How much money do you spend on your DVC vacation?

[sparkspeak]

A sequel to anniet's poll "How much time do you spend in the Parks on your DVC Vacation?"
On average, how much do you spend per person each day of your DVC vacation? [Include park tickets, food, etc. but not dues or airfare.]

I've invited some friends and I'm trying to convince them that it will not take their life savings to join me. ´

 

[Maistre Gracey]

We likely spend WAY too much. We eat very nicely every evening, soup to nuts, including wine. When you couple that with many evenings at Pleasure Island, Jellyrolls, or drinks by the pool, it gets very expensive. I think dinner and evening entertainment is the most expensive part.

 

[auntsue]

We also eat all meals out, with dinner at very nice places such as Yachtsman, Shula's, etc.
I also spend A LOT on souvenirs as I buy numerous souvenirs for many.
You certainly can go to WDW and spend a lot less than we do.

 

[Figment&Piglet]

If you factor in park tickets -- where I just spent $300 for 7-day hopper plusses per person -- there's almost $50 a day per person right there. Throw in a breakfast buffet, a nice dinner, plus any other small costs throughout the day, I don't see how you can get away with any less than $100-$150 -- unless you cook some of your own meals. Me, I'm on vacation, I cook nothing!-- So we tend to eat pretty well, LOL!

 

[Pa@okw95]

Well over $200 per day per person would be the answer, we eat all our meals out with gormet dinning a must. There is park tickets. There is the expense of double booking another resort on the day of check in so we are not hung out to dry until 4.PM. we usually take a 9 or 10 night trip and staying at other resorts until ckeck in and on the way down is another expense. Then there is the shopping which can really get out of hand.

 

[geffric]

We have AP , we go for 4 weeks , 2 week 1 year and 2 week the second on the AP so the cost per day per person is $15 per day. We have breakfast in the room, bring snacks and carry lots of water. Lunch at a resort or park and nice dinner, wine etc at our room. We go out for 2 or 3 nice meals per week, the rest are cooked in our kitchen at OKW.
Our cost is minimal. We don't buy lots of souvenirsas we are at Disney every year. Our kids are young so don't do Pleasure Island.

 

[zurgswife]

pretty close to ditto what geffric said except we onlly get about 2 weeks out of our passes not 4....

 

[eva]

With just park passes and food alone a person will likely spend at least $150 a day per adult. You need to figure $50 a day for passes and if you plan to eat nice at least one meal you will need $100 per person easy. Then you will need to calculate extras such as drinks and souvenirs. Now if you plan to eat some meals in the room you might spend a bit less. We usually figure $150 a day per person with eating all breakfasts and a few lunches in the room.

 

[anniet]

I voted $50-$100 when factoring in Park passes, but I would drop everyone's answers by $50 if you want to factor OUT park passes. Once the passes are paid for we don't really spend a lot, we might splurge a night or two while we are there.

Ooops but it might be higher if you factor in my DTD shopping spree!!!!!

 

[kathleena]

We just went for 7 days - 4 adults in a 2br. We decided to focus on NOT spending too much on food. We planned out a few menus, shopped based on them and spent only $115 for groceries the first night there. We had to restock for bread and water during the week.

We ate dinner out once (Boma), went out to breakfast twice (Boma and Mother's Day brunch). The only thing we bought in the park was fastfood one night before Fantasmic. a few bottles of water and one day my friend and I shared a sandwich from the French bakery. We saved so much money by going back to the room to eat meals as our afternoon break.

And, we hardly threw away any food at the end.

 

[Lisa F]

I chose $50-$100/person, factoring in park passes at about $50/day and food at about $50/day. This includes a few very nice meals and counter service other times and only two meals a day (three is just way too much) but some snacks. Some trips we may be in the more $100-150 range, but still closer to $100/day than $150/day. I say we are in the $75-$125/day range

Lisa

 

[pwoodham]

We spent about $140 per person per day on our last big trip when we had 17 people. We took all my 4 sisters, grandma, my BIL, 2 nephews and 2 nieces. When family members are with us who have not been to WDW before, I try to plan an "all out" vacation - PS nearly every meal, E-ticket or special event nights, Cirque, DisneyQuest, Illuminations Cruise, Neverland Club and Pirate Cruise for the kids. We also do two or three character meals to avoid having to get in long autograph lines in the parks.
On the other hand, our December vacation (just me and my two oldest boys) was very reasonable. No more than $50/day per person. Just one character meal (and only because we got in at the last minute at Chef Mickeys), MVMCP was our only special event, we already had annual passes from our previous trip, and we ate counter service or skipped meals in order to get another ride on Space Mountain (7 in a row is my limit).
I LOVE DVC - no hotel bill on either occasion!!!!!!!!!

 

[Disney Doll]

I voted $100-$150, and I didn't include airline expenses, car rental, tickets in that figure The is purely what we actually spend at WDW each day.

Actuually, now that I think about it, it may average out to less. Somedays we go for a big gourmet meal, soup to nuts, other days we just snack a little here and there as we go. We usually eat breakfast in the room at the DVC resort(except for maybe once or twice we go to a character breakfast, "just because"...

My shopping has decreased over the years...I guess I have become more discriminating. I am less apt to buy the "cheesy" souvenir, and more apt to look for something of better quality, or something "different" than the usual Mickey t-shirt.

I treat it more like a resort now, and less like a visit to a theme park, I guess.

 

[KNWVIKING]

but we also kill two birds with one stone. We have 20-30 nieces, nephews,grand nieces & nephews that we buy Christmas gifts for. Since we go 3-5 times a year,we started picking up gifts a few at a time so by the time we come home from our early Dec trip,we have them all bought for. We also eat all our meals out.

 

[Cruelladeville]

We are AP holders, so I didn't factor that into my $50-$100 per person per day. We eat most breakfasts in our villas, but dinner is always very expensive for us, with wine, appetizers, etc. There are only two of us, our kids are grown, so we are REALLY enjoying ourselves now I figure I'm on vacation, so there's no such thing as a home-cooked dinner while in Florida!

 

[AZKathy]

We just got back. Stayed 16 days with two other families. We stayed off site for a week in one family's timeshare and did USO/IOA/Sea World. The second week we stayed at OKW in a grand villa (very very nice! ) and did WDW for the second week. We got Sea World ticket for one day, 5 day pass for USO/IOA, and the 6 day plus hopper tickets for our family of five. We ate each night at a nice dinner like Bomas/Ohana's/Chef Mickeys, etc. We had two rental cars for the group of 12.

We spent around $75/day per person for our family. We certainly could have done it cheaper this trip, but we wanted to give the one family that had never been to WDW a great time. They were so impressed and had such a nice time, they also bought into DVC on that trip and they are now proud members at BCV!!!!!

 

[Johnnie Fedora]

Last trip to HHI, less than $500 for six nights including travel expenses. That's $17.00/day/person.

 

[ducklite]

Originally posted by Maistre Gracey
We likely spend WAY too much. We eat very nicely every evening, soup to nuts, including wine. When you couple that with many evenings at Pleasure Island, Jellyrolls, or drinks by the pool, it gets very expensive. I think dinner and evening entertainment is the most expensive part.

We're in the same boat. I figure dinner will be at least $100 a night for the two of us, more if our DS joins us (He'd generally prefer to grab fast food at DQ).

Anne

 

[BCVOwner2002]

We just returned and I would estimate $50 - $100 each - including passes. Annmarie

 

[patsal]

I guess I must really be cheap, no ...ugh frugal, yeah frugal! We have PAP's and get about 30-35 days out of them per year, so it's like $15.15 per day for tickets per person per day, then there is breakfast which is always in the room unless we do a character breakfast which will then hold us until dinner. The kids carry snacks with them since they know that I will only spend $10.00 per day total on snacks. We carry our own water with us and a Britta Bottle to refill them as necessary. We eat at one restaurant where I budget about $100 per day--leftovers get stashed for "more expensive days" like Hoop dee doo, and the one or two gourmet dining choices we have per trip. I do use Connections vouchers to stretch lunch dollars at the places that I know we will save with. With a family of four that keeps us at about $43.00 per person per day.