fridge vs. cooler?

[dny1112000]

I know this is a resort question, but they don't seem to get answered.

I was thinking about getting a refrigerator in our room ($60 + tax ) but am now thinking about getting a cooler on the grocery stop on the way from the airport.

Are the ice machines easily accessible? Is it a real pain to fill the cooler every day (I'm all about a little inconvenience to save a little money)

Any advice from pro's? This is our first go-round and need a few tricks of the trade.

Thanks

 

[pdarrah]

It depends somewhat on what resort you are at...

I believe that the moderates have started just putting fridge's in the rooms for no extra cost. However, I have no idea about the value resorts.

Before the change at the moderates, we always picked up a cheap styrofoam cooler and used that. It wasn't a big deal to get ice for it (remember to empty the water out at least once per day and put a towel under it in case it leaks/dribbles a little on the carpet). The only thing to think of is that everything in it needs to be in packaging of some sort since it gets pretty wet as the ice melts. We usually just had a few soft drinks, a small bottle of milk and yogurt (DS6 is a dairy nut and the day starts much better with yogurt and milk - we let him have this quirk since he is VERY skinny and we watch his calories to try and get MORE into him -boy I wish I had that problem!)

I hope that helps some.

pdarrah

 

[Belle1111]

Make sure your room doesn't have a fridge first. We've done the styrofoam cooler in the room with just a little inconvenience (you could even request a room near the ice machine if you wanted). Every night my dh would just go get more ice and we'd pour out the excess water. We do breakfast most mornings in our room so we needed milk- and it's nice to start the day with cold water bottles. At the end of the vacation we just left the cooler- it was only about $3 compared to $60.

 

[PopArtGal]

is there a grocery store at a walkable distance from all-star music? last time we were there we did not know where one was.

 

[Ardenne]

We really liked having a cooler. We brought a big camping-style one, which was still less than the cost of a fridge rental, and just added a bucket or two of ice each evening. It had more room than a mini-fridge, and we were able to use it on the trip up and back. (We were driving, though -- if you're flying, a foam one would no doubt be a lot more sensible!)

We generally ate breakfast in the room unless we had a breakfast ADR, and it was nice to have cold water bottles to start the day.

Re: grocery store -- there isn't one within walking distance, I don't think, but as I recall there's one that's no more than 10-15 mins by car.