Please share what the "extras" cost during your trip

[Katems]

To the original poster...the water is HORRIBLE at Disney and it is WARM. Not gonna work for you! Also, definitely eat breakfast in the room. Bring poptarts, granola bars, cereal bars, baggies of trail mix, etc. Also, you get two free desserts and a free snack each day per person....a lot of those desserts are wrapped up individually and completely transportable. We had SO many left over desserts each day that the next day those were our breakfasts. Desserts can be muffins, cupcakes, cookies, brownies, fruit, etc., and those make wonderful breakfasts each morning (hey, you're on vacation...what's wrong with cookies for breakfast??)

To the one bringing $1500 on a trip already paid for with free dining....WAY too much. I can't imagine that. We had free dining last year and we spent about $50 grand total, INCLUDING housekeeping and ME tips. The kids each brought their own money for trinkets, about $25 each.

 

[kcrew]

At Staples...24 pk of bottled water is $6.59 for several different brands. If you enroll in the staples rewards program (free) then all your shipping is free. Many people have had to call and get the first order credited for free shipping, but it works like a charm after that. If they do charge you shipping, just call the 800 number and they'll adjust the price to remove the shipping charge. We mailed it to the resort address listed at allearsnet. Our address label looked like this:

RENESSA TROYER ARRIVING 7/01/05
POP CENTURY RESORT
1050 CENTURY DR
LAKE BUENA VISTA FL 32830

At Pop, they had ours ready for pickup at check-in. They loaned us a cart to take to our room. We had to return it then, which was a pain, but not a problem. We took trash can and filled it with ice (in the liner) and always had cold water..day and night... To pack in a backpack I would just wrap a wash cloth around the bottle and secure with my hair tie or rubberband. The cold, damp wash cloth felt good in July and the cold water was great. All this for 55cents a bottle. I place my order so it would arrive the day before check-in. Have a great trip!

Wow! What great info. I will definitely check into it. Funny because we just bought a computer from Staples last week and enrolled in the rewards program. Thanks for your post!

 

[disgram]

This is a great thread. I have written down some of the suggestions so that I don't forget!! We are also trying to set a budget and this has been very helpful. Thanks all!

 

[jsmla]

........I give each of my kids $10 per day. They can spend it on whatever they want. Keeps me from hearing "Mom I want!!".
........Also bring fruit snacks, nuts, etc. That keeps you from spending OOP for extra snacks in the parks. Then at the end of the trip you have an extra empty suitcase to take home items you have purchased.

We did both of these with our kids years ago when we were on a very tight budget back in the day (Camping at FW, eating most meals in, etc.) Mine knew that their money was theirs to spend any way they wanted. DD usually spent hers daily on snacks, pressed pennies, etc. while DS usually saved the whole week for one expensive souvenier. Either way, both were happy and there were no "No you can't have a Mickey Bar, Tinkerbell earrings, Star Wars mask" fights.

 

[My2Cinderellas]

Our trip in June 5-June 12. Everything has already been paid for and we have the dinning plan and hopper tickets. My husband is "worried" we will not have enough food. This is our first family trip. It is my DH, DD9 and myself. We will be flying and then will use magic express. We will not have a car and will be on property. We have to watch what we pack since flying (I am an over packer). My question is, Do you think $1,500 ish will be enough to take along??? Yes, we plan to shop and stuff but my sister thinks that is way too much money to take or have for Disney. This will be my daughters first trip.

Please give me your opinions. Thanks everyone.

Not enough food????? The amount you get with your 2 meals a day is insane. The trick is to share meals so you aren't completely overstuffed. It's too hot to be full up to your eyeballs. I'm pretty sure that I never finished all 3 courses of a TS meal. I couldn't. At home we usually split an appetizer if we get one at all, so each getting our own (and twice 4, two restaurants allowed the girls to get appetizers from teh adult menu) was fun but we couldn't finish anything.

We used the breakfast food I shipped, but didn't need most of the extra snacks I brought. When at our resort, I often got packaged fruit (grapes, or mixed melon chunks) for desserts with CS meals, and bottles of juice for the drinks, to save for breakfast. We had a couple refillable mugs, and drank pop with the meal, saving the juice and fruit for later.

$1500 for 3 people will be plenty, unless you buy a TON of souveniers or are taking expensive tours and such. Our family of 4 spend just over $1000, but we had never been before, so bought more souvenier things than we normally do on vacation. Our biggest expense was the pick an oyster pearl jewelry in Japan. there is probably $200 of alcohol in that total as well. A beer here, a glass of wine with dinner there, and it all adds up. the rest was a few toys, shirts, hats, sunglasses for the girls, stroller rental, autograph books, Epcot passports, the Kids Club charge one night, the picture at Princess STorybook lunch, etc etc.

 

[Cindy's Mom]

We did both of these with our kids years ago when we were on a very tight budget back in the day (Camping at FW, eating most meals in, etc.) Mine knew that their money was theirs to spend any way they wanted. DD usually spent hers daily on snacks, pressed pennies, etc. while DS usually saved the whole week for one expensive souvenier. Either way, both were happy and there were no "No you can't have a Mickey Bar, Tinkerbell earrings, Star Wars mask" fights.

My kids would be the opposite with their money.....did you find that $10 was enough? Mine are DD5 DS4.

 

[jsmla]

My kids are 18 and 21 now so things were probably cheaper then but we did give them $10/day. As they got older they tended to supplement the $10 with money from Christmas, birthdays, etc.

Oh, and about the spending patterns, DS may be the tightest human being on the planet Earth. I don't know if you've seen that credit card commercial where the kid tries to buy one Twinkie because he's saving for retirement but that's my DS. He would often come home with most of his spending money intact. I would say DD was more typical of most young kids, happily spending it on trinkets and goodies.

 

[MHopkins2]

This is a little OT, but could apply to the OP as well, so...

Michvin, before you spend $175 for airport parking, do yourself a big favor and check out www.parksleepfly.com. I'm guessing you're flying out of PHL. I put in some fake 10 day trip dates, and the most expensive hotel in the list was still significantly cheaper than what you'd spend on parking. Plus, you don't have to worry about driving yourself to the airport, getting stuck in traffic, etc.