The Cost of Eating Out in Orlando

A common question that we are often asked by our guests is ‘how much money will I need to take with me to Florida?’ Obviously that is a rather subjective question, as it all hinges on your budget!

In this blog we will take a look at how much cold, hard cash it will take to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner whilst out and about in Florida, along with some dining options and menu suggestions. Don’t forget, you can always prepare meals back at your villa to help keep the costs down! For the sake of this blog, we will pick one or two courses and a drink to calculate a rough idea of how much money you will need to spend to eat out – but bear in mind that this won’t take into consideration family meal deals, or children’s portions. In addition, all the prices that we list are subject to change, or vary dependent on location, so please check the current menu for confirmation. However, hopefully it’ll give you some idea of where you can eat out and how much you’ll need to save up before your holiday!

Low-Price Dining Options in Orlando

BREAKFAST

Where better to start the day than under the golden arches of McDonald’s? Along with some of the regular breakfast options that you will find in the UK, there are all-American items on the menu that you should try out! Step forward the Big Breakfast, a feast of yummy scrambled eggs, sausage patty, hash browns and an American biscuit, which is more akin to a scone in the UK! The Big Breakfast will cost around $3.69; grab a medium-sized orange juice to go with it for another $1.89, and that’s breakfast all-sorted for $5.58 per person – though if there is a jar on the counter, you can give your loose change as a tip if you want to. Take a look at our blog on tipping to understand more about how it works in the US.

LUNCH

Pick up a sandwich and a drink at Subway, where a meal deal with a six-inch BLT sub, for example, will cost you just $8.09 including sales tax. If you opt for the meal deal you can choose from a bottled drink, including Coca-Cola, Sprite or water, or a 20oz (591ml) soft drink. Grab a packet of crisps as part of the deal and you are all set to enjoy a day out exploring Florida!

DINNER

If you feel like chicken tonight, then the Chick-fil-A will make a change from a regular burger meal. Treat yourself to a $6.69 Grilled Chicken Club sandwich, - filled with a mouth-watering grilled, lemon-herb marinated chicken breast, served up on a multigrain brioche bun with applewood smoked bacon, Colby-Jack cheese, lettuce and tomato, drizzled with honey roasted BBQ sauce. Don’t forget to order a medium side of Chick-fil-A’s most popular item – the Waffle Potato fries – at just $1.89 they’ll go great with the dipping sauces available! With a selection of $1.75 soft drinks to choose from, you can be well and truly full for just $10.33!

So what would this cost for a whole day? For all these dining options, you are looking at around $25 per person, per day, including 6% sales tax, and as you can see you aren’t skimping on the amount of food you will eat! Obviously preparing meals at home, or opting for a BBQ back at your villa, after buying items at the local supermarket, can work out a lot cheaper – but sometimes it’s nice not to have to cook for a change!

Medium-Price Dining Options in Orlando

BREAKFAST

Pancakes for breakfast? Yes please! Head over to IHOP, which is well-known across the USA for its fantastic pancake stacks, including the signature Rooty Tooty Fresh N’ Fruity, a stack of buttermilk pancakes complete with your choice of fruit and a dash of whipped topping! Grab a hot tea to go with it and your bill should come in at just under $12 including tax and tip; IHOP is definitely somewhere you should try at least once!

LUNCH

Fancy Chinese for lunch? Try out Panda Express, a family-owned restaurant group, which is very popular among its patrons! With options for either take-away, home delivery, or dine in, this is the perfect spot for a meal on a budget. You can even download the Panda Express app and order your meal ahead if you are in a rush! There are locations around Orlando and its surrounding areas, so take the opportunity to stop by on your adventures!

Amongst the popular favourites are The Original Orange Chicken with Fried Rice which costs $6.20, or how about the Broccoli Beef with Chow Mein – which is equally priced? Either of these dishes would keep you fuelled up for the afternoon. Fancy adding a drink? A small soda, such as Coca-Cola, Barq's Root Beer, or Fanta – would add another $1.90 to your bill for a total of $8.10 per person. Including a tip of up to 15% (although you aren’t expected to tip in fast food restaurants, the on-site preparation of your meal here might warrant a tip if you would like to give one!) would bring this to under $10 each, including sales tax – pretty reasonable for a freshly-prepared and filling lunch that will set you up for the afternoon! There are also options for kids’ meals for those aged 11 and under, which would help save on your budget if travelling as a family group!

DINNER

When in America, you should definitely try out some classic American fare – so why not pay a visit to Manny’s Original Chophouse?

As well as a great selection of burgers, you can opt for the 6oz Center Cut Sirloin Steak, served with your choice of side, as well as an endless salad bowl with garlic ranch dressing, or a Caesar salad and freshly-baked sweet yeast rolls with cinnamon butter. Have a beer to go along with your steak – after a busy day at the theme parks you’d have earned it! You might as well have a dessert as well, it’d be rude not to! The Chocolate Brownie Overdose sounds delicious, as you are served up a goblet of unctuous chocolate brownie – with four scoops of ice cream, Hershey hot fudge, and finished off with whipped cream! Including tax and tip, you are looking at around $30 per person, though it’s worth noting that there are early bird deals available from 4pm to 6pm, Monday to Thursday.

Totting up a day of medium-priced food, you are looking at around $52 per person, per day, enjoying three meals per day.

High-Price Dining Options in Orlando

If money is no issue, read on for the higher-end of budgeting for meals for your family while on the holiday of a lifetime!

BREAKFAST

Treat yourself to an amazing breakfast over at First Watch! You’ll be set up for the day if you order The Traditional breakfast – which at $10.79 includes two sunny-side up eggs with a choice of bacon, smoked ham, chicken sausage patties as well as turkey or pork sausage links. Enjoy this alongside a slice of whole-grain toast, house preserves and diced potatoes After grabbing a cup of their Project Sunrise Coffee you’ll be ready to explore the parks! Don’t forget, you’ll need to add sales tax and a 15% tip to your bill, bringing you to a total of around $17 per person.

LUNCH

As you are likely to visit the theme parks that Florida is world-famous for during your holiday, it makes sense to grab a bite to eat while you are there! Let’s check out Disney’s Magic Kingdom and the lunch menu over at the Jungle Navigation Co Ltd Skipper Canteen in Adventureland.

As it’s lunch, we’ll just choose two courses, especially as we have a big dinner scheduled in – though you can opt for three if you want! For the main, try the mid-priced “Hardy Har Char” Sui Pork; marinated pork served with seasonal veg and jasmine rice, which costs $24 per person. All desserts come in at $8 each, so the choice is yours! How about the Kungaloosh! – a chocolate cake with sticky caramelised bananas, served with coffee-dust topped cashew caramel ice cream? To drink, you can choose a cocktail, beer, or even wine, but the $5.50 non-alcoholic Punch Line Punch – a fruity tropical beverage – sounds pretty refreshing! Add on sales tax and a tip, and the total for lunch at the Skipper Canteen will set you back around $45 per head.

DINNER

Still feeling hungry? Then why not finish off the day with a three-course meal at the award-winning Johnnie’s Hideaway, located just outside of Disney. Well-known for their steaks and seafood menu, using plenty of locally-sourced produce, a trip to Johnnie’s is sure to be a treat!

For starters, why not try something a little different – the Crispy Wild Florida Gator! For your main, the signature seafood Mixed Grill, which includes colossal shrimp, diver scallops, black grouper and North Atlantic king salmon, served with house salad and delicious garlic cheese butter bread sounds like a surefire winner. Make sure you leave room for dessert though – as there is plenty on the menu to tempt you! The Key Lime Pie with a macadamia nut crust, and fresh whipped cream might be the perfect way to cleanse your palate after such a feast!

Don’t forget to order a drink – as well as an extensive wine list, there are some fun cocktails on the menu to try out – how about the Smoking Aviator – which is served tableside in a smoking box, and contains Aviation gin, St Germain liqueur, Combier L’Original orange liqueur, agave nectar, cucumber and mint! With tip and sales tax, you are looking at around $90 per head for this special dining experience, though it is worth checking online for any special menus that the restaurant are offering, as well as the kids’ menu if you are eating in a family group.

Adding together this day’s dining options you are looking at a total of around $152 per person, per day.

As you can see, there are plenty of options for dining, at vastly-different price points! Below are tables laying out how much money you will need to put aside if you are dining exclusively at the lower, medium, or higher end of a budget for three meals every day.

As you can see, the costs do start to mount up when dining out all day, every day! But, the good thing with dining out in Florida is that the portions are larger, so you might get by on just eating twice! For early risers, get a big breakfast, have your fun, then grab dinner slightly earlier – you could also end up in many restaurants’ ‘happy hour’ this way. For late starters, get yourself a slap-up lunch before sitting down for dinner later in the evening. A big advantage of eating later is that by lunchtime, many people may already be in theme parks, meaning the queues can be shorter when dining in downtown Orlando.

Through the course of your holiday it’s unlikely that you would eat solely from menus fitting in just one of these price points! Realistically, you are unlikely to want to dine out every day, instead opting for a meal back at your villa occasionally.

This can drastically reduce your daily food spend – for example, let’s look at the cost of a bowl of cereal, milk and a cup of tea for breakfast. Walmart list cereals at around $3 for 18 oz (just under 370g) – which is around 13 servings. Purchase a gallon of reduced fat milk (around 3.8 litres) for $2 – and you have breakfast and probably even all of your cups of coffee and tea for one person covered for the whole holiday! Talking of tea bags – you can pick up a range for $1-$3 for 100 tea bags. Breakfast then will cost roughly 50 cents a day – it’s hard to argue with that as a saving!

How about lunch? Well, we already have the milk and teabags from breakfast, but let’s add a sandwich to the mix. You can even take this out to the parks with you if you have a busy day planned. Fresh sub rolls cost around $3 for six, and add your choice of filling – sliced deli meat for example costs between $6 and $8 per lb, ($4.4/kg – $5.88/kg) which is ample for six of sandwiches! Add some mixed salad and why not buy a packet of crisps – you can get a 12 pack of Lay’s for around $4.50 and you are looking at under $3 per person for lunch.

Let’s choose to have a burger, onion rings and fries for dinner, as well as a beer! A pack of four, 5.2oz (0.325lb / 0.15kg) Angus steak burgers in the supermarket costs around $6, with buns costing around $2 for 8. Pick up a pack of frozen French fries for less than $2 for 2lb (0.9kg) – which is around 11 portions, and some onion rings at the same time. These will cost under $3 for around 1lb (0.45kg) giving approximately 6 servings. Pick up some salad, and a pack of beer, which costs around $1 per can and dinner will come to a grand total of just over $4 per head!

What would preparing meals yourself cost per day? Basically $7.50 per person – which is well worth taking into consideration when trying to save some pennies!

Why not use the table below to get a rough idea of how much money to take per person, per meal?

You can make good use of your villa’s kitchen to prepare healthy and filling meals for all of the family to eat at home, or take with you to the parks. Don’t forget that you can also hire a BBQ from Debbie’s Villas and cook up a feast outdoors to make the most of the Florida sunshine! With the money that you save from a few meals at home you can go all out and treat yourself to an extra-special meal – you are on holiday, after all!

If you're looking for some low-cost days whilst in Orlando, take a read of our Days Out On a Budget in Florida blog.

Image Credits: Skipper Canteen photo: CC by HarshLight