Budget at WDW??

[philsbride]

I'm sure this topic has been discussed here before, could someone point me in the right direction?

We have the standard dining plan (quick, counter and 1 table/day) and are staying at POR. We are visiting the 4 parks, not the water parks or universal. What will we need to bring money for? Obviously souvenirs and tipping. How much money do you typically bring and how do you divide it out? I'd like to have a spending plan before we get there. I know this question is kind of broad and answers will vary, but I appreciate all input. Thanks!

 

[carebee21]

I'm sure this topic has been discussed here before, could someone point me in the right direction?

We have the standard dining plan (quick, counter and 1 table/day) and are staying at POR. We are visiting the 4 parks, not the water parks or universal. What will we need to bring money for? Obviously souvenirs and tipping. How much money do you typically bring and how do you divide it out? I'd like to have a spending plan before we get there. I know this question is kind of broad and answers will vary, but I appreciate all input. Thanks!

You need extra money for tips, adult drinks, any extra drinks you want in the parks (a bottle of water, an extra soda), if you need/want an extra meal or money to pick up bagels, muffins, etc as the dining plan only covers 2 meals a day, and souvineirs. We also bring a little bit of extra money in case we need to pick something up that we forgot (I've forgotten to pack DS's swim suit and DH has forgotten pj's) or in case my son spills something down the front of his shirt and we don't want to run all the way back to the hotel just to change him.

 

[FLmomof6]

This really does vary from family to family. I would look at menus online and determine how much your bill would come to if you were paying out of pocket, then budget 20% tip based on that. If you drink alcohol, decide how many drinks you plan on buying (again, see menus for pricing). You can take water/soda/juice in the parks in a soft cooler or purchase them in the parks (I think they average $2.50 per bottle). How much you spend on souvenirs is very much a personal choice. We are staying at Art of Animation in 2 weeks (3 nights, 4 days) and my 4 youngest are going to have about $75 each, my husband and I will both have $200 each for souvenirs. If it is your first trip, you may want more spending money than somebody going for the 20th trip.

 

[sammyjo1871]

Looked at your ticker and see you leave in 5 days; how exciting!!

My DS5 and I took our 1st WDW trip this past February; we stayed 6 nights at POFQ on the standard DDP as well. I had my tip money set aside plus $25 (it was just 2 of us) for milk, juice & donuts/muffins bought at the resort store for breakfast.

I used allears.net to look at the menus/prices of the tables service meals we had ADRs for. I was able to figure amount for tips using that. You may also want to budget tips for mousekeeping, bell services, etc.

I bought a couple bottles of water OOP earlier in the trip instead of using snack credits, because I didn't want to 'waste' the credits on water. In the end, I had 3 snack credits left to use the last day. Oh well, live and learn. With your family going in September's heat & humidity, you may need more water/drinks throughout the day, so plan some money for that or carry your own into the parks. We used the water fountains to fill up the empty bottles I carried in our backpack, which worked fine and saved additional OOP spending.

Souviners is where I caved. It was our first trip and I had a hard time saying no. I had told my son one item per day (toy wise), plus we bought a couple tees, 2 new beach towels, a couple photo frames and ride/attraction photos. I had budgeted $400 for the week and actually spent $500. It really is a personal decision on what you feel comfortable with. On our next trip, I hope to spend half of that, but we'll see.

Good luck on finalizing your budge and have an awesome trip!

 

[philsbride]

Good tips so far, thank you!!

How much do you tip mousekeeping?

 

[FLmomof6]

How much do you tip mousekeeping?[/QUOTE]

Depends on how big of a mess my kids make in the room/suite But, I usually leave $5 in each room every morning except check out day. I leave $10 per room when we check out. If for whatever reason we create extra work, we leave a little more. I worked for Disney housekeeping 20 years ago (during college years) and it was hit or miss then. Some people left nothing and others $20. Most of the ladies had families at home that they were providing for and were happy to get whatever was left for them. I would do what ever you feel comfortable with.

 

[Gorechick]

We left $5 a day for a family of 4 when we were there 2 weeks ago.

 

[kerplop]

I think it really depends on your group make up and what you normally spend money on. Three of us last year only spent about $300 in "other" things (ie not tips), but we're 3 adults and we're pretty cheap. We had to buy someone new shoes on the trip, so that was included. My mom bought a sun hat. The rest was mostly snacks not on the plan, adult beverages (only for mom), ear hats!, and other miscellaneous souvenirs. YMMV of course!

 

[bearloch]

m biggie is alway ride photos so now its only a first time ride! ( we hav sooo many) and if we already have that ride its a no

my 2 is pins which can range from2.99 to 15.00 bucks!! tht too is 1 of the hotel if its a first and then again from a new ride !! we get one a yr with the date (yr)

we go more than 1 a yr so I really try to behave lol

if u have kids to keep the mood up and cost down when DD was young I took disney stickers, fruit snacks, coloring books etc and had them at the ready and every night had a new prize awaiting it helped keep costs down I also decorated water bottles up to encourage reuses!!

 

[ceecee]

We usually only take $150 in cash. Most larger purchases are put on our cc. We use cash and some from our rewards card for tips ($20ish for each TS) then $1 per person per day for mousekeeping (no kids no mess to clean). The same maid doesn't always work every day so we tip daily. We usually buy a water or soda and save the snack credit for a muffin or something we can eat for breakfast.

 

[epholdsteady]

You didn't mention how old/how many kids you have because I think that makes a difference. Also - will you have any "down" days?

When we go we'll be staying off property so there are a LOT more things we need to budget for which means less money for souvenirs. But both my boys will be toddlers - so I'm going to bring lots of little things from home to hopefully eliminate some of the "gimme gimme"s and plan on spending no more than $200 total for souvenirs. I'm determined to get ears for my youngest, a new magnet, 1st time frame, and christmas ornament. The rest we spend as we go and when its gone its gone.

I made a $30/adult/day $15/child/day budget for food. We're stocking up with groceries at the beginning of the week and that all coming out of the above budget, along with tips.

We have to think about gas for the rental car and potential tolls.

The grandparents are watching all the kids one night so I made a $150 allowance for "fun" money.

I think it helps to make a good packing list and pack all the things that could add up quick while you're there (i.e. chapstick, sunscreen, sunglasses, hats, bandaids, tums, tylenol, kids toothpaste. Again this depends on your kids' ages as well)

If anything insane comes up, we have the cc. But I'm strict with the budget.

 

[cheekypoppins]

Wow you guys all do great I'm really embarrassed to say how much I end up spending after reading all these answers (I think hubby's right I do need disney shoppers anonymous)

 

[LJSquishy]

We don't have kids, but we tipped Mousekeeping $2 each time we had our room cleaned. We were there for 7 nights but only needed our room cleaned twice.

We also had the DDP, and opted to use our snack credit each morning for a light breakfast (yogurt/fruit/granola parfait, muffin, cinnamon roll, etc). For lunch, we did counter service and would usually order 1 soda and 1 bottled water and share those so we could have water all day and refill when we needed. We would do most of our table service meals at dinner so we could have a nice relaxing evening and fill up! You can get a general idea of how much to tip at each meal by taking a look at the menu prices. We originally were just going to charge our tips to our room, but my husband decided he'd rather pay cash for tips so we withdrew some cash at our resort for tipping (it was only a few dollars to do that, and we didn't want to have hundreds of dollars in our wallets while in the airport, etc).

We purchased a few adult beverages throughout our trip, and either paid cash if we had enough on us, or used our debit cards. We only purchased 2 snacks during our week-long stay: A pineapple dole whip float, and a red velvet cheesecake cupcake. We shared both of those items. We were way too stuffed to squeeze in eating a bunch of snacks in between meals. Portion sizes are huge, and even though I had a huge list of things I wanted to try, we just couldn't eat any more!

We did unexpectedly purchase a few small items for our nieces and nephew to bring back to them, so we used our debit card for those things.

I don't know if you really want to be carrying around cash for tips & snacks. I would worry about losing it, it happens so often. You may just decide you want to charge tips & other purchases to your KTTW card and pay the balance when you check out. Some people may find it difficult to control the amount you spend I guess, but I have a good memory of how much I spend at each place and if you already have a budget in mind, stick to it.