Credit crunch tips pls!

[Li-sa]

Following on from other threads about DLP on a budget, I'm wondering if you all have money saving tips? We don't want to seem mean, but we were working on a much better exchange rate when we booked.

We have booked HB which I wasn't sure of at the time of booking, but looks ever more appealing now

I know that breakfast 'borrowing' seems to be common place but is it 'acceptable' or frowned on? We took a few extra pain au chocolats for snacks last time we visited, but felt very guilty!

Are prices the same in all the DLP shops? I'm sure my kids will want to spend all their pocket money, but I would like them to get their money's worth.

We will take a travel kettle and some tea bags/hot choc. I think we can still walk to the garage by the Santa Fe, from the Cheyenne, for extra food/drinks, is that right?

Thanks.

 

[hildasmuriel]

Like many, I can recommend the shop in the train station (the big one in the RER bit, not the little one in the TGV bit). Large bottles of water are much cheaper here than even the garage. A large bag of crisps was 85 cents last week - plenty for 2. They sell sandwiches and rolls and packets of biscuits. Not the healthiest, I know but they help the money to stretch.

All the shops in the Park seem to sell souvenirs at the same price. I noticed many items were on sale at the moment - looks for the red signs above goods, or items with coloured stickers on.

Consider having a BIG meal at lunchtime and you may find you need only a small snack in the evening. If you fill up at breakfast then lunch at about 2 you could be filled up for most of the day.

If you can get your children to save their money until the last day, then so much the better. That way they have the wonderful anticipation of what they will have and you don't have the scenario where they spend all their money and then see the must-have item they didn't know about!

 

[jillrobinson]

HB seems to be the way to go, although I was hoping to add mine nearer to our departure, but reading comments on another thread has made me wonder if DLP will change the prices before our trip, so I may have to add it in Jan and we'll have to live on bread & water.
I've already bought some vending packs of coffee, chocolates and soups, I got them in Home Bargains starting at 99p for 7 cups, we'll probably take a flask of hot water into the park along with a couple of the cups, so we can make up a hot drink. The soups we'll have at the hotel in the evening when we've had our main meal at lunchtime and I will probably take a breakfast roll each, I do normally anyway and feed them to the ducks, but I'm afraid next time our need will be greater. I don't normally advocate taking from breakfast, inevitably it pushes the prices up for everyone, but I don't think a couple of rolls is going to break them and to be honest despite my pleeding the family don't fill up at breakfast, preferring instead to buy hotdogs 2 hours later, I've told them this is out of the question next time.
I'm also hoping to take advantage of Salon Mickey.
As far as snacks go I can highly recommend Mugshots - soups with noodles or pasta in, they're very filling and low fat, I've been eating them on my Slimming World diet, so I'll be getting a couple of those too, other than that we take cereal bars and fresh fruit and fruit squash because you can't seem to get it there.
If you need any snacks at the park get them from the train station shop or the SF garage.
Can't think of anything else except pray that the £ doesn't drop any lower.

 

[Tillybud]

I have never invested in the HB vouchers but I certainly will do when we get round to booking our next trip ... just need to work out when we can afford it !!

I always bring lots of snacks from home, tubes of pringles which travel quite well, crisps, weetabix etc. I found if ds and dd were hungry before bed I'd buy some milk from the shop in the hotel and they'd have a weetabix.

We also tend to do what has already been suggested, a big breakfast and a big lunch and a lighter tea. I also can recommend the sandwich deli place in the village, I don't remember how much their meal deals are but they are great value ... you get a very large baguette, fries and a drink which are really filling and very tasty.

Looking forward to seeing what tips people have.