Average of how much spending/day$$

[lworts]

I am trying to figure out spending money. I have searched this forum, but am coming up empty.

For a family of five (2 adults, 3 kids aged 7,8 and 11) does anyone have any idea of the amount of money I should budget for spending each day. We are there for 9 days.

Initially I thought about $150.00/day for food. Is that enough?

I dont want to have to be cheap if I underestimate. TIA!

 

[hugabearjo]

I don't know if you plan to eat on site or off. We usually do a little of both. Mostly off, with snacks in the park and one or two special meals onsite. I there is one less adult in my party. 1 adult and 3 kids, about the same ages. I budget $100 for food and spending and come home with extra. It has worked for us on a number of trips to disney. With the extra adult you should be fine with $150 as long as you don't plan to buy large ticket items in the park. IMHO

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

I'd figure on about

Breakfast $10 per person
Lunch $10 per child, $15 per adult
Dinner $15 per child, $20 per adult

When we go, we usually eat a late lunch, no dinner, or skip lunch & eat an early dinner -- with breakfast and one big meal we're able to budget. Also, at Disneyland you can split meals. Their portions are usually big, and that would save, too.

 

[crazymama]

Just was talking about this with a friend who was at DL in March. They are a family of 5 (3 kids ages 4, 7 and 9) and they budgetted $150 per day for food/extras for their 8 night stay. She says they ate lots (often in the park) and came home with around $800 left. She says there was no way they needed that much for food. The kids each took $100 for spending and didn't ask to buy that much stuff. Hope this helps!

 

[LucyKate]

$150 per day seems more than enough, but then Mary jo's figures look reasonable and that adds up to a lot more than $150!

Some planning thoughts
- If you're getting breakfast at your hotel, you can scrub that figure.
- The lunches and dinners are huge - it's quite likely you can split some meals.
- If you have a proper lunch you probably won't need a full dinner. Some nights we snacked on turkey legs (which fed 2 kids) after having big late lunches.
- There's no need to eat every meal in Disneyland for 9 days. Outside the park there are plenty of cheaper fast food places, as well as a great diner called Millys.
- BUT you might want to budget for a character meal, or at least one good meal at a place like Blue bayou.

 

[RKB]

I found that 2 of my kids could split one of the huge slices of pizza at Pizza port for lunch. They also shared a drink. Both said they were full when we left. So the meal splitting tip is a good one. I would rather save the money for souveniers!

 

[Dobie]

The three of us (two adults and a teenager) average about 100-110 per day on food.

We buy a CG mug and get free refills morning and afternoon, usually grab a beignet on the way to DL, have a hot dog or something at noon, and then either have a nice dinner (Storytellers, Blue Bayou) or a counter style dinner (we love the burgers at Taste Pilots)

The churros really eat up our budget, though!!!

 

[Redcon1]

You can try to get by on $100 for the first couple of days. It's not impossible. If you're staying somewhere that offers free breakfast, that should help alot.
I'm with Mary Jo. Try to only eat two full meals a day. Breakfast and then a late lunch or early dinner. Bring snacks to satisfy your munchies the rest of the time.
Our family(2 adults, 2 kids- 8 and 5 yrs old) starts with this $100 budget and we try to spend even less than that amount, so then we can apply it to nicer meals or souvenirs later on in our trip.

 

[LuvTigger]

I think the amount you have budgeted is very reasonable. I usually budget around $110-$120 per day for 2 adults. We usually have something quick for breakfast (we usually splurge on one sit down breakfast), lunches are mostly counter service (maybe only 1 or 2 sit down), and most dinners are sit down for us. We generally don't order any alcohol. Some days we spend less than budgeted, which can carry over to another day where we might splurge on a more expensive dinner.

If you decide on Blue Bayou for one of your meals, go during lunch instead of dinner -- prices are higher then. It's easy to go out to DTD or one of the resorts for lunch or dinner too, and you can find some reasonably priced meals there as well. And ditto what Mary Jo said about portions, they really are huge!

 

[gtrist4life]

Thanks for the estimates, it helps with our October trip planning.
Does the Disneyland Hotel also sell refillable mugs?

Thanks again,

 

[Amy&Dan]

Thanks for the estimates, it helps with our October trip planning.
Does the Disneyland Hotel also sell refillable mugs?

Thanks again,

No they don't unfortuanately! I find that for our family of four pigs we can do $100 a day. I know this will creep up as my son is almost 11 and I know his kids price days are coming to a close. The best way we save money is to bring some snacks like granola bars, pretzels and fruit snacks for the kids backpacks. I also bring in a juice box for them. Have never had a problem getting through security with that stuff. I also bring my own water bottles because they are $2.50 a pop in the parks. I have actually packed that stuff in a rolling, upright carryon when we fly to WDW and at Disneyland we luck out because fil lives close by and picks it up for us. We generally split a couple of muffins at Blue Ribbon Bakery in the am, and then do counter service (we split those meals they are huge) for lunch and dinner. We usually do two or three sit downs total for the trip, Goofy's, Blue Bayou and Rainforest Cafe. Some days we go over a $100 but other days we come in under so it averages out.

 

[tinafromidaho]

We are planning on having breakfast at the hotel as we will have our car so we can do shopping and microwaves and a fridge . The "plan" is to eat a late lunch wherever we want and are planning on not eating in the park for supper as we will be going in October on the weekdays and I'm guessing they will be closing at 8:00pm. Another thing I did was look on themouseforless.com under disneyland and dining and they have current menu prices for every restaraunt and I just did an average of the higher prices so I would be prepared. Hope this helps, if nothing else helps check out that dining web sight, it was very informative for me.