Bringing food into the parks?

[acflodi]

I was with my cousin today and I'm trying to convince her to come to WDW with my family and I in February. She would be staying at another family members house to save on money. Another friend told her that she could bring her own food into the parks so she wouldn't have to spend money getting anything from the restaurants. Can you do that? I just assumed you couldn't bring your own food in.

 

[bigbabyblues]

No alcohol, no glass containers, no rolling coolers. You can bring food in a small soft-sided cooler or backpack, or whatever.

 

[blessedby3]

I was with my cousin today and I'm trying to convince her to come to WDW with my family and I in February. She would be staying at another family members house to save on money. Another friend told her that she could bring her own food into the parks so she wouldn't have to spend money getting anything from the restaurants. Can you do that? I just assumed you couldn't bring your own food in.

We always take in water/drinks and lots of snacks for the 6 of us. We have never packed sandwiches although our next trip will be for 2 weeks so I am thinking we will be taking in some lunches some days to save on costs. There are lockers you can put your small cooler in or you can carry it with you. We have always had a stroller with us so we would throw the snacks and drinks in the bottom.

You can also tell your cousin that she can get free ice water at any counter service place...although sometimes its drinkable, sometimes not. Just a suggestion to help keep things cheap

 

[pixiewings71]

Food is allowed but there are restrictions. As stated no glass unless it's baby food. You can take in sandwiches but you can't take in the fixings to make sandwiches, you can take a small soft sided cooler but nothing big and nothing with wheels. You can take snacks, drinks, we always take our own bottles of water with us, if we run out we refill at CS restaurants (after asking) or we go to First Aid and refill there (this is in DLR not WDW). We've never had any problems.

 

[nansmama]

We've brought in lunch to the parks many times. As long as it's normal food all prepared she should be fine. We've brought many different types of non-glass containers and never been questioned.

 

[worm761]

Food is allowed but there are restrictions. As stated no glass unless it's baby food. You can take in sandwiches but you can't take in the fixings to make sandwiches, you can take a small soft sided cooler but nothing big and nothing with wheels. You can take snacks, drinks, we always take our own bottles of water with us, if we run out we refill at CS restaurants (after asking) or we go to First Aid and refill there (this is in DLR not WDW). We've never had any problems.

When did that become a rule?

 

[Meshell2002]

I was once told by security that coke products could not be brought in....but on the same trip we got through security with cans of coca cola.....not sure why the inconsistency. The bottles were all plastic....like a 16 oz size(not big). 2 in a lunch size cooler...

All our snacks, pb&j sandwiches, granola, ect ...no question. DS4 was disturbed security told him how yummy his lunch looked! LOL.

 

[acflodi]

Thank you all so much. I had no idea!! This is so helpful!

 

[Cheshire Figment]

At the four major parks (AK, DHS, EC, MK) coolers are restricted to "small, soft-sided, which can fit in a locker". And they cannot be rolling bags.

The only restrictions that apply to all parks (theme and water) are nothing in glass containers (other than medicines and baby food) and no alcoholic beverages.

Some things people don't think about (which tend to be in glass) are pickles, salsa, Mayonnaise, Starbucks drinks, Snapple drinks, Tabasco.

At the water parks any type or size cooler is acceptable. I have seen people come through the gate (Typhoon Lagoon) hauling wheeled coolers about 4' x 3' x 2½'. Note that the cooler can be on two wheels or carried, but the way the rules are written you can not have it in a wagon and it cannot have four wheels.

If you show up at the gate with prohibited items we will give you three choices:
(1) Take prohibited items back to your car or resort.
(2) Put prohibited items in the nearby trash can.
(3) (Only for other than alcoholic beverages) If you have plastic bags or cups you can dump the items out of the glass containers and throw away the container.

 

[DawnM]

It isn't.

We take our own sandwiches and "fixins" all the time......

Dawn

When did that become a rule?

 

[POOHsie]

Food is allowed but there are restrictions. As stated no glass unless it's baby food. You can take in sandwiches but you can't take in the fixings to make sandwiches, you can take a small soft sided cooler but nothing big and nothing with wheels. You can take snacks, drinks, we always take our own bottles of water with us, if we run out we refill at CS restaurants (after asking) or we go to First Aid and refill there (this is in DLR not WDW). We've never had any problems.

Possibly a misunderstanding here. The concern is with glass jars, which are prohibited. Relish, Mustard, Ketchup, Mayo in glass jars will not be allowed. Find these items in plastic containers, or start collecting packets from wherever you can get them.

 

[mrzrich]

You can take in sandwiches but you can't take in the fixings to make sandwiches.

This is flat out not true. We always assemble our sandwiches at time of eating. (Hate soggy bread)

We also bring stuff to make " Lunchables" a block of cheese, some crackers, etc. We get a plastic knife from CS locations.

 

[mal616]

Wow.... I never knew that you could take snacks and things into the parks!! That is great to know because I will be going during the summer with my family and my nieces would love snacks... Wish we knew this when my 9 year old niece was 4 and we took her to Disney hahaha she loved buying snacks at the parks!!! So glad I read this thanks!

 

[scnrc00]

This is great to know! We are going on our 1st trip in Dec. and a picnic style lunch 1 or 2 days during our stay would be great.

 

[4kids4karen]

.

 

[goodfood4ursoul]

We always take lunches to the waterparks, in bags like these:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81mtjW3kDvL._SL1500_.jpg

Ours are colorful and look like a beach bag anyway.
Never had a problem, and sometimes they did not even check the bag at all

We are a party of adults (even our kids) so we don't carry much but this bag and our towels.

I love being able to bring the foods we enjoy that are healthier for us (lots of fresh fruit and veggies with low fat ranch dip and some cheese sticks)
For us, eating all meals at restaurants or counter service is a recipe for a stomach ache and feeling out of sorts.
I hate feeling sick on vacation!!!

Bringing our lunch helps us all feel a lot better and have energy to climb the stairs for all those water slides.

 

[acflodi]

Remember it is a small soft sided cooler. A picnic sounds a bit big, or maybe it's just my imagination going wild.

Can everyone in your party bring their own soft sided cooler? In that case, you could have a full blown picnic. Even if you can't bring a cooler no one has specified that you can only bring in one soft sided cooler, if you bring multiple ones who's to say you couldn't fit enough for a picnic?

 

[crisi]

You also can't bring in anything that requires heating - there aren't microwaves available and Disney doesn't really want to deal with cans of sterno . I can't imagine (although years ago we did have one poster who was either yanking our chains or brought in MREs and cans of sterno). So keep it to picnic food.

Also, keep in mind that the restaurants get crowded with customers over the lunch hour (and sometimes are just really crowded all the time) and WDW does not provide any sort of picnic area. So you might be eating on a park bench.

Finally, its Disney's park and Disney's rules, they allow it, but they don't have to and if bringing in food becomes a big hassle for them, they'll stop. Which is why you shouldn't take up tables from paying customers and why spreading a tablecloth to pull out a cold chicken, potato salad and watermelon picnic lunch might be going overboard.

Disneyland rules are different - there they have a picnic area out side the park and you can't bring food in.

 

[mrzrich]

Also, keep in mind that the restaurants get crowded with customers over the lunch hour (and sometimes are just really crowded all the time) and WDW does not provide any sort of picnic area. So you might be eating on a park bench. Finally, its Disney's park and Disney's rules, they allow it, but they don't have to and if bringing in food becomes a big hassle for them, they'll stop. Which is why you shouldn't take up tables from paying customers and why spreading a tablecloth to pull out a cold chicken, potato salad and watermelon picnic lunch might be going overboard. Disneyland rules are different - there they have a picnic area out side the park and you can't bring food in.

I don't see where anybody here advocated using a table meant for CS patrons. There are pretty decent places to eat without taking a table from CS.

 

[crisi]

I don't see where anybody here advocated using a table meant for CS patrons. There are pretty decent places to eat without taking a table from CS.

I agree, its just that the "easiest" place to grab a table usually seems to be within a CS restaurant. And I really don't want to see the ability to bring in food taken away because too many guests complain about picnic lunches inside Cosmic Rays. I suggest you make some suggestions on good places to eat without taking a table from CS since this sounds like people who won't be familiar with good spots. I would, but we haven't found any.