How do you save on meals when paying out of pocket?

[MandLBee]

We bring an Instant Pot and cook 1 meal a day in that. We have 7 people in our family, 5 eat low carb or wheat free. We order entrees purposefully that contain things both groups can eat. Example: Be Our Guest meals come with a plate of pastries. We will get 7 pastries, but only 2 kids can eat them. So we don't order breakfast for them, and we give them the fruit and bread off our plates. 7 people eat for the price of 5

 

[Texans_loyal]

breakfast in the room saved us tons! bought a bag of bagels from target and it lasted us 4 days.

 

[Pkltm]

The adult meal plans cost so much more than the value you can extract unless you're always eating at dinner buffets or ordering the combo platter at Flame Tree. The dining plan is purely a payment method and in no way changes the amount of food you receive. The only difference is the price. The QS plan is over $48. You'd need two snacks at $4/each and two meals at $20/each for the plan to be financially worthwhile. I can't imagine any teenager consistently extracting that much value out of the plan.

The regular plan price for a child is less than $25. One buffet and that's already paid for itself. It's the kids plan that subsidizes the adults and makes the dining plan come out ahead, financially, for many families.

For us we come our ahead, most snacks are more than $4 that we get prime example cin bun at gastons tavern for 4.49 plus tax, plus we rarly eat the burger and fries, we go for things like the lobster roll, anything at Wolfgang Pucks, Flame tree BBQ etc. We always get a drink with flavor with a meals we load up on water and we love the refillable mugs at the resort. Our DS has always been a big eater at 16 he was 6'3" very active in sports. The dining plan doesn't work for everyone but it works for us.