how much money to take?

[isabellarenee23]

This will be our first wdw vacation. Does anyone have any suggestions on much money we should bring. We already purchased our package. we got 6 nights at por and park hopper tickets for all four of us. there is four of us. our kids ages are 5 and 6. About how much money should we need for eating and gas.

 

[Christy]

Did you add in the dining option? You can always use your room card, then pay on your credit card at the end. We had a lot of money saved, but it was easier to just use our room card, charge it to the credit card, then pay from our savings.

We stayed for 8 nights (me, DH, 2 DDs-8 yrs. & 5 yrs) and I think we ended up charging a little over $1000 back to our room-that included some shopping at the gift shop...but we also had a handful of meal vouchers...

 

[NJDisneymom]

we are planning on only about $75 - $100 a day, and that is because we have the meal plan. Having the meal plan is saving us a good amount of money so I figure I can splurge on other stuff.

 

[sydprincess]

I'm a compulsive planner, so be warned. In my daily schedule, I also add in where we are eating, and after looking at the menus online, I get an estimate of how much money will be spending on each meal. That's 3 meals a day, and then I add in extra money for snacks for each day. When I did this for my last trip with DH and DD who was then 2, we ended up spending close to what I estimated, which was $1,500 for food. I do not lump the spending for shopping in with food. We brought $1,500 for that as well and spent every penny. It may be easier for you to separate the two depnding on where you are eating and how much you want to spend shopping. I had money set aside in envelopes for each day with the amounts written down that we were spending for food and how much I wanted to spend at the park we'd be at. I knew I'd end up buying more at Magic Kingdom than Animal Kingdon, for example. While you can't plan everything, it worked very well for us and I plan to do it again for our next trip. I didn't have to think too much, which is nice when you're on vacation. Have a fun trip!

 

[isabellarenee23]

Thanks for your imput.

 

[tazdeb]

Whatever you budgeted to bring....Double it..... Actually, we try to spend $40 a person per day for food and this does not leave alot for snacks. Food at the Kingdom is outrageously priced. Also we have cut back on the amount we spend on souveniers by giving the girls a set amount to spend for the week. When this is gone its gone. Once the kids learned this, they are much more frugal with thier spending. Now if only I could get the wife on such a program.

 

[love_cinderella]

Hi! I printed up quite a bit of menus also. I didn't get the meal vouchers because i didn't think it was worth the money. We are having 2 character dinners, chef mickey and chip and dale's at the land in EPCOT, my husband and son are excited... they have been making fun of me immensely, but i wanted to make sure we didn't miss a thing... i would rather know it was there, and know we didn't want to see it, or have time to see it, than get home and find out all the stuff we missed.
ANd there is a ton for us to do.
The idea of the revolving restauraunt at EPCOT and chef mickeys by the monorail, i think satisfies all four of us...
I think with over 3 weeks of surfing the net, i have printed up more info than we are going to need... but there's always... "one more site" we are going to be driving 20 hours... i have plenty of reading material for the kids... i found that by having way too much is always better, they are quiet becuz they know if they are too noisy, or say "i'm bored", i will pull out a game, and make them play....
by the way, why isn't my counter working???? i tried to post it a couple times, and all i see is the link to where it is, everyone else's has the actual counter

 

[dtsaos]

Basically it's a no brainer to me if you like good food, add on the meal plan-it's an awesome deal. I don't think you could eat even at the mediocre places for a family of four for much less than the plan anyway and that way you just have to plan for enough "fun money" and not worry about the cost of food. JMOI! BTW, are you driving? You mentioned that you wanted to know how much for gas? If you go to www.AAA.com there is some link there that can tell you exactly how much gas you will spend based on what type of vehicle you'll be driving and from starting point and ending point. Okay, try this, www.fuelcostcalculator.com