POLL: How much do you spend on food on your WDW vacation?

[fultons96]

DW and I budget around $100 a day, we enjoy a bit of extravagant dining while on vacation. Sometimes its more, some times its less.

 

[crisi]

You'd get very different answers on the budget board than you do here where the restaurant snobs hang.

We are four people - two adults, two preschoolers. We eat one sit down dinner each evening (bill about $100x7 = $700). One character breakfast ($80). $25 a day for lunch ($25x7 = $175) plus snacks and maybe an evening with drinks in the hotel lounge (that counts as food, right?) - right around $1000 if its just the four of us.

 

[foodrocksluver]

$100 a day for me and my parents(we stay for 2 weeks so you do the math)~

 

[Mercy]

Originally posted by disney queen
i voted in the 800-900$ catergory. however, it usually depends on how long and where we are eating. sometimes it is more, sometimes less. years ago our travel agent gave us a formula to use and it has never failed. usually we bring money home. it is usually just myself and my husband.

Disney queen, can you share that formula?

You'd get very different answers on the budget board than you do here where the restaurant snobs hang.

Didn't know I was a snob

 

[jel0511]

We just returned from 12 nights and probably spent at least $2000 on food, and it's probably more than that. We're also DVC members so for 7 of those nights, we ate all breakfasts in our room and 3 lunches. We always eat in a sitdown restaurant for dinner, which at WDW for a family of 4 is usually at least $100. It unfournately adds up rather quickly. We try to go off-site a few times to get slightly cheaper sit down meals, to save a little. Of course this year, we ate at Tchop Chop, which ended up being the most expensive meal of the trip!!!

 

[TwingleMum]

Restaurant Snob ?

 

[llij]

I voted for the $800 range. We are a family of 4 and I remember budgeting a little over $100 a day for us. On our last trip we saved some money by having breakfast in our room and cutting down on the character meals. We found that our greatest expense on our Disney vacations is the food, but oh that food is good!!

 

[candykisses]

We average $125.00 per day for 3 adults and 1 child. Some days are more, some less. We aren't big on eating breakfast, but we go to at least 2 character breakfasts on our trip. We like lunch and sit down dinners.

 

[MomofKatie]

I figured about $100 per day for me, my DH, and DD6. We will eat b'fasts in room, lunch counter svc, and half counter svc and half sit down dinners. We aren't big snackers, but I figured $15 per day total for those. We will bring in our own H2O into the parks and purchase drinks only with meals.

So the amt I put for the poll was $300-$400 since we are eating the evening of arrival, and three full days after that.

 

[poohandwendy]

We are a family of 5 (kids are 17,14 and 10) and budget usually around $2000 for 7 nights/8 days ($250 per day). We eat most breakfasts in our room and make PS's for all of our dinners and usually 2 character breakfasts. We also bring sandwich fixings and snacks for afternoon breaks back at the resort. When you add it up, LOL...it really seems crazy....but without the sit-down restaurants, we would definitely go CRAZY. I can only do counter-service food so long and I get cranky. Also, the restaurants aren't just food, they are part of the entertainment for us.

Our first trip really changed our mind about the 'value' of WDW food. To feed the family counter service dinner, the cost would be around $50-65. We had to wait in long lines, in the heat or rain to get a burger or chicken fingers meal. Then we would have to try to find a clean table for all of us. After doing this for a few days, we ended up trying Mama Melroses for dinner (luckily they had a table available). Taken to a clean table, out of the elements, more food options, nice atmosphere and our food was brought to us ...for about $120. Yes, double the price but worth at least triple, in our opinions.

The way we see it, we will gladly pay $100- 200 for a nice, relaxing dinner, but we refuse to pay 60 bucks for greasy fast food that we have to carry to a table (if we are lucky enough to find one). So, it is an important part of our budget.

If that makes me a 'restaurant snob', so be it....it's just my 2 cents (LOL, or should I say, MY $2000)

 

[powellrj]

If just the 4 of us go to Disney I will budget $150 a day spending money. We usually eat breakfast in the room, one sit down meal a day and one counter service each day, I also use that money for the little "extras" we may want like pictures and knick-knacks.

 

[heffalump9]

We normally spend 700-800 dollars on food during our 7 day stays. My DH and I normally eat two meals and a late dessert each day. We normally eat in sit-down restaurants atleast once a day (dinner).

 

[disneysteve]

Last trip we averaged just under $17/person/day for all meals, snacks and drinks. Trip before was about the same.

 

[MomofKatie]

DisneySteve- $17 a day?!?!?! How can that be? you must be extremely frugal folks- or extremely light eaters!!!

 

[crisi]

Sorry - I meant snob in the complementary sense - if there can be such a thing.

On the budget board they value budget. So most people there don't do a lot of sit down meals. They are more likely to bring a sandwich into the park with them for lunch. There is a guy over there - disneysteve - who fed his family for under $20 a day last trip.

Over here, this group enjoys their meals. We dream about them. We plan them. We can't possibly fit every restaurant we want to try into a single trip. It isn't uncommon over here for someone to do a sit down meal every night. Our splurge is more likely to be California Grill than Chef Mickey's.

The populations are different, therefore, the mean dollars spent is going to be different. There is some crossover, but not enough to level the two populations out. So if you are posting here looking at an average budget, you'll probably be a little high.

Neither approach is wrong - its what you value.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

We average around the $400 -500 dollar range for my wife and myself. We average 10 days on our trips . We do not eat breakfast out more than 3 or 4 times on each trip ( we buy cereal and fruit when we get to Florida ). We do not eat lunch very often either. We spend our biggest share of money on dinners. We always have a nice sit down dinner each night ( Calif. Grill, Spoodles etc ). Since my wife went on Weight watchers and lost 90lbs we do not tend to eat many meals out other than dinner, and we split meals every so often also.

 

[hulabird]

This year, thanks to Mypoints and some other rewards sites, I have some of our food paid for. I got 10 Q&C's for free using web certificates earned through mypoints. I also did harrispoll surveys and over the last six months earned $65 in Olive Garden/Red Lobster or Bahama Breeze gift cards. In cash I earned over $1,000 and that is going to be for whatever we want including food. We bought FITS passes that included a free character breakfast so our CRT is paid for.

I would figure we spend about $300-400 for food for just DH and myself normally, for about 10 days.

 

[Belle5]

The phrase "food snob" is not an insult--just a cultural expression meaning that we're really into fine dining. I agree that those of us who hang out on this board are "food snobs" only in the sense that our Disney Dining is a HUGE part of our vacation experience.

We spend about $300 per day over the course of a 7-10 day vacation. We used to do more of the fine dining routine when more of our kids were ordering off of kid menus. Now, in order to stay within our budget we dine at more of the moderately priced sit-down
restaurants. However, we usually try to throw in one or two extra nice places for good measure. (Jiko, Boma, etc.) We generally eat breakfast and dinner at a nice restaurant. We have been trading in more of the dinner spots for lunch ones trying to keep the cost down. (Not an easy thing to do when we are continually paying for five--soon to be six "adults" at each meal and then one or two at kids prices...)

Belle5

 

[dawgfan]

This depends on a great deal of things. I sweated this question out myself for the 8 day trip we just got back from in July. I figured $25.00 for breakfast, $55.00 for lunch, and anywhere from $100.00 to $145.00 for supper. We tried as always to take some meals in a cooler and have them in the room to fill in some gaps and save money. This never works out for me as I love to eat out while on vacation. This is especialy true at WDW. Snacks at the room work out but not sandwiches and such. We always seem to be on the go at WDW and never really have the time to get a $ saver meal out of the cooler. With this in mind I budgeted for about $285.00 per day (this includes accomodations). We ate (or should I say "pigged out") and never had a worry about the money running out. I had two really expensive meals that were up to $145.00 level. Some meals were skipped depending on how much we ate at the last meal or how many snacks we had during touring. I came home with a little over $500.00. I took $2300.00 for a family of four staying 8 days and one day spent on the road getting there with a hotel stay prior to WDW. Part of the $2300.00 was spent on the WDW room and the road hotel. The rest was souveniers and food. We had plenty. We stayed at POFQ.

 

[QueenOfCelts]

Normally we average around $110 per day.