner(sp?) budget of $100 per person. For food we plan on $100-$150 a day for four people, but sometimes spend much less. I was just looking over records from last summer and there was one day we spent $37. Total. We ate breakfast in our room, and bought 2 kids meals, 2 of those bread bowls with clam chowder, and 4 icecreams (I think, might have been 3 and a drink). We closed the park that day, but I think it was too hot to eat (and at some point, perhaps we were too tired to want food). Of course that was one day. Other days we spent much more.
As for the character meals, it depends on the kids ages. We always do one as a family, and this year my daughter and I are ditching the guys to eat at the castle (CRT). I think it is well worth it, but don't count on eating much.