Food budget when staying in an Aulani studio?

[luv2sleep]

Without a kitchen I imagine that I will be spending more $$ on food than I'd like. Need to budget for it. How much per person did you spend per day on food while at Aulani if you were staying in a studio?

 

[Anal Annie]

We're also going to stay in a studio (family of 3 - DS will be 17 so basically a 3rd adult). I may be low on some of these numbers but I plan on stopping for groceries for breakfast and maybe a couple of lunches (not sure how many days we will really be AT the resort at lunchtime). We may plan on 1 breakfast out. Playing that one by ear… Just guessing that we'll spend $100 on these simple breakfast & lunch groceries. I figure we may do a couple of lunches from either Ulu Cafe or the other poolside place. I am going to plan on those types of meals running anywhere from $50-75 each so for a budget figure will use $65 ea. We might possibly do a night of the in-room family style dining (maybe if we're sticking around for the Starlit Hui that would be a good night to plan for that). Will plan on $85ish for that meal. I am planning on 1 dinner at Roy's which I am guestimating will run $175ish or so (I am "collecting" gift cards to bring for that one). We probably won't do AmaAma but might do the Makahiki dinner buffet so I will plan on $150 for that one. Also planning on at least one dinner at Monkey Pod Kitchen and est. $75 for that. We will also probably eat at the Hard Rock Cafe in Waikiki so DS can add another Hard Rock t-shirt to his collection (maybe same day we do Pearl Harbor, not sure yet). Will plan on that one running between $80-100. If I can find a good price somewhere on some fresh MahiMahi then I may grill one evening so will say $50 for that if it works out. Undecided yet if we will try to go into Waikiki for a dinner at Duke's but will est. $125 for that just in case. The day we go to the North Shore we'll likely hit a shrimp truck (not sure how much those run but so will est. $50).

So with all of this in mind I am going to round this off to about $1,400 for a weeks worth of in-room breakfasts, lunches & mostly moderately priced dinners on Oahu. THEN we go to Maui for 3 more nights and I am going to say we'll need another $600-700 over there. Going with the higher $700 we're up to about $2,100 for 10 days of meals between the 2 islands. OH, and did I mention we'll be at DL for 3 nights before Aulani? I am only going to plan for 1 TS meal there and everything else will be CS. I am planning to bring $100 / day worth of Disney gift cards for each of our nights in a Disney property ($1,000 worth). That should help soften the blow a little. I've also been stashing some cash here & there and have about $550 squirreled away so far. Hoping to keep squirreling & stashing for the next 5 months so that by August I have a good amount saved up to bring. I am thinking altogether we will spend about $2,500 on meals alone for the 2 weeks.

 

[luv2sleep]

We're also going to stay in a studio (family of 3 - DS will be 17 so basically a 3rd adult). I may be low on some of these numbers but I plan on stopping for groceries for breakfast and maybe a couple of lunches (not sure how many days we will really be AT the resort at lunchtime). We may plan on 1 breakfast out. Playing that one by ear… Just guessing that we'll spend $100 on these simple breakfast & lunch groceries. I figure we may do a couple of lunches from either Ulu Cafe or the other poolside place. I am going to plan on those types of meals running anywhere from $50-75 each so for a budget figure will use $65 ea. We might possibly do a night of the in-room family style dining (maybe if we're sticking around for the Starlit Hui that would be a good night to plan for that). Will plan on $85ish for that meal. I am planning on 1 dinner at Roy's which I am guestimating will run $175ish or so (I am "collecting" gift cards to bring for that one). We probably won't do AmaAma but might do the Makahiki dinner buffet so I will plan on $150 for that one. Also planning on at least one dinner at Monkey Pod Kitchen and est. $75 for that. We will also probably eat at the Hard Rock Cafe in Waikiki so DS can add another Hard Rock t-shirt to his collection (maybe same day we do Pearl Harbor, not sure yet). Will plan on that one running between $80-100. If I can find a good price somewhere on some fresh MahiMahi then I may grill one evening so will say $50 for that if it works out. Undecided yet if we will try to go into Waikiki for a dinner at Duke's but will est. $125 for that just in case. The day we go to the North Shore we'll likely hit a shrimp truck (not sure how much those run but so will est. $50). So with all of this in mind I am going to round this off to about $1,400 for a weeks worth of in-room breakfasts, lunches & mostly moderately priced dinners on Oahu. THEN we go to Maui for 3 more nights and I am going to say we'll need another $600-700 over there. Going with the higher $700 we're up to about $2,100 for 10 days of meals between the 2 islands. OH, and did I mention we'll be at DL for 3 nights before Aulani? I am only going to plan for 1 TS meal there and everything else will be CS. I am planning to bring $100 / day worth of Disney gift cards for each of our nights in a Disney property ($1,000 worth). That should help soften the blow a little. I've also been stashing some cash here & there and have about $550 squirreled away so far. Hoping to keep squirreling & stashing for the next 5 months so that by August I have a good amount saved up to bring. I am thinking altogether we will spend about $2,500 on meals alone for the 2 weeks.

I've been researching too and I've seen $150 for 2 per day so yours sounds about right.

Where are you staying on Maui? Was thinking if adding in 4-5 nights on Kauai.

 

[Anal Annie]

I've been researching too and I've seen $150 for 2 per day so yours sounds about right.

Where are you staying on Maui? Was thinking if adding in 4-5 nights on Kauai.

We are just staying at the Sheraton Ka'anapali at Black Rock. (We have stayed there before - it's in a great location.) When we had this trip booked for LAST summer (and ultimately had to cancel at the last minute) we had booked a studio at the Westin Ocean Resort Villas. I was really looking forward to that. Anyway, we had converted Amex. points to Starwood points and booked it with those. WELL, right after we booked it last year Starwood changed their points structure and they now require a LOT more points to book a night so we didn't have enough points to book it again this year. We only had enough points to book 2 nights at the Sheraton. But it typically runs over $400 / night so we were able to tack on the 3rd night with a Starwood Member rate for like $335 I think it was. I just DID NOT WANT TO PAY A LOT OF MONEY OUT-OF-POCKET for anyplace. That's why we stopped at 3 nights. I figure paying for only 1 night OOP is OK considering that the other 12 nights are covered by either DVC or Starwood. But that was my limit. Hawaii is too far and too expensive to get to to NOT island hop and having done it before we know that anything less than 3 nights isn't long enough for the the hop. In order to maximize our 3 nights on Maui we booked a fairly early morning flight (9-something) from HNL to OGG and I got a Noon check-in at the Sheraton. And of course our flight home from there is late evening (it WAS almost 11:00 but they changed it and now it's like 9:30 or something). So we'll basically have a good 3 1/2 days on Maui.

 

[luv2sleep]

We are just staying at the Sheraton Ka'anapali at Black Rock. (We have stayed there before - it's in a great location.) When we had this trip booked for LAST summer (and ultimately had to cancel at the last minute) we had booked a studio at the Westin Ocean Resort Villas. I was really looking forward to that. Anyway, we had converted Amex. points to Starwood points and booked it with those. WELL, right after we booked it last year Starwood changed their points structure and they now require a LOT more points to book a night so we didn't have enough points to book it again this year. We only had enough points to book 2 nights at the Sheraton. But it typically runs over $400 / night so we were able to tack on the 3rd night with a Starwood Member rate for like $335 I think it was. I just DID NOT WANT TO PAY A LOT OF MONEY OUT-OF-POCKET for anyplace. That's why we stopped at 3 nights. I figure paying for only 1 night OOP is OK considering that the other 12 nights are covered by either DVC or Starwood. But that was my limit. Hawaii is too far and too expensive to get to to NOT island hop and having done it before we know that anything less than 3 nights isn't long enough for the the hop. In order to maximize our 3 nights on Maui we booked a fairly early morning flight (9-something) from HNL to OGG and I got a Noon check-in at the Sheraton. And of course our flight home from there is late evening (it WAS almost 11:00 but they changed it and now it's like 9:30 or something). So we'll basically have a good 3 1/2 days on Maui.

That will be a nice trip! Love that beach!

 

[kkmcan]

I think it really depends on the way your family normally eats. We just returned from our stay at Aulani this morning and I was adding up what we spent. We stayed in a regular hotel room so we didn't have any micro but we did have a small fridge and a coffee maker. Our kids are 17 and 14 but not big or adventurous eaters. Our total stay in Hawaii was 6nights, 7 days with 4 of those nights being at Aulani.

We spent about $550 on food total for the whole trip. We at one expensive meal at Hula Grill in Waikiki and that was $92 with tip. Two of the nights at Aulani dh and I went out to eat. Kids aren't adventurous eaters and are much happier with some chicken fingers, or hot dogs or the like. So we set up their cards so that they could go get what they wanted and could charge their meals to the room. We did pick up hot pretzels one afternoon when no one was really that hungry and bought at least 3 shave ices. Dh and I went to Ko'Olina BBQ one night and Monkeypod another night and those bills were $20and $30 (no alcohol).

We spent $40 at the ABC store on fruit, chips, bread, pb and lunch meat for lunches.

We made another stop at the ABC store for snacks and a bottle of wine and a small bottle of coconut rum($30) and one other stop at Target for snacks for our plane trip home $20.

We also spent $50 on some snacks, muffins, Mai Tai mix and a pizza at Costo for dinner. And a hot dog lunch while at Costco ($12).

We got the free breakfasts for two every morning (Aulani promo). Our kids were happy eating muffins (from Costco) in the room so dh and I went and got hot breakfast every morning but I did bring back my bacon for the kids. So no cost for breakfast other than the Costco muffins.

We did splurge on the refillable mugs and those were about $80.

We were all pretty happy with our food even though most of it was nothing special. I'm not a fancy eater either so I really don't care about what I eat.

 

[luv2sleep]

I think it really depends on the way your family normally eats. We just returned from our stay at Aulani this morning and I was adding up what we spent. We stayed in a regular hotel room so we didn't have any micro but we did have a small fridge and a coffee maker. Our kids are 17 and 14 but not big or adventurous eaters. Our total stay in Hawaii was 6nights, 7 days with 4 of those nights being at Aulani. We spent about $550 on food total for the whole trip. We at one expensive meal at Hula Grill in Waikiki and that was $92 with tip. Two of the nights at Aulani dh and I went out to eat. Kids aren't adventurous eaters and are much happier with some chicken fingers, or hot dogs or the like. So we set up their cards so that they could go get what they wanted and could charge their meals to the room. We did pick up hot pretzels one afternoon when no one was really that hungry and bought at least 3 shave ices. Dh and I went to Ko'Olina BBQ one night and Monkeypod another night and those bills were $20and $30 (no alcohol). We spent $40 at the ABC store on fruit, chips, bread, pb and lunch meat for lunches. We made another stop at the ABC store for snacks and a bottle of wine and a small bottle of coconut rum($30) and one other stop at Target for snacks for our plane trip home $20. We also spent $50 on some snacks, muffins, Mai Tai mix and a pizza at Costo for dinner. And a hot dog lunch while at Costco ($12). We got the free breakfasts for two every morning (Aulani promo). Our kids were happy eating muffins (from Costco) in the room so dh and I went and got hot breakfast every morning but I did bring back my bacon for the kids. So no cost for breakfast other than the Costco muffins. We did splurge on the refillable mugs and those were about $80. We were all pretty happy with our food even though most of it was nothing special. I'm not a fancy eater either so I really don't care about what I eat.

Great food $$ report! I like your spending style!

 

[CailinFig]

We are just staying at the Sheraton Ka'anapali at Black Rock. (We have stayed there before - it's in a great location.)

That's a great location. We stay in Wailea and whenever my husband wants to snorkel at Black Rock it is a pain to find parking over there.

 

[yolie912]

Loved this thread. I am going in May and this gave me some ideas.