Help with OOP dining costs for family of 7!!

[luvdisney77]

Ok, I have no clue as to what is a good amount of money to bring for food. We are not on the DDP, as we were last time.

We are staying at the Ft. Wilderness Cabins, and will be eating breakfast in our room every morning. We plan on doing two sit down meals (WCC and Ohana) while we are there, and the rest CS. Our 16 month old will be eating from our plate.

Anyone have a good idea of what to bring?

(I also posted this on the Families board, too)

 

[Nadjalu]

The only way for you to really know is "plan out your restaurants". Whether you stick to this plan or not is up to you.

But if you pick a place, then pick a meal for everyone in your party, add it up for every meal, every day, it will give you a good marker.

That is the only way to know how much. Each person is different, each restaurant is different. The only thing you must know is it is VERY expensive.

For example....DH and I just went on a 7day/6night trip. We were on the dining plan, but DH keeps the receipts to know what we "would've paid".

Each day for just the 2 of us we averaged $120-$150 per day with eating only CS lunch, TS dinner and 1 snack each.

(now during those days we bought a few things out of pocket like water, or a small snack and you can add $20 to the total)

So if we would've paid OOP it would've been between $860-$1070.00 for the trip for 2 of us.

Like I said...it is expensive.

 

[delmar411]

we've found that as a family of 6 (all on the dining plan) that we can't really beat the QSDP pricing when paying OOP so we just get the QSDP.
We've got 2 adults, 1 disney adult and 3 children. Works out to $140 per day which is $23.34 per person per day. That $23.34 gets each person 2 meals and 2 snacks per day. I really can't figure a way to beat it w/o cooking a lot of meals and carrying in meals to the parks.

 

[smb6]

Go to http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm and check out the menu's. This should give you a good estimate.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

For my family of 4 - 2 adults, 2 children - one CS meal costs us about $35. Kids meals are about $5 each, adult combos are about $8-10 plus $2.50 for a drink.

 

[bookwormde]

The best way to control$ it to order goceries and eat in the cabin ($200-300) and pack stuff in for lunch if you are not taking a break. Short of that I think QSDP is the best way since you will likely spend way over the $1,200 that will cost (unless you do not do snacks)

bookworm

 

[Darcy03231]

On average I've found kids CS meals to run $5-$7 and adults $8-$10. For table service meals kids run $15-$20 and adults $25-$30. A lot depends on where you're dining too. If you're going to do signature restaurants the price can drastically increase. Extra snacks/drinks will run about $5-$10 pp/per day extra.

We did an extended family trip one year with 9 of us (we stayed offsite) and one family was on a limited budget. We found the best thing for us that trip was to have a big breakfast at the villa, snack in the parks, go back to the villa in the early afternoon for a meal, swim, rest, have something light to eat before leaving to go back to the parks at night, and if we were hungry later get another snack in the park. If you have a full kitchen that might be an option for you.

 

[laughinplace199]

For CS meals, some of you could probably split meals which would help keep the cost down. My kids (11 & 9) will often split an adult order of chicken nuggets or an adult pizza. DH & I often split an adult CS meal as well, or DH will get his own and I'll share an adult meal with DS4. So, we often buy 3 adult CS meals for the 5 of us.

 

[Hootch]

For my family of 4 - 2 adults, 2 children - one CS meal costs us about $35. Kids meals are about $5 each, adult combos are about $8-10 plus $2.50 for a drink.

equates to what we saw last trip with the same family make-up. We would have a couple of snacks to split during the day also adding another $10-$15..

One thing not to forget is water. We drive and carry a couple of cases with us. A half liter bottle costs about $0.15/bottle at Costco versus $2.50 for a 20 oz in the parks. Even with carrying water into the parks we have to buy some bottles when these are empty or just too warm to quench the thirst. That can add up quickly over several days and with a large family.