How much do you spend

[DaddyDisney]

Just thought I'd ask. I have a 15 DS and a13 DD along with my wife. We're not hard drinkers, but on vacation we do dringk 3 or 4 a day. What's our bill at the end f the cruise going to look like? I'm thinking about letting the kids have full charge privilages asking them to be "resonable". What do you think?

Thanks!

DaddyDisney

 

[KYCruiseCrazy]

we spent on our 3 day wonder cruise right about 700 but we also got lots of gifts. we figure we can now do it on 600.

 

[Otimon]

I would first find out what their idea of "reasonable" is before granting any charge privileges.

What we have always done for ourselves is asked to be put on a cash paying basis instead of using a charge card. They always gave us a credit of $200.00 so that was our limit. Kept us from going overboard for which we were very happy when it came time to pay up on the last night.

You might try arranging a cash limit for your youngsters and let them decide how to spend it. When it's gone, it's gone! Bet they will be a lot more careful with what they spend. You can then decide if you want to extend it.

Best wishes and have a wonderful time.

 

[two-foxes]

No kids for us, but for my DH and I, our balance was $1100 for 4 nights. We purchased the wine package and a few drinks other than that, bought some things on board, had cabana massages (that was around $300), ate at Palo, and were charged for our dolphin and castaway package excursion.

I think it really depends on what your idea of "reasonable" for your kids is, what I consider reasonable, my DH sees as very conserative spending.

Clarify it to your kids, set a budget (but don't forget excursions booked through Disney) and spend away!

 

[LinniePooh]

Our 16 year old will be with us and we are also going to give her full charge options. We'd like to discuss with her what is reasonable spending, but I am curious ... what type drinks are offered for the teens in their coffee bar and how much do they generally cost? She loves coffee drinks and smoothies. Thanks!

 

[sanela]

BRING ALL DRINKS WITH YOU THAT YOU WANT.THAT WILL SAVE YOU AT LEAST 200-300$

 

[tecdavidt]

We just got back from 3/20 7 day. Our charges were $1700. We are a family of 3. Our 11 yr. old daughter went crazy in the arcade. She alone spent a little over $200!!! in 7 days. We already had a talk. Next cruise she may not have charge privilages after day 1 if she repeats herself. This amount includes, spa, drinks, photos, tips, shops and the arcade. Kathy

 

[clh2]

I agree with a previous poster - if you want to keep it reasonable - S-P-E-L-L it out to your kids how much they can spend - before you go on the cruise. You can go to guest services at any time to get a printout of your charges. And, it will be listed by the charger. Once your children hit their limit - they're done.

Also - if you want to bring on some wine/beer or other beverage for your enjoyment while on board - Disney doesn't mind. And, it will be much cheaper than getting expensive drinks while you are on the ship.

If your children are big soda drinkers - consider the soda package. Unlimited soda for the duration of the cruise for roughly $5/day. There are 2 sides to this - some people think it is a waste of money - I didn't. Otherwise, soda is about $1.50 plus the 15% gratuity that is automatically added in.

 

[Jules1]

We were on the Magic 3/13 sailing. Our bill was $2015.00. Our kids did not spend over $100.00. Guess the rest was ours....

 

[PenskeSth1]

We are a family of 4, and on our cruise we spent $2000.00 that was our entire bill. DH paid on our bill every night so we did not owe anything at the end of the cruise which was nice. We brought our own soda and water and we got each of the kids 20.00 worth of arcade cards to last the 7 days. Although beins how the arcade had no ticket games they really weren't into it. No excursions here. Although we did buy a couple bottles of wine and many many souveniers.

 

[immalemon]

We are a party of 3 (my mom, me, and my 4 yo DD. We are doing the land/sea package---3nights WDW, 4Ncruise. Anyway, we have approx. a little under $1000 for the resort, and about $1500 for our cruise. We are doing the dolphin encounter and I may want to get a massage....we'll see, but do you think we'll be able to have a good time on this budget?

 

[jvas]

our WDW vacations have been around 4-5 years apart...so when we go....we don't like to have to worry about money on what
I consider a vacation to top all vacations! (A WDW vacation!)

For our upcoming vacation....which includes 4 nights at WDW at the POR resort and the 4 day Wonder cruise, for 5 of us, ages 18,18,21,40 and 41,..we are taking $3500.00 this includes for excursions and drinks.

 

[two-foxes]

We are doing the dolphin encounter and I may want to get a massage....we'll see, but do you think we'll be able to have a good time on this budget?

I think you guys should be fine on the cruise. We spent what I said above for the 4 night and we (well, I should say, DH) kind of spent at will. I think your budget is nicely padded for your cruise, and you should be able to enjoy a massage, a dolphin encounter and several good drinks!

 

[ericamanda01]

I don' t have children so I can't help you there. However when DH-2-be and I went we bought 2 bottles of rum at our first port. We did have drinks onboard the first night, but after seeing the price of the drinks we decided to mix our own. We also purchased a refillable mug for soda which worked out so when mixing the rum the soda was cold and ready. We did buy wine each night at dinner, so combinded with that and all the extras, we spent around $700 on a 4 night cruise. By the way having read over this it looks as if we drank 2 bottles of rum in 4 days. Actually we went home with 1 & 1/2 left.

 

[professorandmom]

I think one of the hardest things is to decide what is "reasonable" for the kids if you don't know how much things cost and what opportunities there are:

I pulled out my expense print out. Here are a few of my kids items to give you an idea (July 2003 prices)
arcade cards are in $5, 10 and 20 increments but they don't last long. My DTS9 went through about $50 (their money)

the smoothies are 4.03 (there are lots of these charges, CMs carry the tray with the smoothies already made to the kids...very tempting)

candy at preludes (watch that one!) 7.48 (I encouraged them to go to scoops to get m&ms etc but well....)

most of the shirts and other goodies were in the 20's in the shops, so these charges were $22 something

hair brading $22 (headband style)

bottle of water $1.73

floats and snorkle on cc $16 each kid

I had a few drinks and some wine, no spa and the total was 859 for all four of us, I had about 355 in disney dollars, disney visa credits and room credits.

Have a great time
Barbara

 

[CheapMom]

ProfessorMom- thanks for those details- very helpful.
I am keeping DS (7) away from the arcade. My guess is that on the 4 day cruise there will be enough to do without having to spend big bucks in the arcade.
I think we will be able to keep our bill very low. We will have everything paid for before our vacation starts- that makes it so much more enjoyable. I don't want to get slammed with a big bill at the end.
We are doing no excursions or spa. We are bringing some beer,wine, drinks. We have already talked to the kids about purchasing sodas, smoothies... They will be having free drinks from the drink station.
We are not big souvenier people but the kids will have some of their own money for the gift shop. (Can they use cash?)
Expenses we plan on include Palo and tipping generously. How low do you think we can go?

 

[crisi]

It's possible to walk off the ship not having spent a dime (other than tips - and there are people who don't spend a dime there - naughty people!).

Seriously, how low can you go?

Photos - take your own.
Drinks - drink the free stuff. Bring your own pop and booze.
Excursions - walking around the port can be a lot of fun.
Spa treatments - kids in the kids clubs, hubby and you in the room with massage oil.
Video games, bingo, etc. - don't do them.

We spent a ton, but none of it NECESSARY to a fun vacation. Souvieniers, photos, liquor and a few excursions.

So you get to decide - do you want to put $100 towards photos, or will your own camera do fine? Do you want smoothies by the beach and a Bahama Mama at the sail away party? Will walking around the port be OK with you, or do you really need to take a Disney sponsored tour or swim with dolphins. Will everyone need a shirt, or can you avoid the gift shops. Is a massage on the boat a priority (I did a spa day pre-trip, it was MUCH cheaper and I didn't waste boat time getting a massage I can get easily at home).

 

[crisi]

Oh, the gift stores do not take cash. Once you are on the ship, its your KTTW card.

On a tight budget, I'd remove charging from my kids (AND MY DH!!!!). If they aren't going to be using it anyway, why have the temptation. If my budget is less tight, I'd give them a budget and get the printout from guest services each evening. When its gone, its gone and charging gets removed from their card. (BTW, its then only fair to give them any money that they didn't spend from their budget. Being a believer in teaching my kids to delay gratification, I'd give them a ship budget of, say $100, and any money they didn't spend, I'd double into their savings accounts at home. So if they spend $80, I'd give them $40 when they got home).

 

[CheapMom]

This cruise was not in our original vacation budget and the cost of the cruise really stretches us to the limit.
My kids are so excited to be doing the cruise and we explained that we won't have alot of spend money- they are cool with that. It is always that way at WDW. They are just happy to be on a nice trip.
I am sure that we will spend more than $0. But I really don't want to piddle away $500 on cocktails, photos, smoothies and video games. It is nice to know that it can be done on a small budget.
I am a pretty good photographer- maybe I can meet up with another Dis'r and we can meet at various photo op. locations during our cruise and take pictures for one another rather than spending a fortune at shutters.

On a tight budget, I'd remove charging from my kids (AND MY DH!!!!).

The kids will not have charging pivies- I guess I will trust DH. The kids can give me cash for anything they want and I will charge it for them.

 

[jrabbit]

For a 7 night cruise, ON the ship we usually spend about:
$90 per person (cruiser) for tips
$200 for pictures from Shutters
average $55 per person per DCL excursion (unless you are doing one of the really expensive ones: Dolphin, sub, golf, scuba, etc.)

You can save money on beach excursions by doing your own on the islands. We always spend less than 1/2 of what DCL charges for nearly the same experience.

You can save money if you enjoy wine with dinner if you purchase one of the packages.

If you like your drinks, try to stay with the drink of the day - they seem reasonably priced. Their smoothies are very, very good (unfortunatly).

Spa, bingo, arcade, souvineers are up to your discretion.

Shopping on shore can add a lot to your budget if you really enjoy shopping.