DVC and cooking

[Candlelady]

I'm trying to get a list together of food and snacks to bring/buy for our first trip as members. We do plan on eating a few meals in, mostly breakfast and light late night dinners since we eat most of our big meals in the late afternoon.

What kinds of food do you usually bring with you and what do you usually cook that is quick, easy, and everyone likes? Do you find that you bought too much, not enough? Any words of wisdom for a DVC newbie?

 

[llp479]

We usually do cereal and toast in the mornings, juice and coffee for DH. I'll pick up a couple of frozen pizzas, some spagehtti and sauce. Just packed the microwave popcorn for our 1/1/03 trip. Our 3 dds are HUGE popcorn fans. We've made grilled cheese, PB&J, sandwiches, etc.

Sometimes it's nice to just relax and unwind while eating, not to mention the cost savings.

 

[Disneyaholic]

We usually also get some lunch meat, for lunches or whenever anyone has the hungries...

Also, frozen lasagna, bagged, salad, and frozen garlic bread are great for a quick dinner.

 

[Claudia1]

I like to take the ready-cooked bacon that doesn't need refrigerated until it is opened. Yes, it's more expensive than the regular bacon but it travels well and is much less expensive than the eating breakfast everyday at WDW!

I cook ground beef (with only salt & pepper to season) and then freeze it in baggies. I also freeze juice boxes and pack them all together for travel. The meat will stay frozen for several hours and remain chilled for at least 12 hours. Once I'm at WDW, it can become taco meat, pasta meat, or sloppy joes.

I also like to take potatoes for baking. They don't bruise or spoil in transit and I use salsa, ground beef and cheese for toppings.

 

[Granny]

For breakfast foods, we bring bagels, bread, juices and pop tarts. We also bring soft drinks since we drink them a lot. And then the usual snack stuff.

Oh, and I bring coffee pouches as well...gotta have that java in the morning!!

 

[SamR]

We're relatively new to DVC as well, only having one studio stay under our belt. However, for our upcoming trip in a BCV one-bedroom, our plans are to have cereal and pastries for breakfasts each morning, and spaghetti or grilled cheeses for one evening meal, with pizza ordered for another (from Giordano's or Pizza hut, as we were very unimpressed with BC room service pizza on our last trip). We are looking forward to eating some dinners in the room instead of dragging our kids into restaurants every night!

We'll pick up the above items, along with soft drinks, juice boxes, and some bottled water, at our grocery stop coming in from the airport (via Tiffany Town Car). Items we will bring from home (so that we don't have to buy them) include: small salt & pepper shakers, a couple of popcorn packages, ziploc bags, and some sheets of foil.

Not food-related, but we will also bring along a few Bounce sheets and a bit of laundary detergent (probably those large tablets) since we may need to do more than one load of laundary (and my understanding is they only provide enough for the first load).

 

[DeeCee735]

We bring soda, water, milk, eggs, juice, bread, jelly, cereal and snack packs (like the 36 small bags from Costco). The water and snacks we take with us during the day, saves a small fortune on purchasing that stuff during the day. Eggs, toast and/or cereal are for a couple of breakfasts, and I say couple because the temptations of the BW bakery get us most mornings! I find that when I stock up on dinners, it goes to waste (or at best is used as late night snacks, like frozen pizza's, chop meat for burgers, etc.) because we all prefer eating out, off property too, when we are on vacation. Eating dinner on property can be costly, but we love trying new restaurants and new resorts. We've also gone to Olive Garden off property, or gotten Chinese once or twice, it's eating out, but keeping costs down too! Have a great vacation!

 

[shelbyjosh]

We usually end up getting some chicken and making chicken parmesan one night with some garlic bread. Other quick and easy meals are tacos, sloppy joes, soup & sandwich. We like to have a nice breakfast. More than just the cereal or pop tarts thing. That gets old quick. We do bring down our griddle (fits nice in suitcase) and that makes for quick clean-up since the pans there are small and will stick! Pizzas are good. What about those Create-A-Meals (frozen, in bags) that you saute in a skillet and ready to eat?? They come chicken or beef.

 

[Candlelady]

Thanks so much for all the responses! You've all given me some good advice and ideas. I totally forgot about the simple things like salt & pepper, dryer sheets, etc.

Hey, SamR! According to your countdown we'll be there at the same time!

Maybe we'll see you there!

 

[SamR]

According to your countdown we'll be there at the same time!

Even more coincidentally, if your countdown timer is counting down to your arrival to the BCV, they your arrival time (Saturday morning) is exactly the same as ours was originally planned to be. Our flight arrives Friday evening, and we were originally planning to stay off site Friday night (to save points), and show up at BCV Saturday morning. However, when the AP codes came out in late October, I snapped up a standard Beach Club room for Friday night so that we could arrive at the World even sooner, and get an even earlier start to the parks the next morning!

 

[Candlelady]

We're actually arriving on Thursday morning and staying at POR for two days before checking into BCV on Saturday morning. I was originally going to book a room at the BC to also save a few points, but my daughter loves to jog at POR as the sun comes up so we're staying there instead. Can't beat the AP price for two nights in a mod.

So we will definitely see you there. Maybe even at check-in. It will be my two daughters and me. If you see three good looking gals that's us. We're kind of hard to miss. I'll be the old frazzled one who looks great for her age , one of the girls is tall, athletic, and never stops talking, the other is short, blond and has a limp from an accident.

 

[carone0318]

We usually stay in a studio so our cooking is limited, but one thing that I bring is the Easy Mac. My kids love that stuff.