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?

We spent £3K in 12 days, Denny’s places for breakfast, snack in park and took in some of our own food and drinks, dinner out each night. Didn’t find it as expensive as people are saying above

Look for hotels that have apartment style rooms and you can self cater your breakfast and snacks.

We stayed in a hotel in a family room that had a tiny living room with kitchenette - we went to publix and bought breakfasts and sandwich ingredients and a cool bag, and we took sandwiches with us to the parks so all we had to do was buy a drink/snack and then we ate out for the evening meal. This wasn't really to save money, but because it was too hot to be eating burgers for lunch etc i just wanted a sandwich, but it probably saved about $100 a day doing this.

We are shoppers so did spend more on souvenirs so we still spent 3-4k in the 14 days.

I would buy all your park tickets, water park tickets etc here before you go so they are budgeted and paid for. Split your weeks up by having a few pool days - all hotels will have ice machines in the lobby so if you buy a cheap cool box in walmart you can fill it with ice and have cold drinks/snacks by the pool during the day. ( could also do this and use to keep sandwich ingredients etc cool if you dont have a fridge in the room )

Food portions are huge - splitting food, ordering off the kids menu, and taking away your leftovers are all completely normal.

I had cereal or porridge in hotel mist morning -just needed fridge for milk which I got at Disney hotel shops.

We spent around £1200 for food and extras in 10 days, 2 adults. We are our most meals bar breakfast in Disney but shared quite a bit as it's hot and we more wanted a sit down /break than lots of food.

Woah. I know the exchange rate is rubbish, but I thought the US was supposed to be cheap.

When and why did it become so expensive? I assume wages out there ain't all that either.

Genuinely shocked to read it's got so dear, I went 20 years ago and it was quite cheap although the whole tipping etiquette I could have done without.

We went this year and last and spent thousands on food, despite self-catering. Supermarket prices are eye-wateringly expensive at the moment (was slightly better this year than last as the pound is stronger than it was) Equivalent of £9 for 6 eggs, £1.50 for an onion. Eating out can actually be a cheaper option. In Disney, Animal Kingdom is probably the most reasonable (and the healthiest by a long shot). I would definitely budget a few grand.

£9 for 6 eggs? Where was that? I got a dozen cage free in Publix for about $4.00 last January which I thought was expensive.

Not Florida but went to SF and food is crazy prices.

We had a breakfast at hotel and then snack from walgreens and then maybe a food outlet. We ate a lot of crisps

I found food roughly twice the cost in dollars than pound so for example if it £2 in UK it's $4

We paid $50 for two plates of pasta and a drink. On disposable plates

Two bags M&M $9. Pack for goldfish crackers $3.99

Go to target and buy cereal and milk and a bowl each! take cereal bars/brioche UK. Take the mini squash too. Buy a resort cup if you can.

Does hotel do breakfast can you swap or upgrade?

We went to California but costs are similar. We kept things down by going to 7-11 for breakfasts and lunches. It might not be feasible for your for lunch, but you can get a decent breakfast on the go for a few dollars

Walmart! They were actually cheaper in The Fresh Market

Eating in America has got ridiculously expensive post Covid. Restaurants are really struggling to recruit and employ so it’s higher wages, higher food bills. Even eating breakfasts in IHOP and Starbucks cost us as a family of 4 (children still not teenagers) a lot. Even ice cream was expensive - $8 for one scoop in a plain cone with no topping was the cheapest I found over the summer. I refused to convert that to £ as that was depressing and I wanted to enjoy my ice cream

We’ve just been. The money we were spending made me very anxious!! Food was expensive.

We were hoping to take in lunches but soon gave up. You won’t want a big bag in the park if you want to do any rollercoasters. A collapsible bottle would have been helpful - I ended up with a bumbag only. There are water fountains everywhere.

It used to be reasonable

How do the Americans afford it

Also maybe we are greedy but we didn’t find food portions huge at all!!!

Our best meal was breakfast at Denny’s :-)

the McDonalds on International Drive is really cool, it does pizza!

Oh my goodness - that’s horrendous!!

I think the ice cream we had in the park was 8 dollars? There are 6 of us and it did add up. I had to let my husband spend all the money 😬 T shirts about 30 dollars, key rings etc between 10 and 15

It’s amazing through - the Harry Potter stuff is out of this world!

The Hagrid ride was a queue of about 80 mins but awesome :-)

also don’t try and do the train at the end of the day - it gets rammed with people leaving Universal to go to Islands of Adventure.

You can wear a bumbag on all the rides apart from the really big rollercoasters (hulk, velocicoaster, rockit) and if I’d had a collapsible cup or bottle it would have made us very happy!

the backpack was a right pain as you have to pay for a locker every 5 minutes.

Disney Springs is fun to walk around and free - I guess you would be able to get a bus? The M and M shop was good as well as the Coke shop.

We were driving (which I found terrifying!!) so I don’t know about public transport.

The issue is the exchange rate. When we went 9 years ago I didn't find it particularly cheap and it was $2 to a pound.

Pick a number and double it.

Friends have just come back from the USA and couldn't believe the prices. Even without being particularly extravagant they said it was easy to spend $250-300 / day for meals, drinks and snacks for a family of four. With the exchange rate that's still over £3k before you've bought anything else.

We are in Florida just now. Our 5 bed villa cost £120 per night (at Loughman near Champions Gate). Everything here is very expensive. With children I would eat out at chains and look for early bird menus. Texas Roadhouse do a good one.
We eat out/ order in once a day. The rest we just but bits from Walmart/ Public. Walmart is an experience in itself 😁. We budgeted about £60 per person per day and have come in way below. We have been here many times so we don't have many "extras".

Tbh I think it’s like any holidays
in terms of how you manage a budget. You can see from the huge variation of answers here.
I would get stuff like snacks ordered to your hotel for the day after you arrive. You can make breakfast in your hotel- take stuff from home. You can always make and take sandwiches too and take lots of snacks. We bought peanut butter and bread in our hotel and that kept one of my kids from being hungry in queues. You don’t need to buy constant snacks and ice creams. We barely bought any drinks there as we had water and took squash. We bought some juice and lemonade and a couple of alcohol drinks.
We also didn’t do table service meals except once.
we ordered Burger King one night. It’s the same at being home tbh. You can save or splurge. Just don’t buy any fruit as yes that’s horrendous money 🤣

We spent about £4K for a family of 4 (2 adults, 1 teen, 1 child) for 2 weeks this year, that was staying on site (some expensive character meals), including alcohol, Ubers and shopping (although not kids' shopping, they had their own spending money).

Oh but we did go to Target and stock up on some snacks and bottled water (and filled up in the parks) to try and save some money in that way.

We were there last month and as others have said prices have increased hugely post-covid. Combined with the dreadful exchange rate it is an expensive holiday. Every time we went near the cafe in our hotel (for coffee, snacks, breakfast pastries, etc) it seemed to cost $30. Sit down not particularly high quality meals for three of us were $100. We planned to refill water bottles in the parks but found the water lukewarm and pretty disgusting so ended up buying bottled water at $6 a pop. I haven't added up how much we spent and don't intend to!

@eurochick some of the water stations were better than others, some places would fill up a cup of ice water for you, we took those little squash things as we were warned it didn't taste nice.

I don't ever remember it being 2 dollars to the £1 in the last 20 years.

Something like 1.46 but I'm willing to be corrected 😀

We used to go more in the 00s and it always seemed reasonable