How much spending money

[sazzy75]

Hi Everyone. You was all so helpfull when I asked my first question I thought I would ask another . We are going to disney on thursday just wanted to check I am bringing enough money there is 2 adults 2 kids and a toddler and we will be there for 4 days. We have £500 dont want to spend it all on food but everything seems so expensive.

Also it will be my daughters 12 birthday while we are there want to order her a cake at hotel reception where do you think would be the best for a birhtday meal for a 12 year old.

Thankyou all in advance.x

 

[thelittlemermaid83]

Im worrying about spending money as well, im going for 5 days and will have £400 for me and my 2yr old. i hope thats enough eeek!

 

[SandraVB79]

Some prices (mind you, these are EUR and not £, and I have no idea about kid's prices)

Counter service meals:
- burger/ chicken something + fries + drink: 10 eur
- pizza: 7 eur
- children's mickey pizza is around 3.50 eur (I love to eat this as a light lunch)
- croque monsieur: around 6 eur
- deli sandwiches: less than 5 eur (the mozarella/ pastrami one is delicious!)

Table service meals:
- buffets are around 25 eur for adults
- menus at other restaurants are around 33 eur. There are cheaper ones, and more expensive ones. In restaurants like Cafe Mickey and Walt's, portions are rather big, and I can't finish main course and dessert. At Cafe Mickey, I now only get a main course.
- Annette's is the cheapest table service restaurant, I think there burger: dessert combo is around 16 eur, and it's huge!

Shopping:
- princess dresses: I saw some for 60 eur
- beanie plush things: around 10 eur
- big plush minnies and mickeys: 20-25 eur
- tableware: 5.50 for a small plate, 14.95 for a tea pot, anything in between for the rest, I can give you the details
- collectibles: WDCC same as anywhere else, same with lenox. I bought a nice Mickey frame for 60 eur, a Minnie-print for 7.50, ...


500£ seems like a big budget to me, if this is your spending money and does not have to pay for tickets/ hotel

 

[flea72]

Hi Everyone. You was all so helpfull when I asked my first question I thought I would ask another . We are going to disney on thursday just wanted to check I am bringing enough money there is 2 adults 2 kids and a toddler and we will be there for 4 days. We have £500 dont want to spend it all on food but everything seems so expensive.

Also it will be my daughters 12 birthday while we are there want to order her a cake at hotel reception where do you think would be the best for a birhtday meal for a 12 year old.

Thankyou all in advance.x

Expect to pay £70 for a sit down burger meal, including a soft drink for a family of 5, and about £45 for a takeaway burger meal in the park. the only cheap food option is McDonalds in The Village, as the prices are similar to what you would pay in UK for a meal, but McDs soon gets boring, and its a bit of a pain to have to leave the park to get something cheap to eat.

the best value meal we had at DLP was the character afternoon tea, as its a buffet, so you can eat/drink as much as you want. we went for the 5pm sitting, so it replaced the expense of an evening meal. costs £9 per person (but you dont pay for under 3s). its mainly cakes, but there are also sausages, hash browns, grilled tomatoes and scrambled eggs, so you do get a bit of hot stuff too

Only prob we found was, at this time of year, alot of the fast food places in the park are closed, so you have a very limited choice of places to eat

i think for a family of 5 you will need to allow about £100 a day for food/snacks/drinks, so taking your own snacks with you, will cut down on some of the cost. also i find we spend more if its cold, as we use a food/drink break, as an excuse to get indoors and warm up.

Flea

 

[sazzy75]

thankyou. The worrying thing is when you go with your children and you are in a diff country you just want to have more then you need just in case.
And of course they are going to want everything bless them

 

[sazzy75]

I have brought some cerial bars and other snackey things to bring also somebody told me to take food at breakfast to snack on throuhout the day,we are staying at the hotel cheyane sorry spelling not to good.

Any other advice to save money will be more then welcome Thankyou.

 

[SandraVB79]

We, as adults, have always managed to "survive" the day from big breakfast until dinner, no lunch. We used to bring snacks for during the day, but more often than not we took all those snacks again with us back home
OK, children are different, they usually need there three meals a day.
(And the last few visits, we ate lunch, mainly to keep us occupied. The more you go, the more the attention gets drawn away from the rides/ entertainment towards the food/ drinking, lol!)

We save also money on bringing drinks from home. Bottles of water in a backpack, and you're good to go!

I think I'm in the minority of those who think DLP is not expensive to eat, depending on WHAT you eat. The snack/ counter service offerings are expensive, as opposed to the table service meals. Last week, we once again said that in/ around Brussels, it is nearly impossible to find an equivalent meal for that price. Everything is way more expensive here.
I have a friend, who also goes once in a while. She refuses to eat table service, and they snack all day long on couter service/ snacks. We once made the end calculation, we spent less money than they did, and we ate way better.
To each their own of course

 

[Jazzman67]

How much money you bring with you depends on what you want to but.

I live in Sweden and I'm keeping ín mind that restaurants that serve
dinners in Stockholm easily cost around 25 euro for a table dinner. So,
it's not much different. It's always a question of where you live in the
world, and what you live on

What I can say is that, if you look around at your local toy store, you
can find Disney dresses for a good deal. I just went to a nearby store
and the Treasure chest with four dresses was 249 kronor (27 euro). Those
were the smaller sized ones. The larger sized ones were about the same
price for one.

I'd try just buying one or two items for the kids and spend the money on
foods, knowing that you'll save money by buying the same product at
your local toy store. You'll save a LOT!

The main question is: How special is the trip. If one feels that this is a one
timer and wants to buy souverniers or get Disney stuff while you are at the
"original" place, then go for it. I just got three things that I liked a lot:

1. A souvernier book about Disneyland
2. A blue "15th Anniversary" shirt
3. A double CD with Disney music.

I don't have children, but I can imagine that there are those who have
children wanting a lot. If you look around, locally or through the internet.
you'll have an idea of what you can get at a later time, at a lower price.
You'll be able to get a good idea of what the kids like, just by observation.
if they lieks something you've seen elsewhere at a lower price, you'll be
able to save money by getting it elsewhere than at Disneyland.

 

[flea72]

i agree with buying before you go. i bought my daughters the disney princess dresses off ebay before we went, most cost about £8 each incl p&p, and all of them were official ones, that someone had bought at DLP and were now selling on. by doing this, i could afford to buy enough dresses for DD to wear a different one each day, and spent less than if i had bought just one dress in the Disney shops while there.

there are lots of souvenirs that dont cost much either. you can get tins of sweets for 1euro, pens for 4euro, etc. I think clothing was the most expensive thing. saying that i did splash out on my 6m old and bought her a tshirt costing about £12, but tbh its washed up awful, as the colours have faded after one wash. i could have bought something disney for her from Matalan for alot cheaper, and it prob would have worn better too.

FLea

 

[tetley02]

I find that if you pre-book meals in restaurants before you go you can save alot of worrying about how much you take with you and is it enough.

I dont go till november so i am making sure I research alot on the different restaurants and what food they serve, I plan to prebook and pre pay for one table service type restaurant a day while I am there. The first day we will get there late so may book dinner at cafe mickey. The second day we will probably do something like lunch in a park restaurant maybe the luck nuggett saloon, the third will probably be a character birthday party and the 4th not quite planned yet.

I was going to book for the princess meals but now we are going with my cousin I dont think her 11 year old son will be to pleased about that.

 

[Pinkradleygirl]

What we are going to do on our next trip (only 3 and a bit weeks away ) is give the kids a certain amount each day - say 10euros each and then they are having 40 euros each on the last day.

Word of warning on the sizes for childrens clothes though.

We brought DD (whos a 'normal size 6 year old') a Minnie Mouse dress last May and ended up buying a 8year old size costume - the fit was very tight on the age 6 and 7 dresses. Don't know if anyone else as come across this.

Have to say the Ebay suggestion is a good one - I've done the same for this trip and DD has now got 4 costumes to wear.

 

[mummybear]

Yes, we also found the Princess dresses to be a bit expensive when we were there in October ( we had taken a Sleeping Beauty dress with us ) , so when we go back in Feb, my daughter has a new Cinderella dress that I bought her from Woolworths that is reversible ( other side is Sleeping Beauty ) so 2 outfits for the price of 1. I personally found that the dresses in DLRP were not that great for the money either.

Money for food really does depend on how much you want to spend. You can get some good fast food that doesn't cost a fortune and we bought our drinks & crisps from the train station, as they were much cheaper.

We bought pens back for souvenirs and they cost 1.50 euro each. And as mentioned, you can get other items for under 5 euros.

I thought that we would need a lot of money for 2 adults,7yr old,1yr old but infact we spent half of what I thought we would need.

 

[Cyrano]

Word of warning on the sizes for childrens clothes though.

We brought DD (whos a 'normal size 6 year old') a Minnie Mouse dress last May and ended up buying a 8year old size costume - the fit was very tight on the age 6 and 7 dresses. Don't know if anyone else as come across this.

We found this too, so we make sure we don't buy clothing items to near the end of the holiday so we still have a chance to change an item if necessary

 

[thelittlemermaid83]

I think im going to get all my sovineurs on the last day as then i know how many euros i have left after feeding myself and daughter. £400 for 5 days isnt looking like im taking enough esp with the rubbish exchange rates ive seen.