Spending money

[JP81]

There will be 6 of us, 4ad (2 of them are my eldest) 1@13y and 1@2y.
I've budgeted $250 a day for Food shops, eating out, and shopping. We have parking for free at seaworld included, and 1 Preferred pas for Universal for free parking.
Previous trips without the @1y/o, we've had a similar budget and lazy days have saw us spend next to nothing.< This then becomes the actual shopping budget near the end of the holiday, which we rarely spend much on anyway.

Food wise, the likes of Chili's do 3 for $10 appetizers their meal for 2 for $25.
We don't particularly eat in the parks, but if we do, its a burger or hot dog meal, like $10-12. We have breakfast in our accomodation, and sometimes take snacks to the parks.
If you are eating out 3 times a day, which many do as they are on holiday, the cost will be quite high.

That said, we still wont spend our full budget.
also, gone are the days of travellers checks and hard cash. Take as much as you need for a few days, load some onto a currency card, and top it up as need be.
Then you won' be staring at a wad of cash in the middle of your trip trying to spend it all.

[JP81]

A good way to look at food, is you can go out for a meal at home and get a main course for a tenner or a main course for £60.
A pizza at Dominos is £20, and a smaller chain is £10.

If your stay is based around theme parks, there are impulse shopping opportunities, and Disney especially is designed to make it difficult to "nip away" for lunch.
As I said above, we budget $50pppd and may go over it on a day, but will more than even out over our trip.

You're in Florida, whatever you have, you'll have a blast.

[themeparksandy]

As we just did Disney and got the free dinning plan our budget was quite cheap.
For Breakfast we used our snack credit to buy breakfast (Bagels for me&the wife and cereal for our daughter) then fill our resort mugs with tea, Coffee and juice. After we got ready we walk down to dinning again to refill our mugs with cold drinks.
During the day we again fill our mugs with free water and brought with us them Robinsons Squash'd to add taste then had a drink with our QS meal then at the end of the day would refill our mugs at the dinning.
I think the only cash we spend was on sweets and snacks with the odd drink mid afternoon so maybe $15 to $20 a day.
The gifts were free as we had a $200 gift card which was still got money left on.

[keely21]

For us it will be me, my 12 and 13 year old and 3 year old travelling. My 3 year old isn't a big eater. I've budgeted around £200 a day. Hoping that's enough. I plan on going to walmart on our first day and buying some water and snacks we can take to the parks. We will eat at a variety of places and won't have 3 meals a day out. Sometimes it will be breakfast and dinner then snacks for lunch that I've kardfay purchased etc. Will also do a few cheap places likes mcds and pizza etc to bring the cost down a bit. Hoping that's enough!

[theotherblonde]

Budget is a personal thing and depends on your circumstances. If you need to account for car, petrol, food, Ubers etc then you will budget more than someone staying onsite and spending most time in Disney.

It also depends on how many people in your party and whether you plan for QS or TS options. For me and my family, unless onsite dining is free its not worth. When you add up the cost of the food and what you would spend against paying for a DDP, the advanced cost is more, much more.

I think for when my family go, we will average around £2000 for a family of three staying on-site.

[Squidgyness]

I like to splurge on holidays these days, as I'm quite budget tight at home and have few expensive hobbies (other than holidays...) For only myself I budget $100 to $140 a day depending on activities, which sounds crazy expensive looking at it but it can soon add up. I like to separate it into the following:

$30 per day transportation (usually taxi, only use this about half the days)
$15 breakfast (allowing for the odd breakfast buffet at RPR)
$20 lunch (quick service + drink in the parks, outlets or at KSC)
$25 dinner (ditto, we prefer quick service to table service)
$20 drinks throughout the day (big soda fiend, the odd cocktail etc.)
$15 daily souvenir fund (I collect magnets from trips. So many magnets...)
$15 snacks for the evening (usually from the hotel snack shop for convenience)

It's not a cheap trip by any means but it's the way we like to do it as it allows for what we think of as a low stress to activities ratio. What matters most isn't the amount you take but how you do the trip. We had a fantastic trip in '06 and a not so fantastic one in '09, both on much much smaller budgets. We just tried to do too much on too little in '09.

[khonsu]

Great post - as has been said, isn't it lovely to have a proper holiday post rather than flights, COVID or last minute scares...

So. We're staying at Shingle Creek in May. Stayed there in 2019. The best decision we made was adding the breakfast to the cost of the holiday. It's an amazing breakfast buffet and when you weigh up the costs of eating out for breakfast - it makes a huge difference to spends.

I'd say pay for as much as you can possibly do before you go.

We do budget - but only in a way of "what's sensible" for a daily basis and then do as others do... roll it over day by day. Or even if we have a blow out on the first day - we know we can have a cheapy lunch that next etc.

Figures... we budgeted £200 a day for two adults. Those margarita's ain't cheap you know! That covered lunch, drinks and dinner easily.

Any shopping etc comes out of our own money.

As others have said. This is a major holiday and, once over there, I don't want to be worrying about what we spend. We're sensible enough to not spend $250 on Space 220. As cool as it looks.

Those on a budget, been there/done that - and still look back on every single Orlando holiday as a fantastic time. Whether it was a very budget hotel or a premium - Orlando is just the best place on earth for holidays.