How do you handle your Budget $$

[momoftwins]

We are going to the BCV (1 bedroom) for the first time in April. With all of the other trips (always stayed on-site at the resorts) I have found it easy to budget $$ for our food.


With all our other trips, we always eat breakfast in the room. We are just not a rush in the morning family. Do you all find your dining habits have changed a lot since you can cook? We will be going for 7 days over our Spring break. I already have 4 Q&C and one VKL. We tend to share meals (we buy extra fries, etc and usually share the sandwiches). I do not like big meals and my twins are only 8 and don't believe in eating at this stage in their lives (kidding).

Do most of you go back to your room for lunch and dinner? I'm thinking this time, we may rent a locker and bring sandwiches for our lunch/dinner. Do you do this?

Thanks. I'm just adjusting thinking to this DVC thing. I am so thrilled we won't have to do commando style vacationing anymore. Now, with DVC I know we will be going back

Have a great night.

 

[crisi]

We cooked a lot more breakfast in our room. And really cooked - omlets, scrambled eggs.

But we didn't cook any lunch or dinner. OK, I made peanut butter sandwiches twice for hungry children, but that in addition to lunch. We popped popcorn one evening. And we threw out a TON of food.

I don't think MOST of us cook in our rooms or bring sandwiches, but certainly SOME do.

 

[Sammie]

Our dining did not change with DVC, we have breakfast in the villa except for the days we have a special one planned and eat out the rest of the meals.

 

[JimC]

We stay in 1 and 2 bedroom villas when at DVC. We generally have breakfast in the villa, lunch sometimes and dinner rarely. We may cook a pizza or warm up left overs from a restaurant the night before. But we have never really cooked a full meal.

We like to eat out when on property. There are so many great places. My wife and I often share a lunch since they really load up the combos and platters.

 

[rocketriter]

We eat breakfasts in the room (except for a character breakfast), eat fast food for lunch in the parks, then have a nicer supper, often at an Epcot restaurant.

We use the villa refrigerator to freeze small plastic water bottles and juice boxes, and we buy snacks in bulk on our way in from the airport. These go into fanny packs (the coolness is welcome in hot weather!) and significantly cut down on the soft drinks and junk food budget.

Once in a while when we're all exhausted and crabby, we blow off a PS (we do call them and let them know), buy a frozen pizza downstairs, and just crash at the villa for the evening playing board games and hanging out.

 

[manning]

Breakfast only in the room saves alot of money.

 

[lenshanem]

So far, breakfast in the room. Quick and easy, saves time and money I think.

After a few DVC trips I think I now have it down as to what we need to take. We most always have a PS for dinner, lunch is out while we're at the parks and it is always fast food.

I do like to take snacks, such as popcorn, etc. I also like having fruit in the room after eating so much junk.

 

[AnnaS]

We will make one or two grocery stops and stock up on soda, water, snacks, fruit (need to have a bowl on table everywhere I go ). We buy what we need to make breakfasts (hot cakes, eggs/bacon, cereal, etc) (unless like everyone said and we have a character meal planned). We also buy cold cuts and some frozen pizza, etc. Not necessarily for a meal but this would be a snack or quick lunch for my kids til dinner time. We might have lunch once or twice but only if we are at the resort and have something there to eat. I don't like to cook full meals (I do this at home almost every night and definitely need a break, lol).

 

[lenshanem]

I don't really plan any character breakfasts anymore. We've done them all now. I think they are expensive, take up your whole morning and the kids never eat cause they're too busy waiting for them to come to the table. This last trip after Chef Mickey's we had no walked out of there one hour and they were both screaming they were hungry!

I now usually plan a character meal on the morning we check out and are leaving. Works well. Or a character dinner on our first night. I'm a big fan of Chef Mickey's.

Breakfast seems to work really well with DVC.

 

[lurontravel]

DVC didn't change my eating habits, our kids did!! They just don't do well in restaurants unless they eat as SOON as they get hungry (and this can vary), and it's a relatively quick meal.

Now, I bring an electric skillet,and can cook a hot breakfast (in one pan) in the room, and a Hamburger Helper type of meal for dinner in the evening (I also usually cook some meat sauce at home and bring some pre-cooked noodles for another dinner or two). I bring a mini cooler in to the parks with tuna egg salad, and crackers for instant food during the day for lunch, as we hang out in line, someone always decides that they are hungry. We used to eat at least one big meal out a day until the little one got to be about 6-8 mos old, and then found that unless it is just the two of us, it isn't worth spending a lot of money to have a stressful meal. Yes, we do also have drinks, fruit and snacks in the room which saves a lot of $!

 

[Sabor]

Always Breakfast in the room.
Mostly Bagels, Eng Muffins , Pop Tarts (quick stuff) we Probably cook bacon and Eggs or other hot meals 2 out of 7 days.

We probably eat dinner out 2 out of 7 when we would have to eat out every day without DVC.

We usually go to a park for 4 hour come back and swim then have a late afternoon lunch/dinner and go back to a park or DD or the BW.

For us the we love the accomodations but the food savings from not eating out 7 nights pays for our DVC.

WE usually bring charcoal and BBQ burgers,hotdogs , steaks over at turtle pond (OKW) one afternoon. Tacos are always an easy meal to make. And we usaully get loads of Cold cuts.

 

[kda]

We rarely cook, but appreciate the fridge, microwave, and the ability to have sandwiches, cut up fruit, ice cream, etc, readily available. We REALLY appreciate being able to order whatever we want at dinner and not worry about wasting it or stuffing ourselves. It's so convenient to bring a doggie bag back to the room and enjoy the left overs another day.

 

[kathyseb]

Our first trip home will be in September. Prior to that we always stayed at DTD. There we had a frig in the room, but no microwave. But the 24 Hour Cafe in the lobby would let us use the microwave any time of the day.

Now that we are going home, we are not planning on cooking anything in the room, other than breakfast.

But a few of the places we eat dinner (Chevy's and Uno's for two) give you more than one meals worth of food.

We are looking forward to being able to heat the left overs up in our room and eat whenever we want.

 

[Cruelladeville]

Cook in the room? Isn't MOM on vacation, too? In our family, she is--she had better be, since she is making the DVC payments every month! No, we never cook. We eat breakfast in the room nearly every day, and that saves a lot, but I made it clear to one and all that I won't go if meals are expected. It's just not fun for me, I spend all my time cleaning. Hey, a gilded cage is still a cage, even at WDW

 

[ksoehrlein]

We've only stayed in Studios so "real" cooking hasn't been an option -- not that I do much "real" cooking at home, mind you. But I have to agree with several other posters about enjoying having the fridge and microwave just in case. At one Epcot meal, DS and I had to escape as he was cranky, tired, and teething. My DH and DD simply brought my meal home to BWV for me and I was able to eat it later without worrying about food safety issues.

 

[laceemouse]

Prior to buying DVC we mostly stayed in off-site TSs so we always had a kitchen. We enjoy making several meals in the room. My kids can get impatient so eating out every day gets old with all the waiting involved. We do breakfast, and some lunches and dinners. Nothing difficult, sandwiches, sloppy joes, pizza, tacos, and an occasional Stoufflers lasagna or caserole. We have never taken meals into the parks.

 

[MinnieGi]

We seem to be using the kitchen more each DVC trip we take. My DH actually really enjoys cooking and on vacation he is the one that totally takes on that responsibility. And he is very good at it! He often cooks on weekends too at home. During the week I'm the chief cook as I'm a stay-at-home-mom.

Anyway we have always done breakfast in the room with the excpetion of character breakfast days.

Lunch is usually in the parks - some sit-downs and others counter service. However if we have done a character breakfast we are usually still to full to eat lunch in the park as well so we do lunch in the villa. We usually head back to the resort early afternoon.

Dinners have become more frequently in the villa. We still do several dinners out, but on each trip we seem to increase the number we do in. With a hungry little one this seems to work out really well for us. DD loves her swim time and often she wants to swim in the afternoon AND evening so a nice dinner in the villa is great. Eating in also enables us more relaxed family time together.

We also stock up on plenty of fruit and snacks too for our room. I always bring snacks and water into the parks with us.

 

[Pumbaa_]

I love the DVC accomodations. For us, the big thing is the refrigerator. It is nice being able to bring leftovers back and reheat tham for a later meal. And the drinks are such a savings! We bring a bottle of water with us to the parks each day.

We eat all meals out, unless we have leftovers. The microwave is used for reheating meals and stuff.

For meals, it depends. If I am meeting friends who are foodies, it is more expensive since we eat out almost every meal.

With hubby, we tend to do more casual dining. We get the Quick and Casual vouchers and eat at B&C often (sharing 1 voucher). Usually 1 sitdown meal sometimes 2.

The biggest budget saver food wise is using the Q&C vouchers and buying beverages for the room

 

[dyingtodisney]

We stayed in a studio in June and brought cereal, cereal bars etc. from home - breakfast always in room. We ate out either a late lunch or early dinner, basically we only ate two meals a day and brought a ton of healthy snacks!
When we did eat out dd8 and ds5 shared a childs meal and always had plenty, hubby and I shared too.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We usually hit the parks early in the AM and then head back to our DVC to swim around lunch time. So we might eat something in the room or pick something up at the pool (depending on where we are staying and swimming). We don't usually bring sandwiches and store them in a locker.