The 'Budget Trip' $150 Per Day for Family of 5 - May 2019 **COMPLETE P14**

[caitlinsmummy]

Highs and Lows

I've tried to divide these into categories to make it easier, then do an overall summary at the end.

* Breakfasts
* Lunches
* Dinners

* Best Value
* Worst Value
* Most Expensive Meal
* Cheapest Meal


I'll start with

Breakfast

Best Breakfast
DENNYS

This was a really tough one to decide for me. It was a toss up between Denny's and Perkins. The food in both these restaurants were fab but purely down to portion sizes, Denny's pips Perkins to the post purely on portion sizes.

We had great service and great food at both restaurants and they're on our definite list for our return.

Me - Choconana Pancake Breakfast - Ghirardelli® chocolate chips cooked inside buttermilk pancakes. Topped with bananas, more Ghirardelli® chocolate chips and whipped cream. Served with two eggs,* hash browns, plus two bacon strips or two sausage links.

Our meal at Denny's cost $40.98 including a tip which works out just over $8pp for breakfast. We did have a 20% off coupon for here too which helped us stay in budget.

Worst Breakfast

IHOP

It's got to be IHOP for us. My food was ok and a nice change but the others just weren't up up to scratch, the service was poor ... I won't go on but it was the worst breakfast for us. It actually turned out to be one of the most expensive too even though we had a free stack of pancakes voucher (which Caitlin had instead of a meal!) at $54.49 We would probably give it a try again, but definitely won't be rushing back to it.

Build Your Own French Toast Combo - Choose your French Toast flavor and we’ll serve it with two eggs*, hash browns and two crispy strips of hickory-smoked bacon or two pork sausage links

Lunches


Best Lunch
BE OUR GUEST

Now we didn't have a lot of lunches as we tended to have big breakfasts and snack throughout the day before a big evening meal. From the lunches we did have for me it's got to be Be Our Guest. I absolutely loved this and it was so big Chris and the kids even shared it with me! It is very expensive at $17.41 for one meal, but the portion sizes and taste make up for it

Croque Monsieur - Grilled Sandwich of Carved Ham and Gruyere Cheese and Bechamel with Pommes Frites - $15.99

Worst Lunch

MILLERS

This was a no brainer really, we didn't have great service here, we were already in holiday blues mode and we found the food really salty and just didn't enjoy it. It was our most expensive lunch at $61 but we did have 1 meal per person as opposed to sharing like most of our other lunch experiences.

Philly Cheese - Grilled, sliced beef, sautéed onions, American cheese, hoagie roll - $10.29

Dinner

Best Dinner and Most Expensive Meal
LONGHORNS STEAKHOUSE

Well I'm pretty sure this is no surprise as it's all I've raved on about through the report. We really enjoyed this meal. We were quite tired with it being only our second night otherwise we might have stayed for desserts too! We had a voucher for a free Appetiser which made our bill a bit cheaper. This was our most expensive evening meal, but it was definitely a highlight of the holiday. Our server was great and the food was lovely. This is a definite for our a return. It cost $98.12 so is on the pricey side and definitely not something you could do every day if on a budget.

Me - Flo's Filet* - our guests' favorite - the most tender cut of beef. - $18.99 I think I went for the 6oz, I opted for loaded baked potato and Mac N Cheese with mine (Chris and I shared the Mac N Cheese)

Worst Evening Meal

OUTBACK

Again no surprise we choose this as it was our least enjoyed meal. Similar to Millers in that we found the food very salty, it also put us off that they didn't have any veggies available, which sounds so trivial but we were really looking forward to the broccoli and cheese It was a similar price to Longhorns, infact it would have been more if we hadn't had the 10% off coupon for Memorial Day. This was $92.96 and definitely wasn't worth it in my opinion, it's not somewhere we would return next time sadly.

OUTBACK CENTER-CUT SIRLOIN*
- Center-cut for tenderness. Lean, hearty and full of flavor. Seasoned and seared.

Best Value

Friendlys

Again I really struggled deciding between this and Steak N Shake, you all know my love for Steak N Shake but purely based on the fact we also had dessert at Friendly's and the whole atmosphere topped it for me (I still love my SnS Garlic Burger ... nothing can top that ) Friendly's is more the budget end of food, however the food was really nice, the atmosphere was good (apart from the smell as you walked in!) and we all just thoroughly enjoyed ourselves here. It was helped by having the 25% off voucher otherwise I'm not sure I would have rated it best value without the voucher tbh! The total here was $45.21.

Bacon Mac N Cheese Burger - Friendly's Big Beef® Burger topped wth melted American cheese, our cheesy mac & cheese and crispy applewood-smoked bacon all on a grilled Brioche roll and served with golden fries.

Worst Value

Moon Rock Cafe - KSC
This was a toss up between Krusty Burger and Moon Rock Cafe. I decided Moon Rock Cafe pipped it to the post purely due to small portion sizes. The food was ok, but it's definitely not worth the money. I know food is more expensive in parks/attractions, but I just felt this was the worst at $46.05 for 3 meals. If we did KSC again I would probably take our own lunch.

Chicken Tender Meal - with French Fries

Bacon Double Cheeseburger Meal - with French Fries

8' Cheese Pizza

1 Diet Coke

Most Expensive Meal

I decided not to include meals where we shared in this part as that would be fair.

Breakfast - Hash House A Go Go. This was $57.22 however before we left I bought a voucher for $29 for a $50 spend so this is a bit of a cheat one really. We ended up only paying $15 including tip after the voucher.

TRACTOR DRIVER COMBO - two eggs w/ choice of bacon, sausage links, turkey sausage patties or potatoes, w/ famous ‘Twisted’ flapjack - $15.99

Dinner

As above the most expensive dinner was Longhorns but it was definitely worth it

Cheapest Meal

I decided not to include meals where we shared in this part as that would be fair, so our cheapest.

Breakfast

Perkins - This was $40.62 but we did use a 20% off voucher too. There was only 30c or so between Perkins and Dennys and we really enjoyed both and would recommend anyone to try them.

STRAWBERRY CROISSANT FRENCH TOAST PLATTER - A flaky buttery croissant, dipped in our signature batter, grilled and loaded with sweet glazed strawberries and Bavarian cream.

Dinner

Steak N Shake was the cheapest dinner at $36.46 and technically it could have been cheaper as I did get an extra burger to take back to the room Just over $30 for a family of 5 to eat ... you really can't complain can you.

Garlic Double Steak Burger and Fries - $3.99

M&M Milkshake - $3.69

Summary

Overall we were well within our budget of $150 per day. We honestly didn't feel like we were watching the money at all. We managed to eat in parks, have snacks when we wanted and eat at higher end restaurants like Longhorns not just junk food and burgers. We probably could have chosen healthier options whilst out too but we didn't want to

It's so easy to eat out according to your budget but my top tip would be to sign up to the restaurants before you go and download the vouchers as they really help. I'm not very good at maths but I have a feeling if we didn't have the vouchers we did we would have been very close to $150 per day on food as they helped save us so much.

We don't have any plans set in stone just yet, but I'm trying to convince Mr Grump for next August/September or October. I'm hoping for 10-14 nights Disney with Free QSDP or DDP and 11 or 7 nights in a villa so we also get to experience offsite again where I'll probably do a food report again

I'd like to say a massive thank you all for following along and reading and I hope it helps some people who are thinking of try to go on a budget. Orlando doesn't have to be expensive and you don't need to miss out on things either xx

[Disney Planning]

Brilliant summary. Thanks so much for sharing I’ve really enjoyed your report 😊

[Goldia]

Great round up Kelly, the breakfasts really did look good at Denny's, shame that IHOP was a bit of a flop really. You did well to hunt down all the voucher codes and discounts as it seems to have meant you kept well within your budget. Like you said you didn't feel like you were cutting corners and it looks like you pretty much ate what you wanted and where you wanted.

I'm looking forward to the next report!

x

[caitlinsmummy]

Originally Posted by Disney Planning

Brilliant summary. Thanks so much for sharing I’ve really enjoyed your report 😊

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Thanks for reading and glad you enjoyed it x

Originally Posted by Goldia

Great round up Kelly, the breakfasts really did look good at Denny's, shame that IHOP was a bit of a flop really. You did well to hunt down all the voucher codes and discounts as it seems to have meant you kept well within your budget. Like you said you didn't feel like you were cutting corners and it looks like you pretty much ate what you wanted and where you wanted.

I'm looking forward to the next report!

x

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Thanks Abby. The vouchers and knowing what offers were on each day really helped! I'm making my list ready for next time already thank you for reading as always xx

[theCMG]

sad it's over but loved the summary, shows what you can do on a budget

[jandlsmum]

Fab trippie thank you for tacking the time for sharing it with us

[caitlinsmummy]

Originally Posted by theCMG

sad it's over but loved the summary, shows what you can do on a budget

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Thanks CMG x

Originally Posted by jandlsmum

Fab trippie thank you for tacking the time for sharing it with us

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Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it x

[Finn family]

Wow that's so impressive that you've managed to stick under your budget. Really enjoyed reading your food report
I really do think it makes a big difference which day you attend restaurants and which servers you have. We personally LOVE Millers Ale House and have never had a bad experience. We also love IHOP and dislike Denny's due to previous bad experiences. We went to Outback a few times, found the food good but the servers were always trying to rush us. Might have to try Longhorns as that look fab!

Thanks for sharing

[Lisa29]

Great round up, thanks for taking the time to share.

[Zellotape]

Thank you for sharing! I have picked up a few tips along the way! plus a few places have been added to my ever growing list!