[opticalhazer]

Hi there all at Disney Central,

I am new to this forum and therefore hope that I haven't posted this message in the wrong section...apologies if I have!

We are coming from London, England to Orlando between 23rd January 2005 and 7th February 2005. We are going to be staying at the Quality Inn Plaza, International Drive and we have hired a car.

I would like to know what people would suggest as the minimum spending money...bearing in mind that we have already bought all our passes to the attractions.

I have been to Disney World four times in the past but this was with my parents who paid for everything (!) and this will be my first time as a mum. I am going with my hubbie and two daughters aged 6 and 5.

Thanks very much for taking the time to read this message and any other advice would be much appreciated. This holiday needs to be planned to perfection I think to get the most out of it and at the moment I am struggling!!

Vicki xx

[MerlinMatt]

Originally Posted by opticalhazer

Hi there all at Disney Central,

I am new to this forum and therefore hope that I haven't posted this message in the wrong section...apologies if I have!

I would like to know what people would suggest as the minimum spending money...bearing in mind that we have already bought all our passes to the attractions.

Welcome to DC Vicki! This is absolutely the correct section to post this type of question.

So, let's look at it from a daily perspective and you make adjustments from there.

I'll assume that you'll be eating 3 meals a day and that dinners will be sit-down.

Breakfast and lunch: plan on about $55/day for the four of you. You may want to plan on at least one character breakfast which will run you about $60-70 including tip.

Dinner: plan on spending about $120/day on dinner. With that, you should be able to plan on at least one really nice (i.e. expensive) dinner and a dinner at 'Ohanas (which I highly recommend).

Since you're not over this side of the pond that often, I guess you should plan on spending about $250-300 on gifts, souveniers, momentos, etc.

Lastly, plan on spending about $20-30/day on water, snacks and whatnot.

This is a VERY liberal plan and you could definately spend less by using many of the thrifty ideas right here at DisneyCentral. But this should be a good starting point for you.

[BDavis932]

Welcome to DC!!! We are happy to have you here!

We bring our own breakfast and eat in the room (breakfast bars, pop tarts, cereal, etc). We spend about $25-$30 for the four of us at lunch for counter service (aka fast food). And for dinner, we always do a sit down or character meal. We figure aound $75 for dinner. We bring our own water in the park each day and we figure $10/day for snacks (1 snack for each of us/day at $2.50 each). So $110-$125 per day works well for us for meals. Some days you can just do fast food all day, but you certainly don't want to do that everyday. Disney has such wonderful restaurants to choose from!! Just a hint for saving some money at counter service, instead of buying two adult hamburgers ($5+ each), buy a double hamburger ($6) and split it with your hubby. Several of the fast food places have great toppings bars with sauteed mushrooms and onions, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. that you can fill up on, too.

Here is a link to all the menus at all the restaurants at WDW (and the prices!!): http://www.allearsnet.com/menu/menus.htm

We give our kids $5/week for allowance. Half of it is given in Disney Dollars (so they can save it) When we go to WDW each time, they usually have around $130 to spend. It works out great that they know how much money they are going to get to spend for the entire trip and it really cuts down on the "I want this and I want thats"...they tend to want much less when it's coming out of their pocket!

[jbtoursejg]

We've brought about $1500-1800 for our 8-9 day trips to pay for food and souvinears. We always bring money home. This usually includes 2 nice sitdown dinner somewhere in WDW and a dinner show.

[tinkerbell]

Originally Posted by opticalhazer

Hi there all at Disney Central,

I am new to this forum and therefore hope that I haven't posted this message in the wrong section...apologies if I have!

We are coming from London, England to Orlando between 23rd January 2005 and 7th February 2005. We are going to be staying at the Quality Inn Plaza, International Drive and we have hired a car.

I would like to know what people would suggest as the minimum spending money...bearing in mind that we have already bought all our passes to the attractions.

I have been to Disney World four times in the past but this was with my parents who paid for everything (!) and this will be my first time as a mum. I am going with my hubbie and two daughters aged 6 and 5.

Thanks very much for taking the time to read this message and any other advice would be much appreciated. This holiday needs to be planned to perfection I think to get the most out of it and at the moment I am struggling!!

Vicki xx

Vicki welcome to DC !!!

MerlinMatt gave you a really nice example but he left out Parking at the parks. I am not sure what that amount is now .. but I think ..and I know someone will correct me if I am wrong ..but I think its $8.00. (Parking is free if you are staying at a WDW resort but you mentioned you are staying off site)

My friend Dixie is from England and when they come ..one of their first trips is to Wal Mart where they stock up. I am going to send her the link to this thread because I am sure she can be a huge help :)

[dixie]

Hi Opticalhazer and welcome! I am English too, and if this is any help we usually budget for around $100.00 a day, sometimes its more (depending if we are going to the malls) and maybe sometimes its less. our daughter is 15 now, and brings her own 'pocket money' but I know when she was your children's ages she seemed to want anything and everything. The thing we find with the USA is although things are much cheaper than here, there is so much to buy that we dont have in England, and for such excellent value. Tink is correct too, in saying that we drive out to the 24 hr Wal Mart and buy things like a huge Coolbox for the room (which are around 4 dollars,) and buy pop, biscuits,crisps all those extras that add up. there are ice machines in every hotel and it takes two secs to fill up with fresh ice, we have bought bagels, fresh fruit all sorts and put them in our coolbox.keep an eye on these forums though for excellent advice and tips, and feel free to ask me anything on WDW from an 'English' perspective!!! :)

[opticalhazer]

Thanks guys for all the replies. What a friendly gang of people! It is great to get other people perspectives and to know that we are on budget for a good holiday!

Still not going until January so plenty of time to save up!!! Thanks again!