How much should I alot for extras? souvenirs? drinks? etc HELP

[Tinkerbellerella84]

So I'm so close to having our Nov trip paid off and then I'm going to start working on our cash to spend per say so I have no balloon payment to face when I get home lol. Family of 5, but only paying for 2 adults (the other one is my mom lol) and 2 kids (4 and 7) staying for 12 days (3-4 days going off site seaworld, beach, downtown Disney etc). We have a food plan (1 quick, 1 sit down, 1 snack). I'm thinking $2,000 for the 4 of us? is this safe or should I bring more? First time going to Disney, heck first vacation lol hubby and I didn't even have a honeymoon so it's the first trip as family just want to make sure I plan ahead.

Also is the best thing to charge things to our magic band and they pay off at the front desk every couple days?

Thanks so much everyone!!

 

[MrInfinity]

All depends how you tour and what you buy! Do you shop? If you'd go into the shops and drop $100 here and there then maybe you'll use that $2000. You sure won't on necessities tho. Once your hotel, tickets, and food plan are prepaid, you don't need much extra. A little for extra food. Any activities that cost money, but you'll probly know already if you have these planned. Tips. Gas, if you're driving. Drinks can be a big chunk. Yeah just charge it all to your room and pay it off later. You'll get a detailed sheet of charges.

 

[Kathryn777]

I know some people do that. We don't. Not counting standard food, drink , parking (we stay offsite) my kids have a 30 ish dollar souvenir allotment (for the entire trip, we use a chart for them to save up), and we maybe spend 40-50$ over the whole trip on extra between meal snacks. I'd say last trip we (2 adults , 3 kids) spent about 250$ over 8 days

 

[Lumiere Lover]

After all resorts, dining plan, tickets are paid for we usually spend $2,500. We purchase a lot of souvenirs each trip.

Enjoy your vacation.

 

[Accident]

$2000 is probably going to be right at the edge. i'm not sure from your post if your expecting that to also cover admission and travel costs to seaworld and I can't really offer advice on what a family of 4 there for several days is going to cost. 12 days is a long time though, you're going to want to offset the costs where you can in a smart way.. I just do father/daughter trips and generally hope to spend nothing but have several thousand in a buffer because that never happens. The more we spend, the less likely it is for another trip anytime soon.

At the resort you'll have the mug you can keep refilling so that's not a cost, assuming where you fill it up isn't a marathon from your room (some of them can be really far)

You'll probably want a third meal per day, drinks in the park, some snacks (maybe, meal plan is a lot of food). If you used something like gardengrocers.com and got a supply of water and easy to store food/breakfast items you can dramatically change the cost of what you'll spend. It's ok to bring food into disney parks with some restrictions on what it's stored in at animal kingdom because of the animals there. We always get a couple cases of water (vs $5 per bottle if you get it there), a variety of donuts and other things that we can use for breakfast and some snack like items. We also carry those water flavoring and electrolyte tablets so it's not just water we are stuck with.

 

[Tinkerbellerella84]

I was either going to do the gardengrocers or just buy before driving down or before going into Disney. The amount of pop, water and juice my husband and daughter can pack away could break me lol. I'm thinking of bringing a bag of snacks/drinks since my mom is renting a cart thingy and can carry it on there, getting breakfast stuff to have in the room, etc. I'm not counting the gas in 2k but tickets for seaworld out of it.

Thinking maybe $1000 in cash and $1000 Disney cards?


Thanks again guys!! 3 months and counting lol

 

[caroline1851]

2000 sounds like a lot to me considering you have the dining plan so most of your food is covered. I would DEF do what some have already said with ordering from Garden Grocers. My son and I went in June and saved so much money by eating breakfast in room (muffins, cheese sticks, apple slices) and bringing water and snacks (trail mix and protein bars) to park each day. We were there 5 days and spent a total of $500 but that included all of our food...purchased at the airport, parks, resort, garden grocers... I'm not a huge souvenir spender. I think it's crazy the prices of things. I think when the kids were littler, they had a $50 budget to spend, that's it. This time around with my son, he did the pressed pennies. That probably cost $25...cheap souvenir and it's fun to look for the machines and put them in the book.

 

[Travis B]

It's so hard to say because it's going to depend entirely on your shopping habits. When we went, very little caught my eye in terms of souvenirs - I spent maybe 100-150 at the most over our 10 days. Maybe another 100-150 on breakfasts, coffee, cocktails, etc. The major expense for me was the actual vacation package plus dining plan and airfare. Once we were there, I found myself spending very little. However, I don't like to worry about having enough money - so I made sure I had plenty saved, even though I didn't use most of it.

 

[Tinkerbellerella84]

That's what I'm thinking, I'll save $2000 if I don't spend it yay money for savings lol. I know one thing I want for everyone is mickey ears, other then that I have no clue lol. But i'd rather have to much then then not have saved enough.

 

[Fenway1970]

$2000 seems safe to me, if not a little on the high side. But as you said better to have too much than not enough. As long as you aren't strapping yourself for the next three months then I say go with peace of mind. You certainly don't want to spend your trip being anxious about spending money.

My family of four spent just over $500 on an eight day trip last year, plus another $200 for the deposit for this year's trip. Admittedly, a significant portion of that $500 was drinks for the DW and I . We usually get one souvenir and one clothing item apiece, but that's just us. Your mileage may vary as they say.

Dining Plan is a lot of food. You probably won't need much extra, you can use snack credits to tide you over if you get hungry between meals. Honestly we never see the need for a third full meal and I'm a big eater. Some of that depends on your hours of course, if you're going from rope drop to late EMH every day, then yeah maybe you'll want an extra meal. One thing to remember is that the table service meals don't include gratuities on the dining plan, so you'll want to allow for that.

And yes, use the Magic Bands for spending. It's very convenient. I usually put my wallet in the room safe at the beginning of the trip and it stays there until we leave. You'll set up a PIN for purchases and you can make it so that only your and your husband's bands can be used to buy things. That way your kids aren't out running up your spending when you aren't looking. And you can go to the front desk at any time to get an itemized list and/or pay some of it down. I'm pretty sure there's a limit where your card will automatically be charged once you reach it, although I don't know offhand what that limit is. I think you can set a lower spending limit as well.

 

[AJ1983]

One tip to save money is to buy your drinks from Publix or something. We always purchase beer, water, Gatorade and Pepsi, as well as two styrofoam coolers, for a nominal amount. Beer worked out to less than $1 versus $6+ at parks or resorts. Pepsi was about $.40 per can vs $3 in the park. Water was about $.10 versus $2.75. We also bought a small cooler to carry in the backpack that held a few water and Pepsi, and kept the drinks cold during our 5-6 hour stints at the parks.

Oh just to clarify, hubby only consumed his cans of beer at our hotel or around the pool. He didn't attempt to take any alcohol into the parks. He only bought a beer I think two or three times in the park.

 

[Tinkerbellerella84]

Ya I'm going to either go grocery shopping up here (ohio) or hit up a grocery before going into Disney.

I'm so excited thanks again for all your guys help!!

 

[P00H1010]

As others have said it does really depend on how you tour. We have things down to a science so to speak for our vacations. We know from previous years what we spent as a whole and where the money went (food, flights etc) so we know a very good estimate on what to budget. I don't know if this would work for you or not but I will explain a bit how we budget for us.

As for how we vacation....
It is just DH and I and we generally do 10 day trips but we have done a couple 8 day trips (this system has worked no matter the length of stay). We fly, stay at a WDW resort, and stay on property our whole trip using the WDW transportation (we have never rented a car). We do not like to be tied down to ADRs so we make minimal reservations. We generally do about 3-4 ADRs per trip. On the days we have an ADR we do not eat much else (maybe a snack or two or split a quick service). On days we do not have reservations we do a combo of quick services and snacks. We also generally do one room service pizza delivery through our WDW resort. We do tend to buy souvenirs each year but don't go overboard (sometimes more expensive items than others). We generally buy 1 or 2 items per person, maybe 1 or 2 items for the both of us and 1 or 2 items as gifts for others.

Keeping the above in mind this is how we budget:
Since the main part of the trip (flights, resort etc) has already been budgeted and paid for they are not included in this estimate. We do a separate estimate for the food/drink/souvenirs cost. We have found that if you were to take all of the money for food/drinks/souvenirs for any given trip of ours and divide that number by the numbers of days and then divide that number by 2 (to get the per person price) we come up with around $75 per person per day.

For us, that number is a really good estimate and all of our trips have been fairly close to that number no matter the length of stay, expense of souvenirs, and amount of table services meals per trip. This does not mean that it would work for you but it might help. If you want a better idea tailored to your family you might want to take a look at menus to get prices of food and check out the Disney Parks portion of disneystore.com to get an idea of how much various items will cost for souvenirs. Hope this helps, have fun on your trip!!!!!

 

[mi*vida*loca]

When we went in 2009 and 2011 we had the DDP. It was 4 of us. The kids were 9 and 3 and then 11 and 5.

We took breakfast items with us and ate that in the room most days.

We paid OOP for mickey ears, autograph books, pens, alcoholic beverages, tips, BBB, Pirate Cruise for DS, souvenirs and one ADR each time. I think Kona in 2009 and VN in 2011.

For souvenirs, we are not big "no" people when on vacation but we don't let the kids have a free for all when it comes to gift shops. They pick 1-2 really nice things they want. We also get a photo frame, photo album and a stuffed animal.

We charged everything to the room and both times it was around $600-700 for 7-8 day trips.

 

[Serrina89]

I think 2000 is plenty. Make sure you budget the cost of eating when you're not in disney). (You should be able to use some of the DDP you didn't use going offsite on the other days). Remember to bring poncho's, dollar store light glow in the dark sticks so you don't have to buy the lightup souvenirs during parades , and a dress in layers. These type of things add up really quick when you're (buying x5). Enjoy the trip