Spending money,how much do you take?

[sam_rogers]

Dh and I will be visiting the dark side at the end of september.On all past trips we have stayed on site at wdw For 2 weeks, allowing 2 days to visit universal. I was just wondering how much spending money you normally allow yourself per day when staying at universal?
We will be spending 5 nights at cabana bay beach resort and will probably have 1 table service meal per day. This is the first time we've solely visited universal and as we are coming from the UK, we want to make sure we exchange enough currency.
Thanks

 

[bchbetha]

Are exchange rates favorable with your credit card? If so, I didn't carry any cash at Universal (also stayed at Cabana Bay). I just did the room charging thing (card on file at hotel, swipe key at restaurants...).

 

[sam_rogers]

Unfortunately the exchange rates aren't brilliant so it normally works out better for us to change up before we go, which also helps us budget too.

 

[bchbetha]

It's hard to say since everyone travels differently. For us, we'd never spend as much as $100/ day/ person for food and drink but that's probably a good gauge ($10 breakfast, $20 lunch, $40 dinner, $30 snacks and/or drinks). We'd come in under in some of those, over in others depending on where we ate.
Souvenirs? We aren't big shoppers so $50-100 would be more than enough for us. Though, the kids brought gift cards so they could buy interactive wands- a fun but expensive souvenir.
Activities- do you plan to mini golf, go to movies, bowl at hotel...? Look up those prices online.
GL!

 

[sam_rogers]

Thanks for your reply, that sounds reasonable for us too. I had around $100 per day per person in my mind so I think if we maybe budget slightly over in case of minigolf etc we should be safe

 

[keishashadow]

Dh and I will be visiting the dark side at the end of september.On all past trips we have stayed on site at wdw For 2 weeks, allowing 2 days to visit universal. I was just wondering how much spending money you normally allow yourself per day when staying at universal?
We will be spending 5 nights at cabana bay beach resort and will probably have 1 table service meal per day. This is the first time we've solely visited universal and as we are coming from the UK, we want to make sure we exchange enough currency.
Thanks

Alcohol is always a big line item when staying onsite for us. I distinctly remember being floored paying over $50 for 2 mixed, frozen drinks and 2 small draft beers poolside. There are happy hours, we never seem to hit it right.

Varied options as to TS meals between park, citiwalk and resorts. Not unusual for us to pay well over $100 for a meal with appetizers, drinks. Could 'watch' and come in around $60...check out the online menus/prices.

The CS offerings @ U are better as to quality and price than @ WDW IMO. I don't feel 'cheated' when deciding to eat 2 CS meals a day.

Often we head offsite to enjoy a meal in the 'real world'. Uber is cheap, lots of places nearby of varied cuisine.

Are you doing a grocery stop before you arrive at the resort? Convenient and can save $ as to drinks, breakfast items, snacks.

 

[squirrel]

For other Canadians looking for a Credit Card with decent fees look into an Amazon credit card. I recently applied for one and found out that they don't charge the extra conversion fee most credit cards do. I will be using it instead of my other credit cards.

 

[sam_rogers]

Alcohol is always a big line item when staying onsite for us. I distinctly remember being floored paying over $50 for 2 mixed, frozen drinks and 2 small draft beers poolside. There are happy hours, we never seem to hit it right.

Varied options as to TS meals between park, citiwalk and resorts. Not unusual for us to pay well over $100 for a meal with appetizers, drinks. Could 'watch' and come in around $60...check out the online menus/prices.

The CS offerings @ U are better as to quality and price than @ WDW IMO. I don't feel 'cheated' when deciding to eat 2 CS meals a day.

Often we head offsite to enjoy a meal in the 'real world'. Uber is cheap, lots of places nearby of varied cuisine.

Are you doing a grocery stop before you arrive at the resort? Convenient and can save $ as to drinks, breakfast items, snacks.

We should get a grocery stop with our airport transfer so we're planning on stocking up on water and breakfast items. Unfortunately eating off site will be tricky as we won't have a car but we'll look into it as well.

There's a chance alcohol may eat a bit of the budget

 

[keishashadow]

We should get a grocery stop with our airport transfer so we're planning on stocking up on water and breakfast items. Unfortunately eating off site will be tricky as we won't have a car but we'll look into it as well.

There's a chance alcohol may eat a bit of the budget

Lol

 

[Heidi K]

My husband and I stayed at Cabana Bay for 5 nights in March and we had one table service restaurant per day and maybe one alcoholic drink for each of us per day. I kept a list of our expenses. Here are the ones that weren't pre-paid:
$12 locker (for the day we did the water rides)
$40 tips (mostly for housekeeping)
$43 movie at Citiwalk, with snacks
$105 taxi from MCO to Cabana Bay and back (other transportation probably could have saved a little money, but our arrival flight was really late)
$490 meals and snacks (we didn't eat in the room at all)
$525 souvenirs and gifts (I can't believe how much this is! My husband loves to shop!! Plus we left the three kids at home so we bought them stuff and bought little gifts for my parents, who watched them)

 

[sam_rogers]

My husband and I stayed at Cabana Bay for 5 nights in March and we had one table service restaurant per day and maybe one alcoholic drink for each of us per day. I kept a list of our expenses. Here are the ones that weren't pre-paid:
$12 locker (for the day we did the water rides)
$40 tips (mostly for housekeeping)
$43 movie at Citiwalk, with snacks
$105 taxi from MCO to Cabana Bay and back (other transportation probably could have saved a little money, but our arrival flight was really late)
$490 meals and snacks (we didn't eat in the room at all)
$525 souvenirs and gifts (I can't believe how much this is! My husband loves to shop!! Plus we left the three kids at home so we bought them stuff and bought little gifts for my parents, who watched them)

Wow that's really helpful!! I'm hoping our souvenirs won't come to quite so much but you never know haha.
Thanks so much for your replies everyone, its really helped!