Food costs for family of 6

[lutz]

Our first visit to WDW in July. Can anyone give me an estimated cost of what we will spend on food per day. Trying to plan a budget. One child is an infant so it is really 2 adults and 3 kids. <IMG SRC="/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif" alt="confused">

 

[bigmickeymike]

Hi Lutz - Welcome to DIS

this is kind of a hard question to answer, because so much can influence it...ie/all 3 meals on site? "type" of places you're gonna eat at...etc.etc.

Assuming you're basically eating at counter service type places, you can proably plan to spend $60-$100 per day. Of course the target goes up if you plan to do places like Le Chefs in France (epcot) or Calif. Grill (at contemporary).
Keep in mind that your basic hot dog w/fries and drink will kill $5-6, and counter service places will set you back $10-$15 per adult per meal.

At least that's what I've seemed to experienced.
Hope it helps! There are some really good $ saving ideas on the budget board, even about saving on the food budget. Have a great trip!

 

[Mic]

We are a family of 6, too...myself,DH,and kids 6,8,10, and 12. We usually budget $150 a day for one sit-down and 1 counterservice, and breakfast in the room. Occassionally, we will have a character breakfast, a late sit-down lunch, and pizza in the room for dinner, and might spend a little more than $150. Most times, we have breakfast in the room, a nice sit-down lunch around noon, and a counter service dinner or pizza at the pool. With one child being an infant, you should be fine with $150/day.

 

[JorJor]

My DH is a bodybuilder, so he eats ALOT! Me and my dd9 are lighter eaters...but my ds3 and dd 1 1/2 are big eaters, too. (Believe it or not, my 1 1/2 yr old eats as much as my dd9!!) I was reading the other posts that say around $150 a day, and that would seem about right for my family. All I'm wondering is, is that amount WITHOUT splitting any meals? I've read that they serve large portions. Is that true even for counter service, or is that just for sit downs? <IMG WIDTH="15" HEIGHT="15" SRC="/infopop/emoticons/icon_razz.gif" alt="razz">

 

[SueM in MN]

I usually share a meal with my youngest dd. The portions at the counter service restaurants are quite large. The soft drink sizes are huge. You can save money by sharing and asking for extra cups. We also just get ice water with a lot of meals; saves money and is better for you.

SueM in MN
Co-Moderator of disABILITIES

 

[Mic]

We rarely "split" meals, but there are a few places where the portions are large, in my opinion. Le Cellier in Epcot is one place where hubby and I share the large porterhouse steak(20 oz., I think)and each gets a salad(him caesar, me regular)and the kids each get a kids meal. Tony's in Magic Kingdom has a child's pizza that is the same size as a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut, so 2 kids(or 1 adult) could easily share this. I have even ordered the kids ravioli and a salad at Tony's when I wasn't very hungry without a problem. I am sure there are other places, but I am drawing a blank! Oh, one other idea...the first time we had dinner at 'Ohana's I was "full"
for 24 hours!(LOL) I am not as knowledgeable about counter service meals, but I do know that a family of 6 usually costs $30-40, which is just a little less than a nice sit-down lunch, so we save this for dinner each night, and find that we are not usually as hungry after a nice lunch.

 

[ALostBoy]

Hi lutz,

Welcome to the DIS. You know what your family
will eat better than anyone. I would suggest
that you follow the link below to wdwig's menu
page. Here you can scroll down and find menus
of resturants in each park. I went to the menus
I thought would be good and guessed what my
family most likely would order. I knew when
we could share meals and when we couldn't. I just
made a list for each day and added the up the
total. Good luck.

Menus

ALostBoy

 

[suevee]

There are various opinions about buffets. Personally my family likes them. An all you can eat dinner buffet runs $28 per adult and $14 per child. The lunch and breakfast buffets are less. The sit down restaurants are much more. I would include a few PS for lunch or a late breakfast at the character buffets then have a lite breakfast and/or a lite dinner. Also if you go off site the meals are less. Golden Corral buffet is around $6.95 per adult. Hope this helps.

suevee