The cost of a holiday to Orlando can be eye-watering, and that’s before you even get there. On top of things like hotels and flights, you have to think about food and souvenirs while you’re on holiday. If you’ve never been before, it can be hard to know what amount you might need. I’ve broken down the cost of everything we spent for our 2 week holiday to Orlando in 2023.
Flights and accommodation
We chose to book a package holiday with Virgin. I like knowing that if something goes wrong, Virgin will sort it out. Booking flights and accommodation separately can be cheaper if you want to do it that way instead.
£4424.88
Return flights from London Heathrow to Orlando International Airport. 15 nights at Lake Buena Vista Resort Village And Spa in a 2 bedroom apartment.
Pre-travel costs
As we had to travel to Heathrow to fly to Orlando, this incurred some additional costs. We stayed at a Premier Inn the night before our flight and left our car in an airport car park for the duration of our holiday. We also had to buy Erin a new passport and get ESTAS for our trip to America.
£53.50
New passport for Erin.
£52.12
ESTAS for the 3 of us.
£113
Premier Inn for 1 night, parking at the hotel and breakfast.
£200.80
Parking for 15 nights
£58.97
Food at Spuntino at Heathrow Airport plus drinks while we were waiting to board the flight.
Park tickets
We knew that we wanted to go to both Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando Resort during our holiday. Park tickets are not cheap and this is where you will end up spending a chunk of money. We booked with Attraction Tickets, where you can pay a deposit then pay off the balance in instalments.
£1627
Disney 14 day Magic tickets for 2 adults and a 7 year old.
£958.55
Universal 3-park ticket for 2 adults and a 7 year old.
Dinner show tickets
Having been to the Pirate’s Dinner Adventure before, we wanted to go back with Erin. We booked this advance via the official website.
£154.43
Tickets to the Pirate Dinner Adventure show for 2 adults and a child. This included a 3 course meal.
£53.48
Erin wanted a whole load of pirate accessories when we were at the show.
Discovery Cove
On top of the theme parks, we planned for a more relaxing day at Discovery Cove for John’s 40th birthday. Discovery Cove is an all-inclusive resort so our food and drink was covered for the day but we did pay extra to swim with dolphins. You can get good deals if you shop around and wait until Black Friday.
£609
Entrance plus a dolphin swim for 2 adults and a 7 year old.
Uber budget
As we didn’t have a car on this trip, we relied on free shuttle buses from our hotel and Ubers to get around. I set aside £500 for this before the trip, keeping it separate to our regular spending money. Ubers would vary in cost depending on where we were going and what time of day we were using them.
£489.45
This included two trips from Orlando International Airport to our hotel, as well as Ubers to the theme parks, shopping and attractions.
Clothes and accessories
As the weather is a lot hotter in Orlando than it is here in the UK, we needed to buy some new clothes and travel accessories to take with us. I don’t have the actual figure for this but a rough amount.
£350
This figure includes 8 t-shirts, new sandals and trainers for Erin, a few new t-shirts for John, 2 handheld fans, cooling towels, sun cream etc.
Spending money
When I started to plan this holiday I worked out that taking £3000 in spending money would be plenty for the 2 weeks. I wanted to make sure we had enough to spend mostly whatever we wanted, to eat what we wanted and to be quite comfortable. I did keep track each day of what we spent so this is the best way for me to break it down:
Disney
We spent the majority of our days at Disney parks however, we didn’t end up spending nearly as much as I thought. A lot of this was due to the heat and us not being as hungry as we thought we would be. We ate a lot less than I had planned for.
Although there was a lot to buy in the shops at Disney, such as pins, mugs, bubble machines and clothes such as a cheerleading jersey, we waited until near the end of our trip to buy anything to make sure it was something we really wanted. I think this stopped us from really over spending and panic buying.
£140.11
Individual Lightning Lanes for Tron, Guardians of the Galaxy and Rise of the Resistance
£432.89
Character meal at ‘Ohana
Meal at Cosmic Rays x2
Meal at Restaurantasaurus
Pizza at Trail’s End
Lunch at Connections Eatery
Yak and Yeti
Rainforest Cafe
Pizzafari
Woody’s Lunch Box
£194.92
Souvenirs
£96.63
Snacks, drinks, popcorn bucket and refills and ice-creams
Universal
We only had 2 full days at Universal and therefore, not as much chance to spend lots of money. We could have easily spent a lot more in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter but, many of the items weren’t special or something we couldn’t get back at home.
£49.45
Popcorn bucket and a refillable drink
£61.34
3x pizzas
Cake at Honeydukes
£72.47
Souvenirs including an interactive wand from Ollivanders
Sea World
We didn’t spend much money at Sea World at all. We didn’t have lunch there as we had a big breakfast and went our for dinner afterwards so a lot of this money was spent on things that Erin wanted.
£43.84
Refillable drink cup
Drinks for Erin
Postcards
Necklace
Snacks
Sweets
Walmart
I remembered loving going to Walmart when me and John went to Orlando in 2013. It was no different this time! As we stayed in a self-catering apartment, we stocked up on things like drinks, breakfast and snacks to help keep costs down elsewhere. Of course, we also brought back quite a lot of chocolate and snacks!
£250.56
Eating out (outside of the parks)
As I mentioned earlier, we didn’t eat out quite as much as I thought we would. Some days we were too hot and some days we’d already had big meals. We enjoyed having a later start to some days with breakfast out, which seemed to set us up for hours.
£265.07
Pizza Hut
Denny’s
IHOP
Olive Garden
Applebees
Discovery Cove
As this was an all-inclusive resort, we didn’t spend much money. However, there are still things to buy here, especially if you want photos of your day.
£227.11
Photos from our dolphin swim
Additional spending
We spent a little bit of time going shopping during our 2 week Orlando holiday. This was a mix of Lake Buena Vista Outlets and shopping at the Florida Mall. I spent quite a lot on candles, and I would absolutely do the same again next time! They’re a lot cheaper, and nicer, than what we can get here.
£193.95
Crocs
Disney Outlet
Bath and Body Works
Yankee Candle
Total cost of our 2 week Orlando holiday
£11173.47 – total cost
£8602.25 – spending before the holiday
£2571.22 – total spending while on holiday
Read more about our Orlando holiday:
- Staying at the Lake Buena Vista Resort Village and Spa
- Lunch at the Rainforest Cafe
- Breakfast at ‘Ohana
- A day in paradise at Discovery Cove
- Tips for dealing with the heat in Orlando
- See a dinner show at Pirate’s Dinner Adventure Orlando
- Our 2 week Orlando itinerary
- What our holiday to Orlando really cost
