5 Reasons Leaving a Park to Save Money on Food is a Bad Idea

[MikeTaylor]

My first published article on the DIS!

We’ve all overheard these types of people while we’re trying to enjoy our day at a park. We’ve even thought about it ourselves.

Read more here:
http://www.wdwinfo.com/walt-disney-...g-a-park-to-save-money-on-food-is-a-bad-idea/

Thanks, so much!

 

[Tissa]

This is true if you are staying at the parks all day, it doesn't make much sense to leave. For us, we stay offsite in a house and are not all day park people. So we leave and either grab something to go on the way to the house(Publix fried Chicken) or I fix something when we get there. We will go back to the park in the evenings about 3 out of 7 nights. I used to try and push my family all day and that never ended well.

 

[disneysteve]

We always take a break from the parks during the day. We stay offsite so we typically head back to our house/condo to rest and regroup, sometimes we shower (especially when we're there in August), then we head back out and usually get dinner on the outside before returning to a park for the evening.

If we spent the entire day in the park, we'd be miserable. We need that break, especially in super hot weather. We do save money in the process but that's only part of the reason we do it.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

I eat a breakfast before I go, and I'm pretty set until we have to leave even if it's a LONG day...for some reason I just don't have the need to eat. This time i'm commited to do ADRs in every park!

Which I also want to shout out that everytime I go to Disney and start chatting it up online people have given me free food - a special shout out to Barbra who gave us the pizza last time, you are amazing.

 

[Crystal824]

I would never leave a park just to eat. With that being said, we have grabbed fast food or ordered pizza after leaving a park. We rarely dine at sit-down establishments that are not on property. I think it just depends on what you day entails. I almost always bring in snacks for the kids to eat and bottled water.

 

[Kristina4109]

We carry non perishable snacks with us (Trader Joes fruit strips and Larabars are good) and refillable bottles for water. We always stay onsite so if it's the middle of a hot, crowded day, we may leave to take a break at our resort but it's never JUST to eat. I agree with the writer that if you're leaving the park for meals to save money, you're actually not getting a great value.

 

[disneysteve]

I agree with the writer that if you're leaving the park for meals to save money, you're actually not getting a great value.

Yeah, I wouldn't leave property just to eat. That would be more trouble than it's worth. You would save money but I think it would be more tiring than just staying in the park and eating.

 

[Indio]

We tried this one year as an "experiment" to see if we could save money. The only time we saved any money was the Taco Bell trip! By the time we left the park, drove through terrible traffic and got to the restaurants, we were already aggravated. Then, most of the restaurants near property are not any cheaper than eating on property. I think they've figured out that most of their traffic is Disney visitors and they stick it to you! There's 5 of us and so for a sit down meal, we usually average $100. We ate 3 sit-down off-site meals and 2 of them were over $100 so didn't save us any money and we had all the aggravation of getting there so not worth it - oh and we always stay on-site. Last year, my sister and I had the great idea that we'd run to McDonalds after we left the parks one night. We left the fam at the resort and off we went to get McD's for everyone. We decided to go the one outside the DTD gate, you know, because it's cheaper than the one on property (the one on property doesn't include drinks in the value meal prices). It took us 2 hours to get out there, get the food and get back! By the time we got back to the resort, all the food was cold and the drinks were hot! Lesson learned!