OMG! All my kids qualify as adults!

[Maddon]

My kids are 16, 14 and 10 all Disney adults so I feel your pain. We bit the bullet and finally ventured off site. We found we love it! We mostly book condos at Windsor Hills booking Sat to Sat usually finds us the best prices. After taxes and cleaning fees depending on the season we pay between $350-$700 for the whole week for a two bedroom or three bedroom, two bath condo with kitchen and in room washer dryer. If cash is tight I bring a crock pot (or buy one around $25 at Walmart) and start simple meals in it before we take off to the parks. I have two teen boys and they can eat. We often pick a few favorites on site but don’t do every meal on property. Meals with older kids can kill a budget. Also, I make my kids pitch in with meal prep & clean up after all their capable and Momma needs a vacation too.

Yes, I would prefer onsite but I also want to help my kids to go to college, put them through braces and don’t even get me started on car insurance for a teenage boy! Offsite makes it possible for us to still vacation once a year without compromising on those things we feel our teens need in life.

 

[LONES]

My oldest will be 10 in August, and it already makes me sad that we are going to have to change the way we do Disney! We love doing a daily TS restaurant, but there is no way in the world I can justify paying $40+ at places like Ohana and Boma for her. Also, our favorite resorts are POR or POFQ. FQ has always been hit or miss for free dining, but now that POR was also taken out of the loop... our Disney days might be numbered. We are in no position to buy into DVC, and I think if our only option is to stay off-site in an effort to save money on food and lodging... it's probably time to start looking at other vacation possibilities. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed for FD pin codes for Port Orleans!

 

[DebbieB]

I just noticed a deal on Disney's ticket site.

If you are buying 6 or more tickets, you get a free day.

HTH someone.

And that's worth about $10 a ticket.

5 day ticket - $294
6 day ticket - $304

 

[bumbershoot]

My oldest will be 10 in August, and it already makes me sad that we are going to have to change the way we do Disney! We love doing a daily TS restaurant, but there is no way in the world I can justify paying $40+ at places like Ohana and Boma for her.

I'm lucky in that my son has been eating like an adult for a couple years now, so I've been mentally banking the savings (except for when I need to get two child's meals somewhere, or when I just order the adult meal for him b/c that's what he wants), so this might be easy for me to say...but why would you change what you like to do?

Also, there are other table services besides places like ohana and boma. There are a la carte places where there's no one set price; what she wants could just be ordered.

Since I'm sometimes the one not eating her money's worth, I know that it's still worth it to go where you want and eat what you want, even if you aren't getting that $40's worth in food.

 

[LONES]

I'm lucky in that my son has been eating like an adult for a couple years now, so I've been mentally banking the savings (except for when I need to get two child's meals somewhere, or when I just order the adult meal for him b/c that's what he wants), so this might be easy for me to say...but why would you change what you like to do?

Also, there are other table services besides places like ohana and boma. There are a la carte places where there's no one set price; what she wants could just be ordered.

Since I'm sometimes the one not eating her money's worth, I know that it's still worth it to go where you want and eat what you want, even if you aren't getting that $40's worth in food.

We have 2 girls that are 9 and 7. They are crazy light eaters. When we go out to a restaurant at home, they will order a kids meal to share, and we order an extra drink. We often still go home with a doggie bag.

At Disney, the places we like to go are the buffets. One of the reasons we like buffets is that my kids are fairly adventurous eaters. They will try things like Bobotie at Boma, but they just eat insanely small quantities of food. I would have a really hard time justifying $40+ dollars for a plate of food that looks like it was plated for a toddler. I realize it's all subjective. When I was 10 years old, there is no question I would have eaten probably twice what my mother ate at a buffet.

We can start skipping the buffets and going to other TS restaurants, but that will be changing the way we like to do Disney.