Without DDP how much do you spend a day for food?

[Zippiteeee]

I always get nervous right before a trip thinking I didn't budget enough for spending money.
We are staying off site for 10 days, plan to eat breakfast at the house first and then we have ADRs for dinner most nights and planning counter service for lunch.
How much would you have budgeted for this?

 

[butterfly8]

That depends, how many adults/kids in your party?

 

[Zippiteeee]

Just myself and my DH - no kids.

Sorry should have clarified that to begin with

 

[global_mom]

We are a fam of 5: 3 kids under 12 and 2 adults. We follow the same dining schedule that you stated (breakfast in most days, CS lunch, TS dinner). I budget about $225 a day not including the breakfast items in the room. When we are using the Dining PLan I only need about $136 per day (pre-paid) not including the breakfast items. We do really love to eat out so some days this amount is more if we do 2 TS in a day. We are now DVC owners so our habits may change now that we have a kitchen and the children are getting older and want to eat more "on the run".

We leave tomorrow for 8 days at WDW! Hope that you have a great trip!!

Well with no kids, your budget will be a lot better than ours!! Have fun!!

 

[borgthe]

It depends on if you drink alcohol, get appys and desserts, etc. With all of that, I would say dinner you should budget $130, counter lunch $20, so $150 per day should be good.

 

[Zippiteeee]

It depends on if you drink alcohol, get appys and desserts, etc. With all of that, I would say dinner you should budget $130, counter lunch $20, so $150 per day should be good.

That is pretty much what I figured.
One less thing to worry about (I am a chronic before going worrier - I drive DH nuts)

 

[StrollPatrolMom]

About 25 for CS lunch

and 60 at least for dinner...

throw in a snack and a water...

I'd call it an even 100.

But it also depends how you eat...you could of course do it for less...

 

[minnierocks]

I budget about $150/day for two adults and two teens...we eat breakfast in the rooms and carry some snacks into the park. We generally eat a nice sit-down late in the afternoon and then buy something light in the evening if we get hungry...

If you are really want to get a feel for what you might spend, you can go to www.allearsnet.com or www.wdwinfo.com and take a look at the menus. They have the prices listed and you can do some figuring for each restaurant that you plan to dine in...

Hope that will help...

 

[helenabear]

Wow, we eat cheap compared to y'all. We never do TS for dinner and we do not go to a TS daily. On a TS day we spend $45 for lunch, about $15 for dinner (I don't eat full meals so never order them) and maybe $5 for snacks. We don't usually buy a lot of soda so we save there. So on an expensive day we have $65 for the two of us. On a cheaper day we can easily do it for about $35-45. Breakfast is always in the room.

 

[lynninpa]

I agree with minnierocks. Take a look at the online menus (with prices) for the places you plan on eating. Add in tax (6.5%) and tip and you will get a great idea of how much $$ you will need.

 

[SummersMom]

We eat on a budget and aren't huge eaters at any one meal. Our last trip of 11 days including myself DD4, DS2 and my mother, we spent an average of $39 per day on food. Our big spending day was $50. We don't eat sit-down, only counter service. our opinion is we are there to enjoy the parks, not the food, if I want to spend $60 on a meal, I'll go to a great restaurant near our home and not waste precious vacation time. Just how we view it.

 

[KKB]

I SO appreciate this thread! It has entirely convinced me of the value of DDP! I was doing it for the variety & convenience, and it looks like we will AT LEAST break even! Not even going to feel guilty if we choose not to have a course sometimes!

One week from today we head out!

 

[MomofKatie]

We have budgeted an average of $100 per day for our family of 2 adults and 1 child. We looked at the menus and got a rough idea of what we will be ordering at each TS and CS, and we added on $10 per day for snacks for the 3 of us and the occasional adult beverage for DH or me (we aren't big drinkers- or big snackers).

We are staying 8 nights, and have 7 TS meals planned (6 dinners, 1 breakfast). The rest will be CS, with one evening of grazing the F&W festival booths.

 

[Mickiethepooh]

about $150 a day for the two of us including snacks

 

[bornwiththeears]

Be sure to book your TS at lunch. I just looked at the menu for the new Italian restaurant....wow what a difference between lunch and dinner.

 

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

We generally did TS dinner and CS lunch also. Our lunch was around $20 for both of us and dinner ran about $80 including the tip and maybe a glass of wine. We like buffets like Boma and usually share an appy at dinner. The last 2 visits we did the dining plan. It was just a tad cheaper for us and we got snacks to boot. Not a huge savings but every little bit helps.

 

[jamstew]

I always get nervous right before a trip thinking I didn't budget enough for spending money.
We are staying off site for 10 days, plan to eat breakfast at the house first and then we have ADRs for dinner most nights and planning counter service for lunch.
How much would you have budgeted for this?

I just finished a spreadsheet for my upcoming solo trip in May, and my food budget is $350, with tax and tips, for 26 meals onsite. This includes 8 table service (breakfast-Cape May & Spoodles, lunch-LeCellier, Crystal Palace, Yacht Club Galley & Garden Grill, dinner-'Ohana & Big River Grill). I spent about $265 in September on food, drinks & snacks onsite for an 8 day trip, which included 5 table service meals (breakfast-Whispering Canyon, lunch-Crystal Palace, dinner-Boatwright's, Cap'n Jacks & Whispering Canyon). So, for me, daily food costs on both trips averaged less than the cost of the meal plan. Granted, I rarely get appetizers and only occasionally have a dessert, and there's no alcohol in the budget

 

[PolyAddict]

Over our past few trips we have had the DDE card, however, I saved all of our receipts and for our family of 5 (2 adults, 3 kids) eating mickey waffles for breakfast, one counter, one snack and one sit down per day we averaged about $40 per person without the discount. We don't drink alcohol with meals, and I often shared drinks with my youngest.

 

[jwwi]

We also have a small budget for meals. We sometimes share meals, that way we have room for snacks.

 

[sunkist]

We did not get the DP. DS13 eats only hamburgers,DD7 snacks around does eat healthy- fruit, crackers, raw veggies, but does not sit down at meal time and eat a whole meal. We usually save it and will eat on it later. My DH and I usually will split a meal when we go into a sit down resturant, or we will get just appitiziers(sp) We will eat alot at CS, but we have made a couple of reservations at TS. We will also eat breakfast in the rooms, cereals, bagels, cereal bars. We figured about $100 a day-give or take a few dollars.