How much for food?

[nottellin']

I am leaving in 13 days and now I panicking about how much I should alot for food from our budget. We will be there for 10 days and have a family of 4. Dh, me ds (6) and DD (7).How much would you say is average?

TIA

 

[Queenbillabong]

I am leaving in 13 days and now I panicking about how much I should alot for food from our budget. We will be there for 10 days and have a family of 4. Dh, me ds (6) and DD (7).How much would you say is average?

TIA

It completely depends on where you want to eat, if you are getting groceries for in the room, character meals, table service, corn dogs, any snacks etc....

 

[victorandbellasmom]

It really depends on your eating habbits and if you have a car or not. We eat 3 meals a day plus snacks. My kids are used to a hot breakfast, so cereal, granola, muffins won't work for us for breakfast. I budget $150 a day for my family of 3 disney adults and 1 child. I'd rather overbudget and underspend instead of underbudget and overspend We also tend to do 2-3 character meals each trip as well.

 

[bumbershoot]

"I'd rather overbudget and underspend instead of underbudget and overspend "


Good point!

For us, for some reason I have a really hard time getting *hungry* when too warm, and in Anaheim, I'm generally at minimum, *warm*. So although I always have these lists of things I want to eat, I get to maybe half of them, b/c I'm just not hungry.

DH gets hungry and needs to eat, but then he forgets, and just waits until he's overly cranky and then I get a clue he's hungry.

DS is usually good at telling us when he's hungry.

We're definitely not perfect, or even close, when it comes to eating, b/c I'm the leader and I don't get hungry easily while down there. I also don't wear a watch. Just writing it out I feel awful.

So in OUR perfect world, we start the day with coffee for the grownups and a granola bar or protein bar for each of us. Get to the parks early, then either have a late breakfast OR early lunch. Fruit as a snack, water all day, then some sort of dinner later.

In addition, hubby and I generally share, or we even get kid's meals at counter service (I even got a kid's meal at Wine Country Trattoria last weekend b/c I wasn't hungry but didn't want to just not eat at all), along with getting a big dinner salad. And then we'll share one dessert among the three of us.

Long story short, so far budgeting 100 per day for food AND souvenirs has worked for us (by the way we rarely buy the bottles of water there...we might buy one and then refill, or buy a case elsewhere, or just drink the free water at meals, etc). As Eamon gets older that's going to change, though right now it still works b/c he eats more but buys less (b/c he has it all, LOL).


Check out allears.net for the DLR section and their menus. wdwinfo.com (the dis) has menus, but it's still pretty sad and incomplete. From our experience, meals tend to be big and shareable if the adults are more of the picky sort, on weight watchers (hubby), or just don't get hungry (me). And if you order too little and everyone's still hungry? You can get more food elsewhere and experience even more!

 

[mechurchlady]

I can do one big sit down meal like Ariel for about $30 or two $10 meals a day. Calvin went with me to DLR on my first trip back. He had a turkey leg, corn on the cob, soda pop, chips and an ice cream from Main Street while I shivered in the rain. In two hours the dude had eaten $20 while I was still full. This month I was shivering cold but had to do one mroe thing so there went more money.

for me I could do DLR for about $20 to 30 a day including snacks. Calvin is more like $60 a day with snacks and meals. Meals are around $10 for adults and go up but a good deal is the Plaza Inn for a full meal. Check the DLR menus online for better ideas. It depends on whether you have a Calvin who must have $12 meals or someone like me who wants water, fries and a burger for $8.

 

[Teki]

I have budgeted 100 for two days for two of us, so like maybe a hundred perday? it really depends on where you eat do you plan to eat in the park each day etc

 

[talie95]

We usually budget about $100/day for our family of 4. We usually will have breakfast at the hotel if they have a complimentary continental breakfast and that's enough to hold us over to an early lunch. We will usually have one sit down meal in the park and one counter service meal and then a few snacks throughout the day. If you bring your own lunch you can cut down a bit but if you're doing any character meals that will be a bit more expensive. We also always bring several bottles of water since bottled water in the park is pretty expensive..... we probably save at least $15/day just with water.
HAve fun!

 

[jolynda]

$100/day is what I budget for us too (family of 3 or 4 depending on if we have a guest with us).

But when we stay off site at a good neighbor hotel, we often eat out of the park for breakfast or dinner, which saves a lot of $. We sometimes do cereal in the hotel room for breakfast. The cereal days offset the character breakfast day. We've also been known to order in pizza to our room a time or two. Also, we don't buy a lot of snacks in the park, electing to carry our own snacks and water bottles instead. A couple of granola bars or a cheese stick don't take up much room.

 

[MichaelColey]

If you're comfortable spending $100/day, that's pretty easy to stay within. If that's more than you want to spend, you can still eat well on considerably less.

We (family of four) took a 12-day trip to San Diego and LA last month, where were hopped around the various theme parks and attractions, including 3 days at Disney. All told, we spent less than $50/day on food and I think we ate fairly well. For breakfast, we had granola bars and fruit some days, eggs and other stuff on some days, and continental breakfast on others (all depending on the hotel we stayed at). For lunch, we took a break in the park and snacked on homemade trail mix, granola bars, cheese crackers, PB&J and fruit. For dinner, we went out every night. We used coupons, Entertainment Passbook, and Restaurant.com certificates most nights (usually eating for $20-30 on those nights), ate fast food a couple times (about $20 on those nights), and splurged at Claim Jumper a few times (usually about $50-$60 on those nights).

We're going back next week, and the only change we plan on making is that we'll be doing one dinner at Goofy's Kitchen.

 

[PinkBudgie]

We spent about $100 a day for 4- two adults, two teen boys. We ate free breakfast at the hotel. We brought a snack and own water bottles to get us through the morning. We ate lunch and dinner at counter service and never bought sodas. Always asked for a free cup of water. Some meals we split. Some meals were ice cream cones.

 

[yngsj]

My family of 4 spends around 125.00 a day. We go to the grocery store to buy light fare for breakfast(8.00-12.00 a day). In the park we eat one counter service meal for around 35.00 and a table service for around 60.00. Some days we may spend 40.00 on snacks and other days we don't snack at all. The best way we have found to save money is by limiting our drink purchases by sharing or drinking water at table service restaurants.

 

[disney-super-mom]

I agree with what others have said......we're a family of four and budget about $100-$125 per day for food/drinks/snacks.

I'm not saying we spend that much everyday, but we VERY EASILY could without even trying. We do bring in our own water bottles and refill them, and at meals we try to not order pop (which is an extra $3 per person we don't need to spend) and instead just get FREE ice water. When we do buy a pop (or soda) at the parks, we'll get one large pop and share it between the four of us. Same thing with most snacks or treats.....we get only one and share it.

I would rather over budget and under spend as well.