Budgeting for meals without a dining plan

[ophelia2002]

We opted out of a dining plan because I've had bariatric surgery and it would be a waste of money for me (and, as it turns out, if ONE person has a dining plan, EVERYONE in your room has to have one, but that's a gripe for another time). Plus my pre-teen daughters don't eat that much. So this is really the only area of our upcoming trip, other than souvenirs, that I don't know the cost of in advance.

Any tips on estimating our food costs so I can budget accordingly?

 

[ophelia2002]

Oops- typo in title. I fixed it.

 

[crisi]

the menus are online and are probably the best way to budget - since you'll have a good idea of what you'll eat. For some people they need a large soda for everyone, snacks all the time, sit down meals, alcohol - for others, they split a burger at lunch.

 

[bluezy]

We opted out of a dining plan because I've had bariatric surgery and it would be a waste of money for me (and, as it turns out, if ONE person has a dining plan, EVERYONE in your room has to have one, but that's a gripe for another time). Plus my pre-teen daughters don't eat that much. So this is really the only area of our upcoming trip, other than souvenirs, that I don't know the cost of in advance.

Any tips on estimating our food costs so I can budget accordingly?

You can see menus with prices here:
http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/disneydining.cfm#mk

And allears.net also has menus with prices.

Those should give you an idea of prices. We usually eat at quick service restaurants with possibly a table service meal or two thrown in. I just budget the cost of the dining plan for our food. That gives us a rough estimate without having to go through and look at prices. We usually spend several hundred dollars less than what the dining plan would cost us, but at least that's a quick and easy estimation for us.

 

[ophelia2002]

I just budget the cost of the dining plan for our food. That gives us a rough estimate without having to go through and look at prices. We usually spend several hundred dollars less than what the dining plan would cost us, but at least that's a quick and easy estimation for us.

That's a good idea! It will be an overestimate but I'd rather budget too much than not enough!

 

[StitchBuddy]

I usually budget $50 a day per adult for us, but we eat breakfast in our room and drink only bottled water that we buy on the way there. That would be enough for a couple of table service meals and mostly quick service for the trip. We don't like to be tied down to reservations.

 

[spartankid34]

There is also a sticky here on the boards for the All You Care To Eat/Buffet places. Unfortunately though you pay adult prices for children over 10, which sort of stinks 'cause I know my 10yo nephew won't eat enough to be considered an adult, but oh well (I find the character meals to be a decent value for the younger kiddos).

 

[dakotix]

We tried the snack route last march. The theory looked great on paper but we ended up eating lunch and dinner in the parks anyway. You don't realize the miles of walking you will do in the parks everyday. It really works up an appetite you aren't accustomed to at home. We ended up spending what the dining plan would have cost but it was money spent on all the junky fast food places. While the dining plan gets you a ton of food that you probably don't need, having the plan gives you the option of one sit down restaurant per day which would have made our last trip more fun...and less greasy.

I understand your situation is different but i thought I'd share our experience.

 

[Narnia_girl]

Someone on this board posted the Disney Dining Plan Calculator last week. I don't know how accurate it is, I've never used it. I'm going to give it a try for our upcoming trip and then see how close it comes.
Just another resource in your Disney tool belt.

 

[Ismo]

We aren't doing the dining plan this year either, so I took the time to look at the menus for all of the places we will be eating at and guessed what we would order and added it up. It took a bit of time but I feel pretty confident with my food budget now, in fact I think we'll end up spending way less that I'm planning on.

If you're trying to save money, I would avoid buffets, they tend to cost more than than you would spend elsewhere. For instance, we are doing the Tusker House character breakfast and that will cost about $75 for 2 of us with tip I think, whereas I know we could eat any meal anywhere else and make in come in less than that if we wanted to. Also if you're not planning on eating much, the buffet could be a waste of money.

I found that if I had a good breakfast and a small snack, I usually didn't want a full blow lunch, especially when it's really hot.

Maybe just look at the most expensive and cheapest TS meals you'll have and figure out what you think you'll spend at each, that should give you an average for TS.

For lunch we usually spend $15-25 for the 2 of us at QS places.

Good luck!

 

[Happyjen27]

I took the time to look at all the menus on allears dot net, and estimated what each of us would order. I wasn't trying to save money, just plan money, so I included all the ADRs we had for sit down meals.

We ended up spending less than we thought, as sometimes I would just order a salad, or I would split a meal with the kids. Overall I think we saved about $200 by skipping the dining plan, and we ate more like we do at home as far as volume and less sweets, etc.

 

[ajwolfe]

We tried the snack route last march. The theory looked great on paper but we ended up eating lunch and dinner in the parks anyway. You don't realize the miles of walking you will do in the parks everyday. It really works up an appetite you aren't accustomed to at home. We ended up spending what the dining plan would have cost but it was money spent on all the junky fast food places. While the dining plan gets you a ton of food that you probably don't need, having the plan gives you the option of one sit down restaurant per day which would have made our last trip more fun...and less greasy.

I understand your situation is different but i thought I'd share our experience.

I just wanted to say thanks for sharing this...We always do the DDP and for this upcoming trip I was starting to doubt myself based on all the posts here saying you can do it so much cheaper (even though looking at menus for us I'm not sure we could). So this got me to thinking maybe we would snack more than have solid meals and your post just reaffirmed what I was thinking. Glad I went ahead and booked the DDP.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

On my trip in Feb with my grandson, we decided to do breakfast in the room (with food brought from home) and just eat at quick service places. I budgeted $40 a day and that worked out fine. He is not a big eater and was more interested in doing rides than sit-down meals. You can eat healthy meals this way if you plan a bit - e.g. Sunshine Seasons in Epcot, have broccoli and chili at Columbia Harbour House in MK, etc.

 

[honeybunches]

We ended up spending what the dining plan would have cost but it was money spent on all the junky fast food places.

I just wanted to say thanks for sharing this...

I agree - thanks for sharing this info, Dakotix! After reading so many posts about going OOP, I though we might give it a try but I was very hesitant. When I figured up our ADR plans, it was going to be cheaper to do the DDP. We ended up getting the DDP and I'm so glad. We love eating at a TS each day, and I am going to be much more relaxed knowing that we have the DDP instead of paying OOP. Even with it budgeted ahead of time, it would drive me crazy because I'd want to save money.

OP - realizing your situation is different --- when I was thinking about doing OOP dining, several suggested that I get gift cards (prepaid VISA, Disney, whatever) in the amount of the DDP. That way, it was still pre-paid but more flexible than dining credits. You could order appetizers or whatever instead of an entree, and know that it was paid in advance like with the DDP. That seemed like a really good idea to me.

 

[Stitch808]

I've used the DIS trip planner site to estimate the costs by plugging in the days and restaurants to figure out the costs OOP. I believe the prices are a few years behind, so I just added about 10-15% for price increases and to be safe since we buy GCs at Target to save too.

 

[Baklava]

Someone on this board posted the Disney Dining Plan Calculator last week. I don't know how accurate it is, I've never used it. I'm going to give it a try for our upcoming trip and then see how close it comes.
Just another resource in your Disney tool belt.

I was just about to post that site. It gives an average which looks pretty accurate, although it's low for my family because my guys have expensive tastes. It allows for the option of listing what you're *actually* going to order as far as number of entrees, desserts and apps, so that's a nice feature.

 

[disneypharm]

We have used the DDP 4 times, 3 times free and once we paid (in 2005 when DDP was new). In 2005, it was very inexpensive with 2 adults and 2 kids, and included the appetizers, desserts and tips. Last year we went back to WDW after 6 years and decided to not get the DDP because with 4 adults (2 adults and 2 teens), it would have been over $1600 to pay. We used the calculator mentioned above and came up with a good schedule.
I bought $1200 worth of Disney GCs from Target and added those to our account at the check in. We used our Magic bands and after 8 days, we spent about $950 on food, that included 4 TS restaurants (Via Napoli, Sci Fi, Chef de France, and Raglan Rd) and others CS meals. We ate breakfasts in our room. Four TS restaurants were great in 8 days. I think having a TS restaurant every night would have taken away from our park time. We ate around the Epcot WS by stopping in every country and getting either a snack, beer, or drink. It felt like we were eating food during Food and Wine Festival. I think I will stick with OOP rather than DDP unless it is free, which most likely will not happen because of school schedule. We loved it. We ate when and where we wanted.

 

[Flamingeaux]

Not sure if this needed but be aware that if you are dining at a CS place you don't have to order off their posted menu. Instead of a super duper burger fully loaded with cheese, bacon and shrimp you can just order a plain burger sans fries. Always ask the CM. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you can substitute or leave off.

 

[clr055]

I had RNY in December so I understand your situation. We also are not doing the dining plan for that specific reason. I combed over the menu's on allears and have come up with a pretty good plan I think. We will not be doing any buffets or all you care to enjoy situations as the $40+ price tag for someone who consumes not even a cup of food is just not wise. We will be doing breakfast in the room (I am filling my second SW suitcase with things and then having waters and other non-perishable type things delivered by Amazon Pantry). In some situations my DD13 and I will split meals and sometimes I will be ordering from the kids menu. Because we are paying OOP I should be allowed to pretty much anywhere. And some places have some pretty decent kids menu choices (Be Our Guest has the braised pork in a kids portion for lunch or Liberty has the pot roast in a kids size). We will share a personal pizza at Via Napoli and a pizza from Wolfgang, the beef flatbread at Harambe.. I am actually pretty excited. Even after having had this surgery I am still a foodie. I just make much wiser choices now and of course much smaller portions. My new hobby of going to the gym 4-5 days a week will only help me in the 10+ miles of walking as well! Good luck!

 

[scrhsa]

I agree - thanks for sharing this info, Dakotix! After reading so many posts about going OOP, I though we might give it a try but I was very hesitant. When I figured up our ADR plans, it was going to be cheaper to do the DDP. We ended up getting the DDP and I'm so glad. We love eating at a TS each day, and I am going to be much more relaxed knowing that we have the DDP instead of paying OOP. Even with it budgeted ahead of time, it would drive me crazy because I'd want to save money.

OP - realizing your situation is different --- when I was thinking about doing OOP dining, several suggested that I get gift cards (prepaid VISA, Disney, whatever) in the amount of the DDP. That way, it was still pre-paid but more flexible than dining credits. You could order appetizers or whatever instead of an entree, and know that it was paid in advance like with the DDP. That seemed like a really good idea to me.

Thats what I did and what ever I had left over I got to spend on souvenirs