Can we take food/eat in our rooms and still enjoy Disney?

[bobbieh76]

I know this board is full of budget minded people and I want to say THANK YOU, with your help I have saved a ton over the years!!

I remember before seeing a thread on ways to save money by eating in your room and certain places that had meals big enough to split etc... I cannot find it now though!

So give me your best money saving food ideas!!

I think I have decided to stay away from the DDP and over-eating and we are staying at a moderate this time so we will have a refrigerator in our room and we are driving so we will be able to bring lots of snacks etc!

 

[DawnM]

I couldn't eat all of my meals without a kitchen. We stay at condos for this.

You can certainly have b-fast and take lunch into the parks with you, but I would get something hot for dinner. Just me maybe.

Dawn

 

[bobbieh76]

We plan on eating at least one meal a day either in the park or order in pizza or something... I was just trying to get ideas for things to do in the room or good cheap places to eat!


I have also booked a couple TS meals so we are not going to ONLY rely on room food just wondered if anyone had any great money saving tips!

 

[jcemom]

We almost always eat breakfast in our room. It not only saves money, but time as well. I pick up a half gallon of milk in the resort shop, and keep it in the fridge. In our checked luggage I pack cereal, granola bars, boxed muffins (like Hostess or Little Debbie), individual serving sized bottles of juice (in double ziploc bags in case of a spill -- the bags are then good for bringing home damp bathing suits and flipflops). If you're driving, you can pick up that stuff at a local grocery store. You could also get some fresh fruit -- oranges, apples, bananas, whatever you like.

I always have to get fruit at the food court, because we fly. When we're on the DDP, we get sick of the cs desserts all week. I will get fruit (either a piece of fruit or a fruit cup) as dessert and bring it back to the room for the next day's breakfast.

 

[LisaNJ25]

We plan on eating at least one meal a day either in the park or order in pizza or something... I was just trying to get ideas for things to do in the room or good cheap places to eat!


I have also booked a couple TS meals so we are not going to ONLY rely on room food just wondered if anyone had any great money saving tips!

We had the dinning plan but liked to do a quick breakfast in the room. We had cereal and also oatmeal. We also brough Peanut Butter and Jelly and bread.

 

[LaDonna]

Our first trip we brought fruit, cereal, milk, granola bars, lunch meat, bread etc...with us to our room, didn't have a fridge, we were not even on site, but kept everything in a cooler, iced it down good and kept it by the air conditioner, that stuff stayed ice cold and the ice barely melted. So we had breakfast in our room, brought peanutbutter sandwiches and snacks into the park and when we got back to our room just drove out to the closest fast food place for dinner. We were on an extremely tight budget then. We only at out once the whole time in the parks!

 

[jacksmomma]

You mentioned eating dinner out and lunch and breakfast in...switch that up. Dinner is always the most expensive meal. Have a dine out lunch and eat the PBJ for dinner. Yummy and even cheaper!

 

[friend2Figment]

Bring your water with you. We brought vitamin water with us, saved us over $2.00 each time we wanted one. I got them on a great sale buy 10 for $10 get 5 free. My mom brought a bottle of soda as she is very big on her soda.

We also had applesauce cups, the grab it size packs of nuts, fruit snacks, some microwave items such as mac & cheese & soup for the kids.

Mods have a microwave & toaster in the food court so you could use those.

 

[minushka72]

Bring your water with you. We brought vitamin water with us, saved us over $2.00 each time we wanted one. I got them on a great sale buy 10 for $10 get 5 free. My mom brought a bottle of soda as she is very big on her soda.

We also had applesauce cups, the grab it size packs of nuts, fruit snacks, some microwave items such as mac & cheese & soup for the kids.

Mods have a microwave & toaster in the food court so you could use those.

Maybe a package of bagels and cream cheese. use the toaster at the food court if you need it toasted.

 

[mom2t]

We plan on eating at least one meal a day either in the park or order in pizza or something... I was just trying to get ideas for things to do in the room or good cheap places to eat!


I have also booked a couple TS meals so we are not going to ONLY rely on room food just wondered if anyone had any great money saving tips!

That is what we do if in a regular room. Cereal, oatmeal (use a small coffee pot to hear water before making coffee that morning, etc. for breakfast. We eat lunch in the park or usually come back to rest in the room and lunch and usually early dinner at foodcourt or table service. The prices are so high for food. This year we are splitting the cost of a 2 bedroom villa with my parents- we were lucky to get a 40% off or we would not have done that. Good thing we did . My Mom had to have surgery - outpatient for gallstones on Jan. 5th and the dr. said she could go because of the time of room we have - she will rest better.

 

[SDSorority]

Here's what we do!

Breakfast-

Breakfast cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 C Rolled or Instant Oats, unflavored
1 T Peanut Butter (or more if you like PB!)
1/2 Ripe Banana
Handful of Raisins
Dash of Cinnamon
Dash of Water
(any other additions you would like- chopped nuts, other dried fruit, protein powder, cocoa powder, honey, be creative!)

In a bowl, combine dry ingredients, including any dried fruits or nuts you'd like in your 'cookie'.
Mash up 1/2 Banana with a fork and mix in with dry ingredients until everything is coated and sticky. Add a dash of water to help with mixing.
Store in fridge (or ice chest) in bowl overnight, enjoy cold in the morning, consume with a fork or spoon. This mixture will not 'harden' like a cookie, but will be cookie dough-ish. Very healthy!

With the breakfast cookie, we like to have a piece of fruit and OJ.


Lunch/snacks-

PB and J sandwiches
Trail mix made out of cereal, nuts, dried fruit
Fruit or applesauce cups
Kashi Crackers
Cut up veggies
BIG JUGS OF WATER that we can refill our aluminum water bottles with. MUCH CHEAPER than individual bottles of water.


We DO go shopping and get groceries during our trip and make sure we have a fridge in whatever onsite room we are staying in.

 

[Kay1]

Publix has sushi, shrimp cocktail, fruit and vegetable salads, and the deli has the usual, including subs, salads and deviled eggs. I love to have those things on hand.

And, yes, we have plenty of fun.

 

[2disneyboys]

we usually do the QSDP and we still prefer to do breakfast in the room... feed the kids while we are gettng ready and then we grab something on the way to the bus stop. makes it a lot easier to get to rope drop!

I second the PP who suggested you eat lunch out and do dinner light in your room. before we started using the DP, we would eat a late lunch (2ish) and then a snack later in the park and by the time we got back to the room, we would enjoy a light sandwich/chips etc.

 

[Marionnette]

You mentioned eating dinner out and lunch and breakfast in...switch that up. Dinner is always the most expensive meal. Have a dine out lunch and eat the PBJ for dinner. Yummy and even cheaper!

This is much more workable when you have older kids and you don't expect to go back to the room every afternoon for a rest period or nap. If you take a break in the park and have lunch there, you will be saving travel time to and from the resort in the middle of the day. We usually grab a fast pass for an attraction and then head to lunch to wait for the return time. In disney, time is money.

We had apples and bananas in the room. We also brought granola bars to snack on and a coffeemaker for hot water. You can bring those individual cups of oatmeal and cereal for breakfast. Get juice and milk from the food court.

Microwave mac n cheese, cup of soup or soup in hand and a salad from the food court make a pretty filling dinner. Just use the microwave in the food court to heat them.

Take mix ins for water to make iced tea or lemonade and get free ice water. 4C makes a decent fruit punch. Crystal Light has several flavors.

Hormel makes some microwavable meals that don't need to be refrigerated. I wouldn't recommend a steady diet of them but they can make do for a week and are better than eating PB&J. They're called Compleats and they have some healthy option versions. They are about $2.50 each when they're on sale.

 

[tnmt]

We had breakfast in our room, lunch in the parks and dinner in our room. We went to Walmart and got rosterie chicken in the deli, rolls, potato salad, etc and took back to room. We had leftover chicken the next night or 2. We ordered pizza one night. We had sanwiches and chips a couple of nights and I think we did get dinner one night at Pop just to try it out. On our down day we ate breakfast in the food court and lunch in room and ate locally that night. We saved a ton of money and would never get the meal plan.

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

I couldn't eat all of my meals without a kitchen. We stay at condos for this.

You can certainly have b-fast and take lunch into the parks with you, but I would get something hot for dinner. Just me maybe.

Dawn

This is what I'd think also. OP, would it be possible to rent DVC points for a 1 bedroom for close to the cost of what you are paying for the moderate? Would you be open to renting a 1 or 2 bedroom unit at Bonnet Creek since you're going to have a car? It's on property...just not Disney owned. It's BEAUTIFUL and you can get it pretty cheaply, though (cheaper than a moderate IMHO).

Either that, or do you own another timeshare that you might be able to swap for DVC or Bonnet Creek on RCI? A full kitchen is so nice to have when you're on vacation! We cook most of our meals on vacation. In our case, it's mostly because eating out with a 2 year-old is not fun

 

[shortbun]

When we're on a budget, we've eaten breakfast in the room, dinner was pizza take out or something akin to fast food and lunch in the parks so we didn't have to drag food around with us. We did take snk bars and water bottles. We also stay offsite with a kitchenette often because of the convenience of having a frig and microwave.

 

[HS3kids]

We flew and stayed at FW cabins in October- I packed some snack foods- nuts, granola bars, cheese and sticks,small jar of peanut butter, fun packs of cereal...but we also used Garden Grocer- had them deliver a case of bottled water, gallon of milk, fruit, bread, yogurt, cheese... and ended up getting a pkg of donuts at the trading post
We ate breakfast in our room/cabin several times (toast with peanut butter, fruit, donuts, yogurt) something quick. We found out pretty quickly that we spent a LOT of time sitting and eating (FW only had TS for breakfast) and spending $ unneccesarily. We had the DDP but I wanted to use our TS credits on character meals- it was a better value that way.
Planning a 2012 trip and already plan to eat at least one meal a day in our rooms (hoping to stay at ASMU family suites)

 

[tlh0726]

Our family is more snackers than eaters when on vacation. We normally average one regular meal a day and snack other times. Every 3rd day we kinda look at each other and say FOOD!

We eat breakfast in the room or take along something that we can eat while waiting for rope drop.

We pack a pencil box of snack items (pretzels, trail mix, fruit snacks, etc) for each person. The pencil box keeps stuff from getting squished in the backpack or stroller. Everyone has a different color so it is easy to grab and start munching. We will snack while going from one ride to another or while waiting in line.

We also take a small soft sided cooler for any items (bologna and cheese cubes, yogurt sticks, cheese spread for dipping crackers or pretzels etc) that we need to keep cold. Just remember to eat these things first before the ice pack melts.

we also take along the single serve drink mix packets. We will grab a cup of ice water from a counter service stand and add the flavor packet.

We normally grab a late lunch / early dinner counter service meal or something off site if we hopping to another park.

When we do decide that we need "real" food we will hit an offsite all u can eat buffet place like Golden Corral or Bonanza. It lets everyone satisfy what they are craving.

May not work for others, but works for us. This will our 4th trip doing it this way.

 

[crisi]

Its easier with a car and/or a kitchen. But its doable however you do it - although without a kitchen a cold sandwiches can get old. I know people have done "in room crockpots" and the like - but they aren't safe to leave unattended in a hotel, and I can't imagine washing out a crockpot in a hotel bathroom sink.

As for splitting meals, if you have bigger appitites you might be disappointed. But we think the ribs at both Cosmic Rays and Flame Tree are big enough to share. We split our Dole Whips too - they are too much for one person (maybe not in size, but in intensity). Portion sizes seem to have decreased (and prices increased) at a lot of places....but we still split appitizers and desserts. I recall Kouzzina having some ample portions last trip though.

We pack in our water and tend to pack in snacks - not necessarily for "budget" reasons but because the junk available quickly isn't to our snacking taste (we pack in Clif bars and the like).