While traveling with two people on a couples Disney trip is the least expensive way to go (unless you’re traveling solo, of course), that Disney World daily budget can rise, rise, rise if you’re not careful.

We always seem to spend more than we planned on, and we’ve learned to round up when estimating our vacation budget.

Truth Bomb: Disney World is an expensive trip, period, even if you’re savvy about how much you spend and what you choose to pay for.

That said, you can figure out approximately how much each day at Disney World will cost you so you can set aside that money. And there are ways to cut spending here and there, so long as you don’t sacrifice enjoyment.

Pro Tip: We like to go on every couples Disney trip with a paid-off Disney Visa Card, which saves us 10% on pretty much everything we pay for within Walt Disney World. Plus, you’ll accrue rewards dollars that you can use toward Disney Store purchases, vacations and more.

Now, let’s talk about everything you need to include in your Disney World daily budget. We’re going to discuss the highest possible pricing, VIP splurges excluded, so that you know the “worst-case” scenario (best-case scenario? 🤔), and we’ll also mention ways to save if you need a more cost-effective solution.

Note that we’re not including resort pricing here because that budget will span your entire couples Disney trip. Also, any quoted price is at the time of writing and only used as an example of cost trends to expect.

You may also like:

• Is Disney Springs Free? Everything You Need To Know
• Is Genie Plus Worth It? Not Always. Do More and Pay Less
• When Can You Buy Genie Plus for Disney World?

Disney Park Tickets

When it comes to Disney park ticket pricing, there are a few considerations that affect the price: how many park days you want, which parks you’ll go to, and whether or not you want a Park Hopper. Also, pricing fluctuates day by day, and you can see steep drops during certain times of the year.

💰 The most expensive way to buy a Disney park ticket is for a single day. When you add more than one day to your ticket, the daily pricing immediately drops.

For example, a one-day Magic Kingdom ticket that’s $174 drops to $133 per day when you buy a 5-day ticket. You’ll spend more overall but less per day.

💰 The most expensive Disney park is always Magic Kingdom. The least expensive Disney park is always Animal Kingdom.

💰 The most expensive ticket you can buy is the Park Hopper. That type of ticket lets you go to multiple parks in a single day. At the time of writing, the Park Hopper was $242, which was $68 more than a single-day Magic Kingdom park ticket.

Final Cost: The max amount you’ll spend on a Disney park ticket is about $242 per person

How To Save: Buy a 10-day ticket during the least-expensive time of year and don’t add the Park Hopper or water park option. Pricing falls to about $63 per person per day.

Transportation and Parking at Disney World

How you get to Disney World depends on where you’re staying and your preferred mode of transportation.

⭐️ Staying on Disney property versus off Disney property isn’t the main consideration. Instead, the biggest differentiator is whether or not you’re staying at a Disney resort.

There are some resorts on Disney property that are not actually Disney resorts, like Club Wyndham Bonnet Creek. Despite being on Disney property, you don’t get the same transportation perks as you do at an actual Disney resort.

Staying at a Disney Resort

If you’re staying at a Disney resort, you can use free Disney transportation to get to a Disney park. Depending on where you’re staying, that might be a bus, ferry, Skyliner or Monorail.

You can also park in standard theme park parking for free if you have a car on your couples Disney trip.

Final Cost: Free

Staying at a Non-Disney Resort

If you’re staying at a non-Disney resort, whether you’re on-property or off-property, there may be some Disney transportation options or none at all. And of those possible transportation options, they may come with a cost or be complementary.

When we stay at a non-Disney resort, regardless of where that resort is located, we always have either our own car (if we drove down to Florida from New York) or a rental. That means we have to pay for parking. Since parking is likely the most expensive option you’ll have, that’s what we’ll focus on.

Parking at Disney Parks

Standard parking at Disney theme parks is $30 per vehicle per day (or $35 if you have an oversized vehicle, like a limo or RV). You get access to all of the parks for the entire day, so if you have a Park Hopper or are going to a nighttime event at a different park, you won’t have to pay for parking again.

There’s also preferred parking for up to $55 per day, but we never see the point. With the shuttles taking you from the parking lot to the park entrance and back, paying up to $25 more for preferred parking always seems like a waste. Plus, some of the preferred parking lots aren’t that much closer to the park entrance than the regular lots, so it’s never worth it, in our opinion.

Final Cost: $30 per car

How To Save: There’s really no way to save on this cost other than to book a stay at a Disney resort. You could park at Disney Springs or the Boardwalk and then take Disney transportation to the park, but that’s way more trouble than it’s worth, and you’ll have to backtrack when you’re exhausted at the end of the day.

Daily Dining Budget at Disney World

Dining at Disney World is the thing that can make or break your budget. Yes, souvenir shopping also plays a role, and we’ll get to that, but since you have to eat, dining is where your Disney World daily budget can really go off the rails.

There are a lot of “ifs” and “buts” when it comes to your Disney World budget for dining, so let’s talk about all of your options so you can decide what works best.

Bringing Your Own Food

Personally, we never do this. Other than stashing a few snacks in our bag, if we even do that, we never bring full meals into the park.

That said, if you have dietary restrictions, hate theme park food or just really, really want to save the money, Disney World does allow guests to bring coolers, so long as they meet the size requirements. You can also rent a locker to store the cooler instead of lugging it around all day. Here are the locker locations in Disney World.

Disney World heat is no joke, so to ensure your food stays safe for consumption, put a lot of thought into what you bring (dairy items are not going to hold up well) and how you store them.

🥵 Staying Cool at Disney World: Everything You Need To Know

Final Cost: The price of groceries + $15 for a jumbo locker at Magic Kingdom or Epcot

How To Save: Unless you’re going to, like, not eat, this is the most budget-friendly option. You could figure out how to pack a day’s worth of food in a small cooler and only pay $10 for the smallest locker or bring a cooler backpack that you wear all day, but now we’re getting into “this Disney trip is going to be a pain” territory.

Disney Quick Service

If you want to eat in the park but still want to save as much as possible, opting for quick-service (QS) eateries is the best choice. Disney’s QS spots are kind of like the parks’ fast food, but there’s a lot of variety and some of them are pretty good.

🍽️ Best Quick-Service: ABC Commissary at Hollywood Studios

Prices here are going to be less than restaurant prices. Entrees are around $11 to $15, and if you add a drink, that’s an extra $5 to $15, approximately, depending on whether you get a non-alcoholic or alcoholic beverage.

At QS locations, you order at a counter, carry your tray to a table (if you can find one) and bus your own dishes (usually), so you don’t have to add in a tip.

Final Cost: $60 per person per day for two meals total. (Unless you’re going to be there from first thing in the morning until last thing at night, we can’t imagine you’d have more than two regular quick-service meals.)

How To Save

• Order a kids’ meal (it doesn’t matter how old you are) to cut the entree cost by about half. The portion size is still pretty filling, and it comes with a small drink.
• Bring your own water (more on that in a bit) and don’t order a drink at all.
• Skip the alcoholic beverage in favor of a regular one.
• Eat one QS meal per day at a Disney park and eat your second meal either before or after your park day.

Disney Restaurants

Pricing at Disney restaurants has a pretty big range. There are the basic restaurants, like The Plaza Restaurant in Magic Kingdom, with entrees around $25. Then there are nicer restaurants like The Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom where the price is about $60 per person for the buffet. At the higher end are places like Be Our Guest Restaurant, also in Magic Kingdom, which costs $70 per person for a price-fixed menu.

Pro Tip: When it comes to Epcot, the Disney park with the best food, restaurant pricing may be a bit better because a lot of the dining options around the World Showcase are actually not run by Disney World.

For our purposes, let’s split the difference and use the middle-of-the-road restaurant pricing to come to a final cost.

Final Cost: $60 per person per day/meal. Chances are that, even if you eat two full meals in Disney World, only one of them will be at a restaurant.

How To Save: There’s not much of a way to save money at a Disney restaurant other than following basic dining tips, like skipping alcoholic beverages, appetizers and dessert. Also, Disney restaurant quality varies a lot, so we don’t suggest choosing a restaurant based on price alone. If you’re trying to go with the cheapest restaurant just to protect your daily budget at Disney World, you’re probably better off with a quick-service option.

Disney Snacks

Whether you have one meal or two, we’re guessing you’re going to have a couple of Disney snacks throughout the day. We’ve based our pricing on getting two popular Disney snacks a day, like a DOLE Whip and a Mickey pretzel.

Final Cost: $16 per person for 2 snacks

How To Save: Bring your own or skip snacks altogether.

Water and Other Drinks in Disney World

We have an article that covers how to stay hydrated in Disney World and goes over all of your different options for bringing water into the park or getting water while you’re at the park. Read that here.

Assuming you’re going to bring some water into the park and still have to buy a few water bottles or drinks while you’re there, we’ll base the pricing on that. Bottled water usually costs $3.50, while bottled soda is $4 in the Disney theme parks.

Final Cost: $11 per person per day for 2 bottles of water and 1 bottle of soda

How To Save: Bring all of your drinks with you or take your chances with Florida tap water. Yuck.

Genie Plus and Individual Lightning Lane Add-Ons

In addition to dining, Genie Plus and Individual Lightning Lane add-ons can seriously raise your Disney World daily budget. However, unlike dining, you know how much it’s going to cost you going in, so all you have to decide is whether or not you want to spend the extra cash for the sake of (some) convenience. Note that Virtual Queues don’t cost anything.

If you’re wondering what the difference is between Genie Plus (which is basically regular Lightning Lanes) and Individual Lightning Lanes, as well as Virtual Queues, we have an article that goes over all of that. Read it here.

Pricing for Genie Plus and Lightning Lanes

Genie Plus has a few perks that it offers, but the reason people purchase it is to gain Lightning Lane access. Genie Plus doesn’t have a fixed price; the cost fluctuates daily and per park, and the cap seems to keep rising as Disney, you know, makes everything more expensive. 🙄

Genie Plus can go up to a whopping $35 per person, but usually it’s not that expensive. Similar to park tickets, the most expensive Genie Plus option is either the Multiple Parks (Park Hopper) option or the Magic Kingdom option, and they’re both usually the same cost.

Final Cost: $25 per person per day

How To Save: Don’t buy it. 😕 You don’t always need Genie Plus. Depending on the park you’re in, crowd levels, and what’s on your must-do list, you may be happier skipping it.

Pricing for Individual Lightning Lanes

Individual Lightning Lanes (ILLs) are priced separately from regular Lightning Lanes; you don’t have to purchase Genie Plus to buy an Individual Lightning Lane.

You buy one ILL at a time, and it gives you one-time access to one ride. Like regular Lightning Lanes, Individual Lightning Lanes vary in price day to day. They’re usually around $20, though.

We’re guessing you won’t buy more than one ILL a day, though there may be more than one offered depending on which rides have them at the time of your couples Disney trip.

Final Cost: $20 per ride per person

How To Save: Instead of buying ILLs, try to get on the Virtual Queue if the ride offers it.

Souvenir Shopping at Disney World

Souvenir shopping is the most in-control consideration for your daily budget at Disney World. Obviously, you don’t need souvenirs. But we’ll base the final cost on what an average, middle-of-the-road Disney souvenir costs if you want to leave the park with something.

Final Cost: $30 per person

How To Save: Shop at non-Disney-owned gift shops, like Crystal Arts at Magic Kingdom or many of the shops in the World Showcase. They often have Disney-themed items at lower prices.

Disney World Daily Budget: Final Costs and Totals

Here’s how all of this adds up depending on the type of park day and Disney World daily budget you’re comfortable with. We’ve rounded up to the nearest $5 to make life easier.

The Minimum You’ll Spend at Disney World Per Day: $110

Including a 10-day regular ticket (as in, not a Park Hopper), you’ll spend about $110 per day per person if you bring all of the food you’ll eat in the park, including snacks and drinks. This pricing factors in the jumbo locker you’ll very likely need to rent to store your cooler.

✨ Daily Budget for a Couple: $110 for a day’s worth of groceries and a jumbo locker rental. We figure that buying groceries for one person versus two isn’t much different since you’ll have more than enough food either way.

✨ Daily Budget Without the Ticket Price: $45 per couple

The Maximum You’ll Spend at Disney World Per Day: $465

Buying a one-day Park Hopper ticket is the most expensive component of this day at $242. Other costs per person include:

• Standard parking
• 1 restaurant meal and 1 quick-service meal
• 2 snacks
• 3 bottled beverages
• Genie Plus
• 1 Individual Lightning Lane
• Souvenir shopping

That brings the high-end Disney World daily budget cost to about $465 per person.

✨ Daily Budget for a Couple: $900 (you only have to pay to park per car)

✨ Daily Budget Without the Ticket Price: $225 per person; $420 per couple

The Average You’ll Spend at Disney World Per Day: $265

Most people aren’t going to have the cheapest or the most expensive Disney day possible. Not including costly add-ons like VIP tours, upscale dining or other expenses that are considered a splurge, the average you can expect to spend on a regular Disney park day is around $265 per person, including the park ticket. That gives you the freedom to pick and choose the conveniences that are worth it versus the ones you can live without.

Here’s an example of how that Disney World daily budget can break down:

• Regular 5-day park ticket for around $130 per day
• Opt for the free transportation from your Disney resort
• 1 quick-service meal and 1 restaurant meal ($90 per person)
• 1 snack and 2 bottles of water ($16 per person)
• Buy Genie Plus on an affordable day; skip Individual Lightning Lanes ($18 per person)
• Get an inexpensive souvenir or a sweet treat to bring back to the hotel ($10 per person)

You can decide to spend or save more wherever it makes sense. For example, we sometimes trade a sit-down restaurant for more park time, which cuts back on our dining costs. We can then save that money or put it toward shorter ride lines by buying Genie Plus.

✨ Average Daily Budget for a Couple: $530 including the ticket

✨ Average Daily Budget Without the Ticket Price: $135 per person; $270 per couple

That’s right around what we usually spend, though some days we can get that down to $100 per person. Other days, like when we want to do a lot of souvenir shopping, it’s obviously higher.

Final Thoughts About Your Disney World Daily Budget

On a couples Disney trip, there’s a lot of flexibility in how you spend your days, and you may find that no two days are alike. But having some sort of an idea of how much you’ll spend means you can go away with a workable Disney World daily budget instead of getting halfway through your trip and panicking when you look at your bank account.

Also, knowing what to pack in your Disney park bag can save you money because you’ll have the essentials on hand. Otherwise, you may have to spend theme park prices just to get the basics.

Download your free Disney World park bag checklist here. It’s just for adults, so there’s no section for kids’ items on this one. 🙌

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Disney World Daily Budget FAQ

How much money do you need for a day at Disney World?

Including ticket prices, the average amount you’ll need for a day at Disney World is about $300 per person. There are ways to save, like getting a longer multi-day park ticket that reduces the daily cost, eating more quick-service meals than restaurant meals, and forgoing pricey souvenirs.

How much spending money do you need per day for Disney World?

Not including ticket prices, the average amount of spending money you need per day for Disney World is approximately $100 to $150 per person.

How much per day do you budget for food at Disney World?

If you plan to have two meals in a Disney park, including one quick-service meal and one restaurant meal, and you don’t want to splurge on a very expensive Disney restaurant, you’ll need about $60 to $90 per day per person. In addition to that, basic snacks are around $9 each and bottled drinks are around $4 each.

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