This is the first trip I left WDW REALLY disappointed with the food options and pricing. Mind you, we usually ate breakfast right in our room thanks to a quick stop at the Sam's Club and Target Superstore on the US-192 just down the road from Pop (literally 5 minutes away). And most of our dinners were eaten right in Pop's cafeteria. But we were still paying close to $60 for the four of us to eat there every night. Thank goodness we bought the refillable resort mugs or that would have been WAY higher due to the heat the whole time we were down there! Plus, if we ended up getting snacks (ice cream) or drinks (dole whip floats) for the four of us at the parks during the day or evening, that was another $20 plus right there! :brick:
We tried Earl of Sandwich and Rainforest Cafe for the first time this trip and we weren't overly impressed with either of them. We all found Rainforest Cafe to be WAY overpriced, loud, and the food was just okay to us. We didn't really order anything that big or extravagant (hamburgers and such) and still ending up spending either just under or just over $100 for the four of us after adding in the tip. REALLY!?! $100 for hamburgers!!!! And Earl of Sandwich was a big disappointment to me too. I read SO many good things about it on here and there prices seemed pretty decent. Until you realized that the $5 price was for JUST a sandwich! You want a bag of chips or a little cup of fruit or vegetable sticks...add another $2. Oh yeah, you want a drink with that! Add another $2-4 to that. So it even ended up costing us over $40 just for sandwich lunches! Call me cheap (which I am :lookaroun), but that seems a bit pricey! Don't get me wrong, the sandwiches were good. But they did seem a bit small to me. Looked like you were only getting half the sandwich.
I know I come off sounding like a BIG complainer after this post, but honestly, I'm not. I realize we could have cut out a few Dole Whip floats here and there and maybe we had one too many Ghiradelli ice creams this trip, but like everyone says, you are on vacation and that is why you saved up for however long you saved for the trip. We realized that going into this trip. My friend always said we were stupid for not considering the dining plan all these years when we thought it looked like a complete waste of money for the four of us. After this trip, I would have to seriously reconsider that. We just weren't used to spending the majority of our trip money on dining and snacks. We went down with almost the same amount as past trips, but unlike past trips where we always seemed to come back with quite a bit of money left, we came home with next to nothing this time. We didn't even spend as much on souvenirs this trip. Like I said, I think we were both just shocked at HOW much we ended up spending on food, drinks and snacks.
Did we have a GREAT trip....heck ya! Would we change anything about it....heck no! We just realized that it is not cheap to eat or spoil yourself with Disney snacks and treats every day while you are down there. But like I said earlier (or someone said in another post), you are on vacation, so sit back and let someone else worry about the cooking and the food and just enjoy yourself! :sohappy:
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