How much do you spend per day in the parks?

Our kids ate more at Disney than at home, but everybody knows their own family best. :heartbeat: Just pack an extra pb&j or something if kids meals for adults or sharing doesn’t cover it. If you are buying Disney $6 snacks everywhere all day then yes, I agree you may be less hungry at dinner. Just depends on the snacks. We have been in the hot summer and in a much cooler rainier time. The summer trips we were more tired and hungry everyday because the weather is genuinely so draining.

I totally agree @BoilerMomPharmD. I would plan for more then be happy if its less especially in the heat.

Our daily average from January was $21 per person per day. I looked very carefully at menus prior to our trip (DH is picky) so I had QS restaurant and menu items picked. We did breakfast at the airbnb, lunch at the park, and dinner at the airbnb before returning from our midday break. Between the two of us, we had 3-4 snacks each day and we brought all our water/sodas since we had a stroller.
I budgeted $35 for each of us each day because I wanted to try more snacks and speciality beverages. We ended up not fitting them all in, hence the savings.

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I have no idea how much we spend in the parks per day, it’s all part of the package. I like to set broad parameters early on in the trip, with the really big costs such as room, air travel, maybe car rental. We buy very few souvenirs, so after that I’ll mostly be looking at how many TS meals & ticketed events. And that’s it. It’s far less stressful to control big costs in advance than worry about little costs once we get there.

We’ve traveled so much that I have mental categories for how expensive of a vacation I want it to be, and then I make that happen.

If I’ve budgeted the big things appropriately, i.e. number of days, airfare, room rate, TS meals, then the smaller things will fall into place. For example, I know that even trimming the visit by one day could save me $750 - $1000, which is what I’d rather do than stress over what we spend in the park on any given day.

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Yes! Each person definitely has to look at what’s important to them and budget accordingly! Great point.

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That’s a great point about snacks. With three decent snacks, that could very easily be $20-25 and be filling, at least for us. We plan to do sandwiches, pizza delivery at the resort. There are microwaves in the main building, so we could even do simple things like hot pockets, hot dogs, etc …tons of stuff my kids don’t get often but would love to have lol!

If we eat at the park during our budget trips, we frequently share a meal or order the kids meal. At the quick service no one knows who you are ordering for and the portions are generous.

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I typically have 2 TS meals per day (some signature) and occasional snacks and alcoholic drinks mixed in, and I “budget” at least $75-100/person/day (depending on how many signature meals I plan). But dining is one of my favorite aspects of going to WDW…

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I think you can do 20.00 to 25.00 per day if you get creative. Disney meals are huge, I think you can split meals depending on the ages of your party. It sometimes cheaper to buy an adult meal split it between to kids instead of two kids meals. Snacks run between 5.00 to 6.00 each. But you can get large caramel corn around 13.00 and bring in some cute Disney sandwich bags and split it up between kids. Crystal light powder mixed in water bottle seem like a soda. I have older kids and we always split meals we enjoy trying different quick service spots so we just eat less at each QS and than we get to eat at more of them lol. Not sure if Disney still offer this but if you are staying on property you can opt out of housekeeping and they will give you a gift card for 10.00 for each night you are there except for your first night which you can spend in the parks for food or souvenirs . I hope that helps and enjoy you vacation.

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yes. you can still opt out of mousekeeping! :ok_hand: I think it depends where you go trying to split adult meals between adults. I have definitely ordered a kids meal sometimes and been fine with it. Our kids have split an adult meal before too. Personally, I would not skip all TS due to cost. You can split meals as lots of them and save $ and still have the experience!

I say yes it is enough. We did just what you are describing. Know that you are welcome to sit in an air conditioned quick service location with your packed lunch. We tried to eat a little early so we weren’t taking a seat from someone that had bought food. Worked fine.
Also, for breakfast, you can use toaster in the food court of hotel. We brought bagels and I would go and toast them. We were at Pop and our building was just a short walk to the food court.
We never spent money on drinks. We just packed our own sodas. You can save lots of money that way.
We did one bought snack a day which was usually $5-8.
Enjoy!

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Update: The dining plan now works better for us so that’s what I’m doing next trip.