What do you spend on Food per day?

[bbowers]

Looks like for 2 adults we average about $100 - taking into account that our Sunrise Safari is also breakfast and our Keys to the Kingdom tour is also lunch. Our last 2 days, though, at AKL - shoot the moon! Breakfast in our room to see the animals, then dinner at Boma - followed by breakfast at Boma the next day and dinner at Jiko. I am a big breakfast eater (I would rather skip any other meal during the day than that), and I drag the DH along with me, even though he would be happy with a Power Bar.

We are trying to prepay a lot, though - the tours, of course, and getting some vouchers for lunch and a character breakfast our last day, and using a MyPoints certificate at Rainforest AND trying to remember where I can get AP and DVC and DC discounts!

 

[barbeml]

I was counting alcoholic beverages, too. Those Back Scratchers at the Poly do add up.

 

[ducklite]

With just DH it's generally $125-150 a day. When our DS is around it's $150-200.

We generally stay either DVC or concierge level, so don't have to worry about breakfast. I don't factor groceries or the additional cost of concierge into my food budget. But the other posters are right, breakfast can take a BIG chuck out of your food budget. We often find that more expensive than lunch when we do "eat out". Breakfast for two at the GF Cafe or the Kona runs us at minumum $30, but my DH is a HUGE breakfast eater who usually gets at least one side in addition to his "meal".

Lunch varies day to day. It can be just a snack from a cart, or counter service, or a full service meal, depending on what park we're in and how hungry we are.

Dinner is almost always full service, usually at one of the more upscale restaurants, although we also really enjoy some of the more moderate places like Spoodles, Bongo's, and the Kona.

We enjoy our cocktails/wine with dinner, and that definitely ends up adding a LOT to the bill--it can end up being over 25% of the bill if you aren't careful!

Anne

 

[skiwee1]

Originally posted by barbeml
I was counting alcoholic beverages, too. Those Back Scratchers at the Poly do add up.

Well mine didn't count alcoholic drinks! My bar tab at the Barefoot pool bar at the Poly was over $200 for all those Lava Flows! LOL!

 

[jimmiej]

Last trip, we spent $100/day for four of us. Two adults, two older teens. We ate breakfast in our room(pop tarts, granola bars, etc.) one sit-down restaurant, one fast food and/or snack/day. Some days more, some less, but this was our average.

 

[robinb]

I budget $80 per day on food for 2 adults and 1 child. I have saved every receipt for 2 trips in a row and it always comes out to $80 per day. We usually stay for 10 days. That includes a grocery stop for breakfast items (cereal, bagels, yogurt, etc), snacks, beer and wine. Then, we eat at counter service most afternoons and eat at a "nice" restaurant 3-4 times in a trip where we spend at least $80 on dinner. This also includes alcohol (but not too much when we have stuff in the room).

 

[BuffaloDisney]

We tend to eat out only one meal a day (we stay at a DVC resort suite with full kitchen and eat the other 2 meals there).

Half the time is counter service, about $40

The other half is sitdown $100-125

Add another $20 a day ave. for pop, water, & deserts

Thats for a family of 4
DH, DW. DS 14, DD 16

 

[miko]

I would estimate it to average out to about $125/day for 2 adults. WDW dining (sit down) is comparable to most major US cities (NY, Atlanta, Chicago, LA....) while Orlando dining is relatively inexpensive. If we eat more off site daily average can be a little less.
When we traveled with our children the average was less because of more fast food.

 

[blanq]

If we eat breakfast in our room and bring our own snacks to the parks (grocery stop w/our towncar transfer), we usually spend $700 for 2 adults and 1 child (10 yo), for a week. This past May we spent $900, and did not bother with storing food in our room. We tended to eat one sit down meal, one counter service, and did not skimp on snacks (including paying the scary prices for bottled water at the parks) for our May trip. We have a trip coming up in January, and since we will have a small fridge and microwave at BCV we will probably bring more food to eat in our room than we have in the past.

 

[ahutton]

Our budget is $100/day for 2 adults and 2 kids (18 mos and 3 1/2 years). Some days we spend a little more, some days less. We do breakfast in the room almost every day, and have snacks, soft drinks, milk, juice and water in the room for afternoon and evenings. We've had some left at the end of a couple trips, and been eating a lot of fast food at the end of other trips.

 

[Andy123]

My wife and I average about $125/day... It's $15 for both of us to eat a counter service meal (tusker house is $25)... lunch at a sitdown is $45-55 (usually one drink/person), and a sit-down dinner is $75-80 in a park, $100-$125 at a resort restaurant. Some days we spend $200, some days we spend $50... it all works out in the end...

 

[PrincessAurora]

An average for us as two adults having a very light breakfast, medium lunch, snacks and full dinner is approx $250 per day. We mostly do nice sit-down restaurants. This is why I have the Silver Plan.

 

[Alice28]

When we went this last time, we averaged out to around $120 a day for our family of 4 (2 & 5 year old boys). We consistently spent just under $30 for counter service meals- often the two boys would share one adult sized meal, and sit down dinners were about $75, with the exception of Shula's, which was about $140 with tip. We honestly didn't snack that much- I think I had one Mickey bar over the entire 10 days and we bought the kids maybe a popsicle or ice cream every other day. We brought snacks from home- goldfish crackers, Pringles, raisins, Skittles & I brought cereal, breakfast bars for breakfast. My Mom had a fridge in her room, which was adjacent, so we also had milk, yogurt and fruit handy for breakfast. Our biggest $$ saver----we bought a case of bottled water at the grocery store on the way in for $7...it lasted us all week long! When I am there next week, just me and Mom, I plan on spending about $40-50 a day; $10 on counter service and $15-35 on sit-down depending on which restaurant. I'm also a big fan of Deb's site- www.wdwig.com- so I can look at he menus and really get and idea of what I am going to spend.

 

[Slade]

Our family of 2 adults and 2 children usually budgets $150.00 per day. We eat entirely onsite with usually one character, or nice sit down meal per day. On some days we may plan both a character meal and another nice sit down meal, which usually puts us over budget for the day, but on days when we plan on a couple of counter service meals we come in a little under budget, so it all balances out.

 

[andrabell]

A budget of $80-100 a day for two adults could be a realistic goal. But in an effort to come under (way under?) budget we are going to try out a new idea we just hatched. We dined at a local Italian restaurant this evening.

Pasta Bella in Smyrna, GA...try it, it's sooooo gooooood!

DH ordered soup, I a salad. We split a main course and dessert. I had sweet tea and DH had a bud as usual. The tab came to $30.14 and we left a $10 tip to compensate for our sharing a meal. We ended up saving almost half of what we would have spent and left feeling happy and full (but not so full as to not be able to commando for the rest of the evening). As long as we can agree what to order, this plan should let us enjoy some memorable meals without blowing our budget or our trouser buttons.

---Andra
But bunny, I don't like liver and onions!

 

[jann1033]

my husband and I "tried " the same thing last week, mostly to convence him he would not starve if we split a lunch voucher ($30.00) meal! I thought it was plenty of food and normally would not even be able to think about dessert and appetizer with a whole meal for myself so got to try more with out the extra expense or calories.