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Old 06-06-2017, 12:19 PM   #1
WFMA
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Meal Budget

Hi all, I have not been here in a while. Good to be back! I was looking and could not find my answer. As alway I'm doing many things at once and I may have just missed it. I'm sorry if my answer is here somewhere and missed it. So here I go.

On average, what is the cost for meals per adult per meal? I'm thinking about

B $10
L $10
D $20
Snack $10

So $50 per day times 4 adults = $200/day. Total $1,600

I know that is maybe a little low. I'm just trying to see if I can afford it. This trip is short notice I'm uses to have about 2 yrs of saving and not 1 year.

About us:
Me, i'm just a Pizza, Pasta, Burger guy. My wife and 2 daughters eat more like normal people.
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Old 06-06-2017, 12:53 PM   #2
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Originally Posted by WFMA View Post
Hi all, I have not been here in a while. Good to be back! I was looking and could not find my answer. As alway I'm doing many things at once and I may have just missed it. I'm sorry if my answer is here somewhere and missed it. So here I go.

On average, what is the cost for meals per adult per meal? I'm thinking about

B $10
L $10
D $20
Snack $10

So $50 per day times 4 adults = $200/day. Total $1,600

I know that is maybe a little low. I'm just trying to see if I can afford it. This trip is short notice I'm uses to have about 2 yrs of saving and not 1 year.

About us:
Me, i'm just a Pizza, Pasta, Burger guy. My wife and 2 daughters eat more like normal people.
That's not unreasonable if you're counter-service people--might be a bit more for lunch. Throw in a table-service meal, especially a character meal, and the numbers go WAY up! My snacks would be less....but if you're throwing in a bottle of water or soda, or two snacks, yeah $10.

Many folks just keep breakfast foods in their rooms (Pop-Tarts, pastries, cereal and milk, oatmeal [use the coffee pot if you have one]) and stretch their food budgets that way...also quicker than eating out for breakfast. That's what I do.

My philosophy with Disney: Go cheap, go often. Others won't go if they can't splurge for the whole works. As long as you know what will make you happy, both philosophies are fine.
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Old 06-06-2017, 01:14 PM   #3
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Um, sorry, but you can easily pay $10-$12 for just a burger and fries, no drink, at a quick service.

Double your estimate and you're in the ballpark for quick service. Figure $20-30 for lunch and $30-50 to cover any but a fancy dinner at table service.

Try the All Ears menus for a good base to calculate costs. They tell you what you get for each menu item. www.allears.net
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Old 06-06-2017, 01:22 PM   #4
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Your PassPorter will also give you figures for counter and table service meals and I find those to be very accurate. I must admit I was thinking more along Dot's lines in terms of pricing.
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Old 06-06-2017, 01:51 PM   #5
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Um, sorry, but you can easily pay $10-$12 for just a burger and fries, no drink, at a quick service.

Double your estimate and you're in the ballpark for quick service. Figure $20-30 for lunch and $30-50 to cover any but a fancy dinner at table service.

Try the All Ears menus for a good base to calculate costs. They tell you what you get for each menu item. www.allears.net
When on the allears.net they show different dollar amounts for the '$' signs?
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Old 06-06-2017, 02:00 PM   #6
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Go to Allears and actually bring up the menus, not just the restaurant info as it will give you actual prices. I usually tack on an additional 5% to allot for inflation. The Disney website itself should give you prices too but based on our trip from last year at the QS locations, breakfast meals seemed to range, for adults from 8 to 12, and lucnh/dinner menus were anywhere from 9 to 17. Again, that is just quick/counter service meals, not sit down meals. Those are much higher.
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Old 06-06-2017, 03:33 PM   #7
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As Darlene suggests, you can view the prices at the menus (see link below). Although we use the QSDP, I do note what the meals would cost without the plan. For three adults, breakfast is normally going to be about $30 with beverages, unless we just do oatmeal or a muffin. Lunch is generally around $15/person, dinner about the same or a little more, depending upon where and what we eat. This is without dessert. You can get a burger and fries or nuggets and fries for around $10-12 for adults.

At a resort, we use our refillable mugs, and take bottled beverages for our meal plan drink to use later. If not on the meal plan, you can ask for free ice water at any counter service, to cut beverage costs.

For our occasional table service or buffet, we avoid the high end character meals but still expect to pay $35 - 45 each without alcohol and before tip, although there are certainly places where you can pay less.

For snacks, depending upon what you like, you can usually find something for around $5 more or less.

http://allears.net/dining/menu/
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Old 06-06-2017, 04:20 PM   #8
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When on the allears.net they show different dollar amounts for the '$' signs?
Oh, DUH! I get what you mean. You were looking at the location window which only gives dollars suggesting approximate cost as $, $$, etc.

yalibrarian's link is much better than mine was for exact prices.

Still useful to know-----> Are you possibly looking at buffet or character meal prices?

Those are the ones that will show "Adult $39.99-$58.99."

What that means is that near a holiday or during the busiest seasons, expect to pay the maximum. Other times, it varies within that range. If your stay is in Value Season, the lower end, in Fall Season somewhere in the middle unless your stay is during Food & Wine Festival or while the Halloween or Christmas party gets going. In short, time of year makes a difference as do major holidays.

If needing to calculate more precisely than just setting aside an amount near the middle of the range, the PassPorter guide has a graph showing when-to-when each stay season is to help fix which one your dates fall into. Then, you'll know more exactly if low end or high end of the price range is going to apply.
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Old 06-06-2017, 04:50 PM   #9
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we used a site for the trip I just came back from http://www.distripplanner.com/ we came REALLY close. Really nice to see what it would cost out of pocket and then compare it to dining plan.

Hope it is ok to post this. If not please remove.
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Old 06-08-2017, 01:42 PM   #10
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When I was traveling as a single mother with my college student DD, I would budget $100./day, meals and souvenirs for both of us. We always made it.

We are not huge eaters and often (most always) split meals and snacks. I would buy a case of water and fruit for the room We do not drink other beverages and never have dessert with a meal. We have never gone hungry and always had plenty of money to waste on souvenirs.

$50./day is plenty is you do not want to pig out but eat reasonably.
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Old 06-08-2017, 04:23 PM   #11
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Also remember that servings are huge even at counter service. Two normal eaters can easily split one meal and be satisfied. This also leaves more room for snacks later in the day !!! We bring granola bars and such for breakfast in the room to save money and time. I use all ears to price out our sit down meals (as they vary wildly) and for counter service and snacks I budget $50 a person a day and never use half of it.

Have a great trip !
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Old 06-08-2017, 05:20 PM   #12
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For our trip in a couple weeks I'm budgeting $15/person/meal for quick service. This should cover the most expensive thing on the menu plus a drink. For table service I budget $50/person, not including alcohol for the adults.
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Old 06-09-2017, 03:04 PM   #13
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For the purposes of figuring out the value of dining plan credits, WDWPrepSchool calculated that a single adult counter-service meal (meal plus drink) averages $16, table-service averages $39, and snack is $5. Lunch used to be cheaper than dinner at table service restaurants, but that's rare now.

I agree with pp's that bringing your own breakfast and sharing other meals helps a lot with costs. Getting free ice water instead of a $3.29 soda with your meal helps, too. You can also bring your own bottled water or order it for delivery instead buying it at the parks, if you go through a lot of it.
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