Cost of food w/o the Dining Plan?

[INDisneyFanatic]

My friends and I (who are all college students) are planning a trip to Disney World during our Christmas break (the week before Christmas). We're trying to kind of budget the money we will need, so that we can go ahead and start saving. The dining thing is getting me. I know the Dining Plan is a great option, but I'm not really sure how much time we will want to spend at sit-down restaurants. If we don't use the dining plan, about how much money do you think we should set aside for food during the four days we will be there?

 

[allie_to_you]

This totally depends on how many and what kind of meals you plan to eat each day. Assuming you want to eat 1 Table Service, 1 Counter Service and get a snack each day, you should be fairly save setting aside $50 - $60 per person per day. Go to allearsnet.com to the dining section. Its a great website that gives you menu's and prices for every restaurant at Disney so you can better plan your dining budget.

 

[CherCrazy]

You might actually do better with the meal plan. The meals without the plan are pretty pricey, especially by the time you add drinks (even non-alcoholic) to the bill. It's ALOT of food on the meal plan, so you could probably skip breakfast, eat a big but early lunch, and not be hungry until dinner.

Have fun!!

 

[PlutoLuvr]

Don't forget to factor in the cost of staying in a WDW hotel to get that DDP, too. Even the values are running about 100 bucks per night.

The way we figure is three different options: (And I'm rounding up to account for taxes)

Onsite with DDP:

WDW value hotel - $100 per day
DDP - $40
OOP for incidentals - $20

For an estimate of $160 per day

Onsite with no DDP (room discounts doubtful the week before X-Mas):
WDW value hotel - $100
Food (three meals) - $60
Incidentals - $20

For an estimate of $180 per day

Offsite timeshare scenario (based on $200 for six nights):
Timeshare cost per night - $35
Food (three meals) - $60
Incidentals - $20
Parking - $12

For an estimate of $127 per day

For the timeshare scenario, I'm assuming you prepare none of your own meals. That figure would go down if you, for example, prepared your own breakfasts before heading out to the parks.

Likewise, if you like TS, your dining figures would go up in both the timeshare and onsite-but-no-DDP scenarios.

Just make sure you compare all of it! Staying onsite eliminates the need for a rental car and parking fees, but you can often find a much better value for accommodations alone offsite -- a condo, villa or timeshare if you're going with a group. All can stay in one unit and have their own bedrooms. We're going down next week with two other couples (six of us total), three-bedroom condo for $129 for the week. Comes out to $3.58 per person per night. That certainly leaves a lot of wiggle room for nice dining

 

[pinkstar15]

My boyfriend and i are also in college and are going in aug. At first we were gonna do the dining plan becuase it is a great deal but when i sat down and thought about it, i realized we could eat cheaper without the dining plan. By eating at mostly counter service restaurants we can save a lot of money and by getting water instead of soft drinks. However there are some restaurants that i really want to eat at. So i just plan to eat at 1 or 2 during my trip for lunch. Lunch menus are often a lot cheaper for the same food you get at dinner. We also plan to eat breakfast in the hotel room. We are staying for 3 nights and 4 days so we will try to eat for about $75each for our whole trip. I looked on allears.net and that really helped me price out each of our meals. Hope this helps and have fun on your trip.

 

[ZoZo]

I can't do the dining plan because I'm staying at Shades of Green, so I don't have a frame of reference between dining plan and non-dining plan.

But you can look at the menus and pricing of all of the restaurants ahead of time, which should help you budget. I know they're on allearsnet.com (and probably on this web site, too!). If you choose to do breakfast in your room (a real money-saver), lots of counter service, and some special table service, you should be able to save lots of money. At lots of places the meals are so big you can probably split them. You can also time your meals to have late breakfast/brunch (say, at Crystal Palace) and a light dinner. Lots of ways to save money.

 

[dbarker]

Go visit www.allearsnet.com. Deb has all the menus posted w/ prices. You should be able to do your budget from there.

To save money, we have bkfst in our room. I bring instant oatmeal from home. Last summer, we bought a bag of bagels and cream cheese from the gift shop. We always drink water--no soda. A cup of ice water is free. If you want it flavored, bring Kool-Aid or Crystal Lite packs from home. There are lots of ways to save $$ on food.

Good luch w/ your budget.

 

[tink&donald]

My boyfriend and i are also in college and are going in aug. At first we were gonna do the dining plan becuase it is a great deal but when i sat down and thought about it, i realized we could eat cheaper without the dining plan.

DH and I just returned from WDW. We originally had the dining plan added to our package, but dropped it when we realized our package would be $400 less without it. We thought that there would be no possible way we would spend $400 on food on a 4 day trip. Boy were we wrong! Counter service adds up as well as snacks, bottled water, and tips. By the end of the trip, we spent over $400 on meals. Keep in mind that we did not eat at the most expensive places or order the appetizer or dessert that comes with the dining plan. We did mostly counter service and had dinner at Libertry Tree Taven, lunch at Whispering Canyon, and a breakfast at Rain Forest Cafe.

We have done the dining plan in the past, and I will do it in the future. It is nice to sit down at a rest. and be able to choose the most expensive item on the menu if you want it. You also don't have to worry about or budget for tips.

As a former college student, I would advise getting the meal plan. You can be paying on it now and basically have no worries once you get to WDW!

 

[princess_disneymom]

I figured up and for 10 days we would be paying $800 for the DDP. We will have ADR's for 8 meals which will cost us around $550 (total for 2 adults and 1 child). We are renting a vacation home with my parents and my sister so there will be 8 of us and we will also do a little grocery shopping for breakfasts that we will be able to eat at the house and stock up on snacks to take to the parks. I am guessing that it will be pretty much even for us after all is said and done. Since we are not going to stay on property the DDP was not an option for us but I made that decision after calculating the price of what it would cost us to stay on prop w/the DDP or stay off prop w/out the DDP.

Last time we stayed it was just the 3 of us and we did stay on property with the DDP and it was perfect for that trip. Now that we have a bigger party we are staying elsewhere so we can all be together with more space.

Take a notebook and start writing down prices of what you would like to do and calculate it that way. I don't think either choice is a good or bad one it is personal preference.

 

[missypie]

We use our Dinsney Visa for everything and pay it in full every month. For our last trip, we had $1005 in FREE money from Disney Visa. I earmarked that for food on our trip. Our family of 5 was at WDW for 10 days and we used the last of the $1005 at lunch on Day 8. Thus, $1005 lasted 5 people 7 1/2 days....that means we averaged $26.80 per day per person. We ate whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted for the $26.80 per day. We ate at Brown Derby, the Castle, Le Cellier, Ohana and Cape May. We ate counterservice. (We did just have breakfast in our room.)

We did NOT order an appetizer and dessert with every meal, because we didn't want to take the time. I started out with a "sky's the limit" approach, and we'd order dessert after lunch...but then we'd sit there and realize that Magic Kingdom was right outside the door...we wanted to be out in the parks rather than eating creme brulee in a restaurant. (Plus, there are so many yummy treats to grab in the parks.)

 

[pezheadmeg]

It all depends on what your eating habits are.

The one time I did the DDP it was way too much food, and while it was a good deal I would've never ordered that much food to begin with.

The last trip, we did all of 2 table service meals one at Planet Hollywood since the Magic Your Way package came with PH vouchers. The other one was lunch at Sci-Fi and with alcoholic drinks the whole bill for 3came to under $60. In terms of drinks within the resort the refillable mug cut down on the cost. Granted I was traveling with 2 other grazers, so we all much would rathe have popcorn and ice cream while making our way through the park then a sit down restuarant meal any day.