Gift Card alternative to Dining Plans

[ragtopday]

For our upcoming July trip we discussed doing the QSDP and finally decided that it was too expensive and too much food for our crowd, especially during the hot summer months.

Originally we thought the QSDP would be good for us since we'll have teens with us who will likely be off on their own for at least a portion of each day. We thought it would be easier to let them get what they wanted, when they wanted, without having to worry about price.

Our new thought is to load a Disney gift card with an amount for them to use for meals and snacks when not with us. The QSDP is $34.99 per day, so I was thinking maybe $25 per day (they don't need desserts with every meal!), or maybe even less? They will likely eat at least some meals with us (parents and younger kids) but not all.

So my question is: if you were going to do this for teens, how much would you put on per day, and what would you expect the kids to cover with it?

TIA!

 

[MsPeggySue911]

I would be a little hesitant to do the gift card thing as opposed to the dining plan simply because, say you load $25 on the gift card and they use that up eating some snack, some drinks, a CS meal and go to get something else and the card is empty and they are out of money?

At least with the dining plan you know they can get a CS meal or two depending on how long they go off on their own, and get snacks. 2 a day if you get the QSDP. I think with several teens the QSDP would be the more convenient, safer bet as to them not embarrassing themselves with an empty gift card.

 

[sharonabe]

Most CS meals with a soda are $12 or less. Snacks are $2-$4. So, $25 means they can easily get one meal and 3 snacks or 2 meals. It would depend on how many meals you want them to buy on their own and how many they will share with you and who pays for that meal.

As PP said, they could always use the card to buy souvenirs and such, but as long as they know they don't get any food if they use it all, I'd say, let them have at it.

 

[libraryfreak]

At various times, our local supermarket offers 20c off a gallon of gas when you buy $50 worth of gift cards. Normally its 10c. You can buy up to 30 gallons of gas, so when the promo is 20c you'll save $6.00. Thats a 12% savings. Do you have anything like that where you live?

I'd trust my teens to buy food, and if they don't, it'll be a good budgeting lesson.