Gas and Food Costs? need an idea of totals ..

[Redriva]

Hi all

we are thinking of changing our plans and booking a villa and car hire rather than the current plan of a disney resort and no car ..

but in order to work out if its worthwhile looking at this i need some of the people with more experience out there to give me an idea of what kind of total costs we would be looking at for food and gas for the car...

we will be there for 14 days, will most likely be looking to be at disney parks for most of those, plus 1 day at seaworld, 1 day at Busch Gardens and 1 or 2 days at universal ... we will only be driving to and from the parks so it would be no more than 40 miles a day average ...

as for food, there will be 3 adults and 2 teens - we would be looking to have a cheap breakfast in the villa in the morning, eating lunch at the parks , and dinner about half the time in the parks and about half on I-drive or 192 ...

any ideas would be great!

thanks!
angela xx

 

[Debi]

Bump! Any suggestions?

 

[mareed]

I'll take a stab at it.

I've been using an estimate of $2.50/gallon for gas. I generally assume 20 miles per gallon. Since you say you'd estimate 40 miles per day (& I think that sounds about right), that's 2 gallons or $5 per day. For 14 days, that's $70.

For food, you're basically feeding 5 adults since you have no children under 10. We typically eat breakfast at our condo, lunch at a table-service in the park (since it's generally cheaper than dinner) and dinner at counter service in the parks. This also sounds similar to your plans. We don't buy any alcoholic drinks and will sometimes share an entree between DH & I and then order appetizer and/or dessert also. So, while we do eat at table-service restaurants, we somewhat economize (but do get plenty to eat!).

Our average adult cost for meals out is around $30/day. We buy groceries for breakfasts at our condo, and I estimate $2 - $3 per person per day for this, which is usually about right. We have Disney Dining Experience card which saves 20% on Disney table-service meals (we have AP to qualify for this). Without the DDE, I'd say $35 per day is more realistic. So, I'd guess an average of $35 + $3 or $38 per person per day. For your 5 adults, I'd say $190 total each day. For 14 days, that's $2660.

Hope that helps!

 

[Redriva]

I'll take a stab at it.

I've been using an estimate of $2.50/gallon for gas. I generally assume 20 miles per gallon. Since you say you'd estimate 40 miles per day (& I think that sounds about right), that's 2 gallons or $5 per day. For 14 days, that's $70.

Our average adult cost for meals out is around $30/day. We buy groceries for breakfasts at our condo, and I estimate $2 - $3 per person per day for this, which is usually about right. ... So, I'd guess an average of $35 + $3 or $38 per person per day. For your 5 adults, I'd say $190 total each day. For 14 days, that's $2660.

Hiya

thank you so much for the help!! you have given me almost indentical figures to 2 other people on other boards and also close to what I had already worked out, so i know this should be pretty accurate and really help us with planning

we found out that the minivan we will be driving will do between 15 and 19 miles/gallon (depending on journey length) so its easier to work that out now(i also worked the numbers using $2.50/gallon)

We do plan to eat in pretty much the same as you except we will most likely have a counter service lunch (or similar) in the parks and a bigger meal for dinner as thats the way we normaly eat - but the figures hold true for both

-this amount works out to around £1370 (depending on the exchange rate at the time) and we have already put away £1600 to cover this so we should be able to splurge a bit the last few days

I hope you wont mind another question since you seem to be familiar with the disney places to eat can you give me some suggestions on the best places where we would be able to have at least the kids share a meal as i know the portions there are going to be way too big for them (and probably for us too) ... we could also do with some tips on good places to eat on i-drive and the surrounding area ?

thank you again from the UK!
angela