For those who stay in vacation homes or villas, what are some meals..

[becky7953]

We fix breakfast at the home. Then mostly eat out, mostly outside of WDW (right there you are saving money). Lots of snacks, we have ordered pizza.... it is vacation not a time to waste cooking

 

[sammi]

MossMan you're meal plans sound soooo delicious!

And your DW's gourmet sandwiches would be soooo good to have for lunch when touring the parks......these are great ideas!The only thing that I would have to add is a great bottle of either red or white wine for sitting out under the lanai in the evenings! We're renting our first vacation villa in 3 weeks!

 

[MaMa3Princess]

Driving or flying? If you're driving think about pre-cooking some dinners and just freeze it in a ziploc. Precooked taco meat, sloppy joes, chicken breasts, beef or pork for BBQ all can be reheated quickly. The cooking board has a sticky thread for crockpot ideas.

Thanks for this suggestion. Now I really can shave some dollars off our spring trip

 

[JoyG]

We'll be renting a condo or villa this summer and I really want to eat as many meals as possible in the condo, or pack them to take to the parks with us. I only want to buy one character meal during the trip and maybe one daily snack in the parks.

I have a couple of questions. For those of you who bring your lunches to the parks with you (the gourmet deli sandwiches sound great)...how do you work that? I know the parks don't usually allow food brought in right? I was thinking about just putting it in an ice cooler in our trunk and head back to the car for lunch. Would that be too inconvenient?

The next question, is how much money should I budget for my family for one week if we eat most of our meals at home? I usually spend $125 or so per week on groceries...I was thinking on vacation to allow $200 or so...will that be enough?

Thanks!
Joy

 

[MossMan]

For those of you who bring your lunches to the parks with you (the gourmet deli sandwiches sound great)...how do you work that? I know the parks don't usually allow food brought in right? I was thinking about just putting it in an ice cooler in our trunk and head back to the car for lunch. Would that be too inconvenient?

We have never, ever been told to dump any food we bring into the parks. When the security people look in our bags, the food is on top and plainly visible. Nobody ever says a thing – ever. We freeze a few bottles of water and put them into insulated bags with the sandwiches to keep everything cool. My son and I usually do the toting, but if you have little ones the strollers sure can come in handy for this.

And yes, I think it would be too inconvenient to go back out to your car. Bring it with you. You’re going to finish it off by lunch anyway.

I actually suggest you don’t bring chips and cookies with you. Still buy some stuff onsite. This is one of Disney’s strength. Though I would far rather have a well made sandwich over a Disney hamburger, afterwards I would rather get a Disney treat to than anything else I could buy at a supermarket. Bringing food is a great way to save money. But at the same time, don’t deny yourself one of the great pleasures of Disney. One of the best arguments you can make to justify bringing your own food to the parks is that it will save you enough money so you can try even more different foods.

 

[LauraAnn630]

I was excited to see the crock pot liners too!! We are going for Christmas and New Years. We are planing some quick meals at the villa.
I was thinking of making chili and sloppy joes.
We are also having cold cuts and cheese for subs, tuna, blts and salads.

breakfast
quiche (making 2 our first day there so they just have to be warmed up, saving some bacon for blts)
bagels
cold cereal
oatmeal
fruit

Christmas Day-no park day! Maybe DTD
reserving a ham

 

[Amirah95]

We only do breakfast (cooking) in the villa and everything else out. I think I would cook for dinner if we didn't stay in the parks from open to close. But then we have all of these coupons and discounts from like Pizza Hut and so on we come out cheaper than buying groceries. But then again we are only a family of three.

 

[sammi]

There's nothing like a FROZEN solid mickey bar at snacktime!

 

[swilshire]

We always hit Sams for frozen Stouffers lasagna, party type foods like mini-quiches and rollup sandwiches, hot pockets, frozen chicken bits, etc. We also get french bread and salad stuff. We sometimes do a pot of chili or taco meat. We cook everything in the first day or two and just heat and eat from there on out.

We usually plan to eat out a bit more than we do, but find ourselves with food we want to finish up before checkout. None of the kids really like to sit in a restaurant and wait to be served, so we save tons of money by skipping it for the most part.

Sheila

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Most of the meals we cook are for our son , we even bring our own gravy from the UK.
If we cook for ourselves it tends to be more snack food such as breakfast, or egg on toast for example.

We do get take-outs quite regularly from the Outback restaurant/KFC and chik-fil-a.