Personal question about $$$

[sunny1016]

Can anyone give me an idea of how much they have spent in a week? we have 2 children 4 and 7 and we have no clue how much we should bring???
We are not on the dining plan and our room is taken care of. But mostly I am curious about spending money. I know this can vary widely, but just some averages maybe. One thousand, 2 thousand...10 thousand lol! How much??
So far we have 3 BK's and 2 dinners booked. I am not sure we will book anymore. Maybe a dinner. Now these meals alone are a little over $4oo. So if we just use CS meals for the rest how much are they usually? I know alot of questions, I think the money aspect of all of this is finally kicking in!

 

[UTgirl]

Wow that is a difficult question. Food at WDW is expensive. I will say this as a tip. The portions can be really large at some places. I would suggest you purchase one meal for the kids to share. My son never finished his and could have easily split with me or DH.

I posted a similar question but we have a room taken care of and our food. I got replies ranging from $500-1000.00


I know that's not a definative answer but hopefully it helps some.

 

[pigget74]

I would budget $150 for food per day. I would give each kid x amount of dallars to spend we did 75 and when it was gone it was gone. I am sorry what are BK's? Can you break your week down for us--and out if what you already have planned---that would help me geive a better figure.

Have you looked at the menus on allearsnet.com? If not that should help you.

 

[crisi]

We've spent as much as $10,000 and as little as $500 for the entire trip (the $500 trip was 20 years ago) - including airfare. We've bought $500 souvieniers (an original animation cell) and left with a t shirt off the clearance rack with last years date on it. We've eaten most meals in our room and had $100 bottles of wine with dinner.

For food, your best bet is to look over the menus at www.allearsnet.com. Add tax and tip and get a feel for how much what you are interested in will cost. If your budget is tight, consider splitting a few meals (permissible except at buffets) - Disney is usually gracious about this.

For souvieniers, just set a budget and stick to it. You can spend literally thousands at Disney on stuff - or you can spend reasonable amounts to get your kids a small plush Mickey and call it done. Or you can - gasp - leave with no souvieniers at all. Budget boarders often recommend pre-buying your souvieiners - you can find Disney stuff at the Dollar store and your kids are unlikely to know the difference when given it at the end of the day.

For everything else, on a budget, don't do it. A round of golf at Disney is almost $100 (maybe is the much in the on season). Cirque is great, but expensive. Renting Mouseboats is fun, but expensive. There are lots of things you can do at Disney - some of them real budget busters.

 

[mom2grace]

Can anyone give me an idea of how much they have spent in a week? we have 2 children 4 and 7 and we have no clue how much we should bring???
We are not on the dining plan and our room is taken care of. But mostly I am curious about spending money. I know this can vary widely, but just some averages maybe. One thousand, 2 thousand...10 thousand lol! How much??
So far we have 3 BK's and 2 dinners booked. I am not sure we will book anymore. Maybe a dinner. Now these meals alone are a little over $4oo. So if we just tS meals for the rest how much are they usually? I know alot of questions, I think the money aspect of all of this is finally kicking in!

If you are eligible for the dining plan, you should seriously consider getting it.........your kids are about $11/day, and if you have sit down meals planned, you are already ahead.

 

[kendzee94]

We've found that with 2 kids that age, our meals end up being about $100 per day (for the four of us), averaging in a couple table service meals during the trip. Seriously, if you are planning on almost one TS per day, you are better off with the dining plan (as tax and tip are included!!!). I agree with an earlier poster, we give our children a certain amount of money ($100 per child), and once it's gone, it's gone...also stops them asking for EVERYTHING!!! If you take magical express, it's nice to have some extra $$ to tip the driver and $4/ day for housekeeping. so all in all, for an average week, we will bring an extra $500 to $1000, just in case....However, if you don't want to bring that much extra, you can plan to charge things back to your room, and just have it charged to your credit card and get points on your Disney Visa for your next trip!

 

[sunny1016]

Thanks for the replys.{ BK- breakfast, sorry.}

We will have our own car and are still debating the dining plan. It seems like it could be confusing. Also when you are eating ts meals do you have to plan out every move. What park you are at, if you are waiting in line somewhere then have to leave for a reservation??
Sorry if this sounds stupid but we have NO idea what we are in for.
One more thing....do you have to pay for the shows there?
(Not the meal ones.)

 

[Luv2trav]

I would 2nd guess 3 sit down Breakfasts... I don't think they are worth the money... Plus morning is the best time to be at the parks and not eating a sit down meal. I know many of the character meals are breakfast but I would only do 1 and reserve some for lunch or dinner. I just hate paying 17-20 per person for eggs and bacon...JMO

 

[pigget74]

Thanks for the replys.{ BK- breakfast, sorry.}

We will have our own car and are still debating the dining plan. It seems like it could be confusing. Also when you are eating ts meals do you have to plan out every move. What park you are at, if you are waiting in line somewhere then have to leave for a reservation??
Sorry if this sounds stupid but we have NO idea what we are in for.
One more thing....do you have to pay for the shows there?
(Not the meal ones.)

The only show that you would pay for are the dinner ones and the ones in Downtown Disney. If they are in the park they come with park admission.
The dining plan does take some planning, but it is very doable. As far as breakfast goes--which ones are you looking at? Breakfast does tend to eat (no pun intended) into your park time--if you go after the park opens. Take a look at the calendar on the disney site and go to extra magic hours--it shows what parks are open late and early. This should help in planning your meals. I would agree to get the DDP just because it will most likely save you $$ in the end and it also lets you know up front how much your meals will be. Our first year my kids were the same age as yours. We bought a package and stayed at ASMO. I budgeted I think $125 a day on food, but we did late lunches, late breakfast, and so forth to make the meal $$ go further. We were never hungry or felt deprived of food. Anyway, by the end of the week we had a enough extra to stay an extra night and I know gasp to to US for one day. On that trip we did bring snacks from home and drinks--so this did help a little on snacks in the park. When we do the DDP we do not bring any extras except for some poptarts and water.

 

[sunny1016]

Is it really a big difference for the extra hours? Does it make a difference if you do morning ones or night ones?

We were doing
Chef Mickeys 7:40 1st night
1900 park fare our 1st day. 9am
Crystal Place second day 8:05
Akershus royal banquet dinner 6:40 last night
Cinderellas royal table last morning 9:40

Should we be putting the ax to some of these?? I guess Cinderella is the only one we HAVE to keep.
Is it alot more for a character than a regular sit down meal??
(I am going to go look at the menus now.)

 

[monorailsilver]

For us:

Breakfast-we do in room dining, meaning we ship our Pop Tarts & cold cereal down & just buy milk/juice or drink water. So I'd say breakfast cost's around $20 for the week (oatmeal too).

Lunch & dinner we do CS mainly. I bring zip lock bags because my kids do not eat the entire meal alot of the time so when they don't I baggie the rest of their meal & that is thier dinner or lunch for the next day (I do have a cooler for ds since he has food allergies so I put it in there).

We probably spend about $30 on meals if that for 4 of us. Sometimes dh & I split it. I am sure our next trip we will spend a bit more since now there are 5 of us.

Oh & that is per meall session so about $50 ish per day.

Edited to add: I don't drink alot of soda so dh & I split a soda & I always have water on me. And my kids have water too.

 

[Not so Dumbo]

as for food, Chef Mickey's and Crystal Palace are worth keeping. Not so much 1900 park fare. We did a lot of CS meals. They are big so you wouldn't have aproblem sharing. Ordering a large drink and sharing will save a few $ also. As for how much you will spend on Souvieners it all depends on how much you want to buy, although they are pricey. $20 for a t-shirt or hat. Bean bag doll's are around $12 for the small size. Playsets are roughly around $20 also. So it adds up. I see you will have a car available, try shopping at the Character premiere stores, there are some great deals there. I like the one in Prime Outlets. For our family, with kids 4,7, and 6mo we spent ( I hate to admit to it) $2000 just in souvies and food for 10 days. but, honestly we pretty much bought whatever we wanted ( knowing that we wouldn't be back for a while and didn't want to get home and wish we had bought it and end up calling the mail order number and paying for shipping)

 

[pigget74]

Is it really a big difference for the extra hours? Does it make a difference if you do morning ones or night ones?

We were doing
Chef Mickeys 7:40 1st night
1900 park fare our 1st day. 9am
Crystal Place second day 8:05
Akershus royal banquet dinner 6:40 last night
Cinderellas royal table last morning 9:40

Should we be putting the ax to some of these?? I guess Cinderella is the only one we HAVE to keep.
Is it alot more for a character than a regular sit down meal??
(I am going to go look at the menus now.)

The difference with the hours is if it is an early park day and say the park opens at 8:00 and you have breakfast at 9:00--you could do the park for about 45 minutes then go to breakfast, but by the time you get out of breakfast the park is beginning to fill up. Or with Park Fare by the time you made it to another park and it was early park you might not get some fast passes. The late hours really does not matter as far as dinner goes.
We love Crystal Palace and have not CRT since they changed it. Chef Mickey's is a great way to start the trip. We have only done Akershus for breakfast. Good luck .

 

[maxtomsmom]

Thanks for the replys.{ BK- breakfast, sorry.}

We will have our own car and are still debating the dining plan. It seems like it could be confusing. Also when you are eating ts meals do you have to plan out every move. What park you are at, if you are waiting in line somewhere then have to leave for a reservation??
Sorry if this sounds stupid but we have NO idea what we are in for.
One more thing....do you have to pay for the shows there?
(Not the meal ones.)

WHAT'S MONEY WHEN YOU'RE IN DISNEY?????? Seriously, There are ways to cut down the cost.

We found that bringing our own snacks and bottled water saved us a bit of money. We also had most breakfasts in our room. We brought cereal and parmalat milk. For our kids, we also brought juice. Since you have a car, you can buy some stuff or even stop off at a market (we did that using my mom's car. We even bought bread and cold cuts to make sandwiches). We saved about $300 in all. Even bringing your own snacks and water will save you a ton. Water is so expensive there.

We spent a grand total of $2,100 (I rounded up) for 10 days in Disney at the Coronado Springs. We were 2 adults, 2 children (one under 3), 2 seniors. My mom and aunt paid there own hotel, food, souvies, etc.. But some of the meals and taxi fares we paid for. The money we spent was what my DH and I spent which included:

hotel
taxi service for 3 trips (my mom is handicapped and all that transferring in the am to get to a character breakfast was a hassle)
9 day hopper for me and one for my 5 yr old (DH is a annual pass holder)
3 character meals (2 BK and one lunch)
the Candlelight Dinner package at Marrakesh
ADR at Biergarten, The Fulton house, the sit down restaurant at the hotel, sit down lunch at the Grand Floridan Hotel
several counter service meals, snacks, drinks
tons of souvies for the family
holiday goodies for the family (we went in early Dec.)

So you see, it can be pricey. Some things can be controlled. Depending upon the time of year you go and what you are willing to do will make the difference.

BTW- When DH and I took a spring break trip back in '92 we had $500 and did Disney in 5 days with that. We had to stay off property and skipped a meal. Usually we didn't have breakfast and had an early lunch. It worked.

 

[becca011906]

that's to tricky... we have spent as much as $8K to as little at $1500 w/ kids, with out kids, doing stuff other then disney, eating in the room most times, to never in the room, gas there and back, stoping driving, how much stuff and for who we want to buy, ect ect, hummm i can really varry as little or much as you want it too!

 

[Steph9072]

I may not be the best one for giving advice since this is our first trip as a family & my first one in 11 years. Anyway. We already have our rooms and meals payed for. Our kids (2,6 &11) were given $40 in Disney money each. Dh and I told them we would add $60 to it for $100 each. But if they wanted to spend more they could earn and spend more. I plan on about $100 for dh and I for t-shirts and stuff. I am budgeting about $20 a meal for alcohol. I am thinking it will take probally around $200 in gas. And I have no idea in the world how much things like pictures will cost. Plus I am sure there are things I am forgetting So I think to be safe we will probally allow about $1500-2000 while we are down there. I would rather budget more and bring some home then not have enough.
HTH

Steph

 

[amarberry]

I would seriously consider the dining plan if I were you. DH and I love the dining plan because it fixes the cost of all of your meal. There is no questioning what to budget for food or second guessing what you order. We've always come out ahead with the dining plan too. The character meals for kids are about $12, so basically the kids CS meals and snacks are a bonus. We bring cereal bars for breakfast and order bottled water to be delivered by Staples. Not buying water in the parks saves us a ton of money.

We spend very little money when we are on the dining plan. Definitely decide beforehand what your budget for souveniers are beforehand. We are not big souvenier people, so we maybe spend $50 for the 3 of us on a trip.

 

[jenseib]

I would add the dining plan too, especially since you paln to do several TS meals.

I went about 8 and 10 years ago, both times staying off property. We weould eat Breakfast at the hotel (free), then have CS luch and then eat supper at a restraunt outside the park that wasn't expensive at all. So we saved alot of money that way. But eating only at Disney is pricey. Our CS meals at lunch were more than the price of our dinners!
We are staying on property this trip, and wil lget the paln so we won't have to worry about forking out cash for eating, and we won't worry about how much we can eat as well.
I think I might bring along some breakfast bars too.

 

[Steph9072]

I am doing the same for breakfast. With the exception of one breakfast at Ohana I am taking breakfast food. We are staying a family suite at ASM plus I am throwing in a toaster. I plan to take stuff for PB&J's, waffles, poptart and cereal. We will stop and get juice and milk when we get there.

Steph

 

[CleveRocks]

Two months ago, it was my wife and I and our 6 year old and 4 year old. We stayed for 6 nights (and had 6 FULL DAYS in the parks). I got a couple small breakfasts by myself, but most of our breakfasts were supplied by a grocery delivery of about $70 (which included other items besides breakfast stuff).

We had one pre-paid meal, CRT breakfast. Other than that, we had only one other table-service meal during the week, a dinner at Chef Mickey's. ALL of our other meals were counter-service (by preference, not due to cost).

EVERYTHING was on our room charge (except the grocery delivery). My room charge total was $788. This included just under $100 for a double-stroller rental. So food and souvenirs ran us about $700.

Since the OP has numerous ADRs for table-service meals, the cost wil be considerably higher than mine.