Cheapest Disney trip without travel expense?

[disneydreamersx4]

good question about how much food costs. We've only vacationed at Disney one time and that was with the dining plan. When we vacation somewhere else, we save by bringing breakfast food to eat in our room and buy sandwich fixings for lunch. But if we do go out to eat breakfast or lunch we estimate the 4 of us (pretty much all adult servings now) $25 for breakfast, $35 for lunch (fast food or sandwiches) and $70 for dinner or we might do a late lunch/early dinner so that would eliminate the $35 for lunch. Some of our vacations are camping so then our food budget is much less where we cook mostly all meals.

 

[DawnM]

Last trip:

SkyAuction.com condo for $149 for 7 nights, including tax. We ate most of our own food and even brought lunches and snacks into the park (used our normal $150 in grocery budget) and purchased about $100 in food extra while there.

So, food and lodging $250 for a week, plus our normally scheduled $150/grocery budget, so I don't include that as it isn't "extra."

Dawn

BTW: We can get $750 tickets for all 5 of us for 5 day hoppers and 4 vouchers to Disney Quest or the waterparks....so if you add that in, it would be $1,000 for a week.

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

After reading all of these posts, just wondering how much everyone normally spends on food for their trip, because so many people are saying that they have saved so much money by taking advantage of the times with the free dining. For me, I find those "free dining" times to be outrageous! You spend way more for the room and you have to pay for the tickets as well.... So, my question is... how much do ya'll pay for food each day?????

There are just 2 of us and we spend about $50/day and that is for 2 CS meals at the park or resort. That would be 2 combo meals and 2 drinks. We have been known to get something we could share and maybe an extra order of fries. Sometimes we will just share a large drink and that cuts out some expense.

I have found that it is only beneficial to us to use the DDP when we are staying for a longer visit and want to do several TS meals.

I have not found it worth it to stay offsite, I guess because we are only 2 adults and I have never found a rate as good as I can find at Pop. And to me, it costs more (in time and money) to trek offsite for food and I personally don't want to cook on vacation.

Suzanne

 

[Mickeyluver37]

I don't have exact numbers but in 2009 we did free dining at Pop Century. The kids were 18 mos, 10, 12, so that would be 4 adults and one "infant." We did a lot of character meals and all you can eat type places so we didn't have to pay anything at all for the baby. 4 adults on the dining plan cost more than the August rate at Pop, which I believe was $82/night. Of course the biggest expense was the tickets. We did not have AP's or leftover tickets, so had to get 4 adult 8 day passes.

And I know you said not including transportation, but we drove (we normally don't consider not flying!) so that was pretty cheap, too.

 

[My3kiddos]

There was 6 (3 adults, 2 teenagers, and 1 child) of us and we spent $2141 plus food for 10 nights in October. I would estimate food at $1000 (not exactly sure because I didn't keep real good track of it and we ate in some). We stayed in a house in Clermont which is about 10 minutes from Disney. We had 5 day park hoppers with water parks from the YES program. We only did 5 days because we went to Universal for 2 days and we bought to the Halloween Party at Disney 1 night (those tickets aren't included in the price).

 

[Mickeyluver37]

After reading all of these posts, just wondering how much everyone normally spends on food for their trip, because so many people are saying that they have saved so much money by taking advantage of the times with the free dining. For me, I find those "free dining" times to be outrageous! You spend way more for the room and you have to pay for the tickets as well.... So, my question is... how much do ya'll pay for food each day?????

We don't really eat any differently whether we are on the dining plan or not as far as TS goes. We always schedule one every day. Also, I think maybe our trip in 2007 was actually cheaper than our last trip, simply because they took our gratuities. Now the value is even less because you don't get the free regular dining plan with the values.

Now, before THAT...our trip in 2005, we took my Mom and DS wasn't born yet. The 5 of us stayed at The Yacht Club, and I think our room charges for food and alcohol, plus purchasing 5 mugs was around $2,000 for 8 days. We ate pretty much every dinner at Epcot.

 

[kristenrice]

October 2009 for my birthday...

*Standard room at Pop Century for 5 nights (split 50/50 with my BFF) : $177
*Food (5 TS, 5 CS, groceries and F&W expenses): $263 (Some of our TS meals were split)
*Park Tickets: $0...I had an annual pass that was to be used for two other trips so this trip was like a "bonus"

So, not including airfare, I spent $440 for my 5 night stay....

...But my airfare was AWESOME....

I had (2) $25 coupons for AirTran and (8) A+ credits (4 were mine and 4 were my DD's) which were set to expire. I was able to book R/T airfare from DTW to MCO using both coupons AND I was able to apply the A+ credits to upgrade to BC there and back. My TOTAL cost for non-stop, round-trip, business class was.............$69.20!!!

 

[StitchBuddy]

We are a family of three. We went for a week 4years for about $1200 staying onsite at POFQ. I think we paid around $130-$140 a night. But, we had non-expiration tickets from our previous trip. I think that is the best thing to do if you plan on going more than once. We buy 10 day park-hoppers with water parks and more and can get 3 trips out of them. Plus we can skip a year and do something else. I know a lot of people like the annual pass. But for us this works. So we will have one very expennsive trip and then 2 really cheap trips. The cheapest we every took was for about $500 all we had to do was buy our tickets, our friends had a condo for free from parents timeshare. That was great!! We also only spend about $40 a day on food. We eat breakfast and one other meal in the hotel. We get tired of eating out all the time.

 

[HS3kids]

I can't wait to try free dining

Thinking about another trip is probably helping a lot of us in cold, snowy areas

AMEN! Buried in snow in MA, dreaming of warm sunny Florida and wearing Mickey ears! Dying to get free dining too- last time we missed it by a week!

 

[disneydreamersx4]

Oh my, please tell how you missed it by a week?

 

[mousiemom]

some of our cheapest trips were when we had APs and did the room only discounts and just ate in our room a lot and one of our 7 nights trips was like $480.00. like others, the best deal for us in the free dining and we can go and stay @ pop, 7nights, base tickets, me, dh, and 10yr dd and the total was $1300.

 

[DisneyScraps]

It was one of our best vacations. Two summers ago.

I drove so it was just gas and no rental car

I got a 2 bedroom timeshare from Sky Auction for less than $300 for a week. I was just a few miles from Disney.

Some meals were made in the kitchen. I shopped sales ahead of time and used coupons and brought down my own groceries.

We needed tickets I was able to use the military so it was 99.00 for each of us I think for the park hoppers.

Add in a few meals, whatever shopping I forget but I did the entire 10 days for less than 1,000 for me and my DD.

She really liked having her own bedroom in the Timeshare.

I am hoping to do that again this summer only this time I want 2 weeks for 1,000 that is going to be a little tougher but we won't have to buy tickets, we have a bunch of remaining days that will cover the Disney portion and I bought 5 day universal passes for less than $100 3 or 4 years ago and never used.

I loved the luxury trips, AKL, GF, The Poly and perks like spa days, V&A and the signature restaurants but the cheapie vacations can be a lot of fun too. Hey, it's Disney what is not to love!

Lisa