Orlando spending money

[MGK]

Hello all,

We're off to Orlando in September for 12 days - hotel and tickets already paid for so wondering what we should take to cover food, possibly some merch, Ubers etc as I appreciate everything has sky rocketed in america like it has here!

I know everyone's budgets different and someone might be okay okay $250 a day where as someone else might need $2500 a day but what do you think is a reasonable amount for 2 adults?

We went in October and spent around $4000 for a family of 3 over 14 nights. We didn't go mad but we didn't particularly budget either. Ate in a combination of cheapish fast food places and nice restaurants, bought a few gifts and clothes too. About $400 was on lyft fares but worth it for us rather than use hotel shuttles or buses. $250 a day for two adults should be doable I'd say.

I've been in Orlando over the last few weeks and it is expensive. it's around $5 for a soft drink, $9-14 for a beer. A burger and fries in the parks is around $20. $7 for an ice cream. A steak in a nice but not top of the range restaurant is around $40 (on citywalk or Disney springs).

And don't forget the 18 to 20% tip.

Souvenir t shirts are $30 to $40 dollars. Keyrings around $15.

I used both Lyft and Uber. I compared the price on each when I needed to order a cab. Most of the time, Lyft was cheaper.

So yeah, $250 for 2 people should be do able but it depends on the type of holiday you want. Hopefully the exchange rate with change in your favour by September. We booked our holiday a long time ago and didn't imaging the rate being so bad.

Last time we were there (August 22) we spent £2,556 or $3,062 based on the exchange rate at the time according to our Revolut account for food, drinks, snacks, petrol, tips and other sundries. This was for 2 adults, 1 teen and 1 pre-teen. We did 10 nights at Disney (in a DVC villa, had full kitchen facilities - didn’t cook but microwave was very handy for warming left overs) and 4 nights at Hard Rock at Universal.

We ate out, did 4 table service meals at Disney and along with several counter service meals in the parks and at our resort. We did a fair few of sit down meals in Disney springs. We ate mainly offsite when we were at Universal though did a couple of sit down meals at City-walk. We really missed the dining plan.🙁

The kids had separate monies for personal shopping souvenirs (about £300 each) and I’m too embarrassed to say how much I spent on shopping but in my defence, I bought a couple high value items.

I would say budget around $100 per person per day and that should be fine for most. Eating offsite will be cheaper than onsite especially in the sit down but on the whole, prices has risen across the board. Even the food courts in the malls were a lot more expensive than when we there in 2019.

@dylanthedragon I was so outraged at the price of a punnet of grapes in Walgreens I took a photo 😁 DP still hasn't got over paying $16 for a duff beer

To be honest, I'm still here. Flying home over the weekend. The $13 refill in front of me on the Volcano Bay punch felt nowhere near as painful as the first $17 one in the souvenir cup!

Spirits rather than beer/wine offer much better 'drunk value for money' in the States. 😂

@dylanthedragon but it was a Duff beer at Moes tavern so had to be done 🙄 Volcano Bay food was silly, $16 for a plain hot dog and bag of Crisps! We'll still go back though!

Definitely needs to be done!

Just got back from our trip -2 adults.

We stayed on site so no transport costs.

Spent around £1200 for 10 nights on food.

Most days we had one sit dine Disney meal -generally only one course though. We did sone breakfast meals but mostly had porridge pots in the room (save time and money). Quick meals for lunch (sometimes shared) with water mostly. Then coffee and cake later in the day (always huge do again shared)

Thank you everyone!

We are staying off site but with free shuttles to the parks and can use Uber if necessary.

We're gonna aim for around $250-$500 a day for two adults. I'd rather have too much than not enough plus it's a big birthday one so wanna have a burster haha.

Yes the potions are massive there so we'll definitely be sharing snacks and food - and the free ice water at Disney will come in handy.

We noticed that portions sizes had got much smaller for counter service meals in the parks. We used to be able to share 2 meals between the 4 of us but couldn’t so as much last year.

Offsite places like Cheesecake Factory, Rainforest Cafe, Kekes etc. still do large portions,

Phwoar those are some insane prices. Do people honestly think it is worth the cost?

Definitely worth it for us we had a brilliant time! I didn't really think I'd like it but I was wrong, so much so that we're going again

I went in august with my teen dd (so essentially 2 adults) and would say that’s plenty. We ate out at lunch time and bought plenty of snacks, drinks etc but in the evening we were tired from the parks and mostly had Uber eats delivered 😁we also used Uber and Lyft to get around. I didn’t drink alcohol while we were there though so I guess that could bump up the costs.

When you say you already have tickets, do you mean flight tickets or park tickets?

If you have park tickets then I would agree that $100pppd is a good amount.

m I was in Orlando earlier this year and everything felt more expensive than I remembered from previous trips, plus the poor exchange rate…

Yeah everything included so hotel, flights and park tickets (which felt really expensive £1800 )

Thank you, I haven't been in years so was wondering how expensive it had gotten

I agree, the general cost of everything is soooo much more expensive there now, everywhere in Orlando.
We went in 2019 and last year, and could not believe the price of everything last year compared to three years before. Eye watering.
Luckily we had a condo and a car, which made it easier to do a supermarket shop every few days and make a packed lunch to take on park days. And also took our own drinks and snacks (beers and soft drinks) down to the pool area, which helped reduce some spend

Yep

It is worth it, not just necessarily for the parks; we enjoy them but they aren't the be all and end all of the holiday. It was nice to go and stay in another part of Florida for a night or two, as a change from Orlando.

I make sure I have a full itinerary planned, otherwise you can waste time when you are there deciding what to do and when. If you don't have a car, you need to be highly organised if getting shuttle buses etc to the parks. You do have to plan plan plan, so it's only worth it if this doesn't bother you. If you prefer to relax on holiday, you won't find it's worth it! In fact, you'd hate it!

We go next week! We have $4000 for 4 people for 14 nights, on-site stay. This includes some Ubers, but not spending money for souvenirs which is separate.

If you look on Disney all their menus are online, add 6% tax and 18% ish for gratuity.

We've got 11 table service meals planned (some expensive like character, some cheaper like Sci Fi) planning on a brunch mid morning to beat queues and to cover breakfast and lunch, we aren't huge eaters especially in the heat so I'm relatively confident we will manage this. Also I will probably opt for kids meals sometimes on the QS menu. Will see how we go but will cancel a few of the TS meals if we're not doing well!

I have poured over the menus and I think we will spend approx $2700 on food (including a wal mart shop and souvenir cups) so with Ubers potentially have $1000 unaccounted for.....(I know in reality that will go on unplanned snacks and drinks!)

I will let you know how we get on!

Let us know how you get on @ghyt. Have a good time

When we went places like Olive Garden, Chilli's and Bahama Breeze were much cheaper to eat at than the parks- is that still the same?

We found having to pay for parking expensive too

@Stepbystep100
Parking at the parks has gone up to $25 a day from $20 a couple of years ago.
Those restaurants might still be cheaper than other places, but on the whole everywhere has gone up quite drastically.
When we were there last year, we were taking to a family who had been to Miami and a few other places in Florida before they came to Orlando for a few days, and they said Orlando was definitely more expensive than everywhere else they had stayed over the previous two weeks

Oh blimey

We went years ago (with close to 2 dollars to pound as well) so I think we should forget it!

We spent 5k ish I think from memory in ten days last year! Food is expensive, merch is expensive and so are all of the extra experiences. Honestly we throw money at holidays - we definitely could have done 3k for ten days for two of us if we were savvy. We bought loads and loads of merch and things from the shops to bring back, which definitely wasn't necessary but we wanted to.

Tips for housekeeping / waiters / doormen etc all add up though. Especially waiters!

@Stepbystep100 Sorry, I re-read your other post... Yes they are definitely cheaper than the parks, but more expensive than you'll remember from last time.
I don't think we bought food in the parks once last year, we made sandwiches every day and took those. The food was so disappointing for the price of it