Spending money

[geordie ric]

What would Dis'ers think was the minimum you should take for a 2 week stay.
There are 2 adults and 1 child in our party and we already have the ultimate park hopper ticket.I have an amount in my mind but as I've never been before it will be interesting to see what amounts people who have been before come up with.

 

[Miffy2003]

This is one of those "how long is a piece of string" questions, LOL. I bet you will get lots of different answers

For me, I have done a fortnight's trip for 2 adults and 2 children on £800. We were on a very strict budget this trip and ate mostly offsite and did not do much shopping.

I have also done a similar trip with the same people for far far more than that!

Do you expect to be doing much in the way of shopping? This can make a huge difference

Eating onsite is in general significantly more pricey too, so how much of this you plan to do will affect your spends.

 

[Oddjob]

Last time I took around 2 and a half Thousand for 2 adults 2 kids but brought around £800 home Ill be taking the same amount this time
Last time it worked out at $300 a day eating in hotel on I drive and lunches in parks at counter service only all tickets etc already paid for..

 

[Frances999]

This really does depend on a whole host of different factors. Everybody will take and spend different amounts. Why not take a look at typical restaurant prices and estimate your gift spending?

I guess we spent just over $5,000 on our last trip for food, snacks, souvenirs and other essentials. This is for 2 adults and 3 children with at least 1 full service meal per day.

 

[ely3857]

Me & DF took $3000 last trip ($200 per day inc day of arrival and departure).

We dont like to scrimp at all on holiday although we are not very extravagant.

We dont do any clothes shopping, just food & drinks, souveniers, fuel and car parking. All our park tickets had been purchased already.

We did bring some home but this was just a bonus to go towards our next holiday.



Jodie

 

[Laurafoster]

Me & DF took $3000 last trip ($200 per day inc day of arrival and departure).

We dont like to scrimp at all on holiday although we are not very extravagant.

We dont do any clothes shopping, just food & drinks, souveniers, fuel and car parking. All our park tickets had been purchased already.

We did bring some home but this was just a bonus to go towards our next holiday.



Jodie

Im the same, although im not exctravagent and go on big expensive meals each day - i work hard for my 1 holiday a year and my attitude is im not going to not do the things i want to try and save a few quid. We took $3500 this year for 3 weeks but brought $1000 back - mostly because i was having such a gd time i didnt want to leave the parks for something to eat lol

 

[wicket2005]

We had already bought the Ultimate and 4 park Flex Pass for our holiday in July. We had breakfast at the Ponderosa and either a meal/snack in the parks, plus bought sandwiches from Subway. We are not into dining at expensive restaurants. We spent £1700 for a family of four, (two kids 16 and 14). This doesn't include the kids' spending money.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

It is , as previously stated , a very difficult question to answer.

I would say minimum $2000 - we took double that in August but brought $1500 back home with us.
It really depends on where you are staying, how much shopping you will do , if like us you stay in a villa you will need to budget for groceries etc, will you be eating out a lot, restaurants at hotels can be expensive..could go on and on really.

Obviously if you have theme park tickets to buy you will need to budget for that also.

Sorry cannot be more accurate, but it really is a question that is hard to answer.

 

[princess jackson]

We normal take for 2adults and 1child, $4000, we normally come back with $600-$900 dollars.

We used to take less when eating off site, we now eat on site, so need more.

 

[geordie ric]

Thanks everyone for the info.As has been said you work hard so you can go on holidays like these so I'm not going to scrimp and save when I'm there.I had planned to take £2000 plus credit card which seems to be adequate on the information provided on this forum.
With WDW being more expensive on site than off does this also apply to the commission rates they charge on cashing travellers cheques.

 

[princess jackson]

We tend to use our travellers cheques to purchase goods or meals, and get the change, ie meal costs $30, we usually use a $50 cheque and get $20 back.

We never cash cheques where you pay comission.

Shopping say DTD, we use travellers cheques.

 

[MazdaUK]

we used a mixture of cash, TC and credit card. We used cash and/or TC in all shops and most restaurants except Walmart and any onsite Disney/US (resoning they're big enough to trace and fight if there's a problem ). We charged most Disney stuff to our room but checked it at intervals and paid off lumps with TC - we didn't want to run out of money for the last day, as on our 1st trip we ended up at LAX with only enough $ for 1 beer between us

This worked very well, we bought just about everything we wanted (I was talked out of one jacket but DH regretted it as I ended up paying more for a similar one back home ) - we couldn't have carried any more anyway

we tended only to eat two meals a day -one large one (table service/buffet) and one counter service, with occasional small snacks (doughnut, icecream) and water, and found it plenty.

 

[Laurafoster]

We tend to use our travellers cheques to purchase goods or meals, and get the change, ie meal costs $30, we usually use a $50 cheque and get $20 back.

We never cash cheques where you pay comission.

Shopping say DTD, we use travellers cheques.

Aslong as you are using US dollar travellers cheques you can just spend them like cash and get change. If you are staying at a Disney hotel they cash them free of charge for you.

 

[wayneg]

I have just paid the credit card bill today for our 3 week Oct trip. 2 weeks in Orlando plus 1 week on Disney cruise. £1000 CC + $200 free onboard credit plus £200 cash. Total for 3 weeks £1,300ish includes buying 3 annual passes to Space centre, all other annual passes we already had from our Xmas trip.

 

[paulh]

like most said we buddet aprox $150 per day for food $50 per day for drinks and fuel so $200 per day we dont take much cash or many TC as now we use our nationwide flexaccount to withdraw money from publix cash machines as there is no fee and you get the beter bank rate not the tourist rate and the rest go`s on nationwide CC as same reason no commison so better rate we only take abit of cash to start us of tips ect so we buget £1600- £2000 but it usaly comes in at about £1200-£1400 if we need tickets we buy seperately as we sitll got days left on tickets from a couple of years ago if its first time expence is a lot more but as we been 16 times now we dont need to do everything as we know we will be back for our trip in may to california we are budgeting £5000 this is for flight, accomadation, food . tickets and car but our aug trip to WDW we are budgeting £3000-£4000 flight, accomadation, food and car no nead for tickets as allready got them
Paulh

 

[jns]

we mostly use credit cards or charge to the room
its nice to live like a queen for a few weeks

 

[ERICS MUM]

Thanks everyone for the info.As has been said you work hard so you can go on holidays like these so I'm not going to scrimp and save when I'm there.I had planned to take £2000 plus credit card which seems to be adequate on the information provided on this forum.
With WDW being more expensive on site than off does this also apply to the commission rates they charge on cashing travellers cheques.

Don'tforget -take ONLY US Dollar travellers cheques, DO NOT TAKE STERLING ONES, as they will be almost impossible to cash.

Linda aw:

 

[Laurafoster]

Don'tforget -take ONLY US Dollar travellers cheques, DO NOT TAKE STERLING ONES, as they will be almost impossible to cash.

Linda aw:

I was in a hotel this year when someone did try to cash a sterling travellers chq - poor guy they just looked at him asthough he was completely mad!

 

[TinkTatoo]

We had a budget of $150 per day for 2 adults and 2 kids and over our 4 week holiday we came in well under budget. We ate breakfast in the villa (mainly cereal and muffins) and most dinners were off site with a few nights when we ate Subways. Here are a couple of days spends from my trip reports which are posted on another site

Today’s Food / Extra’s Budget $150 (spent the day at Universal)

Croissant Moon $7.84
Comic Strip Café $10.84
Moose Juice $4.80
Unicorn Cart $12.74
Thunder Falls Lunch $31.09
Croissant Moon $1.26
Trading Company $35.62
3 refills $4.24
pizza and Coffee $7.34
Target Groceries $15.72

Total $131.49


Today’s Food / Extra’s Budget $150 (played Mini Golf and went to the Cinima)

Winter Summer Land Golf $19.17
Winter Summer Land Coke / Crisps $4.49
Disney’s Pin Traders $49.79
Golden Corral $39.23
Hess Petrol @ $2.45 per gallon $30.00
AMC Movies $26.00
Virgin Store Coke / Coffee / Snacks $22.32
AMC Popcorn $4

Total $195.00

Today’s Food / Extra’s Budget $150 (Cape May Breakfast and the Cinima again)

Cape May Breakfast $70.00
2 x Cokes $4.00
2 x Pins $16.95
Cinema $26.00
2 x Ice-creams $7.45
2 x Drinks and large popcorn $12.50
2 x Subway Subs $10.04

Total $139.46

Today’s Food / Extra’s Budget $150 (Fashion Square Mall and chilling)

2 x Chicken and Rice $6.37
2 x Subway $11.70
2 x cokes $4.00
2 x Ice-creams $6.03
2 x Latte’s $5.50
Golden Corral $ 39.43
Toys R Us $35.60
Yu-Gi-Oh Cards $12.51
2 cokes $2.43
2 Beanie Babies $14.89

Total $138.46

I hope that helps someone with their planning

 

[JohnnySharp2]

We had a budget of $150 per day for 2 adults and 2 kids and over our 4 week holiday we came in well under budget. We ate breakfast in the villa (mainly cereal and muffins) and most dinners were off site with a few nights when we ate Subways. Here are a couple of days spends from my trip reports which are posted on another site

Today’s Food / Extra’s Budget $150 (spent the day at Universal)

Croissant Moon $7.84
Comic Strip Café $10.84
Moose Juice $4.80
Unicorn Cart $12.74
Thunder Falls Lunch $31.09
Croissant Moon $1.26
Trading Company $35.62
3 refills $4.24
pizza and Coffee $7.34
Target Groceries $15.72

Total $131.49


Today’s Food / Extra’s Budget $150 (played Mini Golf and went to the Cinima)

Winter Summer Land Golf $19.17
Winter Summer Land Coke / Crisps $4.49
Disney’s Pin Traders $49.79
Golden Corral $39.23
Hess Petrol @ $2.45 per gallon $30.00
AMC Movies $26.00
Virgin Store Coke / Coffee / Snacks $22.32
AMC Popcorn $4

Total $195.00

Today’s Food / Extra’s Budget $150 (Cape May Breakfast and the Cinima again)

Cape May Breakfast $70.00
2 x Cokes $4.00
2 x Pins $16.95
Cinema $26.00
2 x Ice-creams $7.45
2 x Drinks and large popcorn $12.50
2 x Subway Subs $10.04

Total $139.46

Today’s Food / Extra’s Budget $150 (Fashion Square Mall and chilling)

2 x Chicken and Rice $6.37
2 x Subway $11.70
2 x cokes $4.00
2 x Ice-creams $6.03
2 x Latte’s $5.50
Golden Corral $ 39.43
Toys R Us $35.60
Yu-Gi-Oh Cards $12.51
2 cokes $2.43
2 Beanie Babies $14.89

Total $138.46

I hope that helps someone with their planning

Dear me - that is very thorough, I am sure it will be of help.