Realistic dining costs

[brentconn]

We decided to skip the meal plan and just pay as we go. With that said, what kind of general dollar figure are we looking at excluding breakfast? Two adults and two kids(10 and 12). We are staying at Beach Club Resort for 6 nights. I heard you can save some cash if you eat your lunches at the Down Town Disney area but for dinner we just want to go to restaurants close to what we have planned for that evening. Any suggestions?

Thanks!,

Brent

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

I would go to allears menu site http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm and price out the meals you think you will have. Counter service you can just guess or pick some of the more expensive items so you have a cushion. Table service I would add it up and figure in tip as well.

We are getting free Quick service dining but wanted to do a few TS meals, so that is what I did. It is more than I thought ($560 for 3 TS meals!) but there are 6 of us and one of the meals is Park Fare which can be expensive. I'm glad I added it up though, our last trip my MIL paid for almost everything and we spent MUCH MORE than we thought we would.

 

[Leafsgirl36]

Take a look at the allears site. They list the restaurants along with the food available and the cost. Also if you have an ipod touch or an iphone there is an app you can download that gives you the exact menu at each place to eat at Disney along with prices. You should be able to get some idea of cost by looking at either one.

 

[ancestry]

This really depends. Are you planning on table service (i.e. sit down restaurants), buffets, or counter service? If you are in the parks you are not going to want to leave a park to travel to downtown Disney just for the purpose of eating lunch.

In addition both of your children are considered adults by Disney standards. If you eat at a buffet they will have to pay an adult price.

 

[ReneeA]

I was unsure about whether to add the dining plan to our trip last time, so I visited one of the websites with all the menus and prices. It was time consuming, but eye opening. If we ate mostly CS meals with 2-3 TS meals thrown in for the week, plus one snack a day per person it was going to run about $75-90 a day for food. The regular dining plan cost us $95 a day.

It was worth it to book the dining plan for that little of difference...we ended up eating better (a TS every day) and we got desserts everywhere (whether or not we needed them). I noticed that your kids are disney "adults" so your cost is going to be higher. I would still sit down and add up the costs, that way you have an idea of what you'll pay OOP.

 

[elcodfish]

It really dpends on your eating habits. My husband likes a big breakfast, I don't so some mornings we eat breakfast bars on the go that we brought from home and somtimes we sit to have a breakfast. For lunch, we usually split a bigger meal, like a bacon double cheeseburger, and then get a snack. You will not save money by going Downtown as opposed to just eating countr service in the parks, so unless you were planning on going downtown anyways, i wouldn't waste the time.

 

[supersuperwendy]

We did an offsite trip in 2008 so we had no dining plan. Upon our arrival in Orlando we stopped at DTD for lunch at Wolfgand Puck (marketplace) we had 1 chinois salad, 1 flatbread pizza & 3 kids meals it cost me nearly $60. I had never noticed the prices before since we always use the dining plan. If it was just hubby and me I'd be more comfortable skipping the dining plan, but with three kids the check totals really add up.

 

[MomWith2Cinderellas]

Before each trip I look at the menus on Allears and see what each one of us would order. I than take and add up the meal, tip, and tax. I have a very good idea what our meals and snacks will cost us.

 

[MelanieC]

I used to be able to figure out what we would need for dining costs almost to the penny by using Allears and the menus here on the DIS. Just figure the most expensive item each person might order, add drinks, tips, tax, etc. I would then add so much per day for snacks and drinks as a buffer.

I even used to put the money in envelopes by day with the reservation numbers or plans of where we were eating on each envelope, including stroller money, autograph and pen money, etc. Back when we first started doing Disney and money was tighter, this is how I budgeted and I had cash for our trip before leaving for Disney. It worked well.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Before sending anyone off to check a different site, I'd recommend looking at the menus right here http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/disneydining.cfm on the DIS home site. Random menus I've checked recently appear to be current - i.e. dated 1/10.