When it comes to planning your family vacation to Disney World, one of the things you need to plan and budget for is FOOD.
It is defiantly possible to spend thousands of dollars on food alone while at Disney.
One of the things that I do before planning our Disney family vacation is coming up with my budget. For my family of five, I am planning to spend $650 or less for the 4 days we have planned on resort or at the parks.
When you go to plan your meals, if you are planning on booking a reservation at certain restaurants, you have to book them 60 days in advance. Most restaurants fill up with hours of that 60 day mark. People are logging in at 6am and booking their reservations.
Now, I have noticed in the past that if you keep checking on a certain place you want to eat at, people do cancel reservations. Especially the day before (you can cancel a reservation 24hrs before your scheduled time. You will get charged $10 per person on your reservation if you don’t cancel 24hrs in advance. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!).
I planned on one table service meal a day (preferably a buffet to keep everyone’s tummy’s full), one counter service meal, and then a snack each day.
For a family of five (three adults and 2 children) I budget $650 or less. Adults are 10 years old and above. I have an 11 year old, 9 year old, and 8 year old. So counter service meals I can have them split adult meals.
Day 1: Travel day/ Dinner at Whispering Canyon Café Dinner
- You do have to make a reservation for this spot. They normally always have an open reservation at all times for either breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
- It is an all you can eat family style meal. They bring the food to the table and replenish whatever items you want more of.
- It is located at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge so you do not have to have a park ticket to eat here.
- This is one of the cheaper table service locations. For breakfast & lunch adults cost $24 per person. Kids can either pick a certain meal or they do offer an all you can eat breakfast for $13 each.
- Dinner is a little more expensive, but its a lot more food too. Adults cost $36 each and children cost $16 each. (You can choose meals that aren’t a part of the all you can eat for a little less).
The total for my family 5 to attend Whispering Canyon will be $140 (plus tax and tip)
Day 2: Disney’s Epcot & Breakfast at Cape May Café
- You do have to make a reservation for this spot. They normally always have an open reservation at all times for either breakfast or dinner.
- Buffet style where you do go up and select your own food.
- Cost: Breakfast – adults $25 each & kids $14 each
- Cost: Dinner – adults $42 each & kids $25 each
- Located at Disney’s Beach club so you do not need a park ticket to eat here.
- Walking distance to Epcot or boat ride to Hollywood Studios
The total for my family 5 to attend Cape May will be $103 (plus tax and tip)
Day 3: Disney Magic Kingdom and Breakfast at Ohana
- Reservations need to be made. Sometimes you can find open time slots if you choose to wait until your trip, but during business times they could be fully booked.
- Currently they are family style where you can eat as much as you want. They will continue to bring the items you want more of.
- Lilo and Stitch are planning to return the end of September to make this a character meal again.
- Located at Disney Polynesian Village Resort. You do not have to have a park ticket to eat here.
- From Magic Kingdom just hop on the monorail or you can drive here.
- Cost: Breakfast – $25 per adult & $14 per child
- Cost: Dinner – $55 per adult & $33 per child
- Both breakfast and dinner food are both amazing and all you can eat.
The total for my family 5 to attend Breakfast at Ohana will be $103 (plus tax and tip)
Day 4: Disney Hollywood Studios and lunch at Sci Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant
- Reservations 60 days out required. Make sure you login at 6am for reservations because this is one of FAVORITE spots people love to go to. You most likely will not get lucky and find a reservation close to your park day.
- Located inside Hollywood Studios so you do need a park ticket to eat here.
- 50 style drive in theater dinner spot. This has always been a fun place to eat at since I was a kid.
- Costs: Lunch and Dinner ranges from $15 to $34.99 per adult and kids $10 to $12 per child.
For my family of 5 to attend lunch at Sci Fi, it will cost around $80 (plus tax and tip).
So my total for all 4 table service meals will be $425 plus tax and tip.
There are tons of other table service meals. These are just some of our favorites. Some table service locations cost $60 per adult and $40 per child, so those meals you will spend anyways from $300-$400 after tax and tip.
That is why I like to do my research, pick the right price point and also look at the menus and make sure before I spend a ton of money that we will eat the food.
You can always meet characters in the parks. They have brought that back, where a lot of restaurants have not brought their character meals back.
My only recommendation is to research and budget because if you don’t, the trip will be over and you’ll tally up your dollar amounts and realize you just spent $1500 just on food.