New here & first trip planning..

[luvmygirls]

Just wanted to introduce myself, and say thanks to all of the members for the wonderful advice I've read since finding these boards & finally joining !!

I'm so excited to be planning our first family trip to WDW, we go Oct 2005!

My ? for the budget board guru's.. Is 1000.00 spending money enough for a 7 night/8 day vacation in Florida? We already have our PH's paid for, rental home pd for, have separate $ saved for the rental car..

This 1000.00 will cover rest of expenses for: 2 adults & 3 girls (7,6 & 3 at time of trip) I plan to buy them mouse ears, 1 t-shirt & then they get to pick out 1 favorite souvenier. Out of this budget will have to be: car gas, parking at WDW, food/snacks at the parks & the souveniers.

We plan to make breakfast at the rental house, and come back late afternoon for lunch/rest.. We will then stay at the parks till close and either go out to eat somewhere or order a pizza at night. We will do 1 character brkfast or 1 character dinner which will also come out of the 1000.00 (just girls though, Daddy said he'll go to test track!)

TIA for your help/advice..
I love these boards!

Shelly

 

[captJack88]

First off, welcome to the DIS, I hope you enjoy your time here. We try and budget $100/day for food for our family of 5. However we stay on-site and don't have access to a kitchen. We did however take a crock-pot with us on our last trip, and that saved us some money. Are you taking groceries with you, or do you plan on buying them there? I dunno if you're flying or driving. Anyways we try and seperate food from spending money, and then tuck a little extra away for emergencies. How many in your party, and from what I've read this is your spending/food money?

 

[luvmygirls]

Thanks catj..for replying We are flying (forgot to say that part) that will be paid for separte.. The 1000.00 is for any food at the parks + any groceries for the rental home, car gas & souveniers... However, we are splitting groceries 3 ways (my parents & my sister's family) .. I was thinking about 100.00 for the week on groceries for the home (this will include things like fruit snacks for the kids at the parks) Then we may just grab like a pretzal or ice cream at the parks..Don't really plan on any sit-downs in the park, except the 1. We plan to eat things like subs for lunch, or hot dogs/ hamburgers on the grill at the rental house.. So I'm thinking 100.00 should cover that.. Which I guess would leave me 900.00 for souvie's, snacks, car gas & parking..

Thanks again!
Shelly

(why am I getting so frazzled already??I have more than a year to plan!)

 

[captJack88]

Well, I think you'll be ok, that sounds pretty good. It helps having 2 other parties splitting the groceries at the house! I would still try and tuck some extra away, just in case! You never know what souvenirs are going to strike your fancy, and if you don't spend it, then you'll just have that much more to treat your self to something wonderfull when you get home, to help get over the "Back form WDW blues"! One thing I will tell you though is don't be afraid to drive a little ways from WDW to get your groceries. I dunno how far your house is from WDW, but just watch your prices, some stores are ALOT more than others! Don't worry about being frazzled, I was too when I planned our first trip last April, once you plan one successful trip, it's all downhill from there! Just have fun planning...it's part of the fun!

 

[EsmeraldaX]

I think you'll be fine.

 

[Amirah95]

WELCOME TO THE DIS SHELLY!!!

 

[jann1033]

since most our your expenses aren't "needs" just "wants" you can cut back if you need to so i'd say you should be fine since most of you meals ( a big expense) are out of park...

that being said a few things to keep in mind are..park hrs are shorter in Oct so are you sure you want to go back to the resort every day? we go in the off season and never return to the resort ( don't need to, including when the kids were little as it is not as hot nor as busy and the hrs are so much shorter)depending on where you are staying it could take hrs of your time and you might find it eats up way to much touring time. even on property it takes at least an hr travel time alone, add the lunch and rest time and your whole afternoon is gone. even in slow times it takes more than a day at most parks imo to see things with out running around crazily. if it were me i'd plan on eating light lunches in the parks.( check www.allearsnet.com menus to see if you should get some q/cvouchers and use them for lunches as you might be able to split some between family members) except the C.breakfast day. if you make that a later time, you can get breakfast for "lunch"

since you still have time to save, you could try to save a little more to make that possible.


edited cause i hit the s instead of the d in add...wooops sorry

 

[MELSMICE]

I'm in the minority & think you should take a little more just to be on the safe side. We also have 5 in our family, and while my DD's are older than yours (15, 12 & 12) even when they were younger we took about $125 or so a day. You may not go through it but it's always nice to have it "just in case".

I am sure your DD's all won't each order a meal at the sit down or counter service restaurants, but I would guess that even counter service will run between $25-$40 depending on what you order. If you stop & each person gets an ice cream that is $10 alone.

JMO, & I'm sure you'd be fine with $1,000, but I would hate to see you nearing the end of your vacation & have to worry about whether you'll have enough for a nice meal if you want to have one.

 

[luvmygirls]

Thanks again to each of you, for your help/honest answers.. Yes my choice would be to stay in the parks all day, but I have a 5 y/o niece w/a congential heart defect, and she may need the rest even with a stroller, also my 75 y/o grandma will be along, and not sure how much "rest" she'll need.. Hopefully being rapped up in the "magic" of it all, we'll help my family realize we should just stay at WDW during park-hours, however, weather/medical conditions will be the biggest determining factor. That said I have a year, I should be able to save up another couple of hundred w/in the year.

Can't wait to get there!! (only like 389 days left!)

Shelly

 

[jann1033]

Originally posted by luvmygirls
Thanks again to each of you, for your help/honest answers.. Yes my choice would be to stay in the parks all day, but I have a 5 y/o niece w/a congential heart defect, and she may need the rest even with a stroller, also my 75 y/o grandma will be along, and not sure how much "rest" she'll need.. Hopefully being rapped up in the "magic" of it all, we'll help my family realize we should just stay at WDW during park-hours, however, weather/medical conditions will be the biggest determining factor. That said I have a year, I should be able to save up another couple of hundred w/in the year.

Can't wait to get there!! (only like 389 days left!)

Shelly

understandable given the circumstances...could you go a little later in the day on the days you want to see wishes, fantas. ect then leave the parks when everyone is tired on the other days? it is good to get there early but do not know if it would be worth the time saved for the time lost if you have to go back to the resort midday...that way you'll minimize travel time since you won't be running & back and forth so much...you could also have an early lunch before you leave the resort if you are"morning people"

 

[Raggedy]

hi Welcome to the boards. You will learn alot from the people here. I have saved so much money, by listening to them. If you have an extra suitcase someone on these boards had mentioned.
They buy things like snacks for the children at home. They fill up their suitcase with snacks. With you going next year you can buy stuff on sale and fill it up. When the snacks are gone and you travel back home, fill it up with everything you bought in disney. I am going in october of this year with my husband and son. My nephew is also coming with his girlfriend. We are all filling up our extra suitcase with snacks and cereal. We are staying on disney property, so we have to buy all our meal. This will help us save some money.
We bought some quick and casual vouchers from hotwire. So all our dinners are already paid. Good luck....Nancy

 

[Cinderpals]

Your budget of $1000 sounds realistic for your 7N/8D stay at WDW. That's pretty much the high of our budget for food & merchandise for our family of 4 during our OCT/NOV stay for the same length of time. We are staying on property, so we won't have the parking and gas expense. We are doing the MNSSHP which is a little more than what I think you'll end up paying for parking and gas. Plus, we have a few more PS meals scheduled than you have.

Ice cream at Plaza (MK) is very generous with their scoops. A single is like a double at most ice cream places.

We didn't buy much during our last visit: Autograph book $6, a squirt bottle fan $17? a necklace $10, barrettes $4. I had set aside $150-$200 for stuff. I found that the disney stores had better looking t-shirts than what I saw at the stores. To be fair, I didn't make it to DTD where I'm sure I would have made my quota!

Are you thinking this:

$100 for parking and gas (more if you're paying for a rental)
$600 food in the park, 1 character meal and 1 sit down meal
$200 t-shirts etc...
$100 groceries for house (including paper towels, TPaper etc?)

If you eat a lot of big meals at the vacation rental, you should be fine with the $600 for the park food. The character meals and sit downs will definitely take a chunk out of the $600 (maybe up to $200 with tax and tip for 5 people for the two meals) For our family of 4 with two adults a 3yr & 11 yr old, I'm budgeting $70-$90 at least for our character meals and $50-$70 for sit down lunches depending on the restaurant. It would really be worth your time to visit the menus site at allearsnet.com and see the individual prices for each meal. I know that it helped me with my food budget. It even has menus for the counter service restaurants. You just don't get an idea of the portions. I believe that would be helpful if you're thinking of spliting some meals. I wish I would have known about the huge ice cream portions at the plaza. For three of us, we had ordered a single and a double in bowls. It was equivalent to 7+ scoops of Baskin Robbins**

We also took sandwiches/snacks into the park since my kids are picky eaters. I wasn't sure if they would like WDW food.**They did! We too, returned to our hotel in the afternoon to rest and have my 3yr old take her nap. It was nice going back to the parks for some rides and being able to watch Wishes. I noted that for us, sit down lunches vs sit down dinners in the park worked out best for our schedule. We ended up not making it to any of our PS dinners we had scheduled. Either we weren't hungry enough, still relaxing at our hotel, or we were having too much fun at the park to stop!




**I think that it's great that you're planning so far in advance. I wish that I had your patience!!

 

[Juliah]

Just wanted to add that you can take your niece to the first aid center (there's one in each of the WDW parks) to lie down when she needs to take a break. We have done this many times with our daughters, who both have medical needs. It's quiet and cool, and we have always been treated very graciously.

You might also want to post over on the disABILITIES board if you have any questions on taking someone with medical needs to WDW.

Enjoy!