To ask how much you spent at Disney World

[turkeymaster]

posting for traffic

Off to Disney world in March and I'm wondering how much spending money is enough for a family of 5 (2 adults, DC 6, 11 & 12)

We have a meal plan with 2 meals a day and 2 snacks

How much did you take and spend when you went?

It really depends on what you want to buy.
There are people on the social media groups who take about 3/4k and spend it all at the outlets etc.
We didn't do that. We had the meal plan etc. We took 1k with us but only spent 300 dollars in total. 150 on tips, 150 on taxis as we didn't have a car

@Snugglemonster84 curious as to what you did with the meal plan... because we have 2 meals per day (1 waiter service, 1 self service) I'm thinking we will have to buy at least one meal per day or did you find the snacks kinda covered lunch?

The food will be enough but watch the this on the sit down meal.

Watch the tips, even!

@IHaveBrilloHair oh good thinking! do you have to leave tips and if so whats the usual percent? I've never been to America before so want to go prepared:)

We went for two weeks with a meal plan, we didn't spend anything except on tips which we had to pay as we were a family of six

Try the dibb boards they are a really good source of info. You need to factor in tips for your sit down meal not the counter service around 20%. You can spend a little or a lot depends what you want to buy if it's your first time you might want a lot.

When we went to the Paris one 5 years ago, we found the snacks 'pause gourmonde' (sp?) weren't great as they has time restrictions on them which was annoying.

@aimslou how did you manage your meal plan? Did you skip breakfast?

We didn't buy any food on the dining plan, it was more than enough. So many people leave with credits.

We've spent about £100 in clothes from the outlets but nothing in actual Disney.

You'll need to pay tips on the table service meals, use the $200 gift card if you got one when you booked.

Go to www.thedibb.com for so many helpful hints & tips. For example, in the resorts you can swap 1 quick service credit for 3 snacks & the drink with another quick service meal for a snack.

We went to Disney land Paris and the kids hated it. Had to queue so long for rides and it was so expensive. I really thought they would enjoy it but they didn't. To us it was rather expensive to eat there plus I've a fussy DD so it was even worse.
Don't laugh but they had a better time at Butlins in Minehead.

We were on the the same dining plan and it was loads of food, snack credits can be used for some quite large items of food that will keep you going. Plus the sit down dining will probably include a lot of buffet meals so you easily fill up on that!

We didn’t spend all our snack credits and spent loads of them in the hotel shop on our last day and brought them home with us - every time I plan to spend them throughout the holiday but it never happens as we just aren’t hungry!

You can get free cups of water at most food stalls which we used to fill up our water bottles which saves loads.

We had breakfast too, we got a sit down meal, a quick service meal and two snacks. I can't remember if we used a snack for breakfast or if it was included with the package. We had loads of snacks left though and used them on the last day in the shop of sweets and chocolate to bring home.

You can share meals too because some portions are huge. Casey's corner for example, foot long hot dog & fries is 1 credit.

One day in HS we only used snack credits for lunch.... I had breadsticks (3 massive), dd had chips (fries) and DH had a mickey pretzel. By then we'd had enough food & weren't too hungry.

Go through quick service restaurants in each park on the Disney world website so you know where you might want to eat rather than wandering aimlessly looking when you are actually hungry.

Get the app so you can mobile order. It's much quicker than queuing.

Table service can be booked 180 days out, if you haven't booked for March 2020 you will struggle to get decent times for the decent places but you might get some. Walk ups are rare & a long wait. You can be lucky with last minute cancellations, we got chef mickeys 3/4 hours beforehand on the day just by checking the app.

Nothing but tips, we had a $300 gift card and didn't want to bring loads back. Dining plan was plenty and we had about 40 credits left on the last day which we spent on sweets to bring back

Oh yes tips - can be very expensive for the sit down meals - factor on about $60-70 per meal for 5 of you. For example ohanas for 4 of us cost for dinner ‘cost’ $250 so it was $47 tip - October 2018.

Tip is 20% on meals as a rule

We went this year for three weeks. Spent about £2500 in spending money, family of five. That was for all food, tips, fuel for the car, parking, tolls, presents, kids spending money, new water bottles, a little clothes, some Christmas pressies, etc.

Watch some videos on YouTube to see what to use snack credits on to actually get value for money on your dining plan. You can easily use them for breakfast. You won’t need to buy more food, I’m not one of those food competition people you get on here, but no way could we eat three proper meals a day plus two snacks.

If you're taking a car, make sure you have extra to cover the resort parking fees. Parking at the actual parks is free for resort guests.

We spent about £400 in ten days and were on the quick service meal plan. We ate out in 2 waiter service restaurants so had to pay for those but really didn’t buy any other food. Snacks are massive and lots of snack options for breakfast so you don’t use your meal credit, you then have a meal credit left for lunch and dinner or use a meal credit for breakfast and snacks for lunch. In our hotel you could get a large pizza for 2 meal credits and 2 of those fed the 4 of us with some leftovers so had 2 credits left from that. We came home with loads of snacks from our left over credits. You can spend a fortune in Disney but you really don’t have to, you will need to factor in tips with the sit down meal though, we didn’t have them to pay for as we were quick service for all meals

What resort are you staying at? When we went we had a family suite at Art of Animation which had basic kitchen facilities, fridge, microwave etc so it was easy enough to go to Wal-Mart and get breakfast stuff to keep in the room if you want to save your dining credits for later in the day. Make sure you get your Fast Passes booked before you go, some of the rides really need one like Slinky Dog Dash, the Avatar one and I would imagine anything in the new Galaxy's Edge. I think you have to be in the park itself before you can get one for the newest Star Wars ride though.

I am certain you'll be fine on that amount of food, have you seen how big the snacks are?! They are big enough to be a meal at lunch or breakfast. We have the QSDP and apart from eating out of plan for a couple of restaurants I am not anticipating spending very much at all. Their portion sizes are humongous, you'll probably be able to get your children to share some of the credits. We are taking £1000 with us but only because we are doing a few days at Universal (that doesn't include outlets/kids' toys).

The main thing you will need to budget for is tipping for the table service meals, this was one of the main reasons we only did quick service.

If you've got a car you will have to pay $20 a night to park it sadly, they've recently introduced that which is why we aren't taking a car, hate not having a car in the US.

Not a huge amount tbh. The quick service meal credits were nearly enough for everything we wanted to eat and drink so we only really spent money on souvenirs and a couple of souvenir drinks and lockers at the water parks.

This all makes me think I could never afford to go there!