How much spending money for 2 weeks?

[thelittlemermaid83]

How much do you take for spending money when you go WDW for 2 weeks.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Hi,

It really is a difficult question to answer and can depend on so many things.

Do you have park tickets or are you buying out there?
Are you taking just cash and/or travellers cheques or will you have a credit card?
How much shopping are you going to do?
Are you on a Disney Dining Plan, or buying groceries for an off site villa?

Sorry not being evasive, but it just varies depending on what you are planning on spending money on.
Last time we took $3500, had all our tickets, didn't dine out much as we stayed off site in a villa, spend at least $500 on groceries and a lot more on shopping We came back with around $1100.

Next year I doubt we would take as much, at least $2000 and credit cards, also you can use the ATM's when out there if need be.

 

[thelittlemermaid83]

Hi,

It really is a difficult question to answer and can depend on so many things.

Do you have park tickets or are you buying out there?
Are you taking just cash and/or travellers cheques or will you have a credit card?
How much shopping are you going to do?
Are you on a Disney Dining Plan, or buying groceries for an off site villa?

Sorry not being evasive, but it just varies depending on what you are planning on spending money on.
Last time we took $3500, had all our tickets, didn't dine out much as we stayed off site in a villa, spend at least $500 on groceries and a lot more on shopping We came back with around $1100.

Thanks for your reply,

I know we won't be getting any dining plan, but will do 2 or 3 character meals. Not sure how much they roughly equate to as of yet as i'm in basic planning stage.

I think im more worried about money for food then anything else. Are CS meals expensive?

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Most of the character meals/breakfasts work out around $20 per person, but it can depend on where you are dining.

The attached may give a rough guide as to how much it would cost.

http://allears.net/din/cb.htm

Offsite dining tends to be great value for money and often kid's can eat for free too. You can get breakfast buffets, Dinner meals often for half of what the Disney character meals would cost and there are restaurants within easy reach of everywhere.
The likes of Bob Evans, Sweet Tomatoes, Olive Garden, Ponderosa, Denny's and Golden Corrall are just a few, steakhouses such as the Outback chain would be more expensive but still not overly so. Generally though dining out is good value for money.
All the above will have their own website if you need a better idea.

Breakfast is particularly popular over there, much more so than in the UK, you would be staggered at how much food is available at some of the 'all you can eat buffets'.

 

[wayneg]

I would look at menus and try work out roughly what you think you might spend.
Link above to All ears or there is more here on DIS http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/diningmain.cfm#disneydining

If you are going to eat all onsite you will spend a lot more than eating offsite.
We usually eat counter service onsite for lunch averages $30 for 3 of us, offsite for evening meal averages $50. Some meals cost as little as $27($9pp) with coupons(sweet Tomatoes) other cost a lot more.

We pay for all tickets before we go and don't enjoy shopping so all we really spend is food, snacks & drinks. Almost every trip we average spend at $100/day. $35pp per day.

In August we did dining plan, all we really spent was tips and a few bits and bats.

 

[thelittlemermaid83]

Thanks guys, I'm going to have a look at that website when DD is in bed and start working out figures.

 

[gemmybear83]

Also remember servings are much bigger, we can never eat more than two meals a day

 

[luke]

Thanks guys, I'm going to have a look at that website when DD is in bed and start working out figures.

Where are you planning on staying exactly?
If it's a Disney hotel dont rule out the DDP as there seem to be a good deal of free dining plan offers about.
If you're staying at a Villa don't forget you'll be able to save money meals by cooking yourself (as Johnny says).

Are you planning on driving?
If so again, factor in parking if you're staying offsite, but you can balance it out by eating cheaper offsite than you would at Disney.

What are you planning to do? Just Disney, or Orlando's other attractions too? This will all figure in with ticket costings etc.

Also, at the moment at least, due to the exchange rate eating, shoppping, well everything is cheaper there than at DLRP so this will be of benefit too

 

[Ware Bears]

Are CS meals expensive?

I think the WDW CS meals are much better value than the ones at DLP ~ not only are they better quality but are larger servings too so are actually a 'meal' as opposed to a 'snack'.

 

[stoneyloon]

Yeah, I agree.

A big breakfast and dinner is plenty and I love my grub!
An ice-cream or a wee snack at lunch time usually keeps me going.....

Also remember servings are much bigger, we can never eat more than two meals a day

 

[disneyholic family]

i always take a lot of cash (several thousand dollars), even though i try to put everything that i can on credit cards...

i'm one of those worst case scenario sort of people....i want to be prepared for whatever might happen (since i'm always afraid the worst will happen, though it thankfully rarely does)...
so i take lots of money and end up bringing almost all of it back with me......

i usually only end up paying for tips and snacks in cash and the rest on credit cards.....
but you never know when you might actually need it, so i take it just in case........

 

[mmtdevlin]

We (me and my 3 kids: 16,10,5) - all of us small eaters - my 16 y/o son lives on air!

I've budgeted separately for food ($85 p/day for lunch + dinner - we'll eat breakfast in the room); parking and tickets.

With this in mind we have worked out for prezzies/treats we should have $100 per day (between us all not each Thats if the rate stays somewhere between 1.50-1.60

I'm fairly confident I can keep spends within $100 per day - actually make that I WILL keep spends within $100 per day.

 

[MacUK]

Like Disneyholic we take a lot of cash and put bigger purchases on credit card, one that does not charge for International purchases.

Unlike Disneyholic we don't bring any back

 

[scojos]

in 2007 we went on a strict budget- i was qualifying and money was tight (isnt it always)
we had $100 cash in 21 envelopes any money was left over for the next day, and had a few hundred $ for our "shopping day"
we had enough money, though we did have to "shorten" a few tips when we ate out... dont want to start another tipping debate- but we did.
this worked well for us, we brought rolls and ham cheese etc out of our first day budget and had either bfast in the room or a packed lunch, or had bfast out and a cheap dinner (we found golden corral, taco bell, arbys, sweet tomatess etc great, we had a coffee maker in the room with a microwave and fridge.

last year we were on the ddp, and spent about about $200 in 2 weeks!! (obviously that excludes our shopping day, but only managed about $1000 in all, inc a whole suitcase full of new clothes

doing it on a budget can be easy, get vouchers for meals and shop wisely, we found a "big" bfast worked better for us, less tendancy to need to snack!

oh, another tip, buy the little flavour sachets for water (cristal lite?) means you can fill up water bottles at fountains and avoid paying for water all the time, drinks can make a massive hole in your budget
hth
tracy

 

[Ann B]

Oh God, do I admit how much we spent on our last trip!
Ok then £2500. There are 4 of us but when eating out it is 4 adult meals. We also usually go every second year so don't like to scrimp when we are there. We like nice restaurants - we don't go out a lot at home so make up for it when we are on holiday!! We tend to have breakfast (pancakes or waffles), skip lunch but have a nice snack in the middle of the day and then go somewhere nice for a table service meal in the evening.
We save hard for these holidays so like to relax money wise when we are there.

 

[disneyholic family]

in 2007 we went on a strict budget- i was qualifying and money was tight (isnt it always)
we had $100 cash in 21 envelopes any money was left over for the next day, and had a few hundred $ for our "shopping day"
we had enough money, though we did have to "shorten" a few tips when we ate out... dont want to start another tipping debate- but we did.
this worked well for us, we brought rolls and ham cheese etc out of our first day budget and had either bfast in the room or a packed lunch, or had bfast out and a cheap dinner (we found golden corral, taco bell, arbys, sweet tomatess etc great, we had a coffee maker in the room with a microwave and fridge.

last year we were on the ddp, and spent about about $200 in 2 weeks!! (obviously that excludes our shopping day, but only managed about $1000 in all, inc a whole suitcase full of new clothes

doing it on a budget can be easy, get vouchers for meals and shop wisely, we found a "big" bfast worked better for us, less tendancy to need to snack!

oh, another tip, buy the little flavour sachets for water (cristal lite?) means you can fill up water bottles at fountains and avoid paying for water all the time, drinks can make a massive hole in your budget
hth
tracy

this was a good post - it made me think back to when we went to WDW years ago, when the kids were small and money was tighter...

we stayed offsite at one of those really inexpensive 1 bedroom suite hotels, so we had a full kitchen....we ate almost all of our meals in the suite...the kids were happier that way anyway...they were very small and preferred what i made over what could be had in a restaurant...
we shopped at the nearby grocery store (we did hire a car...we couldn't have done it without a car)..

i packed sandwiches for the kids to eat in the parks, and snacks for them to munch on between meals...
so we really didn't buy all that much at all in the parks....just some special things...

and the food we bought in the grocery store was charged on our credit card...and in any case was much cheaper than eating in restaurants or even counter service...

i remember how very little money we spent on those trips (compared to the later ones)..

more recently, with free dining, DD didn't have to spend almost anything, other than for a few souvenirs and tips.....

 

[stoneyloon]

I'm budgeting for £2,500 for our (me, DGF &DD) fortnight at easter.

 

[1andrea]

We usually take £1000 per week plus our credit cards for extra shopping.

 

[wayneg]

I'm budgeting for £2,500 for our (me, DGF &DD) fortnight at easter.

I am hoping to do the full trip(12 nights) for that this Easter for 3 adults.
Flights £1,260
Hotel £400
Car £300
Spend £700 (Food, drinks & snacks)
Total £2,660

Not doing Disney, already have AP's for other parks.
Glad none of us like shopping, that makes a big difference.

 

[stoneyloon]

I am hoping to do the full trip(12 nights) for that this Easter for 3 adults.
Flights £1,260
Hotel £400
Car £300
Spend £700 (Food, drinks & snacks)
Total £2,660

Not doing Disney, already have AP's for other parks.
Glad none of us like shopping, that makes a big difference.

Our whole trip is near £8k, but it is celebrating DGF's 40th so what the heck.....