How much more should we/do we need to budget for food/souvenirs?

[mrslamb]

While I have been to Disneyland probably 15-20 times, that was mostly as a kid. The last time I went was a high school graduation trip in 2000, then Dh and I went to Disney World for our honeymoon in 2006. We are going with my parents in November with our kids for the first time, our oldest daughter turns 5 the day we arrive, the 5th, and our youngest will be 20 months. We were planning about $100 per day for the four of us for food/drinks/souvenirs. We do plan to bring in a few bottles of water, etc. Since it has been a while, I am just wondering if that should cover us or if we need to budget more than that? We don't want to be totally scraping for food/snack money and want to be able to buy our girls some fun souvenirs (Without going broke, LOL!)

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

We usually spend less than $100 per day on food for our family of 4: DH, me, DS10 and DS11. We eat no more than 2 meals (usually counter service) per day at the resort, have breakfast brought from home in the hotel room, and carry snacks and water. If we do something special like a character meal, we obviously don't stay under $100 for that particular day, but we always end up keeping our average below $100 per day. Since you have such young children, you should be fine with your budget and be able to include a couple of souvenirs per child.

Souvenirs are not cheap! I would recommend suggesting to your 5 year old to remember what she likes and wait to pick out her special item(s) until the last day of the trip. If you are planning a daily souvenir, we always found a good time for this was just before going back to our hotel for a break. We weren't all quite as tired as at the end of the day, the stores weren't too packed, we didn't have to lug the thing(s) onto a bunch of rides or store them at package pick-up, and the kids had something fun to carry back to the hotel and maybe even look at or use during rest time. To give you a sense of prices, autograph books are around $6-$8, small toys can fall in the $5-$10 range, hats about $13-$25, kid t-shirts $16-$20, plushies $8-$30, and so on. I don't have girls so I can't help you with princess and girl specific merchandise.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

I'll add some princess info: If you are thinking a princess dress expect around $65. They do have some cute satin deluxe princess nightgowns that many girls use as dresses (including my own girls) that are a lot cheaper ($30-35), just as cute and more practical for wearing in the park and riding rides.

The Polly Pocket-like princess sets are around $15.

 

[spacemermaid]

When budgeting for a Disney trip, I find this link to be VERY useful!: http://allears.net/dlr/din/menu/menus.htm It's a link to all the menus, with prices, for all the restaurants at the DLR, including both parks, DTD, and all the hotels.

Hope this helps!

 

[starshine514]

I'll add some princess info: If you are thinking a princess dress expect around $65. They do have some cute satin deluxe princess nightgowns that many girls use as dresses (including my own girls) that are a lot cheaper ($30-35), just as cute and more practical for wearing in the park and riding rides.

The Polly Pocket-like princess sets are around $15.

The nightgowns are cute, but every time my DD4 sees a little girl wearing them in the park she asks me "why didn't she get dressed before coming to Disneyland?"

The Disney Store usually clearances their dresses right before Halloween (I haven"t been to my local store lately, but I think online their were several just under $30 each. They do usually go lower, but the selection gets sparse), so that would be a great time to pick one up, if you are so inclined. You could even save it as a surprise one morning while you are there!

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

The nightgowns are cute, but every time my DD4 sees a little girl wearing them in the park she asks me "why didn't she get dressed before coming to Disneyland?"

Haha!!! In 2007 we bought one for our then 2 year old because we couldn't see paying $60 for the other one....of course it took me about 3+ years to realize it was a nightgown and not a dress. Oh well, she loved it so much I just found the exact same nightgown for her in a bigger size on ebay. She (now 6) wore it to WDW last month.

 

[jory29]

We budget $20 per person for our family of four for souvenirs for a week long Disneyland trip- our real gift is the memories we will make during the trip, and we do enjoy printing the photos later. As far as food goes, for a family of 4 (almost like 3 adults and 1 child, as our kids are almost 15 and 9 now) -we will always split 2 large sodas between the 4 of us, and I ask for NO ICE and 2 extra cups. We usually get 2 adult meals and 2 kids meals and have no extra food, (I eat the kids meal and my DH and son share some with our DD and me.) BUT - I sometimes pre-order McD's cookies (sugar cookies, oatmeal, chocolate chip) before entering the parks (3 for $0.99) and then we 'snack out' out those as well if we are still hungry. We also get an order of Von's groceries to our room (Hojo's is super with helping to deliver to the room, they are awesome! They even keep the cold foods cold if the order arrives before we do) and we will bring small individual cookie or cracker snacks with us. As well as juice boxes. CHURROS!! Early morning snack - 2 for our family of four. DH and son get the bigger pieces, DD and myself take a smaller piece because it works fine for us. Sometimes, we do order 3 now, since DH has such an appetite now. We always make sure to budget very carefully because we can't afford the trip in the first place, but then, we can't afford NOT to. Does that make sense? LOL! We scrimp and save year round for Disneyland - it is a top priority in for us. Disneyland can be done on a careful budget.

ENJOY!!! You will love it there!

 

[mrslamb]

Thanks!!! I'm thinking we will try to put a LITTLE bit more away between now and then just to make sure we are covered. Since we are going on DD's birthday, we will probably be buying extras in the souvenir/treats department.

 

[wdwmickey]

Make sure to ask for a birthday button for your DD

 

[PoohBearFriends]

We went to DL the first time for my DD 5th birthday. We bought one of the birthday hats that is now a 7 year tradition to get out for everyone's birthday. Pics with the candles lit on the hat and it goes on the table for the day. Ours is Pooh but I know they come with Mickey and other characters.

 

[tamiandryan]

A good way to save $ on souveniers is to go shopping at Target, Wal-Mart, or the Disneystores in your local area before you go. Then you can just bring the toys/clothes/etc with you on the trip. Just give each kid something you have already purchased each day. Saves $ over the high high markups in the parks.

Just a thought... May or may not work for ya.

 

[tuffyco]

We usually let the kids get small items each day of the trip. My daughter likes earrings and my son vinylmation. We use these as rewards at the end of the day for doing well that day (both my kids are on the autism spectrum). This helps keep them from asking for everything throughout the trip. On the last day we usually get them one larger item to take home. Total cost for us is about $100-150 per trip, per kiddo.

I'm lucky my dd never wanted to dress up in a costume for the parks. She couldn't understand why girls would want to be in a hot itchy dress all day when they could be in comfy shorts and shirt instead. She said this on the trip when she was 7. Ah, the benefits of sensory integration dysfunction!