The $1200 Challenge!

[pixeegrl]

Here's a picture of the Volcano Nachos DH and I split them with our DS 14 and 2 smaller ones and then each only had about 1.4 of our cheeseburger in paradise.

 

[macraven]

[/QUOTE]


mike said that was his appetizer...........

he couldn't finish it at all......


yes, the nachos are the best and big!


and yes.
that was his expression, he couldn't believe the size of them

 

[nascarcheshirecat]

are you a tripe aaa member? can you get anything off the motel or car with that.? and some food places allow triple a discounts. 2-10 off here and there add up.

also, there are those magazine coupon books for areas around orlando, and they have coupons for buffet places too.

 

[nascarcheshirecat]

before you laugh, look around the house for all that loose coin. you can turn that in if your grocery store has those coin machines, for a small %, or roll it yourself and turn it in. use those $$ saved for your supplies. have the kids look for loose change everywhere too. it really add$ up.

 

[avic77]

also, there are those magazine coupon books for areas around orlando, and they have coupons for buffet places too.

I plan on picking one of those up while we are there as well. I figured with park closeing at 6pm (which is 5pm where we live) we will eat dinner everynight outside the theme park which will really cut costs. And Im not above a coupon.

 

[Darcy03231]

I plan on picking one of those up while we are there as well. I figured with park closeing at 6pm (which is 5pm where we live) we will eat dinner everynight outside the theme park which will really cut costs. And Im not above a coupon.

You might want to check out www.restaurants.com. I bought from them the last time we went and didn't have any problems using them in the restaurants. I bought during an 80% off sale and got $25 ones for $5, $10 ones for $2 and a $100 (we were going out for DD's birthday and there were 9 of us) for $20. It really helped a lot.

 

[macraven]

darcy is totally correct...

that is a great place to get cheaper food.
you can really come out ahead with those certificates.


be sure to read the fine print on when you can use them.
some might give a certain time period or day of the week.

 

[SusanDK]

I've read they recently opened a Burger King Whopper bar in CityWalk. Does anyone have any details? I would imagine that would be an inexpensive place to pick up lunch for your family while at the parks.

Susan

 

[damo]

If you want to have a really nice dinner for a really good price, go to Sal's Deli at Portofino Bay Hotel. The pizza is absolutely amazing and very reasonably priced. It will cost you more than eating at a pizza place off site but not much more and it is much yummier.

 

[Mikes:)Mom]

We are going on a budget too! WDW is just to much this year. I got a couple of gift cards for southwest airlines, so when I saw $588 for two round trip tickets and winning a 7 day ticket I know we were going! Here the deals I found:

Airfare after gift cards from Oregon for 2 = $258

Supersavers rate @ RPR for 5 night = $738

One free ticket = $0

One 7 day unlimited ticket = $99

Taxi to/from airport $60 ??

Total $1155

Like you I'm worried about food too, I'm taking a 14 year old football player. And he CAN eat! I’m glad to see BK opened. I’m thinking $100 a day for food and stuff…..Hopefully that will be enough.

Since you will have a car you can buy a Entertainment book for the area. On Mousesavers.com there is a link where you can buy one for $15 with free shipping.

Good luck and have a great time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SusanDK]

Like you I'm worried about food too, I'm taking a 14 year old football player. And he CAN eat! I’m glad to see BK opened. I’m thinking $100 a day for food and stuff…..Hopefully that will be enough.

The turkey legs at Universal are also a good value if you have a teen with a large appetite. They're huge and I think they cost somewhere around $6-8 (does anyone know?).

Susan

 

[poeticdiabetic]

We are going on a budget too! WDW is just to much this year. I got a couple of gift cards for southwest airlines, so when I saw $588 for two round trip tickets and winning a 7 day ticket I know we were going! Here the deals I found:

Airfare after gift cards from Oregon for 2 = $258

Supersavers rate @ RPR for 5 night = $738

One free ticket = $0

One 7 day unlimited ticket = $99

Taxi to/from airport $60 ??

Total $1155

Like you I'm worried about food too, I'm taking a 14 year old football player. And he CAN eat! I’m glad to see BK opened. I’m thinking $100 a day for food and stuff…..Hopefully that will be enough.

Since you will have a car you can buy a Entertainment book for the area. On Mousesavers.com there is a link where you can buy one for $15 with free shipping.

Good luck and have a great time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, it's amazing to see how much actual fun to take on a challenge on SAVING money! I think that we are doing well with our plan, but I think that I will purchase one of those coupon books. Since the parks close so early (9PM, ) we may want to go get some frozen yogurt or something before we hit the sack. (Which will probably be the biggest downer- we're used to staying into the parks into Midnight or even up to 2AM... 9PM will feel like it's early.)

But the upside is that we're going where the kids have never been and may (we hope!) have rides that are more thrilling!

 

[minniejack]

I didn't see this posted: It saved us some serious cash last time.

http://www.orlandocoupons.com/direc...=1&PHPSESSID=adbe7ecdf13a141c156b9fde162225e3

 

[Mikes:)Mom]

We will find those turkey legs!!!


Thanks, I'm taking some of those coupons!


One other thing I'm doing to SAVE money for my trip is not eating out at lunch! For every day I bring my lunch to work, I get $5 for spending money. That's $25 a week, it adds up quick. I transfer the $$ every Friday from Checking to Saving. The bonus is I I'm losing weight too!!

 

[poeticdiabetic]

Just to give you all an update:

We have decided to make it a little more difficult. Instead of going 4 days, we're going for 5 days for $1200 for 4 people.

We're staying at the Comfort Inn. It's going to cost us a whopping $137 and change, but that's about $28 a night.

Oh, and we're getting our rental car for $185.51 for the week.

We're getting our ticket vouchers from Costco up the street from the house on Tuesday for a total of $381.56 for all of us; so before we leave, we would have spent a little over $700. That gives us a little under $500 for gas and food.

Can 4 people (2 adults plus 2 growing boys) eat for 5 days for about $350?

Challenge!!!

I guess we will find out next week, because we leave late next Saturday!

 

[SusanDK]

I think you can do it and I think you'll have a great time!

It looks like you'll get free breakfast included at the Comfort Inn, so have everyone really load up for breakfast.

With drinks and snacks picked up from WalMart, then you can probably do fine with $70 per day for the rest of your food with the suggestions from this thread -- the nachos, BK, turkey legs. Universal also has Nathan's hot dogs. You can also order pizza for dinner when you get back to the hotel at night. Ok, so none of that sounds too healthy, but it's just for a few days.

Speaking of healthy, I've read in other 'food' threads that Universal has a good, big fresh fruit plate available at one of the CS places, I think somewhere over by Simpsons. That could be a healthy snack for you all to share if you get the mid-day hungries.

Have fun and let us know how it goes.

Susan

 

[macraven]

.

Speaking of healthy, I've read in other 'food' threads that Universal has a good, big fresh fruit plate available at one of the CS places, I think somewhere over by Simpsons. That could be a healthy snack for you all to share if you get the mid-day hungries.

Have fun and let us know how it goes.

Susan

a few places have the fruit plate.
i think you are referring to the IFFF which is near the simpsons ride.
(International Food and Film Festival)

They do have great food there.
The portions are large.

 

[poeticdiabetic]

I think you can do it and I think you'll have a great time!

It looks like you'll get free breakfast included at the Comfort Inn, so have everyone really load up for breakfast.

With drinks and snacks picked up from WalMart, then you can probably do fine with $70 per day for the rest of your food with the suggestions from this thread -- the nachos, BK, turkey legs. Universal also has Nathan's hot dogs. You can also order pizza for dinner when you get back to the hotel at night. Ok, so none of that sounds too healthy, but it's just for a few days.

Speaking of healthy, I've read in other 'food' threads that Universal has a good, big fresh fruit plate available at one of the CS places, I think somewhere over by Simpsons. That could be a healthy snack for you all to share if you get the mid-day hungries.

Have fun and let us know how it goes.

Susan

Yeah!

I just decided to look at the Comfort Inn website (I bought our hotel reservations via Hotwire, so I didn't pay it much attention.) And, yes! They do have Continental breakfast! That helps a lot!

Oh, and they have a small, miniscule fitness center- so I can get my run on early in the morning! They have actually some good amenities- especially for only $28 a night!

Plus, I looked up the mileage and according to the kind of car I'm renting- it will only cost me about $29 in gas to drive there! Plus, I'll put another $10 in the tank and I'm looking at about $70 for gas!

Things are looking pretty doable!

 

[tampabrat22]

I think you can do it! You got amazing deals on the hotel & car and those are always two major costs involved.

We are going next week and are on a tight budget as well! Luckily we live close by so we can drive, I'm just trying to work out the dinner details to keep the price down!

 

[poeticdiabetic]

I think you can do it! You got amazing deals on the hotel & car and those are always two major costs involved.

We are going next week and are on a tight budget as well! Luckily we live close by so we can drive, I'm just trying to work out the dinner details to keep the price down!

Thanks! We will be there by this Sunday morning! If you see a rather handsome African-American family, laughing hysterically on the ROTM ride... or if you see that same kind of family walking around cracking jokes about how the mother has to take pictures of everything, then smile and pose for pictures so effortlessly that it looks like they've been trained (for years and years and years) say "Hey!" You may be talking to the incomparable Poeticdiabetic!!!