What's your budget for a family of 4/

[pjlla]

I have not sat down until this moment to figure out what our upcoming trip will cost. We just kind of "guess-timated" when we had $3500 in the WDW account that we had about enough... I honestly haven't totalled this yet, but here is what we have spent/budgeted for a family of 4 (DH, myself, DD 8, DS almost 6)
going to WDW in Jan 2004...... (all includes tax and is rounded up to next whole dollar)

Airfare from Manch. NH to MCO - $780

Car Rental - mid-sized car from Alamo + one tank gas $ 228.00

Park car at airport in Manch. (guessing) $100.00

Car parking at WDW (staying off-site) $35.00

Hotel (8 nights/Homewood Suites) $503.00

5 day PHP (2 adult, 2 kids) $946.00

SeaWorld 1 day tix (2 adults, 2 kids) (great deal with
code from Pepsi, bought e-tickets) $150.00

Dine with Shamu dinner at SeaWorld $100.00

Chef Mickey Dinner $66.00

Fantasmic Dinner Package at Hollywood&Vine $66.00

Cinderella's Royal Table Bkfst $60.00

Food budget(not including previously mentioned meals) $600.00
(Free bkfast at hotel daily)

Misc. including souveniors (no clue if this is even close!) $500.00

DRUM ROLL PLEASE for the grand total .................... $4134.00

So I guess we were pretty close on our estimate (need to find an additional $600 somewhere !) But the total is pretty much what I expected it to be. And we could certainly adjust the misc. amount if we needed to .... each child has been earning their own $$ and will probably have close to $100 each to spend if necessary. THe food budget is quite a bit lower than most others I've read, but other than the meals I've listed, we will either eat counter meals, or at our hotel room. The parks generally close early when we are there, so it is not a problem to wait until we get back to our hotel to eat. Usually it is something very un-exciting, like pb&j, fruit and bagels, take-out pizza, mac/cheese... but we don't mind at all. We have our junk food fix during lunch at the parks (burgers, fries, chicken strips, hot dogs). And we try to eat as much as we need to at Breakfast, considering it comes with the price of the hotel room. They have upgraded their bkfst menu since our last trip in Jan 2002, so we are looking forward to eggs and bacon a few times, versus bagels and cocoa puffs every day! ..............

 

[beattyfamily]

Originally posted by pjlla

Chef Mickey Dinner $66.00

Fantasmic Dinner Package at Hollywood&Vine $66.00

Cinderella's Royal Table Bkfst $60.00

Just an FYI...your totals for these 3 meals seems a bit low. We're a family of 4 too and I put these 3 meals in my spreadsheet cause we're eating at them too.

For example, at Chef Mickey's 2 adults ($23.99 ea.) and 2 kids ($10.99 ea.) is $70. for just the food; no taxes or tip.

Enjoy!

 

[TraceyB]

Hmm...haven't totaled it up yet (Don't want to think about it too much) but here goes:

We are going from Nov 27-Dec 6 (Thanksgiving day)

We are a family of 4 (DH, myself, 7yo DD, 8month old DS). We are flying from CT, and we did buy a seat for the baby, so that increased our cost by about $300. We bought a package from our travel agent (but the package is from Southwest Vacations).
Unregistered
Our package cost $2400. We have 4 round trip airline tickets, 9 nights at the Quality Suites Universal and a 4 door midsize ALamo Rental Car for that price.

We already have some of our passes taken care of. We have 3 days + 4 'options' (World of sports, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach and Downtown Disney) left on our passes from 2 years ago. We will for sure use those 3 days + probably Typhoon Lagoon and Downtown Disney.

Beyond those passes, we will most likely buy the 5 days passes for Universal that they are offering on line (5 consecutive days for both US and IOA for about $100). We'll need 3 of those, so about $300 there.

On top of that, we'll probably decide that we want more than 3 days for WDW and end up buying new 7 day Park Hopper Plus passes and use some days now and save hte rest for next time, so add another $1100 or so for that.

We eat breakfast in the hotel (included in the price) and will bring some snacks to the park with us. We'll eat counter service in the parks and have dinner off site. $100 per day is probably a good average, so count that as $1000.

Spending money for t-shirts, souveniers etc probably will be another $350 or so.

Total about $5150. We only go on a 'big' vacation like this every 2 or 3 years though, and we'll have some days at WDW for the next time.

Tracey in CT

 

[pjlla]

Originally posted by beattyfamily
Just an FYI...your totals for these 3 meals seems a bit low. We're a family of 4 too and I put these 3 meals in my spreadsheet cause we're eating at them too.

For example, at Chef Mickey's 2 adults ($23.99 ea.) and 2 kids ($10.99 ea.) is $70. for just the food; no taxes or tip.

Enjoy!

Thanks for the heads up....I had the price for CRT and FDP quoted when I made the PS... I erroneously thought that included tax (but not tip).... I didn't have the price for Chef MM, but assumed it would be about the same as FDP.... guess I had better list a few more things on ebay this week to make up the difference!!

 

[tonysgal34]

Please make sure that your grand totals are accurate. I started reading a post about an 11 night stay at only $2600 something and then looked back at the individual stuff and realized that the total was much higher than that, so I didn't feel like we overspent that bad on our 1 week trip.




(Chim Chimny......your total is actually $4017.87)

 

[mareed]

I'll share our planned budget for our upcoming 10 night Thanksgiving trip. This is for 2 adults, and 2 children ages 4 & 7. We've gone on several trips, so I know these numbers will be pretty accurate.

Airfare: Only $50 for 4 roundtrip tickets due to using Southwest Rapid Rewards and remaining voucher credit from volunteering to get bumped on our return from our March trip.

Hotel: $80 per night for 3 bedroom condo at Windsor Palms. 10 night total is $800.

Rental Car: Full size from National for $175 for 10 days (booked this last March when prices were very low).

Food: We'll eat most breakfasts at the condo, and usually have one PS at a sit-down restaurant per day. This includes a couple of character meals and meals like Le Cellier and Prime Time Diner. Other meals will be counter service at the parks. I've included $50 for our travel days, and $100 on park days for a total of $1000.

Park Passes: We have AP's and I allocate a proportion of the cost to each trip, so this trip's cost is $615 for 9 park days.

Souvenirs: I've budgeted $20 per day for a total of $180. Past trips have shown that I under-budget souvenirs and over-budget food, but they usually cancel each other out. I keep thinking that since we've been recently, we won't need many souvenirs, but I always seem to find something I need. My DS's get $5 each per day to spend, which works very well for us.

Airport parking fees: $55

Groceries: $75 for breakfast food, a few snacks, and juice boxes for DS's at the parks.

Grand total for 11 day/ 10 night trip is about $2900, and I'd say this is pretty all inclusive.

 

[Chim Chiminy]

tonysgal34
You're right! Now we all know I am not a math whiz.....
I even added that several times, trying to make sure I got it right.
No wonder my DH was so mad about the cost of the trip!

 

[AirForceRocks]

We're a family of 4 - me, DH, DD (10) and DS (8). Here's what I've worked out for our trip next August...we will be there 10 days, which is the longest we've ever been:

Hotel night for drive down and back: Free (earned certificates through Milesource)

Food for drive down and back: $25 - I have lots of gift certificates for restaurants earned through rewards programs.

Gas: About $50. The total will be about $250, but our credit card gives cash cards for rewards, so I'll have about $200 worth by the time we go.

Hotel: 11 nights at CSR $1636 rack rate. This might go down if there is a good AP rate or if we end up staying at SoG ($1045).

Food: $1650. We like to do at least one sit down meal per day, and we always do two character breakfasts. We'll have a Disney Dining Experience card, so that 20% helps keep the $$ down some.

Tickets: $1067 (2 adult Florida Resident Seasonal passes, 1 child Florida Resident Seasonal passes, 1 adult 10 day Stars and Stripes pass, 4 adult and 2 child water park passes).

Souvenirs: $600

Extra stuff (mini golf, movies, pirate cruise, golf, etc.) $500

Grand total: $5528

This is most likely going to end up high, but I'd rather plan on too much than too little.

 

[da disney fans]

Originally posted by pjlla
OKAY... someone please correct me if I am wrong... I just bought my PHP tix at my local Disney store here in wonderful TAX FREE New Hampshire.... HOWEVER, we are charged the florida tax rate of 6.5% on that PHP ticket purchase! Are you sure that you were only charged the Maryland tax rate? If so, I should have driven to MA, where the tax rate is 5%, rather than pay the 6.5% florida rate. I know that I wasn't charged this tax in error, because it was the same situation when I purchased them two years ago here in NH. Just wondering.....

I haven't bought the tickets yet, but since I was to be buying them in MD, I just assumed we'd pay MD tax, not FL!

Man, Disney'll get you any way they can...

 

[beattyfamily]

I'm pretty sure you pay Florida tax on passes.

 

[da disney fans]

Originally posted by beattyfamily
I'm pretty sure you pay Florida tax on passes.

Oh well.. it could be worse. WDW could be in CA or NY, with their 8+% tax..

 

[eeyoresbestfriend]

here's my budget for our family of 4, kids are DD 7 and DS 5

Airfare from Frankfurt Germany $1350

2 nights hotel (POP Century) preferred view Before package begins $132

6 nights POP Century Preferred view w/ UPH Disney Visa Package $1279

Food including Hoop Dee Doo, Chef Mickey's and Crystal Palace, $950

Assorted souveniers $500 (probably way over estimated but its just extra then!!)

Towncar from airport $80

Misc expenses on travel days sacks in airport, etc $50


Grand Total- $4341 I can subtract the $100 free Disney Dollars and make it $4241! and I have $75 on my rewards card so that helps too!


We will eat mostly counter service and food court at the hotel, so food may be a little over budgeted, but I'd rather over budget than under!!
If anyone thinks of anything I forgot please let me know! thanks a lot! we usually do the Stars and strips through Shades of Green, but the Disney Visa was a better deal this time!!


These boards are great everyone is so helpful!!

 

[Familymoon]

I'll play

Airfare through Southwest - promotional rate of $91 return trip - $140 there...opting to have a seat for the baby in lieu of lap

$1200

Hotel - offsite - free upgrade for our honeymoon at the Radisson
$69/night (7 nights)

$483 + taxes, I assume (so + $38 for taxes)

4 day park hopper plusses for 2 adults, 2 kids through hotwire

$711

Parking at Disney World

$35

Food (including PS at CRT, Crystal Palace, and Breakfast with Princesses at Norway)
$600

Souveneirs and Christmas Shopping
$500

Alamo minivan rental
$275/week!

That said - we also have expenses like luggage we bought (but will be used on future trips as well)...stuff for the kiddos...clothes...toiletries and first aid stuff...snacks...we are going to MVMCP which has been prepaid as well as the CP with dinner at the Biergarten which has also been prepaid. And, we have some disney dollars lying around here that total around $100 (Thanks to Mom who got them for the girls' Halloween presents etc!)

So - for a family of five (one under 3) $3824