Have you stayed in a place with a kitchen?

[crisi]

Thank you all! You know what I love about these boards? So much information. You know what I hate about these boards? So much information. Anyway, I'll keep thinking and rethinking it until it's over. This is our first time. We are going with my parents. Next year we are going back with DH's parents. I'm looking at this year as our planning year. This is what I'm thinking...

Breakfast in the room everyday except one that we have PS at Crystal Palace. Then take snacks to the parks. Go back to the place for late lunch/rest/early dinner depending on how we feel and then back to the parks. Then plan some places that I really want to hit for lunch or dinner spread throughout the week. My sons are 2 and 4 so I think we will be heading back for naps anyway.

If you are driving, its easy to bring "cupboard foods" Pasta and sauce. Peanut butter. Tuna. Then you don't have to worry about overspending and throwing it away at the end of the trip, you can pack it up.

We fly, so we end up tossing even the cupboard foods we don't use. We spend $120 at the grocery store last trip - and used $30 of it.

 

[bfila]

A few years ago we stayed at the Ft. Wilderness Cabins for a week. We ate breakfast there every day and ate dinner there every night except one (and that was a big splurge at Victoria and Albert's. ) We ate lunch in the parks. It didn't seem like that big of deal to cook.

 

[abeyst]

We eat b-fast in the room like everyone else mentioned (except for a morning or 2 that my kids have to have Mickey waffles!), and we eat about 1/2 our dinners and 1/2 our lunches in our room. The rest of the time we're in a park and are starving and have to grab something right away, or we just get tired of eating in and want to splurge at a restaurant.

We've found that spaghetti and salad can make it for at least 2 dinners, and sandwiches for lunch or a late night snack come in handy. But you'll only need 1 box of cereal! Don't make the same mistake we did in that department!

 

[Nicolepa]

Breakfast in the room everyday except one that we have PS at Crystal Palace. Then take snacks to the parks. Go back to the place for late lunch/rest/early dinner depending on how we feel and then back to the parks. Then plan some places that I really want to hit for lunch or dinner spread throughout the week. My sons are 2 and 4 so I think we will be heading back for naps anyway.

My kids are the same ages as yours. What we do is head back to the room when they can't take anymore. We stay on Pacific time for our trip so that melt down time is around 4:00. While the kids are napping/winding down I cook dinner. We wake the kids up, eat and head back to the parks. They had to have their nap/rest time anyway so I may as well cook dinner during that time and save the money. We stayed for a week and our entire bill at checkout was $300 (tickets & room already paid for), plus $100 at the grocery store. My inlaws did come for 2 days so that was 2 nice dinners out that we didn't pay for.

 

[CourtasanSatine]

the kitchen is mostly good for breakfast and for snack storage(especially for drinks)

 

[simpilotswife]

Mostly breakfast and an occasional dinner.

 

[SnowWitch]

When we first bought into DVC we rationalized we would prepare some meals. LOL. Yeah right, 5 years later I could count how many time that has happened. Yes, we eat breakfast in the room and as others have mentioned its nice to have a frig/freezer to keep drinks cold and put leftovers in. The only vacations we have truly used our kitchen is at VB.

 

[VictoriaRose]

The kitchen is nice to make eggs for breakfast, hold a full size half n half for coffee, and a microwave for popcorn.

I find we use the kitchen more when we travel with large groups, then I might make up a pot of chilli, bake chicken or something that I KNOW will be eaten.

 

[chrismiss56]

We stayed at a DVC property last year and made dinner a couple of nights to save some money - spaghetti and tacos. Had breakfast in the villa every morning. Also made sandwiches for Typhoon Lagoon. Went to Publix rather than Goodings.....much much cheaper.....would do it again.

Have a magical Disney Day!!

 

[cmrules]

We own DVC and we do make use of the kitchen. We usually eat breakfast in our room, go to the parks and come back to the room for lunch. our kids are small so the break is good for us. We eat easy food, PB&J, pizza, nuggets or hot dogs. Then we head back to the parks in the late afternoon and have a nice dinner out. This does save us a ton of money and I don't really feel like I am cooking on my vacation.

 

[TINKTWINS]

It is very nice to have the option to have things on hand if you would like them. We were ate OKW on December, we are 2 families who travel together, 11 total, 3 rooms usually, DH and myself having the youngest kids, 5yo twins, who are generally up first, its nice to be able to have my gallon of tea in the AM and feed them without having to wait for everyone to shower and dress and then drive someplace to eat. I did over shop for food unfortunatly. I did not buy dinner food as I knew I would not cook a real dinner, no sense trying to kid anyone here, it wasnt happening, but I did buy sandwhich stuff, and we did use that. Sometimes we get back to the room and plan on going back out to eat and never make it so it helped to have food. Cold drinks was a huge plus, I also had snacks for the car rides.

 

[NotSoMini]

"Park" days, we eat breakfast in our unit (when we have a kitchen), and dinner, if we decide to call it a day and head home early (by 6:30 or 7:00).

If we decide to park hop or make it a late day at one park, we'll eat dinner somewhere in a park (since no plans, likely counter service).

Also, when we have a kitchen we're more likely to take something with us for a light lunch, since we'll likely have something to take in our borrowed cupboards!

When we stay on site, we eat all meals 'out' - we only keep snacks in our room.

Therefore, we spend a lot of extra $$ when we don't have a kitchen! (We've never had a kitchen when we've stayed on site - too much $$!).

Speaking for myself, however, I will eat nothing but crackers and cheese or PB&J if it means the difference between going to WDW (either on or off site) and staying home!