Saving Money on Food

Eating at Walt Disney World is easily one of the most expensive parts of your vacation. The bill for a family of four will easily come to $70 –$80 for a typical sit-down restaurant in one of the park or resort establishments. This is just for entrées, (non-alcoholic) drinks and gratuity. If you want to add in an appetizer, wine/beer, salad or dessert, you can easily break the $100 per meal mark.

• When we traveled to Disney in 2007, the lowest bill we saw was about $125 for three adults and one child, but most nights averaged more like $150 per meal. We did have the (free) dining plan so our daily sit-down meal included an appetizer, non-alcoholic drink, entrée and dessert. Otherwise, we would not have ordered this much food and the bill would have been somewhat lower. Still, you can see how your meal purchase can quickly get out of hand.

If you plan on going to any of the character meals (which tend to be all-you-can-eat buffets) or the signature restaurants, you can figure on a much higher per-head price. For example:

At Chef Mickey’s Character Dinner  buffet (The Contemporary Resort), you will spend $41.53 - $46.85 per adult and $20.23- $22.36 per child according to a February 2013 menu (menu prices are seasonally adjusted just like the room rates. The Disney site currently lists a total $36- $59.99 per person so the prices may have increased again) Let’s look at those totals for our family of four: (I’m using 18% gratuity because this what Disney automatically adds) 

(((41.53 x 2) + (20.23 x 2)) x 1.18) = $145. 75 for off season per 2/13

(((46.85 x 2) + (22.36 x 2)) x 1.18) = $163.34 for peak season per 2/13 

(((59.99 x2 ) + (36 x 2)) x 1.18) = $226.54 estimated peak from Disney’s current site info

That’s a bit scary isn’t it? Even eating at a counter service restaurant will set you back about $40 for our family of four:

• Dinner at Cosmic Rays in Tomorrowland would probably go like this:
• 1/2 Rottiserie Chicken Meal   $9.99
• BBQ Pork Sanwich                 $9.59
• 2 Chicken nugget kids meals  $11.98  ($5.99 each)
• 2 regular Fountain drinks        $5.18   ($2.59 each)
• TOTAL     $36.74 + tax
• If you'd like to check the menus and pricing for the WDW restaurants, check AllEars.net for a complete list. This is the list I’m using for all my calculations. (Please remember the child rate only goes to age 9 when figuring your totals.)

 So, how can you go about saving money on you food purchases?

Grocery Delivery Services

I would suggest ordering groceries on the internet ahead of time and and having them delivered to your resort. There are several stores in the Orlando area that provide this service for a relatively small delivery charge.

Remember that the Disney Moderate and Deluxe Resort rooms include a mini-fridge and Disney has begun adding mini-fridges to some of the Value resorts, as well. At the other Value resorts you can also pay  $10 extra a day to have a mini-fridge brought to your room. Please note that as of this writing (Fall 2013), Disney has been experiencing some issues with the mini-fridges and is in the process of replacing/repairing them. The fridges should all be replaced by Holiday 2013, but you should contact your resort to find out the status of it’s rooms.

Melanie and I used Garden Grocer on our last trip and it worked out wonderfully. We placed our order several days ahead and the groceries arrived at the front desk the same day we did. We ordered a gallon of milk, boxes of cereal, some donuts, breakfast bars, juice boxes, snacks and a case (or two) of water. The items we ordered for breakfast probably came to about $20 and lasted through the week. If you are staying for a 6-night/ 7-Day trip, you will probably eat breakfast six times since probably won’t need this meal on the day of your arrival. Using the menu for Port Orleans’ Riverside Mill food court, I estimate about $30 per counter service breakfast for four. This means you will spend about $180 just for breakfast. Even with the $14 delivery fee, you will save about $150 on this meal alone.

Drinks

You can save A LOT of money by not buying drinks inside the park. A bottle of water inside the park costs $2.50. If the average person drinks two of these a day (remember this is Florida, so it’s hot and humid), you are looking at $5 person or $20 for our family of four. For WATER. At Garden Grocer, you can get a case of 32 16.9oz bottles for between $9.99 and $12.99. That’s between $0.31 and $0.40 per bottle. For $24.99 our family family gets 64 bottles of water – that’s seven days worth of water with eight extra bottles. Seven days worth of water (56 bottles) would cost $140 at park prices. You saved $115. On WATER! Don’t forget you get that extra eight bottles worth another $20 inside the park.

While we are talking about water, Florida law requires that any restaurant give you water for free. You can always go to any counter service restaurant and ask for a cup of water – they will probably also refill your empty bottles or a refillable cup. Ordering water with your dinner is another great way to save money.

If you are a soda fan, you will also save big money buying your drink outside the park. Bottled drinks in the parks retail for about $2.75 a piece. A 6-pack of 16.9oz bottles will cost between $5 and $6. You will save between $10 and $12 per 6-pack. Also, if you are fan of Pepsi products, you won’t find them on Disney property because of the exclusive deal with Coke.

Another way to save money on drinks is to purchase the refillable mugs at your resort (they come as part of the DDP if you decide to purchase that.) You can purchase a refillable mug for anywhere between $8.99 for 1 day to $17.99 for up to 14 days. Currently, the mug is only good at the Disney Resort where you are staying, but they are testing a system that would allow you fill your mug at any resort. Refillable mugs are a great value if you drink a lot of soda or coffee, provided you are at the resort. They are also a nice, usable souvenir you can treasure for years to come (Melanie still takes hers to work for coffee) :

Snacks

Snacks inside the park run from about $2.50 for small snack like a cookie to $10.25 for the Turkey Leg. Many of the snacks are big enough to share, but you can still save a lot money buying pre-packaged snacks that you know your kids already like. Small packs of crackers, fruit snacks and such are great to throw in the old back-pack. They also make great distracters while the kids are waiting in line.

The Disney Dining Plan (DDP)

I’ll write a much more in-depth post dealing with the DDP at a later date, but if you are planning on going to multiple character dining experiences, you should seriously consider the DDP. Adults tend to break even versus paying out of pocket, but you really save on the child’s meal price. The Standard DDP price per child 3-9 is $17-$18. For this you get: a counter service meal worth about $8-$10, a snack for up to $5 and sit-down meal. Most of the character meals range from $25- $40 per child. This means will save at least $20 per child per day:

$25 (Dinner)+ $8 (Lunch) + $5 (Snack) = $38     $38 – $18 (cost of DDP)  = $20 savings

We are going to a character meal five out of the seven nights we are there every day to keep our spirited three-year-old daughter occupied during meal time. So, this would save us at least $40 per day or $200 for the five days. When you consider that some of the character meals are more like $36 per child, you can see how the savings add up.

The biggest savings if if you can get one of the big Disney deals like Free DDP. We figure it will save us just north of $1000 on our upcoming trip. Disney has offered free Dining for parts of August and September for about 7-8 years and has extended it into the later Fall (non-Holiday) for at least the last 5-6 years. If you plan your trip for these times, history points to you getting free dining. Disney is also offering a Pay What Kids Pay price for early parts of 2014. This would save you nearly $40 per day per adult (adults pay $55-$56 per day for the DDP)

Food for thought

If you just add up the $150 savings from not buying breakfast and the savings on drinks, you can save $265 – which can buy you a 7-Day park pass for one of the kids or four tickets to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party / Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.

Additional Tips and Tricks

These are tips I’ve used, but if you want an even more extensive list, check out these tips compiled by the fine folks over at MouseSavers.com