Guests Publicly Debate How Much Money Is Needed On A Disney Vacation – Inside The Magic

One thing that we can all agree on, it that a vacation to Walt Disney Resort is not a cheap one. In the past, visiting Disney World was a lot more affordable, but as time has gone on, we have seen plenty of price hikes price out certain Guests. There is, of course, ways to do Disney on a budget by monitoring where you eat and what hotel you stay in, but overall, a certain amount of spending money is needed for the average Guest to have a good time.

By this, we do not mean how much money you must save for a Disney World vacation, but rather how much money you need to be prepared to spend once you arrive. This can be on food, drinks, other activities, merchandise, and more. CynderQuest recently started a public debate on Reddit asking how much spending money is needed at Disney World. The future Disney Guest will be arriving for the first time in late 2022 and wanted to know if $1,000.00 was enough for a 2-3 week vacation.

Hello! First time posting here, and here is my question. I will possibly going to Florida/Disney in September with my family and to meet my boyfriend.

My mum will be paying for the flight and hotel/villa, my boyfriend gets 25% discount due to living in Florida.

I’m bad with money, but would you say 1k would be enough to spend in all the parks? High chance I and my family will be there for 2-3 weeks.

Should I bring more? Because I plan on going to all the parks.

Update: I will only be buying breakfast and dinner, I won’t be doing character meals/dinners.

Right away, they received a ton of feedback and advice that urged CynderQuest to bring more cash. Im_Neagan said:

Are you going to be eating out all the time or cooking/going to Walmart? If so, 2-3 weeks in Florida/Disney, you’re going to need a lot more than $1000. You’ll spend that much on food alone.

Traditional-King6535 noted that more money would be needed.

$1,000 def isn’t enough. Especially since you said you are not good with money. Disney and Florida can get out of hand even for someone who’s good with money.

AfterTheNightIWakeUp gave some helpful advice.

You can look up menus and prices online to get an idea of what food costs. Go through with an idea of what and how much you eat, add it up, add 6.5% for tax for everything and 20% tip for sit down meals. If you want just snacks, quick service, and kids meals, it can be done on the cheap. If you want lots of character dining, table service, and alcohol, it’s going to add up quickly. If you’re staying somewhere with a kitchen and want to cook for yourself some, that will lower prices too.

Spending money for merchandise is going to vary widely. if you want a shirt and some pins, not too much. If you want a lightsaber, droid, loungefly bag, ears, it’s going to get very expensive.

KevinFantasy also put in their two cents.

You’re going to need to figure out some of the details before you can get a really good idea for how much money you’ll need.

If you’re paying for your park ticket, that’s going to cost you another $400-$600 depending on the number of days you are going to be in the parks. I believe the biggest ticket they currently sell is a 10 day ticket and that’ll cost around $570 when you factor in taxes (or more like $650 if you add the hopping option). New upsells like Disney Genie+ and Lightning Lane passes for rides can add to your cost for just being in the parks.

There’s a big difference between 2 and 3 weeks so that has a serious impact on your budget.

If you can go cheap on food and stick to quick service meals, you can probably eat on $40-50 a day, assuming that’ll be just buying breakfast, dinner, drinks, and some snacks. Table service and character meals will completely bomb that budget though.

If you admit you’re bad with money, I’d recommend you look at having about $100 per day spending money to cover meals and souvenirs. Even that’ll be tight, if you spend poorly, because Disney is expensive.

The comments carried on with others stating that they had done a two-week trip with only $1000.00 and it was “miserable.” If I were looking at this question, I would have to agree with KevinFantasy and say that keeping a $100.00 budget per person per day would typically be enough for one table service restaurant and two quick-service options during the day. This number can be shrunken, but it is likely a good base to go off of if you are planning a Disney vacation where you plan to eat at Disney each day and always be in the Parks.

What do you think? How much spending money is needed per day on a Disney vacation?

Let the expert team at Academy Travel help you plan your next magical vacation to Walt Disney World Resort’s four theme parks — Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios — and the Disney Springs shopping and dining district!