Spending Money

[capecoddisneyfamily]

We are a family of four DS4 DD2 and will be in WDW for 12 days. Everything is set have the tickets and DP. Not huge souvenir people each will pick out one or two things. How much spending money do people bring? I was thinking $1,000?

 

[twooley2]

Well it would probably depend if you are on the 2008 dining plan and which one. Will you be buying your own breakfast, for some reason our family turns their breakfast need on when on vacation, but does not require a big breakfast at home , go figure. We are not big souviner people either but at Disney everyone seems to turn that on too. LOL Tips are a great cut into that spending (I think) for the 5 of us we figured 2000.00 for gas from TX. and tips and some breakfast meals. We have laid the law about souviners this year and my girls are all in their early teens. Its the fancy cups at meal times with the fancy kids drinks, all the restaurants got em and milkshakes and such that dig into your pocket. Oh and the wonderfully decorated cookies, cakes and candies that you see at off meal times. I am wondering if we need 3000 am I correct? who knows ???

 

[npmommie]

We are a family of four DS4 DD2 and will be in WDW for 12 days. Everything is set have the tickets and DP. Not huge souvenir people each will pick out one or two things. How much spending money do people bring? I was thinking $1,000?

I surprised myself and when I looked at my charge at the check out I had only spent $300 dollars!!! and I got the kids a LOT of stuff in the stores!! I also probably spent another $100 dollars out of pocket for drinks, arcade games etc. we did the dining plan.
It was nice not to have to cart around a lot of cash.

my problem is next time i have to remember to bring an extra suitcase for all the goodies we buy!!! we looked like gypsy's on the plane coming home with all our plastic disney bags!! i stuffed all the goods we bought into a suitcase then used the big plastic bags for our dirty laundry! it was rough getting on the plane and I am surprised they didn't say anything!! we only did carry ons for this trip.

 

[HelenePA]

we spent less than 200$ on our trip. They didn't want anything (werid huh?) we let them each pick out a stuffed animal and a few other things.. they didn't ask for anything.. we didn't buy them everything we saw.

 

[Belle5]

We are a family of four DS4 DD2 and will be in WDW for 12 days. Everything is set have the tickets and DP. Not huge souvenir people each will pick out one or two things. How much spending money do people bring? I was thinking $1,000?

To me that is a staggering amount of $$ for souvies. Our family of eight has been to the world 20+ times and if we have ever spent more than $100 I would be shocked. I would look at it as $1000 could go a long way toward our next vacation or paying kids college or whatever. One t-shirt for everyone and maybe a pressed penny for the little ones. My older kids bring their own money now and usually purchase a coffee mug. That's it. If you want to spend it--hey--it's your money..but you asked and stated that you weren't huge souvenir people.

 

[capecoddisneyfamily]

Oh we are not spending that on souvenirs. Probally spend about 100 on them. I was just thinking of "just in case money" hopefully we don't spend anything more.

 

[5fordisney]

Hi! I'm not sure how much to recommend, but I can tell you some of the things we spent our money on.
* tips- for the housekeeping daily, drivers to and from, and now servers in the sit-down rest. as tips have been removed from the DP. We spent about $60 and we didn't have to tip servers then.
* stroller rental- you have young children, if you end up renting like we did, we spent about $100 for the week on a double
* photos- we bought 3 or 4 park photos, I think we spent maybe $30?
* extra drinks- we had the DP and had our own water but suprisingly still spent about another $35 OOP for extra drinks or snacks.
* souvenirs- we bought each child and ourselves an ornament, mugs or cups for each family member (which we still use daily! love them!), and then each child had about $50 to pick out what they wanted. We also brought back gifts for people like the dog sitters, mail getters, etc. We probably spent $400-500. We could have spent a lot less in this area.
* extra things- we took a carriage ride at our resort, forgot a water camera and had to buy one at the park, and some other things. another $100 here

I would think, depending on what you spend on souvenirs, that $1000 should be fine for the week. You can figure out a ballpark for the tips ahead of time and then budget how much you will allow yourselves to spend on the other categories. You can always use a credit card there if something comes up as well. Have a great trip!

 

[Belle5]

Oh we are not spending that on souvenirs. Probally spend about 100 on them. I was just thinking of "just in case money" hopefully we don't spend anything more.

In that case, $1000 would great just-in-case money! We dropped our good camera last trip and had to run to Walmart to replace it to the tune of about $250 or risk having no photos. Good thing, too, as our photopass photos were lost. Are you going to bring that amount in cash or traveler's checks or what? $1,000 cash makes me nervous... We have lost wallets in Disney, a credit card (had to wait for it to be replaced)...it just seems to happen on vacation.

 

[capecoddisneyfamily]

We will bring some cash but have it in an account we can use our debit card when needed. thanks for all the posts.

 

[Flower Power]

Family of 4 going in Feb 08 with DGD12 and DGD9 and they are getting around 100 dollars each in Disney Dollars and whatever they have saved til then. They will have to pay for any souvenirs, extra snacks (not drinks tho) and anything else they want. We are on the DDP and so all food is covered and taking H2O with us with Crystal Light to make the water seem more of a treat. I am taking my debit card with me to cover any emergencies that might arise but not to the parks. I plan on getting a Prepaid AmEx gift card with my expense money on it. Not that expensive to buy and INSURED if lost or stolen..it's also much easier to use than Travelers Checks. I sent one to WDW with GDG12 who went with another family (BFF type deal) last spring and they said it was so easy to keep track of for her. They didn't have to worry about handling her cash and how much she had left to spend. So that's how I'm going to do my expense money this trip.

 

[HelenePA]

also if you do happen to spend all that money on them.. you might want to take an extra suitcase to bring it all home in!

 

[debbiet1]

We have money set aside for tickets but not on the DP. We are bringing cereal with us for the kids to have breakfast as we're not really big breakfast people. We have about 2000.00 put aside for meals and extras think that should do it?

 

[irene_dsc]

This will be my first trip, so new to me, but one other expense (depending on your situation) not mentioned is transportation to your home airport and/or parking, as applicable. We usually park at the Park N Jet by the airport, which ends up being about $70 - but cheaper than a limo both ways! (No public transport conveniently available.)

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

$1000 is what I would bring "just in case" and NEVER spend. We spent about $250 on our last trip. That included extra tips for waiters, tips for Mousekeeping, "adult" beverages!, extra snacks, and $50 for the photopass cd (we prepurchased it and split it with friends who were down the same time as us).

Next year will be higher only because tips are not included in meal prices but $1000 would still be way too much for us.

As a tip, we bring snacks and breakfast items with us. We also had a case of water shipped to the room. That saved a ton of $$$.