Any advice for first time trip to Walt Disney World Florida?

[rosiebella2894]

Hi everyone! I'm currently counting down to my first trip to Disneyworld in Florida, (I've never been to America before so am super excited!) and was wondering if anyone could give me an idea of how much spending money I will need to take. I am going with my friend so only need to take money for myself and we are staying for 7 nights. We are planning on eating a light breakfast and lunch everyday, eating snacks during the day and then eating at a reasonably priced table-service restaurant like Planet Hollywood or Rainforest Cafe in the evening. We already have tickets for all the parks and so the only other thing apart from food we will be spending money on is souvenirs, and possibly things like bowling or renting bikes etc. Also, being completely new to Disneyworld, we know that it is advisable to make dinner reservations before we go, but are assuming there is no need to make reservations for breakfast and lunch? Lastly, we were wondering if there is an easy and fairly cheap way to get to the nearest Walmart or shopping centre and whether it would be cheaper to buy snacks from somewhere like Walmart to take into the park each day or whether to just buy snacks whilst in the park?
Thank you in advance! Any advice is much appreciated!
Rosie x

 

[Elise79]

Rosie

I assume you are staying onsite?

Taxi will be the easiest way to get to Walmart if you don't have a car. Otherwise look at grocery delivery service. There are two that are mentioned on the boards (I haven't used them personally as we always have a car):
Wegoshop
Garden Grocer

Spending money is a how long is a piece of string question but with only 7 nights I doubt you will have time for bowling

The other thing meals in the US are large - you may not need 3 meals plus snacks. Anyway, a typical CS breakfast will be about $10 with a drink, lunch a little more at about $12-15.

For you evening meal I would look at the menus for other restaurants - the 2 you mentioned are both really overpriced for the food they do. You could also look at some of the resort food courts as they do some really nice food too and they are CS so no reservations needed plus they are cheaper. You can find the menus here on the Dis and also Allears has a good menu section.

 

[littlemissjess]

Hi there!

I'm so excited for you, especially as it's your first trip

We will be able to help more if you'd give us a little more information, like are you staying on property? Are you planning on breakfast and lunches at Disney or elsewhere and have you got a car rented for the holiday?

(As you said it's your first trip, I'm going to go over some basics here, so if this is stuff you already know I'm sorry!)

If you're planning quick service for breakfast and lunch then you can't make reservations, but I would definitely recommend making reservations for your table service meals, which can be done through the my disney experience site.

I would plan it costing about £10-£15 for a quick service and £30-£50 for a table service, then you will be required to leave a 15-20% tip, which can add up quite quickly! You can have a look at the prices of everything on the all ears web site, which should come up if you search for all ears menus.

Snacks will be cheaper at wallmart, but I ask about a car because you won't be able to get to any shops without one! Disney is the size of San Francisco, so there's no popping to the corner shop like there is here You can book a taxi, but I found it to be quite expensive.

As for spending money that's up to you! There's rides photos and gift shops along the way; where you are welcome to spend as much or little as you want!

Hope that's useful, let me know if you need anything clarifying

 

[flortlebap]

Hi and welcome to the land of obsessive WDW planners!

Dinner reservations are generally a must. Walk ups for RFC and PH are possible (often with a long wait) but for most places, ADRs are strongly recommended.

There will still be plenty of choices available as long as you don't mind too much where you eat, but if you only have three weeks to go, many of the popular places will be fully booked by now.

Happy planning - you won't want to go back to DLRP after doing WDW! Lol

 

[MrRomance]

Hi and welcome to the world Disney obsession!

Spending money is a tough thing to answer, I always say if you took $1000 you'd have plenty, but if you took $5000 you'd spend it!

We always take more than we need but we find a way to spend it. As others have said, food wise, the portions are HUGE, if you plan to try to eat as cheaply as possible, $40 a day would cover you, if you want to do character meals and table service, then you'll need more. A quick service meal will run you around $15 with your drink, some a little more, some a little less. Breakfast you can get a full meal for around $10 but if you eat light in the mornings as we do, you can grab a cinnamon roll or something like that for less.

There are some good options for buffet meals for dinner, Trails End at Fort Wilderness springs to mind. It's one of the cheaper buffets but it's good and you'll get plenty of food.

 

[WiganTony]

If you are staying on-site and don't have a car, you may find yourself tied to eating within Disney.

However, as mentioned above, you could order groceries to be delivered to your accommodation. Useful for bulky items such as bottled water (approx. $4 for 24 bottles as against $2.70 or so per bottle in the parks), snacks, cereals, beers/wine etc. Freeze a few bottles of water and take in an insulated bag with you into the parks - you can also put "fresh" items (fruit, cheese etc) in with them to keep cool.

There is also a HESS garage across from Downtown Disney which carries a range of foods/snacks (think along the lines of a Spar in a petrol station in the UK) where you could pick up groceries.

For breakfast, worth noting that a lot of the "snack" items in Disney such as muffins etc are quite large, so you could have one of these and a coffee for around $6.

For lunches, we have found that even on free dining that one CS meal is enough between two of us. You can always add another snack item (fries, fried rice, nachos etc) to bulk out the meal. Also, just buy one drink between both of you as they are large. This would bring the cost of lunch down to around $12-15 between two of you.

For dinner, Wolfgang Puck Express at Downtown Disney is very good - slightly more expensive that the Counter Service places, but you have your food served to you at the table after ordering.

If you get to Downtown Disney using the WDW buses, you also have the option to walk (20 mins or so) or catch the Lynx No 50 bus up Hotel Plaza Boulevard to the Crossroads area of Lake Buena Vista . You will find quite a few restaurants there such as Red Lobster, Chevvys (Mexican), Olive Garden (Italian), Sweet Tomatos, Fuddruckers, iHop, Black Angus Steak House, Sizzlers etc.

HTH.

 

[scoobydooby]

I budget $100 per day per adult for food. This is too much but allows for alcohol and decent 20% tips. This assumes two CS meals and one TS meal per day. Typically I would be more likely to spend $70 to $80 as I tend to snack only for breakfast.

Other spending money could be as little as $50 if you just want a couple of trinkets. As someone else said. If you take $5,000 it will be easy to spend it! For my trip in a few weeks I have budgeted £200 per day for me and my 12 year old DD which will be for food and anything else. She has her own souvenir spending money. I expect this to be more than enough but not way over the top. If we were going to a shopping mall Id have taken 1k more but we are not leaving Disney property as it's only a short 9 night trip.

Have a great time

 

[dakotix]

When are you going? Have you looked into whether or not free dining is offered? Have you priced out buying the dining plan? At Disney food is expensive as i am sure you have heard. A breakfast pastry for example will run you $6. A quick-service lunch will run you about $12-15 per person and a sit down dinner will run you about $20-25 per person. I wouldn't dream of going to Walmart while at Disney..lol Talk about a magic-killer! But I understand you want stay on your budget. Maybe an option might be to go to a grocery store before you check-in to your resort? Another thing to consider is that Taxi service is pretty expensive. We had a split stay last year between two resorts and no car rental. There is no luggage allowed on the bus system so you have to take a taxi to the other hotel. The fare between Pop Century and Coronado Springs was $15!

 

[pickers1982]

If our room has a fridge we usually buy milk and cereal and have breakfast in our room

 

[cheryl.UK]

Hi

We budget for 100-135$ per day for food between the two of us. We once budgeted for $200 but ended up with $1000 left! (This went in our US bank account for that rainy day trip)


Breakfast in our room, cereals, bagels etc $5

Counter service lunch, just a main course and a drink $30

We aren't snacks people so our last meal is a dinner in a table service most days but not always in a park. There are nice cheap restaurants just outside in the Crossroads area. (We like Sweet Tomatoes, Chevvys and Olive Garden) We don't have starters as we would never manage the main course and a desert (often we split one). Sometimes we have an alcoholic drink, sometimes we don't $60-$100

 

[neechofish]

Hi there. I was a first timer last June. The first thing I will say is take the advice that is on this forum - I found it priceless! And you will absolutely LOVE your time in disney

Secondly, it depends on how you are attacking the parks. I went for rope drop so had a substantial breakfast and did not need to eat again until the evening. (If I got peckish a snack in disney is the equivalent of a meal for me!) Other than the fireworks on a couple of nights we left the parks around 6. Obviously if you are not an early riser than you need to factor that in.

Thirdly - I invested in a water bottle and refilled at the water fountains, I really struggled with the closeness of the heat and this was probably the best piece of advice I picked up. I am a diet coke fiend and easily could have spent 500 dollars on that alone.

Forth.. character meals can be extortionate - we did crystal palace breakfast on our first morning which was fantastic and not too badly priced. The bonus was that the park was empty so the first view of the castle was special - a memory that will stay with me forever. Later we did princess breakfast at akerhaus which was exorbitant price wise and the food not a patch on crystal palace. I enjoyed the characters more than my 5 yo niece ....

Fifth- being at the parks for ropedrop meant we were shattered by 9/10 so a big ts meal on an evening was just not possible. I think I may be one of the only people who go to US and actually lose weight!! Don't get me wrong, I am overweight and love eating, I just covered so many miles (200 in 14 days - I took a pedometer) that my bed was more
appealing than food we had a few evening snacks at dtd as we were staying at bvp , Earl of Sandwich and Wolfgang pucks were worth the money. Also got restaurant.com vouchers for house of blues and had a fantastic meal there, made more affordable with the voucher.

Sixth..... i am sorry to say this but we ate ate at rainforest cafe (ak) and it was a massive disappointment. Ridiculously overpriced and bland. We had several much better meals with a few alcoholic beverages at millers ale house for about a 1/6 of the cost. You can justify the taxi by the saving.

7th.. best ts for us on property was prime time at hs. Still expensive but a really good interactive experience. We did not do many ts but this was our favourite.

8th ... don't waste your money on wishes dessert party, the food simply was not worth the monet, hang with the crowds instead.

I absolutely loved wdw. I am so glad I discovered this site and did not underestimate the planning that is needed. I went with the family, but I am a single 35 yo with no children. The children held me back!!! The rest of the family did no planning at all. I pride myself that their holiday was made better by me discovering this forum. I made the adrs and used restaurant.com gift certificates to the max. Make yourself familiar with the park maps, whilst it is unbelievably big it is manageable. Leave food choices to when you are hungry unless it's a special event or a ts that needs an adr. It's hard to eat at Epcot if you are in mk, have fp and it's just starting raining.... it is possible to overrplan. I get fed up of cs in the parks after 2 days (i am allergic to potato so the fast food was difficult for me) but i will say the burgers topping stations werr brilliant. We did a walk in at prime time and waited 20 mins, I did not consider this a long wait without a reservation.

I spent 1500 dollars in the 14 days, about 300 on gifts and the rest on food, drink and taxis (after a 3 hour failed attempt by bus to universal studios - I decided taxis were better - no fault of anyone except me accidentally taking my 5 yo nieces ticket instead of mine ) I could have spent much less, and equally much more.

More importantly. .. have a great time!

 

[Cinderella2006]

If your not planning to splash out and eat high end table service every night then I would say $100 a day is enough to cover food, tips and a little souvenir shopping.
We normally have breakfast in the room, toast, yoghurts, cereals etc then have a quick service for lunch and a sit down table service. As previously mentioned wolf gang pucks express in downtown Disney marketplace is nice to go for tea, reasonable but is served on China and bought to your table
You can ask for iced water at most quick service places at the park if you are flagging, it's important to make sure you are well hydrated.

Have a great trip