First time Florida holiday organiser...

[ersmat16]

As the title suggests i'm organising a holiday to Florida with some friends for this summer. I have been a few times with family and i'm in love with the place. I'm organising this holiday myself however, and i'm a little nervous about this. I have sorted flights accommodation, park tickets and car hire. Most of the people i am travelling with are first timers, does anyone have any idea of how much spending money i should suggest they tale for 3 weeks? Purely for food, drink and contributing to petrol, spending money is of course separate! Sorry for such a vague question, but thank you in advance for any help. Matt.

[Big_Momma]

Depends where your eating? And how much travelling you're planning on doing. What kind of drinkers are they? Cocktails or an all day fill up Pepsi at the park? There could be a lot of variation depending on the type of people you're taking!

[Val]

Hi Matt,
Sounds like you are doing well with your organising. Money would depend on what type of holiday you intend....are you eating out a lot or eating in, petrol not big expense but then again do you intend to travel round a lot or just to and from parks. Think you need to it down with everyone and decide, then I am sure you could make a rough calculation especially as you have been here a few times.
Val

[syrup]

As the others have said Matt it depends a lot on what your eating habits are. It's so cheap to eat in but can prove expensive to eat out depending on your style of restaurant, although places like Perkins and Denny's are very reasonable. Eating at the parks can be expensive keeping in mind you cannot take your own food inside the parks, you can of course put it in a locker outside and come out to it at lunchtime.

Also do you plan to do much shopping as this can add up?

We always take cash/travellers cheques and a cash card like Fair FX which you can top up via the internet if you start getting a bit short.

[domster]

Hi Matt,
I would say take some cash and then either pre load a credit card or get a pre loaded card when you get your travel money.

To save money we tend to go to subway and take this into the parks with me. They normally search your bags, however I have never had any food taken off me.

Park food is very expensive in my view , so doing this does save money.

[Jill]

We always take cash/travellers cheques and a cash card like Fair FX which you can top up via the internet if you start getting a bit short.

Changing the topic slightly yesterday whilst waiting in M&S to collect an item I noticed they will no longer be issuing travel cheques after October this year although they will be accepting them back in until further notice.

[bargainqueen]

I used to budget $50 each a day for food when we used to go into parks and $100 a day for spending. Then we used to have breakfast on the way to park and most days an evening meal on the way home, an average of $60. Towards the end of the holiday we'd reduce the amount to $25 each. We're not big drinkers so this amount was mainly for food and fuel, with the occasional bottle of wine to drink in villa.
If you're are hiring a villa then the food budget would be lower as you could buy a lot of items in or get take aways. We've been here for two weeks and have each put in $250.
We've eaten out a couple of times, Olive Garden are doing a special 3 course meal for $12.95. This may change in the summer when there are more visitors but you could always check up on the latest menus nearer the time.

[Katys Grandad]

You don't say how long it's been since you were last in Florida but, if it's been a while, you'll probably find that things are more expensive than they were, say, 5 years ago. The exchange rate isn't helping at the moment either but who knows where it will be by the time you travel? As a very rough guide, $50-60 a day each would be about right.

We eat out much less often that we used to. That's not purely because of the prices and is more to do with the fact that one of the major benefits of renting a home is the fact that you can enjoy what you want and when. We find that grocery prices are around the same as in the UK although some items are lot more and some a lot less. Of course, you'll want a few nights out but if you're selective you don't have to spend an awful lot of money on that.

[gpullan]

We go as a group, usually 4 or 5 adults and 4 children. We generally spend around $4000 over 17 days so $235 per day. We eat out about half the days and same with breakfast. We spend around $300 on food and drink for the villa then top up as and when we need to.

In the past we have eaten in the parks but plan to do this less this year as it's expensive and not that great!

Any clothes/gift shopping would be extra to the $4000 holiday spends.

Not sure if the above is typical but it seems to be the right figure for the last 3 trips in the last 5 years.

It might seem a lot to some but breakfast for 9 people in iHop and it's pushing $80 and an evening meal at somewhere like Longhorns and it's $120+ so if you do both in one day and skip lunch then you're pushing that days budget.......

Hope this helps.

[Andrena]

We were horrified to be charged $2.95 for a fairly small Coke in Disney which we felt was exorbitant so we brought our own and have advised our guests to do nth too. The food in the parks is poor and expensive. Give them a body swerve.

Andrena