How much do you budget?

[disney144]

how much do you budget for dining during your trip? What are the dynamics of your group? How do you like to eat?

 

[Hopefully]

how much do you budget for dining during your trip? What are the dynamics of your group? How do you like to eat?

We budget $75/adult/day. We generally eat a Breakfast in the room, a QS lunch in a park, and a TS dinner in the evening. We enjoy a beer or glass of wine with dinner.

 

[Micca]

There was a very recent thread on this. I think quite a few people said $100 per day/per person (for adults.) If you are drinking alcohol the price goes up very quickly.

 

[JordanWV16]

My family normally has fruit and bagels in the room to have for breakfast, lunch is a fend for yourself because we never know if we will all be together in the afternoons, and we schedule a TS in the evening for dinner.

My trip next year is the first time I get to do some of the planning so I think I'm actually going to schedule some TS lunches if I can, I've not gotten to experience that many restaurants at Disney and I'd like to change that.

 

[RangerPooh]

DH and I try to budget $200/day for meals for our family. If we know that we'll be eating at a table service restaurant then we increase our budget to $300. But our goal is to be closer to $150 a day with QS lunch/dinner and in room breakfast. And we have kids who often share an adult entree as the portion size can be more than enough for two people.

 

[mousefan73]

We have usually Free Dining plus RO split trip. I dont budget a set amount per day.. but first look at menus online and guess cost per person as a guesstimate on what we will eat.. I then take a look and look at the overall cost and then cut.. example OOP buffets are insane for a family of 4 disney adults.. so we only pick one for a 5 day OOP trip and plan Qs.. especially those where we can get 3 meals for 4 of us.. peco bills. for ex... All in all we "budget" or have in our head that OOP costs are 150 to 200 a day... with eating snacks in room, breakfast etc... that includes snacks etc.... you can do it alot cheaper... For us to still enjoy ourselves we would need about 120..per day. for 4... 2 adults and a 11 and 12 year old.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I'm in the process of figuring this out. We have a trip planned next year. Haven't been to WDW in 4 years but have been to DL and DCL. I must say I'm having a bit of sticker shock at the cost of some (most) of the food. $54 for steak?! Yikes! We do not do the dining plan. There is three of us. Obviously I will need to budget (and save) more money.

 

[Chrelaine]

I generally budget $200/day for my DH, myself and DD6. Some days it's low, some days it's high and usually it comes out about even in the end. We like an appetizer to share and DH and I will usually each have an adult beverage with dinner. Buffet meals and alcohol have the largest effect on the budget for us. We don't dine at the signatures because I usually just can't justify the cost when there are so many other places that we enjoy.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I'm somewhat immured from the sticker shock of eating @ DW based on the restaurant prices in my region and actually think the value of an on site rooms stay is wacky/ier. I refuse to pay more than 5 bucks per person for a QS/fast food meal since I think most of it isn't particularly healthy for us. Fortunately, a Dole float costs about 5 bucks, LOL.

Last trip we didn't sign up for a dinner plan; next trip we're on board for a deluxe dining plan and hope to utilise it in a manner that mirrors our normal eating pattern.

I'm budgeting about $100 per person per day average, again based on how we normally eat

 

[Hopefully]

My family normally has fruit and bagels in the room to have for breakfast, lunch is a fend for yourself because we never know if we will all be together in the afternoons, and we schedule a TS in the evening for dinner.

My trip next year is the first time I get to do some of the planning so I think I'm actually going to schedule some TS lunches if I can, I've not gotten to experience that many restaurants at Disney and I'd like to change that.

So, to answer OP question, what are you budgeting?

 

[sharonabe]

We are a family of four, all Disney adults now. We eat breakfast in the room and mostly QS with one or two TS thrown in for the week. We PREFER water to drink with our meals, so that helps a lot. Only two of us eat dessert, and we can easily share. DH and I aren't snackers, but the boys can be. I'm budgeting $150/day for our 5-day trip.

 

[Happyinwonerland]

For a 7 days trip for DH, DD(5), and myself, i budget $1000 for food. We typically do breakfast at the condo, bring drinks and snacks in with us, and a mix of table service and quick service for meals. We eat about half our lunches in our condo or bring them in with us. We are not huge eaters and DH doesn't drink alcohol, I may hav 2 or 3 drinks the entire trip. I try not yo think too much avout what we spend on food, I am more concetned with making sure we are all well fed and get a good balance of healthy mixed in with the junk or we will all feel miserable.

 

[loves to dive]

Sorry, can't help you with the budget because I don't but I can tell you our patterns. My son is not a breakfast eater, I am so I normally get a kid's meal breakfast while he is still in bed. It has just enough food for me, or I'll get a muffin or yogurt. If we eat QS, I tend to get kid's meals, I'm just not a big meal eater so it's more than enough for me and I get a bottle of water with that. If we are eating table service if it's for supper, I'll normally get a couple of appetizers and a refreshing adult drink (o.k. more than one refreshing adult beverage, if there is a wine flight I'll get a white one my son will get a red one and we will sample each others). If it's lunch my son and I will normally split an appetizer and split a meal. If it's lupper (lunch/supper) who knows. We aren't big snackers between meals but often our meals are what are considered snacks and we just snack all day. We don't look at prices at the TS restaurants, just order what we want. Our biggest expense tends to be refreshing adult beverages.

 

[TwinkleKS]

We are almost solely DDP people because of this very question. It's so much easier to just say we are spending $x for everything and pay it all at once.

This last trip we didn't use DDP, had breakfast bars in the room most mornings, a quick service, and a table service (some Disney some offsite). There are five of us, three of them kids that don't eat much but have to order a kids meal regardless. I'm guessing we averaged $200 a day easy ... more if you include snacks.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I forgot to state we'll be 3 adults according to the dining meal plans, mostly eat signature meals, and at least 2 of us rarely eat anything for breakfast beyond hot beverages (coffee for him, tea for me and hot choc or milk for the young lady).

The 3rd member of our party is a 12 y/o Hobbit in training, eats fruit + yogurt at the day's start and then snacks on home made granola, maybe a hard boiled egg, dried fruit, and apple sauce pouches until she eats lunch with us. Dinner is our pig out time and when she's allowed her one sugary drink per day.

 

[FrancoFun]

We just got back from 6 nights, staying onsite at WDW. For myself, my spouse and our 10yo, we averaged about $150 a day for food. Actually, we had made a budget for food and ended up being within $4 of what I had estimated!

This included some breakfasts in the room, but also included places like 'Ohana, Teppan Edo, Boma, Garden Grill, Raglan Road, as well as several quick service places. We aren't big drinkers, but did get some alcohol at Epcot and AK.

 

[daae3]

My group goes Dutch, so I only have to budget for me...I would prefer breakfast in room and a quick out...but the coffee drinkers demand real coffee...so I budget $10 breakfast, $20 lunch and $50-$75 for dinner depending on restaurant. So that is about $100 day for one. Not a big fan of snacks but might throw in $10-20 for drinks depending on how hot it is. I also go online and look at each restaurant and figure out what I am most likely to order. Some places I know my entree will be under $20- Hello Cobb Salad...but if I am going to Le Cellier that is going to be closer to $100....

 

[deb24k]

We spend a lot on dinning lol. We go in August and sit down to table service at least once per day sometimes twice if we squeeze in an early character breakfast. Last trip we spent at least $3000 for 9 days for a family of 5 but our list of restaurants included:
Le Cellier
Be Our Guest (dinner)
Cinderellas Castle (dinner)
Chef Mickey's (breakfast)
Ohana (breakfast and dinner)
Hollywood and Vine (breakfast)
Raglan Road (dinner)
Sanaa (dinner)

Obviously a budget for dining will be based on eating styles and preferences. I like to go over the menus at allears to decide whether it is for our family, but we try hard to bank gift cards etc from rewards sites to eat out extravagantly when we travel.

 

[laurabelle]

how much do you budget for dining during your trip? What are the dynamics of your group? How do you like to eat?

Based on what I typically read on the Disboards, I think we're unusual eaters. For my trip next week, it's my adult daughter and I. We're both light eaters, and it being August and all, really light eaters. We don't have any character meals or buffets planned. We have TS planned for a few days, but no big expensive entrees. We'll also eat some light meals in lounges. As far as drinks go, I drink alcohol, she doesn't. We both drink water the majority of the time. I don't usually buy bottled water though, just the free cups of ice water at counter service. I don't drink sodas at all, she may have one in a lounge and will get non alcoholic frozen drinks at the pool. We get kids meals for breakfast at the resort, or split an adult entree. Whether it's CS or TS, we split entrees, appetizers, desserts and snacks 90% of the time. We have APs, I have a Disney Visa and will utilize those discounts where available. I expect we'll spend under $100 a day.

 

[Klayfish]

I first want to say I am NOT picking on anyone...rather tongue in cheek joking how cheap I am. When I read these and think about spending that kind of money, I nearly . I can't even fathom. We pack all of our food...which is why I came to this section of DIS, I posted a thread earlier about finding a restaurant in WDW to take our family for a treat...so I was looking for any updated responses. We're also a family of 5. We just completed a 17 day trip. I don't have the exact receipts, but I have a good ballpark of what we spent. It was something like:

Target/Publix - $400
Ice cream, popcorn etc...in the parks - $100
2 dinners offsite - $150

So our total food spend for the entire trip, for our entire family, was $650. If I want to stretch it and say my numbers were a bit conservative, I'm positive it was no more than $725 total. If my math is right, that would be roughly $8.40/person/day.

Like I said, I'm cheap. Our kids are addicted to , so we bought a refillable bucket in the park. We got our moneys' worth out of that thing, and will continue to do so. We'd stop at pretty much every popcorn station and refill for $1.50. We had large ziplock bags with us, so we could easily carry extra popcorn.