Food $ per day....

[Wily Wily]

I am planning a trip to WDW for my family. Myself, wife and two sons age 8 & 6. I was wondering if anyone could give me some ideas on how much, per day, I should budget for?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mmeb144]

I budgeted $100/day for my family of 4. That's me, DH, DD 8, and DS 11. We really needed $125/day. Those kids are starting to eat! Look into splitting meals to help with the cost. Sometimes the kids are too excited to eat. Now, if only the adults had that problem!


Marie

 

[drogerstn]

You can check out menus with prices for park and resort dining at Deb's WDW Dining . Prices vary considerably depending on the restaurant and the time of day. You can take a look at the prices and come up with an estimate depending on the type of dining you expect to do during your visit.

We do a mix of sit down restaurants and buffets, counter service restaurants, and sandwiches and breakfast made in our room after a visit to the grocery. We buy some snacks at the grocery store and we will buy snacks in the parks occasionally as well.

I laid out a five day period on a spreadsheet and put in the prices I'd expect to pay for the various meals for each day. Using counter-service restaurants mixed with some in-room dining the dining costs might run around $80 per day for a family of 4 adults. Replacing a couple of counter-service and one in-room meal with 3 sit-down meals over a five day period would bring that average up to about $110 per day. Doing the same with another 3 sit-down meals in that 5-day period would bring the average up to $174 per day. Your kids should be able to eat off of kid's menus which will lower these amounts. These estimates include snacks and groceries.

 

[Teri Zolman]

We did a 6 day trip on $304 for 4. DH, Me, DD13, DS12. Let me explain. We did Chef Mickey's once. Counter service the rest of the time. Once we split double cheese burger combos at Cosmic Ray's, Rose and Crown walk up fish and chips, Pizza at resort, ABC Commisary, food court twice, turkey legs, various snacks. We brought snacks and drinks with us. We never seem to eat much when we are in the parks. We had soup on the go in our rooms that we heated up in the food court on our way to the parks in the afternoon. My budget was $600. The extra we used to reserve our room for our next trip. I understand this plan wouldn't work for every family but we were never hungry. Next trip I am going to give each kid $20 per day for food in the parks. If we have a sit down dinner I will pay. We are going to be with a large group and I think this will work better.

 

[Lory]

We have only been to Disneyworld once (april 2002) and I budgeted $100.00 a day for 15 days. That was for me, husband and 2 kids 4 and 9 at the time. Well we were so busy we didn't even want to stop and eat. We ate breakfast at Mcdonalds usually and then a late lunch in the park like around 2 or 3 oclock. The meals are big portions and for the 4 of us usually ran about $40.00. Spent about another $20 a day on drinks and such. Still had $700.00 left out of the food budget when we left!! We did one character breakfast and the rest counter lunches. If you are planning on fancy sit down restaurants of course then I would budget about $125.00 a day at least.
Hope this helps.

Only 332 days until our second trip to the world

Lory

 

[Teri Zolman]

I would say better to budget $100 and you should be fine that not enough. I always have a slush fun too. Happy planning.

 

[crisi]

It really, really depends....There are families of four that manage to spend $300 (or more) a day on food, and families of four that manage to spend $60 (and I'm pretty sure a few people here spend even less - by staying somewhere with a kitchen, packing lunches, eating dinner back at the condo, etc.)

Will you eat sit down a lot, or stick to counter service?

Do you snack (and will you buy them there or cart them in)?

Will you be drinking tap water (or bottled water you brought it) or pop you bought?

Do you think sit down meals need to come with appitizers, desserts and a glass of wine - or are you the type who goes to Don Pablos and get the appitizer quesadilla and drinks water?

Are you up for splitting meals? Disney portions (especially sit down) tend to be fairly generous (although not always, kind of eye the plates as you walk in).

Will you skip fries if they come with your burger?

Are you planning for three meals a day in the park - plus snacks - or one meal a day in the parks (breakfast in your room, big lunch, light snack/dinner in your room)?

When you go out for dinner, do you treat yourself to the most expensive thing on the menu, or do you always get the chicken or the pasta - because its only $12?

Are you going to do any special occation meals....dinner shows, character meals, nights out where you put the kids in a kids club?

Once you know these things, go to the menus at the link below.

 

[disneysteve]

crisi is absolutely right. The range of what folks spend on food is huge. I'm always amazed when I see the responses to this question.

On our last trip in November, there were 4 of us: myself, my wife, my MIL and our daughter who is 8. Including travel days, our total food spending for the week averaged out to less than $17/person/day, or about $67/day for all 4 of us. This included all meals, snacks and beverages. We ate 3 meals per day every day.

But I've read plenty of responses from couples who spend upwards of $100/day just for 2 adults. So it really depends on what, where and how much you eat and drink.

Steve

 

[VintageKnight]

Im looking at 70 a day w/ alcohal...

My family of 3 ( 28,33,and 4) can go to red lobster and be stuffed for 16 plus tip. ( gastric surgery is a miricle!!!), and dont scoff, Red Lobster is actually good in the central states...they have no compitition..!!=D

DisneyVK

 

[jvas]

I am planning about $250 a day for 5 adults ages 18,18,21
40 & 42..

that includes snacks..and maybe a beer or two.....

 

[crisi]

Oh yeah, alcohol.....

This last trip hubby and I discovered that you could have a rum drink while you sat by the pool watching the kids. And have another rum drink when you went to dinner (which was always sit down for us this last trip). We spent Steve's daily budget in little paper umbrellas. But our last trip was pretty functionally budgetless.

 

[disneysteve]

Originally posted by crisi
Oh yeah, alcohol.....

We spent Steve's daily budget in little paper umbrellas.

 

[jvas]

Those little umbrellas help protect you too against the hot Florida sun!

 

[threeboysmom]

For our family of 5, we usually budget about $40 for each counter service meal, and about $100 for each nice sit-down dinner that we want. Breakfasts are usually in the room (I'll buy a coffee in the parks though each day). Snacks usually run about $20 per day. Knowing that, it's easy for me to do a quick budget once I know where I want to eat during the week.

I should add that my DH and I do not drink alcohol, so our food budget reflects that choice.

 

[connie254]

I budget this for me and my son-so maybe double it for four people. We eat three meals plus two snacks-snacks are included in daily overage from the meals. One of the meals is a Character meal and the rest are counter.
Bkft-$20
Lunch-$25
Dinner-$35
Mind you that he has never eaten off the kid-s menu and he refuses to share with me, but I must share with him. If the character meal is bkft, then I readjust the other meals for the day.

 

[HaleyB]

I would have to agree with the it depends on your style... that said read the "connections" post. You can prepay counter service meals with vouchers. Everyway I look at it we save money on adult meals with these, I just hope some come out that are valid for our trip in June, current ones expire in May.

What we do is figure out where we want to splurge on food, for this trip we are doing 2 sit down dinners, and 2 charecter buffet meals. Use the link above to get price ideas. In real life we never eat that much in WDW. No one wants to stop for food, plus who eats in the heat?! We always have food budget money left over, but somehow we always find some other way to spend it...