How much $ for food?

Chropistopy

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 12, 2002
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Hi guys! Taking a trip in August....thanks to my parents...:bounce:

They want to make this an all expense paid trip for us...but were wondering about how much money to plan on for food. Our group includes four adults and two kids (7yr and 1yr). We'll be gone a total of 6 days. Two days will be spent traveling but four will be spent on property. We're planning on sticking to counter service restaurants, with the exception of one character breakfast. How much $ would you take specifically for food?

Thanks!!
 
We always plan $50 per adult per day and $25 per child per day (so $125 per day since we don't count DS2 yet).


We usually have b'fast included at our hotel so that's a "freebie", eat counter service for one meal and do the last meal as a sit-down - plus a few snacks throughout the day.


Your 1 year old will eat free at any buffet meal and can eat off of your plate if you want them to. We have a DS7 and a DS2. DS7 is ultra fussy eater so we do a lot of buffet meals where DS2 is free and can help eat some of the cost of DS7.

(we eat like pigs at WDW!)

:) Have a wonderful trip! How nice that your parents are paying fo rit all!
 
We enjoy the full service restaurants at WDW, but we only eat twice per day. It's just adults for us, but we would allow $85-$90 per day per adult(might include a couple of cocktails):D :earsboy:
 
Originally posted by Chropistopy
Hi guys! Taking a trip in August....thanks to my parents...:bounce:

They want to make this an all expense paid trip for us...but were wondering about how much money to plan on for food. Our group includes four adults and two kids (7yr and 1yr). We'll be gone a total of 6 days. Two days will be spent traveling but four will be spent on property. We're planning on sticking to counter service restaurants, with the exception of one character breakfast. How much $ would you take specifically for food?

Thanks!!

Why don't you visit the link below to get a very good idea on what you'll be spending on food while at Disney. The menus are updated regularly and give a very good description of what's available. ::yes:: :teeth:

DISNEY MENUS
 

$50 per day for food??? Ouch!! I think I spent about $7-10 max on lunch at counter service restaurants. I don't eat much breakfast, but our group had rented a house so we had breakfast at home. We also packed a small cooler bag of snacks and bought bottled water from the grocer store. For dinner, if we were still in the parks, I don't think I spent more than $10-15 for dinner.

Personally, I like doing WDW cheap :) I sometimes got kids meals just b/c I didn't feel like eating so much. Or, instead of ordering a full size drink, I'd just get the kids size. There are lots of ways to cut down on the food costs.
 
If you are doing just counter service with the one character meal, then 50-60 should be okay for an adult. Kids 25-30. 10-15 is fine per meal and then some extra for snacks/ice cream/sodas etc..
 
We usually spend $80 per day on 2 adults and a small child. That includes wine and beer bought at the grocery store on the way in, a styrofoam cooler to keep things cold, breakfast in the room or cooked at the food court (cereal, bagels, juice, etc), counter service at lunch and counter service or a nice restaurant (a couple times per trip, with drinks) for dinner. I kept every receipt for every day for 2 trips and each trip came out to about $80 per day :).
 
If you are not drinking alcohol, you can eat for a good deal less than $50 a day. You can eat at counter service for around $10 a meal - some places may be a little more depending on what you order.
 
I think if you budget $10 per counter service meal per adult and maybe $8 for a child. If you are doing character meal as a buffet, plan for $20 per adult and $15 per child, you would be close.

Also, I would plan a few dollars everyday for "snacks"! It is hard to resist the ice cream or popcorn when you are taking a break.
 
We always plan $50 per adult per day and $25 per child per day.

I also say OUCH!....

We plan to do breakfast in the room, counterservice lunch, one sitdown dinner, the rest counterservice and our budget of 7 days for 6 people is..$700. But I must point out that my group includes 2 adults and 4 kids ages (13, 11, 10,7) The kids tend to split meals quite a bit as they aren't really big eaters...So, I'm really lucky so far....
 
I don't remember where the link is, but I have it bookmarked at work and I will (ok, my memory is shot, but I will try :crazy: to remember to look and post it tomorrow). Anyway, someone else may know it too, but someone has created a spreadsheet that you can tell how many children and adults and what restaurant and it will calculate your costs for the meals for your whole trip. VERY HANDY!! Alot of time was put into making it, I am sure. Anyway, like I said I will try to remember to post it.
 
there are 4 of us-- two adults and two kids (only 1 and 3)... we budget $100 per day. This averages out the expensive nights (Boma, Ohana and Chef Mickeys) and we also don't drink much alcohol and eat free in the hotel for breakfast.

Check out the menus at allearsnet.com-- we found them very helpful!

good luck- jennifer
 
Okay - I guess I should clarify our budget a bit...We try to OVER BUDGET in our planning so that it's a "worse case scenerio". Better to have money leftover than to come home with a bunch of unexpected bills. What doesn't get spent on food can go towards something else :)
 
Okay, believe it or not, I am at work and I remembered!! :hyper:

http://pscalculator.net/pswebtools.shtml

That is the link to a bunch of Disney planning stuff...I love the countdown on my desktop!!

Anyway, there is a meal database on there that is awesome!!

Happy Planning!

:wave:
 
Thanks for all of the responses, guys! These are great...I didn't check the board for a couple of days...and missed all of them...
 
We always do counter service meals in the parks. My budget per meal / per person is $10, but always expend less, around $30 - $35 for a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 kids). If we add $10 for 4 Mickey Bars for dessert, then a safe budget is $12 p/meal / pp.
 
When we were there in May, Dh, DS11, and DD3 and I spent about $500 on food. We had at least 1 sit down meal a day, and ate at counterservice a lot. DS was hungry constantly. I am not looking forward to seeing what the food bill will be in October, it seems his appetite has increased in the past month.
 












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