Disney for a week for under 2000 are we crazy?

[momofsamandeden]

That is our budget with a 400 buffer but we really do not want to use this. I pretty much have everything paid for like hotel, car and airfare for 1200 so now I need to get tickets for about 688 and try to stay under 70 a day for meals for six days. Is it possible? Our plans are to share any meals we get at the park with our kids and eat off site.

 

[DansBride2009]

I think you can totally do this ! Are you on any kind of dining plan with Disney? That can really help save money.

A lot of time the portions at Disney meals are so huge, sharing won't be a problem ! My mom and I share all the time and it does help cut down on costs. Especially at the Itilian places (pasta is easy to share!).


Good luck and have fun !!

 

[happily single]

Very easy to do; be sure to pack drinks in your diaper bag/cooler. I also pack the little cups of cereal-they cost $1.00 each at the market, but the kids will eat them for breakfast and they work as a quick snack.

Lunchables and sandwiches are great for lunch.

 

[etraible]

Does your $2000 budget include the $1200 you spent on air/hotel? If so then your $688 for tix brings you up to $1888 and you will only have $112 for food. Or do you have $2000 for tickets/food/extras?

Either way, I suggest you go to www.allearsnet.com and check out the menu's. Especially the kids menu's. Most all of them are $5, which includes an entree, 2 sides and a drink.

Bring plenty of snacks - grapes, apples, raisins, cheerios, cheese crackers and the like and then order just an entree. The menu will list it as a combo meal but if you tell them you only want the hamburger it's a few bucks less.

Check out www.mousesavers.com - under WDW/Meals Snacks and Drinks is a section called "cheap eats in the parks and resorts" has excellent suggestions for you.

I think it's totally doable, most of the time we're really not very hungry anyways. Have a great time! Let us know how you did.

 

[momofsamandeden]

thanks guys. What I meant and sorry to be misleading is that it would be the 112 for meals plus a 400 cushion but we do not want to eat through that. We are planning on bringing cereal etc along and since our room has a fridge we can do milk and cereal if we had to. My dh is also a walmart employee so we get 10% automatically off purchases so we will get water and such there when we get settled in the hotel. I am just a little worried because we went from spending 7500 on a trip to under 2500 or we don't do it at all. We do have the buffer of my nana who lives about 30 minutes from Disney should we need to cook dinners there but I really want a vacation which means not cooking for me
I remember my mom making tuna sandwiches at outings and us complaining and now I see why she did it! I wish that disney offered a meal plan with a five day or longer ticket option!

 

[maggiew]

thanks I wish that disney offered a meal plan with a five day or longer ticket option!

I don't understand this part. You can get any length tickets. You just need to purchase at least one day to get a meal plan package. But it can be more than one day. Or am I not understanding your statement?

Maggie

 

[ChrisinNJ]

I don't understand this part. You can get any length tickets. You just need to purchase at least one day to get a meal plan package. But it can be more than one day. Or am I not understanding your statement?

Maggie

I could be wrong, but from her statement I would assume she is staying offsite. She can't get dining plan with ticket purchase if she isn't staying onsite.

 

[ohanaMAMA]

$112 for food? we spent that in a day! and we're talking counter service.

i guess you could do it if you carry in ALL of your meals and eat cheaply.. like pb&j for every meal.

i say it SHOULDNT be done. you will all be sick froma week of eating badly.

 

[2manypets]

Is it an option to wait and save up more money? $112 for the week for food for the whole family will be stressful and dang near impossible. The kids might want Mickey bars or something else they see and having to say no all the time will wear thin after a short period of time.

 

[sherry7]

So....you're budgeting $70 a day for meals for 2 adults, 2 small children, and a baby, right?

I think that's definitely doable, as long as you bring your own pop, bottled water, etc. You'll probably have a stroller, so you can put a smaller cooler under that, and pack some snacks for the kids too.

There are plenty of place off-site to eat on the cheap. We liked the breakfast buffet at Ponderosa for $3.99. Kids are probably cheaper than that. They get you on the drinks though, so try to talk everyone into drinking tap water. Take along some coupons from home too for places like Pizza Hut, Steak & Shake, etc.

 

[momofsamandeden]

yes it is 70 a day for meals with 112 for incidentals like trinkets although if we do the 70 then it is only 60 for trinkets. Staying on site even at Pop was 2600 and so we are trying to stay relatively under that. We are actually staying at the Regal Sun which I think will be okay based on the fact that they are going to try to give me a suite in the tower building since when we booked on Priceline they only had kings left. Even that works, we are going to put the kids twin airs in the suitcase just in case.
Trust me I have been reading up lol on things like steak and shake kids eat free on weekends.
The reason why we are going is that I had booked our airfare etc already before my van decided to give up the ghost. I literally bought the air the night before and then that next morning the van died ceremoniously in 9 degree cold with three kids in the car. Thankfully Disney refunded what we paid already and with the cost of fixing the van and there is 2200 roughly left which is our absolute budget cut off.

 

[auralia]

my husband and i and our daughter were eating for about 40$ a day on they days we didn't do a sit down meal... we brought muffins and bread and peanutbutter for breakfast with us so we never bought breakfast and we would share lunch hubby and i usually shared a double cheeseburger or a wrap of some kind or the bbq chicken like at cosmic rays and my daughter would get a kids meal. we brought all our water/milk with us so that isn't inculded in that 40$ we spent. we did the dining plan the trip before this one and for us it was WAY too much food and we spent way more having the plan then if we had just ate regularly because who really gets a dessert with every meal, i wouldn't normally buy 2 snacks every day and i always bring my own beverages into the park so getting the beverage with the meals wasn't a deal either ...

 

[pbharris4]

Stick with water and add ProPel Packets to it or some other flavor. Drinks really add to the bill. They are at least $2.50 pp and adds $10 for a family of 4. Stay away from appetizers and desserts too unless you share them.

 

[Lisa_M]

I'll tell you how we did the food for a week, it worked out very well. We did the offsite condo thing in June. On the night we got there we went to Publix and did some grocery shopping. Got some cereal and milk for breakfast (we brought oatmeal packets, granola bars from home), bought some fruit, like grapes especially because DD loves them, bought a few easy things for dinner, a pound of pasta, a jar of sauce and a pound of meat. That lasted us for a few dinners (2 adults and a 1 year old). We also got PB & J and bread for lunches and some pretzels. We bought a case of water as well. I also did a meal with chicken, but I don’t remember exactly what I made, maybe alfredo?

We ate breakfast in our condo, packed a sandwich lunch and snacks for the park. We also brought our water in everyday. That was a HUGE savings for us. We put 5 bottles in the freezer the night before, put them in doubled grocery bags in our backpack and as they would thaw we would drink them over the course of the day. We ate counter service twice for dinner, shared a meal at Tony’s in MK for lunch once and ate dinner out off-site once. The other nights we ate dinner in the condo.

We could have done this cheaper, but with the little cooking I did, it still felt like a vacation and we weren’t blowing all our money eating burgers and fries for a week.

 

[hatter]

Good Luck with the trip planning and I think you can totally do this with some planning! (This is from someone who loves to eat at WDW!!) If you plan quick easy breakfasts that you can do in your hotel room...cereal, muffins, bagels, etc...that will save a bundle. Plan your meals on site carefully. By sharing counter service meals or choosing some great snacks in place of a full meal (turkey legs, pieces of fruit, etc.), you can keep your costs down. Bringing in water and snacks (granola bars, crackers, things that will hold up well in the heat) will also save you from those budget busters!! Eating sit down meals off site will save money as well. As far as your trinket budget, think about stockpiling little items that you can pick up now from places like Target, Walmart, the Disney Store, the Dollar Store and bring those out for the kids when they are tempted by that $15 light chaser! You can do this!

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

FYI, my parents pick up sandwiches/subs from the deli at Publix, they are huge and sometimes they will split an Italian sub and get a bag of chips to go with it. They have the phone number programmed into their cell phone and call the order in on the way to the park. They also have wraps, etc and for an upcharge you can get Boar's Head brand meats. I read on here someone also likes Blimpie subs and there are coupons on their website, I haven't tried them yet but might next week when we go to Sea World since their food is completely over priced.

Another tip- if you do order a counter service meal in the park you can order an individual item or leave something out of the meal. For example, I like the pulled pork sandwich, but I never eat the baked beans. If you tell them to take it off the meal, you will save a little bit. Sometimes I will bring DD a PB&J and go up to the counter service restaurant and just order her an applesacue or jello, they will sell things a-la carte.

We buy a pack of water bottles and then a few gallons of bottled water and refill them back at the room. Also, counter service will give you water for no-charge, we always bring crystal light packets.

 

[poohfriend]

the money you'll spend at the grocery for food in the room/ packing water etc. And did you already include your normal weekly food budget in the $70/day.

it sounds like you already have your mind made up that you CAN do it...so I suspect you can. As long as you don't have high expectations I'm confident you'll be okay.

 

[hsmamato2]

Sharing at counter service will keep you under budget easily in the parks- we are a family of 4 ,all 'adult' eaters. We've never spent more than $80 for both dinner and lunch in the parks without even trying to be careful......we just buy ONLY what we'll eat. No extras,no throwing stuff away. Order items ala carte if needed,like one kids meal plus another small burger for 2 itty bitty kids to share-
If one kid gets a kids meal,and doesn't want the cookie,my DH will eat it for dessert,and we tend to share out what food we buy like this-
You could buy uncrustables for the kids at WM with your discount,bring them in daily,and maybe order FREE ice water from any place that has water in Disney(yes it's free) Or one large soda, that's a bucket of soda big enough for all 4 of us! For example, uncrustables for each child, Mom and Dad order a double burger meal at Pecos Bills, and load it up with veggies,split it and the fries,plus one large soda to share- that's $10 for lunch for all of you- my kids wouldn't have minded the pb&j if they could get a side of fries to go with it...
Share share share!
Eat offsite,steak and shake,etc. Mcd's for salads....some of the cheap buffets for a treat.....
Onsite, hunt out good eats at CS places and share,you can definitely do it,we do it -
if you have a stroller,keep a food bag packed for the kids,they don't care much about the food anyway!

 

[Ka' eo]

Definitely doable. You can take bread and nutella, or bread and the tuna pouches, bread and cheese (warm brie from the fla sun ). Oranges do fine, as does some of the small packages of fruit/applesauce or dried fruit and nuts. Make sure you bring drinks, esp water. I think you can do it for your budget, definitely. Share everything. You might keep from overeating too! If you need something else to eat, then you can buy something else. Do lots of counter services. Epcot, of course, is the best for that, but the other parks, esp AK have great varieties. You won't do many TS dins, but heck you can share an entree and 2 apps and do ok, but not every night. If you like alcohol drinks, bring your own and make cocktails by the pool at night from your room. You can even pack a nice libation in a thermos for Epcot. (I love pineapple with a little rum, or lemonade fusions (look up recipe online).

Have a magical time!

 

[britfish]

That is our budget with a 400 buffer but we really do not want to use this. I pretty much have everything paid for like hotel, car and airfare for 1200 so now I need to get tickets for about 688 and try to stay under 70 a day for meals for six days. Is it possible? Our plans are to share any meals we get at the park with our kids and eat off site.

Just checking the budget, I was a little confused. Budget is $2000.00

Airfare, hotel, car $1200
Park Tickets $ 688

so thats already 1888, so $112 leftover for food? Or if you are planning on $70 a day for 6 days then you are planning on using your buffer (plus a little). If you are comfortable using your buffer yes its doable especially if you hit the dollar store at home and buy some gifts so you dont have to while you are there. You said you really don't want to use your buffer, $112 is all you have left with out it, you are going to have to use some of your buffer to eat for 6 days.