Disney Spending..Help

[cjhentschel]

How much do you take to Disney to spend on food and souvenirs?? Do you take cash, travelers checks or what about putting money on a check card?? I know alot of people get the dining plan with their trip but what if you don't want the plan - what are the advantages & disadvantages of the plan?? How do you get the plan if you buy your tickets at the Disney Store?? Any advice or help will be appreciated !!! Thanks!!!

 

[tjmouse]

The only thing I can tell you about the dining plan is you have to book it with a package, so if you buy your tickets at the Disney Store, you won't be able use them with the dining plan.

As far as money goes, it's so hard to tell someone how much to bring. With just me and dd (4), we do a counter service and a table service each day usually and a snack or two, spending around $40-$60 a day for the two of us, depending where we eat. I usually set a souvenier limit before I go, but my last trip was almost 2 weeks and I bought a lot of Christmas stuff, so I blew my budget out of the water.

As far as payment, I pay for EVERYTHING with my room key, secured by my Disney Visa. That way I get points as well and the receipt they give you tells you where you spent every dime. I personally wouldn't do it any other way. I tend to lose cash for some reason!

 

[HappyGramma]

We did a package for our trip in Sept 05 when WDW was including the meal plan for free. It was nice to go to a couple of the restaurants that we normally wouldn't spend the money on, but if I had to pay for the dining plan I probably would not do it again. I ate soooo much in those 4 days that I thought I was going to burst. We usually only do a few sitdown meals in a week's time at WDW and to do 4 in 4 days was way too much. I ended up feeling a bit sluggish. As far as how much money to plan on it really depends on where you want to eat and want you figure you want to get for souvenirs. I didn't spend $300 on this last trip and that included drinks and things to bring home for the granddaughters. When I took my oldest DGD in Dec 04 I spent somewhere around 1500.00 for the week for meals, souvenirs, tips and such. I had just over $400.00 in Disney Dollars (included in the 1500) that I brought for our shopping spree at DTD. I usually only go to WDW once every 2 years and I save my change, have tag sales, returns soda cans to make sure that I don't have to worry about not having enough money to spend. I have used my bank card at WDW several times, as a matter of fact I have used it in Hawaii, France & Germany too. Never had a problem. Hope this helps.

 

[cara loves the poly]

Our family stayed 5 days w/o the dining plan,,, we spent about $1500.00 on food and souvenirs. hope this helps.

 

[cara loves the poly]

also,, we just used our debit card.

 

[mhingher]

We usually just use our debit card and keep some cash on hand. IT's just DH and I right now... so we plan on spending about $100/day on food (some days end up more, some less) and about $200 in souvenirs... If you're looking to save some money, we try to have light breakfasts in the room before heading into the parks. (i.e. cereal, muffins, wheat bread w/peanut butter, etc.) We'll try to limit ourselves to one sit down meal/day, and stick mainly w/counter service.

 

[eliza61]

You didn't say the size of your family, so I'll just give you my families experiences. We're a family of 4 and we usually stay at a vacation club villa so we have access to a full kitchen, which helps us keep our food prices down. Since my kids are teenagers (& boys) I try to budget $175 a day for food. We always have a sit down dinner, it gives us a chance to relax and talk about our favorite part of the day but it also tends to be expensive. We don't spend that much on souvis' though, usually just T-shirts for everyone and maybe a pin here or there. My kids save their money through out the year and get to buy their own treasures.

Hope this helps

 

[catbertdave99]

We are a family of 3 (myself, Dad), and my DS14 and DS11. We don't eat in sit-down restaurants hardly at all -- the boys and I love the rides, and we like to just hang out casual at the resort. With that in mind, I plan that we'll spend about $100/day on food and souvenirs combined, all charged to my room key. I don't take much cash at all. Last April we took my DS14's friend. I kept my planned budget at $100/day and just relaxed and didn't pay any attention to what we spent. I got lucky -- we spent less than I planned, even with the extra person! Everyone is different, I guess.

 

[helens042266]

We are a family of 5 (Me, DH, DS (16) DS (11) DD (9), and we are planning for about $100.00 a day on food in the parks. We will eat breakfast in our condo and we have booked 4 sit-down meals (these meals I did not include in the $100, I am putting money aside for those days). I went to the Disney Restaurant forum and found a link to all the restaurants in Disney. It listed all the prices for food and I just sort of planned a few days to see how much we would spend. You might try that. We will bring a little cash, but I feel much safer using my bank card. I have been know to lose money!!
We are staying for two weeks and my budget for food and souviners is about 2500.00. We have been saving for a loooong time! Every little penny helps! Although we are taking $2500, I am hoping to NOT spend that much!

 

[TSirgey]

Our family of 3 brought about $500 in cash. We immediately put the cash in our hotel safe and only took $60/day with us to the parks. The only thing we used the cash for water and snacks and a couple souvineers at smaller stands. Everything else you can use a debit/credit card to pay. We did not usually spend the $60, so we would just get the difference out of the save to make $60 every day. We spent about $1500 on food/souvineers also for 7 days.

 

[indigoxtreme]

The dining plan is great, all paid for and tax and tip included. A good way for you to compare what your family size would eat for cost basis is to go to allearsnet.com and look at the dining info along with the menus. The cost etc of each item is there. Add up 1 days meals include tax and tip and see if you would spend out of pocket more than what the dining plan cost for 1 day. We love the plan and yes there is a lot of food. However for cs and some TS's you can share a meal and save some credits for Breakfast or signature dining. By the way this past sept we actually lost weight because of all the walking and activities even with all the food included in the dining plan. We are doing the plan again in Feb. If you use the plan you may want to give each of your children a budget for souveniers that they can spend on the trip to the world, they will not then be begging the whole time for everything in eyesite to buy. We have always done this with our children beginning at age 4 and up. Most of the time as they got older they took their own $ that they had earned. You will probably only need around 50.00 or less a day if you use the dining plan for all extras above the soveniers. Probably less