I’ve been chronicling my family’s journey as well plan our trip to Disney World:
When to Go
Where to Stay
How to Get there
Tickets
Today we’re looking at what/where to eat. We decided to stay off-site so Disney Dining isn’t an option for us.
A few things about Disney & Food:
You can bring outside food into the park! (Details here)
Your cooler, bag, etc cannot be larger than 24″ x 15 x 18″ so a big cooler isn’t an option. Plus the only wheeled items can be a stroller (and lucky us we’ll have a 10 month old so we’ll have a stroller!)
You may not have a stroller and want to bring a small cooler around with you all day so you could rent a locker. They have then at the entrances for rent. (Usually about $5 a day)
My Family’s Plan:
My research shows there is a Publix grocery store in the vicinity of our rental house. We will be making a meal plan (there are now a total of 8 of us going- my family of 6 + my parents) before we leave and will shop there for most of our needs.
Breakfast: We will eat this in the house we rented via VRBO.com before heading out for the day. We will most likely have cereals, granola bars, fruits, etc.
Lunch: We will bring lunch with us into the parks. Each person will have a small lunchbox (glad I got a few extras during back to school sales!) We will pack sandwiches, fruit, chips, granola bars, cookies, etc.
Snacks: We may purchase the occasional ice cream from vendors but we will bring extra fruit and granola bars with us.
Drinks: Since we have a freezer in the rental house we will be placing water bottles in the freezer and will allow them to thaw as the day goes on. Note: Ice Water is free at most counter service vendors in Disney World.
Dinner: We are utilizing a crock pot at the house! With 4 children (and 4 tired adults) we plan to have a late meal every evening. Knowing my children they will not be able to be on the go from 9 am until 9 pm every day without some sort of down town. So we plan to have a late evening meal (well 7 is late for us!) each evening. at the house. We plan to have meals that we can toss in the crockpot in the morning and come home to in the evening. We also plan to have dinner with my uncle who lives in Florida one evening as well as eat a few evenings.
Tips to saving money dining out:
- Use sites like Groupon to find deals on local restaurants.
- Use Restaurant.com to find local restaurant deals.
Cost Analysis:
Dining Plan:
A Plus Dining package included 1 table meal, 1 quick service meal, 1 snack and 1 drink per day per person. This cost is approximately $58.66 per adult per day and $18.88 per child per day. So the dining for our family of 6 would be $1043.76 on top of the $2,200 in resort costs. There’s still a missing meal – breakfast- so that’s extra cost.
Non Dining Plan:
On-Site Eating: If we say breakfast/Lunch will be $9 each and Dinner $12 (and from my research this is extremely on the LOW end)= $30/day/person or $900 for the week. Ice water is free at most counter service locations but add an extra $100 for snacks= $1000.00
Non-Dining Plan:
-Groceries: Even being overly generous I expect to spend less then $250 for the week to feed my family of 6 and my parents
-Eating out: A casual dining meal for my family (without discounts or coupons) is usually around $50. Let’s put down $100 to have extra cushion.
-Snacks: Estimating an extra $100 (again extra cushion- I’d rather spend less than I think than more!) for ice cream, treats, etc.
Total: $450.00 for food for 8 people
Total Cost for Staying on site at a resort+ “free” Dining Plan: approx. $3243
Total Cost for Renting House + Eating at home/bringing meals: approx. $1210.00
Difference in cost: $2033.00
For my family $2000 is a lot of money – it someone makes $10 an hour that works out to 200 HOURS of work – or 5 weeks of 8 hour days to pay the difference. Sometimes breaking costs down per hour makes a bit more relate able for me. So while it may be a bit more work (packing lunches, etc) – but it will also give the kids time to decompress in the house, take a nap, give me a chance to check on hot deals, etc. For our family the best choice is to eat at the house and bring lunch with us.
Do you have any eating at Disney tips?
We took bottled water with us also when we went to Disney. We also packed the Kool Aid singles to add to the water.That way we didn’t feel so deprived when we saw the delicious drinks that were being sold.I guess now the squeeze flavorings would also be great.They were not available when we went.Have fun!
Oh great idea- I’ll snag some Mio!
We just returned from DisneyWorld 2 weeks ago. Went the 2nd week of January for 6 days. Stayed on site, bought our own food. Did the Dining Plan last time in 2009 but it wasn’t worth it for our family to do again.
The “best deal” I found for an ice cream snack was at Hollywood Studios at the Hollywood Ice Cream place that is near Aerosmith and Tower of Terror. It’s a cookie sandwich which had 2 huge (6 inches) thick choc chip cookies and about a cups worth of ice cream between (you pick your flavor) for $4.19. My 13 and 10 year old sons and I split it and it was a nice snack to tide us over and was very good! Considering the prices of all the other snacks, I would easily have expected to pay $7.50+ for this snack. It could have been because of it being ‘off season’ though too.
Definitely download the MyDisneyExperience App in order to watch the times for the lines and to schedule Fast Passes! Great tool they created with the App! We never waited more than 10 min on any ride by watching the Wait Times from the App, it was pretty accurate.
If you eat at “Be Our Guest” at Magic Kingdom, go during lunch time. You don’t need a reservation then and it’s a quick serve menu (prices are cheaper than their dinner menu.) There are 3 rooms to choose from to dine in that make the experience memorable from Beauty and the Beast.
We ate at the ‘cheapest’ restaurants we could find (I did extensive research before going by looking over the menus online) and ate healthy still. For our family of 4 we spent at least $60 per meal and ordered water for our beverage and tipped on top of that too of course. (Tipping is why the Disney Dining Plan isn’t a good deal for us budget conscious families, unless you get the plan for free, but then it’s still a headache trying to get to the restaurant at the designated time for each dinner! Having to tip on the total cost of the prices of the items you choose can be as much as a meal!!!!) Most pick the most expensive meal because “it’s free” but forget they have to pay tip too on that meal price! It adds up!
We flew down from Charlotte to Orlando. I booked our flights back in the first week of Oct when Southwest had $48 one way tickets/$96 round trip INCLUDING the taxes. All 4 of us flew for $385 total. We were allowed 2 checked bags each and 2 carry on bags, but we didn’t pack that much. Our flight took off from CLT at 10:25am and we arrived at the Orlando airport at noon and arrived at the front door of our Disney Resort at 1:15pm by taking Magical Express.
The cheap airline tickets were basically the only reason we decided to go back to Disney again and we are military, so we get pretty substantial discounts for Disney resorts and tickets. We wouldn’t be able to afford going if it weren’t for military. THANKFUL that Disney still offers military discounts.
Hope you have a wonderful time!!! 🙂
Awesome tips! Glad to hear that the dining plan wasn’t as great an idea as they try to make it sound 🙂
Last time we went, my husband and/or myself usually ordered a kid’s meal at the counter service places. Never had any problem doing this and they give you plenty of food .
We purchased a back pack cooler and took our own drinks and snacks but ate meals out (since we purchased the dining plan). Snacks alone will break you. As for the water, when we asked they directed us to the nearest water fountain. So unless you bring your own ice, which will melt, good luck. Not to mention the chlorine taste from the fountain was awful and when we refilled our water bottles it didn’t stay cold very long. My kids were 5 and 9 when we went this past June and they barely lasted 1/2 a day at any of the parks.
My understanding it is only select quick service locations but I will find out 100% and report when we get back- that’s my fear too that they won’t last all day and need a place to “get away” – hence the rental house!
Since you are going in February, you won’t be as thirsty as going in the summer hot months. The flavor drops do help out tremendously to add to your bottled water from the fountains or quick service counters. Your frozen water bottles aren’t going to melt as quickly in February. Don’t worry! 😉
Do these figures include your Disney tickets? Those would easily cost $2000 plus even if you purchase from a retailer like Undercover Tourist if you are buying for 8 people.
We stayed onsite, free dining, and only spent 1400 for a family of 4 excluding our airfare. The dining plan isn’t necessarily a value unless you’re a huge eater, but the convenience was worth it for us. The transportation to and from the parks and not having to pull out a credit card to pay for meals, ever, was what made our vacation truly relaxing!
Tickets were $1700 for us – you must have gotten a deal because even through a travel agent tickets for the 6 of us was well over $1200 alone. I even looked at bundles, etc.
But my point was that your figure of $3243 above for the full package at Disney includes park tickets in the MYW package if it had free dining. So if you paid $1700 for tickets and $1200 for room and food, you are really only saving a few hundred bucks from having all the transportation included with all the other extras, too.
We didn’t get any special deal; just booked direct with Disney and got the free dining during a value season week. Easiest, most relaxing yet fun vacation ever! No meal planning, grocery shopping, spending $$ or even driving a car at all!
The $3243 did not include tickets- that was the cost of the room + the option of adding free dining. The tickets were a separate cost. Sorry if I wasn’t being clear in my post. I should have added the entire amounts together but in my mind I was trying to compare apples to apples and obviously failed. My apologies. The option to add the “free dining” plan was about $56 per ticket per day.
The other reason onsite rooms didn’t work for my family was that the sizes were limited. We have 6 in my family plus my parents going- (when we first booked 4 others were coming but they’ve since dropped out). We wanted a place we could get togther, talk, etc.
Yes, the rooms onsite are TINY! 🙂
We took a trip in November and did use the dining plan. I think it is worth every penny. We did bring additional snacks and drinks into the parks with us but the experience you get from the character dining with little ones cannot be replaced. You get more time with the characters and are not hurried and rushed on because of a line. It is expensive but in my opinion, the character dining is one thing you do not want to miss.
Yes, I do agree Christina, IF you have small children THEN the Disney Dining Plan is WORTH it because those meals are quite expensive!!! We didn’t regret paying for the DDP when we our children were younger. When the characters come to YOU, in air conditioning, it is so much more enjoyable instead of waiting in long autograph lines in the hot sun. 🙂
My children really aren’t into characters so were skipping that attraction-
You’ll ‘bump’ into the characters throughout the parks if you did want to get a couple pics with them. It happens more often at the other parks though instead of Magic Kingdom where everyone flocks to them quickly. We were just walking along the backside of Hollywood Studios one day and 10 characters came out with Disney Cast Members for people to get pics with and autographs so that was a pleasant surprise! I think they do list the character greeting times though on the daily line ups. Being that you are going off season, I’m sure you’ll be able to ‘find’ them easily!
Also, your kiddos might enjoy the Phineas and Ferb cell phone detective game throughout World Showcase in Epcot, especially your 5th grader. They have to ‘find’ interactive clues throughout the countries. I always love playing that game with my kids no matter how old we are! It’s free as well. Checkout the kids passports too that each country will stamp for free in the countries. They have free craft stations too called Kidcot if I remember correctly. Oh! and Coca Cola has a store there to try free unlimited samples of their cokes from around the world at Epcot! Great free drink for everyone!
There’s also free pin trading with the Disney Cast Members…if you have some stick pins you want to bring along and trade. (Sorry, some of these weren’t food related tips!)
Love the tips! Thanks
100% agree with the above comments about the DDP for character interaction. It was my daughter’s favorite part when she was younger and the character meals made it so easy and yummy to meat her favorites!
Those new squeezable apple sauce packets are great to pack too, “to get a fruit in.”