Cook at campsite VS. Eat out at Table and Counter Services

[DJBounce]

My wife wants to camp at Fort Wilderness again, now with our new Pop-Up. When I brought up meal ideas to make with our stove, grill, slow-cooker at the camp site she looked at me and claimed it to be "crazy talk". I pointed out that we could have a longer vacation if we cooked on site for a majority of meals, and skip the Dining Plan for that trip. I offered to Hoop De Doo as well as a couple of other places, but she is still looking at me with those "who are you and what did you do with my husband" look.
For my Poll, for all you vets of Ft. Wilderness, or fellow newbies like me...Eat In, stay longer or Eat out, shorter trip.

 

[F4disneyfan]

We always cook our meals at WDW so when we camp in 07 we will be cooking then also it really isn't a big hassle at all to make up something. We usually throw a roast in the crock pot with some potatoes etc and have a nice roast for dinner cooking is half the pleasure then we can also coltrol the kids sugar and junk intake.

 

[btmfdr]

Not a veteran thus I didn't respond to your poll however we wre booked at the campsite for 10 days in order to take advantage of the savings we expected to incur by eating at the campsite. Than we learned of the Dining Plan and decided that we would benefit from it and booked it. One we booked the DP we were torn between staying at the campsite or at a Value resort as no longer would lugging the camper 1050 miles be a significant saving in food costs. We than changed our resevation from the campsite to a value as the difference in price we would easily save on gas costs. Now were in the midst of looking to fly.... I guess its really to each their own, we went from driving there with a camper and eating most of our meals at the camper to possibly flying in and eating in the parks...

 

[irishbosoxfan]

We camped at FW back in July and did the dining plan--The way we looked at it was-we are on vacation and a vacation we already dropped a pretty penny on why would we want to limit our time in the parks to go back to the campsite to cook a meal then head back to the park

I think if the wife and kids want to have the extra time to spend at the parks and take in all it has to offer and are willing to give up a few extra days to do it then I say go for it

It'll probably work out even in cost anyways===shorter stay with dining plan, longer stay with extra park tickets

Good Luck!!

 

[juligrl]

I would do anything I could to get a longer stay at FW! Plus, if somebody sweetened the deal with Hoop De Do, well you'd better believe I'd be throwin' in the crock-pot.

How many meals are you talking though? Breakfast would be a given for me -- easy enough if you keep it simple to cereal and stuff like that. Dinner cooking all day in the crockpot would be reasonable too.

Maybe your wife is concerned that she will not get to experience any WDW restaurants if you do meals at your campsite. It is supposed to be a vacation after all and cooking still entails some degree of work.

 

[jima53]

We are popup campers also. We will be combining eating a good buffet breakfast everyday with a occasional lunch at the popup and probably all our dinners will be cooked there. We look for meals that take less than 30-45 minutes to prepare. Use good paper plates to just toss out and also plan on bringing some take out from the Trails End if possible to go with our steaks and other good foods. We also have a great cowboy speghetti that will be on our menu also. When we popup camp we always have some standard meals which use our crock pot, electric grill and also a covered roaster pan.

To be fair to the wife I hope the husband helps with the cooking chores so the wife doesn't have to do all work. It is a vacation for everyone. Im writing this from the standpoint of doing most of our cooking while camping and at home.



Jim

 

[Mickster]

I've gone with both the meal plan and eating at the campsite. I liked the "cheapness" of eating at the popup. We usually ate breakfast there and we got a bigger lunch in the parks and then came back for a smaller dinner. Or we would bring peanut butter crackers for lunch and eat dinner out. The meal plan is also a nice way to go, but we found that our kids didn't eat enough to warrant the cost. But, you are on vacation, and who wants to cook? It is really a tough question. One that I didn't help you with at all. Good luck!

 

[dreaming4disney]

I have done the meal plan twice at the campground. Add up the cost of the meals you want to eat out at and then the cost of meal plan for the whole trip and compare. For us, it wasn't that much more for the meal plan. It almost seemed like it pays to either eat all meals in camper or do the meal plan. Also, we did one trip in the winter and one in the summer. I wouldn't have minded cooking in cooler months, but it was so humid in the summer, I wouldn't have wanted to cook then.
Have a great time.

 

[corve77t]

cooking at the camp site is all part of the camping adventure. I vote to cook and stay longer. Who wants to return home quicker.

 

[Donna]

cooking at the camp site is all part of the camping adventure. I vote to cook and stay longer. Who wants to return home quicker.

Exactly! And she'll still have to cook when she gets home, so i say cook at the ft and stay as long as you can! anything to stretch it out!

 

[sapdaddy]

Home Boss being the organized person she is has a daily expense report she put together with cost of meals, campground, gas etc.

That being said she doesn't count meals cooked in the RV as a cost of the trip because as she sees it, "cook it at home or in the RV, we still have to eat"

We tend to make a big breakfast in the morning, have snacks from our backpack during the day and a big meal at supper. Last trip we did the hoop de doo and 4 Disney meals out the whole 10 days we were there.

I just looked at HB's paper from our last trip and it cost us $433.85 for a family of 4 for 15 vacation days (including the HDD)

 

[JPG]

Here's my take.....I like to eat out as much as anybody. Especially at Disney. However, if for budget's sake, my length of stay was based on how many meals I prepared at the camper, versus eating out.....Well then, cooking at the camper we would be...I would not spend more money on dining out, and have to cut my stay short. Heck, I never want to leave no matter how much we get to stay !

 

[CottontailCurl]

More Disney!! But we do a half and half kind of thing, we eat lunch at counter service restaurants (usually the ones with better variety; Cosmic Ray's for 1/4 rot. chicken, etc) and buffets or snack around the world showcase (restaurants usually have the same menu at lunch as supper but charge less) and we breakfast and supper at the campsite. Except for our traditional breakfast buffet at Trail's End one morning, gotta have those Mickey Waffles.

I voted for stay longer and Hoop De Doo.

Angie

 

[disneylovinmom]

I can understand your wife's thinking...it's her vacation too and having to cook is work. That said when we go we'll try to eat most of our meals at our camper. We bought it specifically to cut down on expenses when traveling and I'd rather my family have good home cooked meals and save our money for other things. I know we'll do a character breakfast and probably a few meals. My kids are younger and we are older and I'm sure we'll need breaks. My vote is extra days and do the cooking yourselves or the majority of it.

Lisa

 

[ftwildernessguy]

My wife has no issues with eating at the camper, since whenever we camp, I am in charge of meal preparation and cleanup. We do a mix of CS and TS at our favorite Disney eateries and barbeques at the Kiwi.

 

[minkydog]

Definitely cook some meals at the camper We save time & money by eating all our breakfasts at our site. Then everyone packs their snacks "to go". We eat one TS meal a day, usually lunch. Then we have simple dinners at the camper whenever we return. The Dining Plan doesn't work for us anyway--we have too many "food issues"(low sodium diet, a kid with feeding problems). I don't like having to juggle a billion ADRs just to get some chow.

 

[VAN]

I think if you had the Dining Plan you would eat way more than you really needed.

We don't go into the parks everyday. The days we do go into the parks it is cereal for breakfast and then counter service for lunch and dinner.

Other days we have cold sandwiches for lunch and then maybe go out to eat in the evening.

This fits our lifestyle better ... burgers and fries / standing in line get old in a hurry!

Another thought - My sister is one that doesn't cook on vacation ... with 5 kids she hardly ever goes on vacation because they "can't afford it" - HELLO, make some sandwiches!!!

Everyone has different priorities - I'd rather eat PBJ and be at WDW than be at home.

 

[drafthorsecrazy]

In years past our stays were the short variety because of the demands of work and childrens school. During those stays we always ate out at least once or twice daily. Now that my husband is semi retired and we are planning on spending several weeks at FW we will have most of our food at the campsite. I have only made 2 ADRS each wk for our upcoming Jan. trip.

 

[christinou]

We are not big breakfast eater, so for us it is always cereal or bagels in the camper, we generally need a break mid-day, we go in August, and it does get hot, so it is easy to go back for lunch and we have simple lunches in the camper, dinner is a mixture of camper, TS and CS restaurant, so the disney plan would not work well for us. Our DDs will be 10 and 12 next year and would have to pay adult price, we will be there for 14 nights and it would cost us $2,200. There is no way that the kids could eat the amount of food in the plan, so for us it does not make sense, but for other it might be a great value.....

 

[laceemouse]

I think if you had the Dining Plan you would eat way more than you really needed.

We don't go into the parks everyday. The days we do go into the parks it is cereal for breakfast and then counter service for lunch and dinner.

Other days we have cold sandwiches for lunch and then maybe go out to eat in the evening.

This fits our lifestyle better ... burgers and fries / standing in line get old in a hurry!

Another thought - My sister is one that doesn't cook on vacation ... with 5 kids she hardly ever goes on vacation because they "can't afford it" - HELLO, make some sandwiches!!!

Everyone has different priorities - I'd rather eat PBJ and be at WDW than be at home.

Amen!!!