How much money to bring for food?

[heather31]

We are going to Disneyworld in January and would like to have an idea of how much money to bring for meals. We are a party of 4 (2 adults, 10 year old and 6 year old). We are doing character meals, but besides that, I have no idea how much to bring. We don't plan on eating at really nice restaurants, just your run of the mill park places. Would $30/meal not be enough?

Thanks
Heather

 

[CathrynRose]

IMO - $30 / per meal, *is* enough.

Cuz, if you take into consideration, you may not be eating 3 meals a day, etc...

I used to budget $100 a day - food. And it was always, absolutely fine. Somedays counter-service and we didnt spend it all, somedays sit down, and we used the extra from the day before.... ...it all evened out.

 

[LiteBrite]

Heather, you can get a good idea of what you may spend by visiting this site which details all the menus from WDW, including prices, for all counter service and table service restaurants:
http://allearsnet.com/menu/menus.htm

My family usually budgets $25/person/day at WDW, but we go on the cheap side. We eat breakfast in the room (cereal and poptarts that we bring from home with us, they don't count in the daily budget), and have a table service meal once every couple of days. We always order ice water with all meals, and at the table service restaurants, we don't order appetizers, and if we do dessert, it's maybe one for the table, instead of everybody having their own. Some days we spend more than the $25/person, and some days less, but it averages out about that much.

 

[twotoohappy]

Yup, we save money by eating breakfast in the room too
Our budget is for me and my dd $50- per day/ plus I add in $50 for any meal we plan on eating out.... don't forget souveniers/snacks too - we figure around $20per day. It all adds up. My only other budget is my Jellyrolls budget Now that's a high budget!

 

[LMC]

I think your budget, excluding your character meals, is fine. We generally allow $10-11 per adult and about $6 per child for counter service meals. This is usually all we eat as my kids would rather be on the rides than sitting in a restaurant for 1-2 hours!
I second the advice to check out allears for the menus.

 

[heather31]

Thanks everyone. I plan on bringing some snacks with us from home too, so that we can have something in the mornings before we leave the hotel. We won't do alot of sit down meals either, the kids will be too pumped up to sit in a restaurant. I am going to check out those menus, but I really think we can do it for $30 per meal.

 

[ksdave]

Guess we are the exception. We feel that the great food and atmosphere available at the better restaurants at WDW and Universal Orlando are a big part of the total themepark experience. We usually budget around $100/day/person. You can't go wrong eating dinner at places like Emeril's Tchoup Chop and Mama Dellas in UO, and Citricos and Artist Point at WDW. Plus, lunch doesn't have to be burgers and fries when you have a fabulous place like Mythos at UO, THE best restaurant inside any themepark anywhere.

 

[bytheblood]

We avg 30 per person for day (which is always waaayyyy too much) and we charge any meal over $75.00. For the most part, the 3 of us can eat for $25 a meal...we usually have two meals a day and a snack or two.

 

[polly p]

we got a refrigerator in the room and I brought cereal and breakfast bars. We bought milk and juice. It not only saved money eating breakfast in the room it saved time. We got to the parks a lot earlier.

 

[southjerseymom]

Believe it or not - I am always pleasantly surpirsed when I get my bill the night before check out. We use our KTTW keys to charge everything from food to strollers to souvenirs. With 2 small children we do maybe one character meal per trip and then just go with the flow. We do counter service for lunch and then see what ADR's we can get. If we can't get what we want we go for pizza or a more casual meal. DH and I like to order room service after the kids go to sleep too. It is vacation and we try not to limit ourselves from anything we want to do. We find our bill nearly always averages out to just over $100/day for everything. I budget more - but happily we usually don't spend it.