The Affordable Mouse is heading to Walt Disney World this afternoon, for a few days of Disney fun!. I am especially excited to be visiting for the first time during the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot, so expect to be doing more than my fair share of eating my way around the World! =D
One of the things I will be looking carefully at on this trip, will be additional ways to save money, and will of course be passing on any new ideas or strategies to you. As I have studied the Food and Wine Festival offerings, I can see that this is potentially a budget-buster if one is not careful: each of the food samplings comes with a corresponding cost, so it is definitely possible to spend many American dollars on this!
Here is the strategy we plan to use going into it, and I will let you know how well it works. We are on the Disney Dining Plan, so have dinner ADRs (Advanced Dining Reservations) already planned for our 3 nights there. We love having table service meals at Disney so were unwilling to give up on this, despite the many food offerings at Food and Wine Fest. Instead, we plan to “lunch” our way around World Showcase a couple of days, and will be using snack credits to do so….at least at the start. We will use our counter service credits on these days for a more substantial breakfast.
It is evident that our snack credits will only be a start, so we plan to get one of the Food and Wine reloadable cards, and use it to swipe at the various kiosks where we eat. Gonna try really hard not to reload it though, for the sake of my wallet as well as my jean size lol.
One thing I also suspect will play a role, is the fact that central Florida is currently experiencing record-setting heat, so we will definitely be heading to the parks early, having an early lunch, and returning to the hotel for a pool break. When we get too hot, we will stop eating…and that is probably a good thing!
In any event, I will share our experiences, and hopefully some new ways to plan affordable Disney family vacations when we return. =)
Have a magical day!
