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[mackemlad79]

How much money do people end up spending on top of their holiday price?

People have said take lots of money as you need it. I'd expect to have to buy soft drinks all week due to it not being included in some menus. Did someone mention being able to fill bottles somewhere for free?

Also what other charges are there apart from the usual gifts that the kids will want?

[polar vixen]

We are a family of 8. Kids take about 70 euros each. I reckon on 100 a day . We use this for additional drinks and snacks and a couple of souvineers each.

[mackemlad79]

Thanks for the quick reply

Wow this could get really expensive!

[bad-pink-tink]

Im a solo traveller and I budget about €70 per day. I usually put together shopping list of merchandise that I want which make it easier when I get there.

For example I collect Tinkerbell and Pirates of The Caribbean mainly. The first day I will window shop and pick out my items. I also collect pins and pin trade and I like to get something specific to the hotel I am staying at.

Food wise I dont get the meal vouchers, I prefer to pay as I go.I will have planned my meals in advance for each day. The menus are all online, so you can a rough idea of prices before you go. I keep my food money separate from my spending money and have it divided into envelopes for each day. The last time I stayed there, breakfast was included, so I had a good breakfast and wasnt hungry until lunchtime. I have one main meal and then just snack. I usually have one table service meal at the restaurant in Pirates (used to be called Blue Lagoon, now Captain Jacks).

I usually start planning my shopping and food about 2 months before I go and start to put money aside. For example, the Glowtini Cocktail in Disneyland Hotel was €18, so I put a €20 aside with a note to say that was for my Glowtini. 

[Zee79]

How many of you are going? Ages? What do you prefer to eat? As a family of 4 we used to take £500 for a 4 day stay. This was before my eldest could eat for England so up to 10yr old. That was without meal plans. We sometimes filled up at breakfast then snack for lunch then main meal on an evening. We often shared the meals between my 2 or myself & one of them. We now take £500 for our stay but have meal plans as we prefer buffets. For drinks I buy those little squirty juices and refill my bottle with water at the hotel or around the parks and add juices accordingly. I also take snack bars to eat round the parks or those little bags of haribos.

[mackemlad79]

5 of us. Kids are 7 4 and 1.

We'd have the half board plus and would do similar to you.
The breakfast doesnt seem much to fill up on (quick service in the park?) but ideally we would and snack throughout the day and then have the evening meal. We'd prefer buffets due to the kids I think.

Are there regular water stops to fill bottles?

[Zee79]

There should be one in every land.
We've paid for meal plan so breakfast is at the hotel. I would say if you've got the room take snacks from home.

[mackemlad79]

I thought the meal plans meant you only get the breakfasts in the parks. Thats what we were told by a travel agent anyway

[Zee79]

If  you got the free meal plan it's for a voucher in the park. If you paid for the meal plan then it's breakfast in the hotel. I've just checked my confirmation & quote on DLP website adding the meal plan and it stated on description that it's for the hotel.

You can also try to use your breakfast voucher in your hotel by paying the difference to get your breakfast in the hotel but this will depend on the hotel.

[loupenny]

Hello! We go as a couple and we spend almost nothing!

We have annual passes and we are fortunate enough to live in Kent so we go often and we really budget ourselves.

I totally appreciate that it's not for everyone and I think it's essential to have a car for all this but this is how we manage spending on our trips.

1) we drive over and the car is packed up with bottles of water, ice tea and food like nuts, sandwiches, individually wrapped croissants, fruit etc. we take a cool box with ice packs in the car and leave it in our hotel. We then take small amounts into the parks and sometimes we leave extra in the car so we can pop out and restock!
2) We drive to the big shopping centre in val d'europe midway through the (normally 4 day) trip. We will have a lunch in a restaurant there and we get the brioche d'oree sandwiches for the evening. You can also restock any food from the Auchan hypermarket. The shopping centre is like 10 minutes away if that and we love going and having a look round.
3) We normally have a full 'park day' when we go from EMH to closing without leaving. We take food in for lunch and snacks throughout the day and will eat a quick service meal for dinner.
4) We don't really buy disney snacks! (I know  !) We're both fitness people and we both limit sugar intake which makes it easier because we don't go mad, sometimes there's be a snack that we might decide we HAVE to try but that's it.
5) If we do have full meals we eat in disney village, Earl of Sandwich and now Vapianos are firm favourites. Our mains were both around 13 euros each at Vapianos this time and there's free water. Boom savings 
6) We don't buy many souvenirs (but this is definitely our biggest expense), we both collect pins so we pick up a couple each time but we go with set themes and ideas for what we buy. We always buy a pin and for example this time we knew we would only get homewares and even then we really hold ourselves back. At the end of the day do you neeeeeed a 25 euro tinkerbell mug... I'm looking at you 25th anniversary merch!!

We find it's so easy to get swept up in the magic and start spending like there's no tomorrow but we couldn't go as regularly as we do if we ate table service meals every day and quick service lunches. The cost would be eye-watering! Of course we'd like to but actually we get so put off by the inflated prices (and bad experiences in the past) and we don't feel like our holiday misses out because of anything. Hopefully some of that will help you keep those Disney costs down!!

[mackemlad79]

Thanks for that. We're flying but will try to take lots of snacks for during the day but I expect we will spend on some food and drink. Hopefully the kids will use birthday money on merch they want too.

[Crush]

I don't tend to take an awful lot of spending money.

Food wise, we tend to fill up on a big breakfast and then have a main meal of an evening, with a snack during the day. We take cereal bars, individually wrapped cakes and little packs of sweets to have through the day too.

Obviously up until recently breakfast had  been inlcuded in the hotel stay, this year we are doing a coach trip  and it says breakfast in the hotel is included too (or alternative location for one day as hotel restaurant will be shut) so I assume this is a buffet breakfast rather than a quick serve but I'm not really sure. I hope so, anyway.

Souvenir wise I only tend to buy one or two small things.

[polar vixen]

We thought wed be hungry with the counter service breakfast but eating around 9.30 we found that there was barely any queue(a good thing since theyre so slow) but it was also surpisingly filling. So i wouldnt worry about snacks too much. Take your tea if doing a buffet a little early and between breakfast and buffet you should be ok. Alyhough i will poiny out that their toffee apples and 3.50 each but absolutrly delicious!

[mackemlad79]

Thanks. 9.30am and around 4pm buffet you think?

If parade is 5.30pm would this make sense?

[polar vixen]

I think that would be fine. Although note that restaurant des stars in the studios is typically only ope around lunch time and billy bobs in the studios opens at 6