Feeding a family at Disney World can get expensive.  You usually won’t have access to a kitchen if you stay on property, so you will be relying on restaurants for most of your meals.  Disney restaurants can be pricey; the meals can cost from double to triple what a comparable meal would cost at home.  How can you reduce your expenses in this area?  Here are a few methods we’ve employed:

Plan for breakfast and snacks

We usually make a stop at a grocery store or retail department store (e.g., Target) near Orlando at the beginning of our trip.  We buy cases of water, quick snacks to take to the parks (fruit, crackers, granola bars, etc.), breakfast items (oatmeal, bagels, muffins, etc.), and sodas for the room.  We can save one to two hundred dollars with this approach.

This isn’t to say we don’t indulge in the treats available in the park.  My daughter has a craving for Mickey pretzels and everyone loves Dole whips.  But there isn’t much sense in buying grapes in the park for $4.50 a pack when I can pay $1.00 for them at the grocery store.  Eating breakfast in our hotel room each morning and carrying snacks in our bags while at the parks allows us to save our snack funds for the special treats we can only get at Disney. It’s also helpful as a touring strategy, because it allows us to continue trucking through the parks and moving through lines instead of breaking down because someone is hungry.

Ask for ice water

Any counter service restaurant (where you place your food order at a counter) in the Disney parks will give you a cup of ice water if you ask for it.  Cups of ice water aren’t the most convenient things to carry around, but you can bring your own water bottle to the park and just fill it up with ice water.  Water in the parks generally costs $2.50 a bottle, so you can save a lot by going this route.

Share meals

This tip is especially useful if you have children.  My kids are hit or miss when it comes to dinner.  Rather than purchasing full meals for each person, we can usually get an appetizer and share our large entree and side items with them to save money.  This approach comes in handy for counter service meals as well.  Instead of ordering 4 entrees, we will order 3 instead and split them.  Another option is to order a couple of side items and split the main items.  Anything to keep the costs down.

Choose counter service

If your food budget is tight, counter service restaurants provide the best bang for your buck. The more counter service meals you select, the less you will spend in tips at the table service locations.  The entrees, sides, and drinks at counter service restaurants are generally cheaper as well.

Eat off property

We are all for enjoying the Disney bubble, but occasionally we will venture off property for a meal.  We enjoy visiting restaurants that we can only find on vacation (as opposed to those we could find back home), just to make it more special.  For example, we love Steak and Shake, but they don’t have them where we live — so we head out for at least one meal to a nearby location.  We also head up I-4 to visit the local Tony Roma’s.  It can cost a fraction of the price to eat at these locations vs. eating on Disney property.

 

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