Please help with vacation budget for Aulani

[lexlaw69]

I'm trying to create a vacation budget for a family group. Any help on daily food and entertainment costs would be appreciated. We are a family of 4 with a 3 year old and 8 year old. I was thinking about 45 per adult each day and 30 for each child - for a total of 150 per day. Is that overly optimistic? I'd probably have a drink by the pool and one or two at dinner.

Thanks

 

[izzy]

If you're planning on 3 drinks a day, then your budget is too low. Between the price of the drink, tax, and tip, those 3 drinks alone will probably cost you $45 a day.

Are you planning on getting groceries and eating in the room some or will you be eating 3 meals a day exclusively at the resort?

 

[alohamom]

If you are strickly eating at restaurants and not in your room, this is too low (with drinks)
I remember having lunch poolside with drinks for 4 and it was just about $100 total for the one meal, however that was 2 adults, 2 teens (adult selections). Ulu Cafe makes it a little more affordable, with hot plates around 12-14 per selection and kids menu items. I actually REALLY liked everything I ate from here. Hubby loved the breakfast plates, very generous portions too. Kids menu runs about 7 bucks for chicken strips and fries etc. They always had a soup of the day plus lots of salad and sandwich selections and a amazing Lilikoi (passionsfruit) cheesecake bowl-it was sooo gooood!

 

[southerngirl528]

Whoa. When I read your daily budget per adult and then that you planned on 2-3 drinks/day, I was like…. You possibly could get by on the $45/day per adult if you did not order ANY alcohol. Izzy's question about groceries and how many meals you plan on eating in are very good questions re: your budget concerns.

If you are a Costco member and are staying a week or more, make a run to either Costco or the Big Target (it's not a SuperTarget) right caddy-cornered from Costco in Kapolei. Pick up a rotisserie chicken or 2, salad, poke, sashimi, alcohol, breakfast and lunch stuff. It can save you a wad! It's only about a 5 minute drive back toward Honolulu and you really must have a car on Oahu unless you are staying right in Waikiki, which you are not.

I will say this, the meal portions are more than generous at Aulani and I see no reason you can't split one meal for 2 people when ordering in most cases unless you're both lumberjacks.

Please tell us a bit more about your length of stay, and the above questions so we can better help you.

 

[Anal Annie]

I'm trying to create a vacation budget for a family group. Any help on daily food and entertainment costs would be appreciated. We are a family of 4 with a 3 year old and 8 year old. I was thinking about 45 per adult each day and 30 for each child - for a total of 150 per day. Is that overly optimistic? I'd probably have a drink by the pool and one or two at dinner.

Thanks

Personally I would plan for a little higher depending on how many meals and what type of meals you plan to eat out per day so that I wouldn't have to add up every dime every time I bought something. You might be able to do an average of $150 if you have some super cheap scrimpy days to off-set your higher days. You could easily spend $10 per drink + tip so if you have 3 drinks "out" per day you've pretty much already blown your budget. You can buy the refill drink cups and make your own drinks if you buy some booze and / or beer at Target. That's what we did. I brought my mixer down in my pool bag and DH poured his beers into his mug. I also had wine in the room...

We bought some food at Target too (along with the booze ) and ate all but 1 breakfast in our studio and I went up & made sandwiches for lunches to bring down to the pool with some chips & stuff on a couple of days. We had hotdogs for lunch 1 day near the pool & vegetable spring rolls or something from the little place on the beach 1 day. The hotdogs were the cheapest and IIRC the spring rolls were like somewhere between $12-14 pp. The other days we were out sightseeing so we had Giovannis shrimp truck on the north shore 1 day for lunch and Hard Rock Cafe in Waikiki 1 day for lunch. I think we had 3 dinners at Ulu Cafe which probably ran us $40-45 for the 3 of us i and since we had the refill cups). But those were our cheaper meals. If you go to Ama Ama or the buffet, Makahiki, you'll drop the usual Disney prices for a buffet which is now over $40 per adult. We ate at Monkey Pod one evening which probably ended up being around $90 or so and we had a pizza one night at the Pizza Corner - that was actually pretty good and only about $25 or so for a large. We didn't do Ama Ama but our biggest blowout dinner was at Roy's down the street which was still pretty pricey (I think $130ish maybe as we skipped mixed drinks and just had ice teas).

One thing I always do to lessen the blow is I buy a $25 Disney gift card every week with my groceries to apply to our tabs at Disney or at Aulani or on cruises etc. I also brought some gift cards to use at Roy's and the Hard Rock so we didn't have so much out-of-pocket expense. If you buy one gift card every week you'll have $1,300 saved in a year (which works out to $185 / day for a standard 7 n trip). That's the only way we're able to afford all of our TS dinners at WDW. We're going for 10 nights this summer & I'm bringing $1,300 in cards but hope to keep meals to under $1,000 so we have a little wiggle room for souvies or whatever. Have fun planning but up your budget a little bit!!!

 

[6brumfields]

I'm trying to create a vacation budget for a family group. Any help on daily food and entertainment costs would be appreciated. We are a family of 4 with a 3 year old and 8 year old. I was thinking about 45 per adult each day and 30 for each child - for a total of 150 per day. Is that overly optimistic? I'd probably have a drink by the pool and one or two at dinner.

Thanks

We stayed 10 nights @ Aulani we eat across the street from the resort plenty of options like Pizza burgers bbq but only eat two meals per day. With a Budget of 50 per adults and 35 per kid. Buy mug unlimited refills.

 

[deedisneydream97]

I'm trying to create a vacation budget for a family group. Any help on daily food and entertainment costs would be appreciated. We are a family of 4 with a 3 year old and 8 year old. I was thinking about 45 per adult each day and 30 for each child - for a total of 150 per day. Is that overly optimistic? I'd probably have a drink by the pool and one or two at dinner.

Thanks

OP...can you give a little more info? Studio or 1 bedroom or hotel room? Rental car or not? Our last trip to Aulani, we managed to not spend one dime on food or drink there! We stopped at Target to purchase food (we had a one bedroom for just two of us), water and alcohol. Breakfast was in our room and lunch was usually sandwiches that we made and took down to the pool or packed into our back packs if we were going out exploring for the day. Dinner...we purchased steaks and burgers from target and used the really nice gas grills at the resort. Some deli macaroni salad and some Green Giant steam fresh veggies and we were good to go. We also visited the places locals go to for some dinners. There are some chain places in the shopping centers in Kapoli (?). The concerige (sp) will give you a list and a map if you ask them. Zippys is very big there. Panda Express and Waffle House or Pancake house...can't remember.

The Island Market across the street also has a wonderful deli. Made to order salads were enough for two adults. Get frozen waffles at Target for the kids. They can do character meet and greets around the resort without having to do an expensive breakfast.

We also brought our Disney refill mugs...they were quite handy to fill in our room with whatever adult beverage to bring poolside (we brought four mugs). Wine on the balcony at night was nice....or sneaking on to the beach in a Disney mug to watch the sunset.

Giovanni's shrimp truck at the North Shore was $14 per plate last year. Your $45 per adult per day with drinks is too low. You can save $$$ by not buying drinks with dinner OR at the pool...bring your own to the pool and have water with dinner and save the wine for the balcony or beach (Please note that alcohol is not permitted on the beach.......

More help will come to you with more info from you!

 

[Dean]

I'm trying to create a vacation budget for a family group. Any help on daily food and entertainment costs would be appreciated. We are a family of 4 with a 3 year old and 8 year old. I was thinking about 45 per adult each day and 30 for each child - for a total of 150 per day. Is that overly optimistic? I'd probably have a drink by the pool and one or two at dinner.

Thanks

We normally plan on $150 per day for the 2 of us but that includes rental car and any direct timeshare expenses. We do find the per person goes down as the size increases. We usually get a cheaper rental car and eat out an average of about once a day often sharing meals with no ETOH.

 

[AZMermaid]

We just stayed for 7 days- 2 adults, 2 preschoolers. Roughly off the top of my head, we spent
$178- groceries for 5 breakfasts, 4 dinners, 3.5 lunches, snacks, soda, beer (6 pack)- could have skipped sodas in hindsight
$40- 2 refillable mugs
$120- character breakfast for 4
$30- adults lunch at Ulu
$16 kids dinner at Auntys
$45 adult dinner at Monkeypod, includes tax tip and two beers
$70 Ama Ama breakfast for 4 including tip
$35 shrimp truck lunch for 4
$180 dinner at Ama Ama for adults, includes tip and 2 glasses wine
$100 room service family meal
$200 2 days poolside service lunch for 4, 3 drinks per day
$165 two kids chip and Dale party at Auntys dinner included
$35 breakfast for 4 at ulu
$45 3 drinks at Off the Hook (bar)
$150 ice creams, shaved ice, Dole whips, muffins etc
-------
1409/7= $201/ day

We cooked a fair amount (one less breakfast than planned) but then didn't scrimp when we did eat out