Buying and brining food, even though on DDP

[Irishhockey]

I know a lot of people comment on how much food this "allows" you to have, but at the same time, I don't want to be "waisting" credits. For Instance, I'm by no means a "breakfast" person... and it would be a waist for me to use a CS credit for it. My mom on the other hand, could live off breakfast foods, so she'll get her moneys worth.

As of right now, we'll need some form of breakfast on Sun, Mon, Thurs, and Friday. We don't take advantage of EMH in the AM, so most breakfasts would probably be in our resort food court or maybe in a park (but doubt it). Sunday is always "waffle" day for us, so we'll both use a credit to continue our tradition, but for the other 3 mornings, I can't imagine I'll be that "hungry" that early, especially after eating great the night before.

My goal is to maybe bring a box of poptarts and roll of bagels down for me to enjoy for breakfast. I know I have the option of using snack credits, but would like to use those during the day if needed.

Another issue is our water park day on Thursday and hitting the boardwalk that night for dinner at the ESPN club, out of our pocket. (not worth it for the TS credit to us, and the food is reasonablly priced)

So my question is... do you personally bring and buy food even though your on the plan? My mom thinks I'm crazy for wanting more food...

 

[bicker]

We brought oatmeal and protein shakes to have for breakfast.

 

[Tam1067]

We paid OOP for things like muffins and cold cereal at the resort. It wasn't much--a few dollars each day--and near the end of the trip, we had extra snack credits, so we started using them for muffins instead of paying.

I did order some juice boxes for my kids from Garden Grocer (along with bottled water) and that worked pretty well for us.

 

[goofy4tink]

We generally like to have some cereal and milk, oj, bagels/cream cheese in the room for breakfast. Then, we'll sometimes add some pretzels, chips, cookies for those late night munchie attacks. I order from gardengrocer.com. Also get bottles of water...that way I can save my snack credits for cream cheese filled soft pretzels, dole whip floats, rice krispie treats...you just gotta prioritize!!

 

[powellrj]

My DD and I are breakfast people and we would usually go to the food court each morning and get 2 slices of wheat bread each and a packet of peanut butter and we would each have a toasted PB sandwich for under a dollar.

My DH and DS aren't breakfast people and they had a box of entenmans donuts that lasted the whole week from 1 snack credit.

That was really all the food we bought all week.

 

[PlutoLuvr]

Sorry, folks. Just passing through and the title totally caught my eye, as I love to brine many foods.

What is the OP planning on brining in WDW? I can understand if you have plenty of time and, say, a LOT of meat, but what do you plan to brine on vacation? A turkey?

 

[allyphoe]

What is the OP planning on brining in WDW? I can understand if you have plenty of time and, say, a LOT of meat, but what do you plan to brine on vacation? A turkey?

Something without a waist, from the sound of it.

 

[PlutoLuvr]

Did a double-take and re-read the very last sentence of the post again.

Sorry!

Hey, what some folks do on vacation never ceases to amaze me. We just got back from timesharing with friends on our WDW trip. My friend would wake up uber early every morning to make us dinner in the crockpot. You should have seen all the stuff she brought -- in a laundry basket, no less

Sure, I raised my eyebrow at first, thinking of all the crowded CS places I'd be missing, all the stress over ADRs I'd be missing, but in the end, I was quite impressed with our dinners all ready for us the minute we walked in from a day at the parks.

My biggest question for OP was where she was hoping to brine something staying in hotel room or timeshare. Some cucumbers, sure in a jar; I have to brine my turkeys in something HUGE, clean and sanitary.

Happy holiday, folks

 

[tmbrea]

Ok, here goes....we leave june 8th for 8 nights/8 days at WDW. We are on the DDP. I plan to take cereal, poptarts, etc for breakfast. We really aren't breakfast people...don't get me wrong we love breakfast foods, just not early in the morning. Our one Charc. breakfast is scheduled for 10am, brunch.... I also ordered milk, juice and water from Garden Grocer. I think what you decide to do depends on your habits and needs.

 

[sunlover13]

We just got back a few weeks ago and were on the dining plan. We brought cereal from home (packed in our suitcase) and granola bars for breakfast. I brought some little snacks for DD like bags of cookies, goldfish, etc. We used our snack credits to buy milk at our resort's general store (POR). We always used a CS for lunch and then TS for dinner. Ended up paying OOP for CRT b/c we didn't think it was worth 2 TS. We used 1 bottle of water the whole trip and just refilled at water fountains. It tasted fine. We ended up with a ton of snack credits in the end b/c we were never hungry between meals on the dining plan. We used these for Mickey cookies, rice crispy treats, etc to take home for people. Hope this helps : )

 

[marcyinPA]

We just got back last week. One morning, we got a box of Entenmann's donuts from the Pop food court with one of our snack credits. There were 5 of us, so it didn't last long, but all 5 of us had a quick something for one snack credit.

I'll be honest with you, we had to buy a bunch of stuff on our last day before we left, using our snack credits. We had 12 left over. We had our share of Mickey Pops, drinks, popcorn, etc. We even used our credits at Goofy's Candy Kitchen for the yummy dipped treats. But we had so much food at meal times that we couldn't fit another ounce of anything in our stomachs most days.

We came home with peanut brittle, Minnie cookies, Mickey pretzels, rice krispie treats, Cheetos, etc. and we're still eating them!

 

[frannn]

Last year was our first with free dining. In prior years, I always stuffed granola bars, candy, etc in our luggage, and make a supermarket stop for drinks, bagels, etc. Reading on the DIS about how much food you get with DP caused me to drastically cut down on my packed/purchased food. I only brought a pkg of cereal bars and some gum. At the supermarket, we bought drinks, applesauce, jello cups, bananas, chips, and wine coolers. We still ended up with leftover snacks at the end! I feel like I'd rather spend a few $ on stuff for the room, just in case of inclimate weather (hurricane!) or if DD4 doesn't eat when we are at our TS, and needs a little something.

 

[Irishhockey]

Thanks for all the responses!

Like most have stated, I was simply interested in goods like a box of pop tarts or breakfast bars. Something simple and easy that didn't need to be refridgerated or prepared. It was mostly in regards to the breakfast foods.

We normally bring snacks with us... but with the DDP... my mom thought it was crazy. As another poster said, and especially traveling during the hurricane season, I think it's nice to have a few snacks in the room just in case.

A lot of people use garden grocer, but driving down allows us to have the means to bring our own cooler and goodies that we can pick up before hand.

Thanks again for all your help... and the tip about the donuts!

 

[blanq]

We generally don't like to eat a huge breakfast, but prefer something light in the mornings and then an earlier lunch. In January, we did use a couple of our snack credits for breakfast items: funnel cakes at MK, cinnamon rolls at Tusker's/AK, pastries at Starring Rolls/MGM and a box of Entenmanns donuts at Artist's Palette/SSR. We picked up juice, milk, granola, yogurt and a few oranges/bananas and kept them in our fridge at SSR, so that got us through the rest of the mornings.

We will use the DDP again in October, and I have decided I will not bring breakfast items this time. We ended up kind of having to burn some of our snack credits toward the end of our trip, since we had so many unused one, so this next time I will just plan on using more snack credits for breakfast items, and may pay OOP if needed to pick up fresh fruit at the parks.

 

[tndisneyfan]

We're not big breakfast eaters either. We brought pop tarts and cereal bars from home. DS likes cereal in the morning, so we brought our own cereal and bought a 1/2 gallon of milk in the food court. This worked out well for us. Normally we would get up and have cereal or pop tart, a CS lunch, and a TS snack. We brought a Brita water bottle to carry around the parks with us so we didn't use a lot of snack credits on drinks. We ended up have a few snack credits left that we could have used for breakfast food but we ended up just stocking up on goodies for the long trip home.

 

[lady_hlh]

We brought breakfast bars, some snacks and applesauce in the luggage the last 2 years even though we were on the dining plan. We migh have had a few snacks leftover but I just put them in the luggage to take home. This year I placed an order with Garden Grocer because my DH has to follow a low-fat diet for medical reasons and he does better with it if he can have fat free chips, puddings, etc. so that he doesn't feel deprived.