Spend per day at the parks

[Dr_Pepper_1889]

On average if we were to go (as a family of 4) to the parks for a full day, what’s the average spend ? Drinks meals snacks etc ? We’re going in April but a bit unsure what a realistic daily Disney spend is!

Also how much is parking these days ?
Thanks!

 

[Herding_Cats]

On average if we were to go (as a family of 4) to the parks for a full day, what’s the average spend ? Drinks meals snacks etc ? We’re going in April but a bit unsure what a realistic daily Disney spend is!

Also how much is parking these days ?
Thanks!

This is going to be a HUGE "it depends" answer. How old are the kids? Adult beverages? Sit-down meals? Quick-service? Do you like to buy a lot of souveniers? If so, what type (for example, a $25 stuffed animal or a $90 banshee) are you more likely to buy? If I wanted to play it safe, I would PLAN for $100/day per person.

Genie+ and LL costs can add up quickly as well.

 

[Dr_Pepper_1889]

This is going to be a HUGE "it depends" answer. How old are the kids? Adult beverages? Sit-down meals? Quick-service? Do you like to buy a lot of souveniers? If so, what type (for example, a $25 stuffed animal or a $90 banshee) are you more likely to buy? If I wanted to play it safe, I would PLAN for $100/day per person.

Genie+ and LL costs can add up quickly as well.

Thanks!
I probably should a bit more! I’d say just only quick service meals, kids are 6&7, adult beverages being coffee.
No souvenirs, the kids will have some spending money seperate to the daily budget!

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

Agree with the above, this is really hard for someone else to answer for you. I don’t know how old your kids are, or whether your drink or want a sit down meal etc.

What I CAN tell you is how much my family of 4 is likely to spend on a day in the parks. We aren’t local and stay on property so we DO usually pay for a small breakfast on the resort but I’ll exclude that and just assume lunch and dinner. I’d average $50 for a quick service lunch for our group of two adults and two littles (5 and 2 but 2 year old eats like a big kid lol). Then we usually do a sit down for dinner somewhere, and that might average about $150-$200, considering we like a few cocktails at dinner time. We will probably get a snack or two throughout the day, maybe $20-$30 high end depending. We aren’t huge on souvenirs and I’ve done plenty of Disney trips and brought absolutely nothing home. On our last trip down we spent more than usual on shopping, maybe $500ish? but that was over the course of 11 days, and included gift cards the kids had been given as gifts for their own spending money.

Add in Genie+ and ILL for 4, that’s another $100ish per day. So I’ll say $350ish per day excluding shopping.

 

[MICKIMINI]

I always recommend checking out allears.net for menus so you can get an idea of where you might want to eat. Best to have multiple choices.

QS adult meals $20-25 and kids $10+. Snacks $8-10. Keep in mind it is better to split adult meals in some cases though we occasionally get kids meals. Coffee can be as expensive as a snack. I think two frozen coffees at SB's at DS was $18 in May.

I think parking is in the $25+ range now. Since you have a car, I'd bring in granola bars so when the kids are *starving* you can hold them off for an hour or so. We pick up bottled coffee at the supermarket and bring one in for each of us to save standing in line, especially first thing in the morning. The SB's line can be the longest of all!

Enjoy your trip!

 

[snikki]

Like PP's have mentioned it really depends on a lot. But whatever you choose, just add about 1K to it to be safe. Money goes like water at WDW.

 

[TwoMisfits]

On average if we were to go (as a family of 4) to the parks for a full day, what’s the average spend ? Drinks meals snacks etc ? We’re going in April but a bit unsure what a realistic daily Disney spend is!

Also how much is parking these days ?
Thanks!

Drinks - between coffee/water/soda, average $5/per drink.
Adults - 3 per day (2 at meals and 1 out of meal) / Kids - 2 per day b/c they'll get 2 tiny kids meal ones, but they'll be dying in the heat more than adults

Meal - CS - adults by April - $20/meal Kids - $10 meal
2 meals in the park for 4 people

Snacks - 1/person at $7-8 average (whether you go big or small)

Average daily spend for April 2023 - Drinks $50, Meals $120, Snacks $30

Total daily spend just for eating/drinking - $200/day if you're walking in with nothing and staying the day
I'd say parking is $35 by then

So, $235 to park/eat CS all day...less if you wanna go all tap water (then $185 is more reasonable)

 

[Magical2017]

We typically eat one meal plus a snack in the parks, times four.

QS is about $15-25 pp depending on what you eat, including drinks. Snacks are $5-10 pp x 4 for us. We also bring in additional snacks for our teens. So I would say an average of $150 per day for our family of four.

TS is going to be more and will vary. .

 

[_19disnA]

Answer will depend on all of the factors mentioned above. I would take one sample day of a park you plan to visit and look at the official Disney site for current menu/prices of the places where you would likely eat. Genie paid options would clearly be extra if you plan to purchase any of those.

 

[disneychrista]

I go solo and plan on $75/day average for everything in the parks. Meals, Snacks, Drinks, Souvenirs, etc.

Lunch - $20
Dinner - $30
Snacks/Drinks - $10
Souvenirs - usually less than $100/trip

 

[Dr_Pepper_1889]

Thanks everybody for this, it’s all very helpful.
We had around $250 a day for the family in mind but may well rethink it.
I’ll have a look at the website for meal costs and work something out!
We want to really enjoy our trip but equally we don’t have an endless pool of pennies so it’s finding a balance

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Thanks everybody for this, it’s all very helpful.
We had around $250 a day for the family in mind but may well rethink it.
I’ll have a look at the website for meal costs and work something out!
We want to really enjoy our trip but equally we don’t have an endless pool of pennies so it’s finding a balance

On the more optimistic side, our Aug/Sep trip, we averaged $220 per day on our 9 park days as a family of 2 adults and 3 eight year olds.

We ate what we wanted when we wanted but tried to be realistic about not over ordering and throwing away food.

We did a grocery delivery for breakfast and snacks in the parks. (I included this number when calculating my average to be comprehensive.) We also did coffee at the resort before heading into the park for the day.

In park, we averaged one sit down, one QS, and a snack each day. We would often either have the kids share meals or the adults would share while the kids ordered individuals. With the portion sizes, we simply didn't need everyone to order something at every meal. My kids are also big water drinkers, particularly in hot weather, so the adults would often end up with the fountain beverages included with the kids meals so that we could get our mid-day caffeine hit. We did enjoy a few adult beverages over the course of the trip, but a kid's size Coke Zero plus the unlimited free ice water was generally enough to satisfy.

We would also share snacks because, while a dole whip on a hot day is lovely, we don't each need that large serving. Maybe 2 treats between the five of us would be satisfying but not overfilling.

Like I said, we weren't actively trying to be frugal for this trip. Included in that total are two character meals, drinks at Oga's, and drinks/apps at Space 220 lounge, all definitely on the high end of our range. But, we also paid attention to menus and portion sizes and tended towards places where either the adults or the kids would be good to share meals rather than creating a ton of food waste. This is our norm at home, too. When we eat out, we either split meals or bring back a ton of leftovers. Since we weren't carrying to go containers through parks, splitting meals was our default.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Thanks everybody for this, it’s all very helpful.
We had around $250 a day for the family in mind but may well rethink it.
I’ll have a look at the website for meal costs and work something out!
We want to really enjoy our trip but equally we don’t have an endless pool of pennies so it’s finding a balance

As the most recent poster suggested, the best balance strike is to bring in something to help offset food and drinks. Grocery orders for what you're willing to carry and eat/drink can be a lifesaver to the budget...or even if it's only what you're willing to eat/drink in the room, so you keep totally food/drink needs down in the park...

 

[snikki]

Try www.distripplanner.com for a food budget. I've used it on previous trips and it was pretty spot on. I don't know when it was last updated since some restaurants are missing. Once you are done it'll show you the expected price per meal and it seems to be pretty accurate when I compare it to the menus.

Placing a grocery order for breakfast and water saves us a TON. We don't buy snacks since we like to have snacks in the parks now that the kids are older. When they were young we ordered snacks. It was a lifesaver, time saver, meltdown saver and we saved a fortune.

I'm planning on spending $1500 on food for DD16 and myself for 9 nights. This is for 2 breakfast ADRs, 5 lunch ADRs, 2 breakfast ADRs, 2 lounges, 2 snacks a day per person and about 5-6 QS meals. We will share at most places. This way we aren't stuffed and we can try different things on the menu.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

On average if we were to go (as a family of 4) to the parks for a full day, what’s the average spend ? Drinks meals snacks etc ? We’re going in April but a bit unsure what a realistic daily Disney spend is!

Also how much is parking these days ?
Thanks!

We are a family of 4, 2 adults/2 teens and we do like to snack, have some treats throughout the day and also have an alcoholic drink on occasion but not much. We don't spend much on trinkets or merch and we don't typically do a ton of TS meals. Our last visit, a typical day was probably $150-$175/per day. We'd grab a quick breakfast at the hotel, snack at the parks and have lunch/dinner at the parks. What we spend will also vary based on parks we visit. We are big snackers and really like to try stuff so we do spend a lot at Epcot at the food booths which is probably cost prohibitive if you're trying to watch what you spend. We bring our own refillable water bottles so we don't buy bottled water or we just grab free water from the QS. I do still pack a few snacks for my bag just in case someone gets hungry in line but I don't bring much into the parks. I did this more when my kids were younger and more picky.

Not sure about parking, I think deluxes are $25/night. Keep in mind, if you stay on site you don't have to pay to park at the parks.

 

[SLThomas318]

Agree with all of the above. I try to go thru menu's on-line prior to the trip and get an idea of what we might be spending and to make sure the places we are going have something my kids will eat (2 boys turning 6 and 8 next month). If you have a target redcard then you can buy Disney gift cards at 5% off. I try to get a ballpark amount by looking at menu's so I know how much to pick-up in gift cards. If you have amazon you can also do a prime now order for some easy breakfast stuff/waters to help with the cost.

 

[WingandPrayer]

Agree with all of the above. I try to go thru menu's on-line prior to the trip and get an idea of what we might be spending and to make sure the places we are going have something my kids will eat (2 boys turning 6 and 8 next month). If you have a target redcard then you can buy Disney gift cards at 5% off. I try to get a ballpark amount by looking at menu's so I know how much to pick-up in gift cards. If you have amazon you can also do a prime now order for some easy breakfast stuff/waters to help with the cost.

Perhaps obvious question here: does WDW allow you to bring in an empty water bottle these days? What about fruit juice boxes? Snacks?

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Perhaps obvious question here: does WDW allow you to bring in an empty water bottle these days? What about fruit juice boxes? Snacks?

All of the above are allowed.

 

[WingandPrayer]

All of the above are allowed.

This is a total game-changer. I have faint memories from the mid 1990s (last time I went; also when I worked there) that outside food was diligently policed and a total no-no. Also, that no coolers were permitted.

But this news means we can strategically lower costs (by bringing snacks & beverages).

 

[Lumpy1106]

Perhaps obvious question here: does WDW allow you to bring in an empty water bottle these days? What about fruit juice boxes? Snacks?

My family is a pretty cheap date (after park tickets). We pack sandwiches in a popcorn bucket and bring water bottles. It's pretty easy to find a place to have a picnic lunch (DL actually has a spot to do this in the esplanade under the monorail beam). We do buy the occasional snack, but one of those snacks is almost always a $2 popcorn refill - especially the maple corn in the Canada pavilion. We splurge for a TOTAL of 3-4 TS meals for the week, but also order groceries and have breakfast and usually a dinner or 2 in our room.