Food cost per day

[mcm574]

I'm working on the budget for our April 2016 trip for myself, husband, and sons (who will be 7 - and fussy - and almost 3 - and willing to eat just about anything [of course, their eating habits could change dramatically within the next year!]).

We will be there for a week and hope to do four table service dinners, with other dinners and lunches counter service; we will be doing breakfast in our rented house every day; and I do want to factor snacks into my food budget.

I try to overestimate as a general rule so that we won't get surprised by a higher cost than planned (and, we hope, we'll be pleasantly surprised by spending less!).

With those details in mind, I've run the numbers, and I'm coming up with an average of about $150/day for meals and snacks. I'm just hoping for a sanity check here - does that seem about right to all you veterans on here? Any factors I haven't considered?...

Thanks!

 

[gerilyne]

I think that seems reasonable. I know when my DH and I went we averaged about $100 per day with the exception being the dinner at BB where it was almost $100 for the two of us, but to be fair we did both order the surf and turf

I think this year for DH, myself and his step son who is going to be 28, I'm hoping to average about $200 per day not including our character breakfast, Napa Rose, and Fantasmic BB dinner.

 

[kirstie101]

yea if you're averaging it out then that sounds about right to me. My family is close in ages to yours and we probably average out to $130 a day with 2-3 table service meals and the rest counter service with breakfast eaten in our hotel room.

 

[cmpeter]

That's about what my teen dd and I spent. We did 1-2 table services meals and breakfast at La Brea.

You can look up menus to get a better idea based on what you think your family would order.

 

[peterpanandwendy]

Yeah, that's about what we budget. More for certain TS places like Blue Bayou. Usually I take a look before hand at what I think I might want to order and then I do my budget from there.

 

[figment_jii]

I think $150 will be okay for days when you are only doing CS, but it's going to be an under-estimate for days when doing a TS. The average CS adult entree is between $10 and $15, drinks are about $3, desserts are variable, so with tax, I would figure about $20 per adult at a CS location (kid's meals are about $7 and toddler meals are about $5). So, I think you're looking at about $50 per CS meal for two adults, one kid, and one toddler (don't forget to add a little more to account for price increases in the next year). So that leaves you about $50 per day for snacks (which can go fast - becaus emost things are in the $4 to $6 range). On days when you're doing a TS meal, I think the budget will need to be higher. It depends on where you're going, but I would budget about $75 to $100 for a TS meal to be safe.

 

[keltiesmom]

When we went last time we were a family of 5. We brought in snacks and bottled water as well as PB&J sandwiches for the kids some days. We budgeted $100 a day for food and souvenirs. It was tight but we did it! Our younger 2 were under 3 so free at character meals. This trip we have a much larger budget but we also have 4 kids now instead of 3, and the 3 older ones aren't free anymore.