Budget/Enough?

[CadiesMom]

I have spent the evening working on our budget for our upcoming trip and wondered if anyone could give an honest opinion as to if I have allowed enough funds. Travelling with DH,Myself, DD. Hotel, rental car, airline tickets, 5 day hopper tickets, and MVMCP tickets are taken care of. I have scheduled a PS or major meal for each of our seven day trip and budgeted for it using the menu prices and meal descriptions that I found. Here is what I have:

Arrival day:
O'Hana's Dinner

1st day:
Tusker House Late Lunch

2nd day:
Chef Mickey's Dinner

3rd Day:
Teppanyaki Dinner

4th Day:
Crystal Palace Dinner

5th Day:
50's Prime Time Early Lunch
Hollywood&Vine Fantasmic Dinner Pkg

6th Day:
Trails End Buffet Late Lunch

7th Day:
Home
Breakfast at Hotel Food Court

Looking at the menu's I pretty much know the things that we would order, and it comes to about $415.00. I have budgeted $500.00 for these meals.

I am questioning if the remainder of my budget (1000.00) will be enough for other counter service meals and snacks and souveniors (a few pictures, t-shirts, trinkets)?

To sum it up, lots of laughs, I have planned $1500.00 for food, snacks, and souveniors ---is it enough or should I allow more?? Thanks for any suggestions you may have;we are excited and I want it to be a great trip without the worry of if we have enough
to cover it all!

 

[Misty89]

HI
i cant help becasue this is our first time staying more than one day ( we went to MK last year for a day, stayed off property, etc)
but we hjabe set up about the same budget as you...
Ohannas -arrival night
chef mickeys and cyrstal palace 2nd day
and CRT 3 rd day
( i only set up 4 PS, the rest we are going to hotel or counter service) and we are budgeting /have $1500.00 ~ we are a family of 4, DH, myself, and 2 DD's 13 &5.
we also have a room credit from the CR resort becasue i overpaid when i made the ressie of $303.00. we have pretty much everything bought....the only tickets we dont have is something for Universal because weare not sure if we are going go or not. but out $1500 is going to be used for food, souvies, and tips.


have a great trip!

Tina

 

[firetaz]

Our first trip 11/96 we took $200 per day for everything. We ate at only one PS restaurant. On our second trip 3/98 we took $300 per day and ate at 3 sit downs. Our last trip 12/02 we took $400 per day and ate at t sit downs. We are going 12/04 and are planning on $300 per day and are only planning on 2 sit downs.
Hope this helps

 

[mickeysaver]

The way that I budget for the restaurants is pretty simple. I go to Deb's Site and look at the menu for the restaurants that I think we will dine at and create an imaginary meal for the two of us. I figure up the pricing...worst case scenario.....and then add in tip. This helps me to know what to expect....and when it's lower it means that we have more money for souveniers.

I usually budget for $100 a day for food for the two of us. We usually stay onsite the entire trip. I don't like to burst my pixie dust bubble.

As for other goodie money, I can spend it with the best of them. I am most likely going to have about $300 a day on our next trip. We collect pins and Art of Disney pieces, so this is probably low in the eyes of some people, but for us, it will be more than enough to bring home at least one nice piece and lots of cool pins. Maggie

 

[frannn]

Each tshirt can run you 19-26, so you may want to think about how many things and what types of things you will buy. Looking at the menus on Deb's website is good advice. That way, you can figure out what the rest of your food budget should be. Don't forget that each drink can be 2.50 in the parks. If you are modest with your souveniers, 1000. should be ok. If you are like me, though, and all kinds of things call out to you "Take me home!", as well as bring home tons of stuff for other people, you may need a few more $.

 

[bigbabyblues]

We just returned last week from our trip, and I had budgeted $140 a day for food/snacks/etc. The leftover was to be for souveniers, plus an extra $200. We ended up going two nights early because of the hurricane, that messed things up a little bit, but we still came in under budget all days except 2, and the $ we'd saved the other days more than made up for that. I believe I had $1500 total as well, that included our towncar service. We didn't buy many souveniers, no t-shirts, but I did buy some pictures, and DH spent $50 on a hat. I think you should be fine, we were me, DH, and 2 DS', ages 3 and 1. Just keep track as you go, and adjust your extra spending if you need to. We found that with some character and other sit down meals (we had one each day, BTW), we didn't necessarily eat 3 meals a day. Most counter service meals were big enough to split, as were the meals at 50's PTC. We came home with extra money, and I was surprised!

Steph