Florida spending money estimates

[SecondUsername4me]

Calling all experts!

Flights, 13 days at International Drive, passes for Universal included. We will add on a day pass for Animal Kingdom (the only Disney Park we are interested in).

Other than this, how much would you say is needed for daily spend, to include:-

• A hefty breakfast (buffet places?)
• A snack and drink each at the park each day (as lunch)
• A hearty meal (eg 2 courses) nothing fancy, each evening (Park or International Drive area)
• couple of souvenirs each for the kids
• any extra must do days out (eg museums, water parks, other activities days outside of the theme parks)
• daily transport to/from the parks and other activities

We aren't "shoppers" so no budget needed for Malls etc. We don't need fine dining or themed character dining, we don't want to buy cheaper stuff like jeans/make up/perfume etc so don't need a budget for that.

Is there anything else I'm not including? I know I need to tip 20% for all meals, so add that in too, does that include buffet style too?

Bugger - forgot ages etc. Family of four, me dh and dcs 12 and 9

We did 14 nights last October and spent just short of £4k for a family of three. We didn't have a car so spent about 400 on uber - the shuttle transfers from I drive were a pain!
We largely ate breakfast somewhere like Dennys or Ihop and dinner on i drive at places like olive garden or Bahama breeze. Not huge shoppers but spent about 200 on bits and bobs too.
We did pay for 5 days of genie plus in that too.

£6000 for four for 14 days was what we spent. Food is really expensive

I'd consider buying some snacks/drinks from a supermarket and taking them with you each day to avoid queues and keep costs down (if that's a consideration).

Happy to do this!

Woah. 6k?! How much of that was food? And how much (roughly) on other things?

Food is crazy expensive even in supermarkets. We fancied a light breakfast one day so popped into wallgreens where a punnet of grapes was $9. Starbucks in Epcot was selling 3 satsumas for $6😆 The record was the $16 hot dog in Volcano bay though! Honestly OP you just have to go with it and try not to look.

We did one meal out a day, either a big breakfast (Ihop/ Dennys) or late lunch / dinner (Chilis/ Bob Evans/ Applebees). The other meals were bits from the supermarket. If we had a big breakfast we weren't hungry until 2/3 and we were usually done with parks by then so headed back to our villa for food and a swim. Avoided eating in the parks as it's pricy, got free iced water from the vendors and we're not really a shopping or souvenirs family. The most we spent on was parking at Disney at $25 a day.

We took very little cash and used travel credit cards, total spent was £1171. 2 weeks in Orlando, Dec 2019, Family of 4. I imagine prices have gone up since then.

The parking at Disney used to really annoy me when you were visiting the theme park

Denny's does a good breakfast that's not expensive. We had a car, a family of four, and spent 3000.

I always take a suitcase of snacks from home (small) to save money a visit to Poundland and Aldi to stock up. Cereal bars and DH always took a panettone with him.

then any souvenirs fit in the space

I don’t think buffet breakfast is really a thing. You can use google maps to find restaurants near where you’re staying and all will have a priced menu online so should be easy to price up the kind of place you like eating. Snacks and drinks in the parks will be really expensive, you’ll struggle to spend under $60 on drinks and snacks for 4 I think. I think eating out twice per day plus snacks you’ll need at least $250 per day. We took about £4k, bought plenty of souvenirs but not general clothes, didn’t scrimp but self catered for much of it and didn’t do any activities out of that. May have brought some cash back home, can’t remember.

I'm not sure how much we can self cater in a hotel room - and villas to give the option of cooking are ££££ more

Bring snacks with you from the UK. I found the supermarkets there very expensive especially for fresh fruit. We would take a boxed salad and bottled water in most days. I think you need at least £4000, I'm not sure about taxi costs as we hired a car but the parking is extortionate - actually everything in Disney is extortionate! It's hard to have a meal out under $100 with the tip.

Where on international drive

We spent £1200 for a family of 4 for two weeks last year.
if you take some snacks like cereal bars from the U.K. (buy stuff like crisps from the supermarket there you can get it delivered easily from publix) , we also took cereal and ate that in the hotel each morning, you can save absolutely loads.

at Disney the quick service meals for kids are good value. I ate them loads and they come with fruit and a drink for about $9.
Take water bottles too there are fountains everywhere.
We had free Disney transport so it didn’t include transport costs.

I’d say £4k too OP, we spent just under that last year but we stayed onsite at Disney & Universal though did eat off site a fair bit as food is much better quality and cheaper. Not sure if it’s still there, but Ponderosa used to do a buffet breakfast, not the best quality though.

sign up online for loyalty cards and kids eat free offers for restaurants you think you’ll like to try, lots have happy hours (for food) if you go early for dinner.

have a fab time!

We did 14 nights in October and spent 4.5k on cards and 1.5k in cash, for two adults.

Food and tips are mega expensive! So are snacks / merch etc. Parking is $30 a day, breakfast maybe $25 if having a Starbucks, $50+ for a sit down breakfast. $100+ per evening meal, again for two non drinking adults. Snacks $20 a time for a drink and a snack, per person. It's wild in the theme parks!

Also Animal Kingdom day tickets will be $$$ too.

Shocking

I don't think I will be going back

It's crazy expensive even outside the parks. I went to IHOP and bought 2 pancake breakfasts to go and a strawberry milkshake and it was $35 which was nearly £35 given shitty exchange rate.

An orange juice and a coffee plus a big slice of cheesecake to share was $25 including tip.

We got 2 reuben sandwiches and 3 tater tots to share plus 4 drinks at woody's snack bar opposite slinky dog dash at Hollywood studios (food is good there) it was $58

Not to mention walking into epcot and MIL saying she really needed a drink straight away. I stupidly said anyone else need anything and ended up dropping $25 on drinks before we'd even ventured past the toilets.

Didn't buy them but $30 for mouse ears made me choke.

You definitely won't be clothes shopping. Everything costs a tonne.

I reckon meal for 4 at a mid range place is $140 with tip.

It's like double UK prices.

Villas or condos save money overall, I think, and are much more spacious.

You can look on Google maps at the eateries local to where you are staying and then look at their menus to work out what you’d want to eat and drink, so you can do a realistic calculation. For Universal, you can download their app now to see the food prices. Everywhere will serve you tap water with ice. The tap water varies - last time it seemed OK at Universal but I remember it being sulfurous and horrible at Disney.

The DIBB forums are where you need to be though - it’s a busy, friendly board and there are always tips on saving money on there.