What do you spend daily on your DVC stay?

[FindTheMickeys]

Whew.. I guess I am a major cheap skate!! I can make due on $15 a day, but I LOVE McDonald's at DTD So I usually eat breakfast in the room, (granola bars and coffee from home) lunch in the park and dinner at McDonald's...

 

[alamode]

Isn't the DTD McDonalds closing?

 

[franandaj]

This was a very interesting question! We don't set a budget for ourselves when going to WDW, but we do a lot better now that we own DVC! We did two trips in the last six months and I went back to each trip and guestimated what we spent.

The trip in September was just two of us and we went for one week for the F&W Festival. We ate one TS meal every day except the first night, where we made a frozen dinner that we ordered from Garden Grocer. We ate breakfast in the room every day. On this trip we purchased our APs and TIW, so that was a pretty big investment, but we used them on the second trip so that was good. Our airfare was covered with credit card miles, and DVC was paid for already too.

We really didn't buy any souveniers, so besides the two APs and TIW, everything we spent money on was food. We didn't eat at any CS restaurants, just the F&W kiosks. We could have done without the TS restaurants and just eaten from the kiosks. For this trip the average daily spending was about $320 for two of us.

The trip that we just returned from really surprised me when I added it up. There were four adults, we ate at V&A's, CG, did the Animal Kingdom Lodge Safari, all of which are very high priced dining experieces. However we ate four nights in the room, all of our breakfasts, and quite a few lunches. Even including the cost of the rental car our average daily spending came out to be $120 per person.

 

[hsmamato2]

Whew.. I guess I am a major cheap skate!! I can make due on $15 a day, but I LOVE McDonald's at DTD So I usually eat breakfast in the room, (granola bars and coffee from home) lunch in the park and dinner at McDonald's...

total OP asked for was for ALL spending daily,not just food..... if I counted food only,it would be much less than my original answer to get the true answer you have to count tix ,souvies too.....

 

[thelionqueen]

I love these types of threads as I consider myself a very good budgeter of our Disney trips. We did the Free Dining plan from inception in 2005 through 2008. I saved every receipt from these trips to compare to trips without free dining (those trips were before DVC). I'm only saying this to point out that I WAY over-think and over-plan all things Disney

Our family of 4 - 3 adults (me, DH & DS 12) 1 child DS 8)
11 night average trip

Food- $600 bought at Super Wal-Mart
Car Rental-$250
Park Tix $0 (will have to buy them this year though )
Souvenirs $300
Disney Snax $200
Disney Meals $200 (darn bratwurst in Germany & Kona-can't resist )

So for our family of 4 our grand total is $1550 or about $150 per day.

Now for future trips, that cost will increase when we buy AP's which I am really not looking forward to. But doing that will decrease money spent elsewhere. So I'm figuring adding about $500 to that total per trip to average out the cost of the AP.

I would like to add my opinion to the DP vs Non-DP debate. It really depends on the individual family and their preferences. For us, at the beginning, when it included gratuity and appetizers, it was a HUGE value. Now that my kids are growing up, and we all concentrate on getting quality and healthy foods, the dining plan does not work for us at all.

Buying DVC, I would have never thought I would use the kitchen as much as I do, but I do! I cook a meal in it everyday and I LOVE IT!!

I cannot tell you how good it feels to have healthy snacks, and fresh fruits and vegetables as a main mean in Disney We felt a bit "held hostage" by the low quality, mass-produced fatty foods, and brought back a few lbs each trip. Now we have energy, nutrition, and actually come back a few pounds lighter because of all the walking. HUGE difference for all of us. But again, I don't mind cooking, others may not. Different strokes

 

[DisMomme]

Just back last night.
Here's the total for our vacation. 5 nights 8 people at AKV Kidani. We drove down and back from Maine. The total includes gas, groceries, lodging on the way down and meals out. It also includes a Wishes Cruise we took.

$1770.92 354.18/day or 88.55 per person (I included the costs for the travel down so it was really 10 nights...$44.27 per person/day)

The kids bought their own souveniers and 4 of our party paid for some of their own meals and their own tickets. Our family of 4 has annual passes which I did not include into the above total.

 

[Mad4Mickey]

we have Ap and a TIW card so we dont spend much , about 100-150 per day for 2 of us : )
This past trip in Jan we took our DD her DH and our wonderful 18 mo old Granchild and we did spend alot , we averaged it out from our reciepts and it was over 600 a day . BUT I did alot of shopping for the baby .
If it is just us we can get by pretty cheap 100 bucks a day if we have to we go down 3-4 times a year so cheap is good

 

[Arthur27]

Excellent question. For us it's a little different. We don't count the cost of our AP for we go about twice a month so they pay for themselves pretty quickly. So, when we stay at Disney our only cost is the food. We eat breakfast and lunch in our room and eat dinner either a CS or TS. So we spend about 65 bucks a day for a famile of four. Now if we we took the time and factored in the cost of the AP and DVC ... that would be interesting.

 

[twinklebug]

Just back - charged everything to the room so it made seeing what we spend a bit easier. Aside from Passes (we have APs) and transportation we spent $800 for a 9 night stay for the three of us. $300 of this went to non-food items. We only ate 2 sit down meals. The rest (around $300) was Drinks, snacks, counter service and items to stock the fridge in the room.

 

[wideeyedwonder]

Since the room is all paid for.

Soup to nuts what do you guys figure for a daily dollar amount for your trips. I mean everything from when you set foot on property to when you wave goodbye to the Mouse on your last day. (no room or plane fare).
So how many are you, and how much money doy you figure a day?
TIA

We are west coasters, and only do DVC at the GCV and DLR (so far), but for us (family of 5):

Breakfast (in the villa's kitchen): $20
Dinner (in the villa's kitchen) : $30
Lunch: (at the parks) : $40 (we share)
Snacks: (at the parks) : $25
Annual passes ($219 x 5 / 8 days): $136 a day
Snacks or drinks at the hotel: $10 a day
A breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen once each 4 day trip: $30 a day

TOTAL: $291 a day.

Our cost on souvenirs and pins has gone way down, ever since I've given my kids Disney gift cards with the prior month or two's worth of allowance (they budget REAL WELL when it's their own money they are spending).