The 'How to fail spectacularly at the $100 a day food challenge' trip report - Disneyland California
 

Hello everyone,

We found reading everyones trip reports, especially food ones, really helpful. So, I thought I'd use some of the Christmas downtime to start writing up our trip report for Disneyland California.

Who's in the crew, well there are three of us (see the pre-trippie - https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1141917 ) and we went to Disneyland for October half term. We stayed at Wyndham Gardens just on the corner of S Harbor Blvd. It was a great hotel, and about 15 minutes walk to Disneyland. We'd definitely stay there again!

Anyway, as I'm sure you can guess from the title...my $100 a day food budget didn't go... erm...well. :confused2 :blush: :o: We had one day where we were 'off' budget but the rest of the time we were trying to stay on track. Anyway, hopefully this trip report will give you an idea of the kind of food you can get and the price. Perhaps you'll do better than we did...FYI I've upped the offsite food budget to $150 per day for Disneyworld next year! :thumbs-up :d:

Arrival Day - Friday 25/10/19

First disclaimer - I have a terrible memory and did, on more than one occasion, forget to take a photo of the food lol! :o:

We flew out of Heathrow Terminal 3 and decided to have breakfast at Spuntino. Did not enjoy it at all, food was meh to okay, DH had New York breakfast which came out quickly and was sparse but okay. I had eggs Royale which wasn't great and took forever. The muffins tasted stale and due to some water some parts were mushy. DH had finished his before mine arrived. DD doesn't like flying and was too nervous to eat.

And yes, I totally forgot to take a photo, I partially blame this for the delay in the food arriving.



The cost was £26.50 and came out of my food shopping budget rather than the $100 a day budget. ;)

We had an interesting flight. Virgin was great but unfortunately a passenger on our flight became ill and we had to divert to Iceland so that they could get medical attention.

So, eventually we get to LAX and after a slightly stressful journey we made it to the hotel. We decided to have a little walk around Garden Walk and in the end decided to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Mainly because it smelt good, was nearby and we were tired and wanted to sleep.

The food was really good and the service was great, although our Forest Gump film knowledge was a little lacking, it's been more than a while since we watched it!

We shared a portion of Coconut shrimp, a seafood feast and the ever sensible DD requested a side of steamed broccoli, which we were all grateful for! ;)









Now, jet lag had very much kicked in and I made my first 'rookie' error. They were trying to sell the Laundry card for $25. Which included a free $25 voucher and also a free $25 for your birthday month...so when I set it up I set it up with my 'Florida' birthday.

Now, we were planning on getting this, I'm not sure if we could have got a better deal with groupon etc, but hey, it is what it is. Here is were I really went wrong, we wanted the bill and we wanted to get to bed so instead of sitting and working out the tip I got flustered and asked to pay straight away. The bill was $78.89 (included the $25 for the card). In the end I just gave them $100. :omg: In fairness, the guy was great so I don't begrudge it, but it was only later that I realised I tipped on the laundry card as well. You live and learn. :o:

I'd definitely recommend them and as I said, we were planning on getting a laundry card for Florida next year as we're spending the first week off site so we'll definitely use the $50 in gift vouchers next year. We'll definitely go to the Bubba Gump at Universal City walk and I'm pretty sure coconut shrimp will be consumed! :D

That's it for today. DH is taking a break from building his Lego crane and DD has just got her Dobble game out to play. I hope you're enjoying your Christmas Day! :thumbs-up:santasmil

Spent so far:

Friday arrival day - $100 (not including the breakfast in the UK). :)

I want to take my family out to California sometime so I'm reading for research purposes ;) as the only time I've been was in the early 90s so I'm sure loads has changed.

I'm looking forward to reading all about your trip.

I love these threads, thank you for posting. We found California more expensive than Florida so no wonder you struggled to stay in budget.

First full day - Saturday 26/10/19

First day, it had to be a Disneyland park day. Courtesy of jet lag we were up bright and early, although fortunately not too early.

This was the view from our hotel room...it was still very dark when we woke up!



We got ready and walked towards Disneyland. I'd planned for us to have breakfast at IHOP, so we stopped at the Ihop store pretty much adjacent to the entrance (1560 S Harbor Blvd). We must have got there by 7.15am 'ish as we paid at 8am. By the time we left a decent sized queue was beginning to form as it seemed that a lot of people have breakfast here before heading in to the parks.

Now, as any sensible person will tell you, make sure you sign up via restaurant websites to get discount codes. I had planned on signing up to various restaurants to get discount emails using a holiday email address. However, 'stuff happened' before we came out and so we weren't able to be as organised as we had originally planned on, so I didn't get them for everywhere, however I managed a few over the week. Ihop is also particularly tricky as they don't allow you to access the site from the UK (GDPR and all that). When you sign up to them I believe you get a free stack of pancakes.


DD had French toast.


DH had the breakfast sampler which came with pancakes.


I had the savoury crepe. Which was a pancake with ham, scrambled eggs and cheese covered in a white cheese sauce...oh my days it was soooo good! :p:

Total cost including tip was $68, and we were all VERY full!



After being well and truly fed we headed in to Disneyland park. We've been to Florida twice and we love it, but we have to go in August... you know...when Florida is hotter than the surface of the sun! :mad2: and so it was beyond wonderful to be able to enjoy all the Disney goodness at a temperature that didn't make us melt the moment we stepped outside! ;)

I had heard good things about Bengals Barbecue and boy did it smell good so we picked up a snack around midday. I'm afraid...:o:...in all the excitement I lost the receipt for this one...but I did take a photo.



We bought the Bengal beef skewer, really tasty but my bits of steak were very chewy; a Jungle julep which was nice but very sweet, and a soda. Total cost was $16.68.

DD didn't really fancy anything from there, however she was embracing her inner teenager so when we got Black spire outpost (AMAZING by the way) we stopped at Docking Bay 7 to pick her up a Tip Yip kids meal. This is basically a chunk of coated chicken with some veg and Mac n cheese. Total cost was $15.60, including a water and then a separate large soda.





Blood sugar levels in check and teenage hormones abated, we continued our journey around Batuu. :inlove: Absolutely loved it...of course that love grew later in the week when we got to experience it in the dark. Disney in the daytime is magical...Disney in the dark is something else! :P1x1e_Dust:

Final bit of park food for the day was of course... a dole whip! Is it even legal to go there without eating one?!

No receipt (shame, shame, shame :o: ), however I do have a photo for you to salivate over. :tongue: This set us back $6.45 and was the first of many! ;)



We headed out of the park at a fairly reasonable time (for the first day) at around 5/6pm. As we had an 'expensive' breakfast I had planned a cheap supper. So we headed to In and Out burger.

Whenever we're on holiday we both go on the car insurance (I need to be able to get away erm I mean take a little drive to the shops or something every now and then) but normally DH drives. However, I ended up doing all of the driving this holiday. We picked up the food and then headed back to the hotel. The nearest In and Out burger restaurant isn't far away, although apple maps has an uncanny ability of trying to take you down the 'most likely to be car jacked routes possible' and so our journey there was a little convoluted...I made my own way back courtesy of my internal direction skills rather than taking another one of the Apple maps adventure tours!

Burgers were tasty, better than a Maccie D's, not as good as 5 Guys. But cheap and filing. :thumbs-up Total cost for supper/tea (lets not get in to that debate) was $15.84. They had cooled a little, due to the drive back so it would have probably been better to eat it there, however, 1. everyone was tired and 2. causing a distinct level of aroma induced trauma to the hungry guy in the lift on the way back to our room was worth it...very amusing! :D





Total spends for the day was $122.57 :o: so the $100 challenge was going well as you can see! :d:

Spent so far:
Friday $100 (does include $50 laundry gifts to spend in Florida next August) :)
Saturday $122.57 :o:

Ooo, yes, you should totally do it! :thumbs-up This was just a quick trip out to 'get away' from everything. We'd like to do a road trip including San Francisco, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Universal and of course Disneyland!

Thank you Vinniecat, that's what I'm going to say...it wasn't my poor budgeting skills or lack of will power when it comes to food...it was definitely the price, it was just more expensive! ;) :d:

That's making me hungry. I'm not a burger fan but as we landed late in San Francisco due to delays we had an In and Out burger and I really enjoyed it. Poor chap in the lift, you could have given him a bite.

Good reads

I think you did well so far reading !We went to California 2018 and found it quite a bit more in cost v Florida :)

Looking good so far, following as want to go to DL in the near future but have definitely noticed that it is more expensive than florida