How to keep food in a room with no fridge?

[Fintastic]

I've read a bunch of times that it can help cut costs to eat breakfast in your room before you go to the parks. What do you keep in your room to eat when you don't have a fridge?

 

[Plantlady]

You can do cereal, oatmeal (with hot water from coffee maker), fruit, granola bars, muffins, crackers, chex mix, peanut butter sandwiches.

 

[Our2Girls&Disney]

If you have a car, you could purchase one of those styrofoam coolers and fill with hotel ice. I don;t think the ice lasts very long, so you might have to replenish the ice twice a day.

 

[christinadei]

We drive and bring a cooler for water, milk, soda, and other foods and snacks. But even if you can't get a cooler, there are lots of things you can have for breakfast/snacks. Granola bars, pop tarts, donuts, etc. that don't need to be refrigerated. You can also bring drinks and cups and use hotel ice.

 

[Fintastic]

Will milk keep very long in a cooler like that?

 

[BethR]

Will milk keep very long in a cooler like that?

Yes it does! We have done this several times and each time we buy a gallon of milk and just refill the ice morning and evening. The milk has lasted us through the week of our vacation. We use ziploc bags for the ice to keep down on the mess.

 

[babywewe]

unless you are staying at a value... all hotel rooms have a fridge or you can ask for one.

I stayed at a value resort. To save TIME and MONEY we did'nt eat breakfast.
The lines at the hotel to get breakfast was crazy! Just to get a cup of coffee i'd have to wait in line for 5-10 mins! GAH! It was too hot for coffee anyways.

I had brought two box's of speical K cereal bars. We stayed up late and slept till around 9-10... with the late start the cereal bars were ideal b/c they would hold us over till a 1-2pm lunch. Sometimes we used a snack credit to get something for breakfast...i.e. apple turnover at the main street bakery (what a naughty morning treat!)....

The hotel sells SOME food items in their gift shop. Its expensive but not as expensive as buying it every morning indivdualy (like english muffins).

I suggest Cereal bars (so many on the market now!) , trail mix bars, dry cereal (if you have a fridge in the room u can buy milk in the gift shop to keep)... keep it simple!

 

[SplshMtn99]

Depending on which hotel (Disney or non Disney), I've used the ice bucket to keep small milk. Or the mini bar...just removing a few of their items.

I like to bring bagels, raisins, fruit, trail mix, cereal bars; along with things others have mentioned. Honestly, I bring too much. We also pack the same types of foods to bring into parks as snacks.

I've also packed a soft sided collabsible cooler in our suitcase; & filled with ice from hotel. We just make it a point to change/add ice each morning. Works great.

We find we don't eat as much at Disney, due to heat & just so much to do. My favorite routine for food is: morning snack at hotel to get us out of there fast. A nice treat in the parks around lunch to keep us out of lunch lines (turkey leg?). Good midday meal somewhere in the park when others are not eating & its hottest, so you get a break.(If its a table service you pick, do it while still lunch prices; since dinner prices are higher & often too much food. Lunch prices are served until 4pm I think.) Then another park treat around 8pm. Honestly, doing that, we've never felt hungry. And if we do, I have plenty of peanuts, crackers, trailmix in my back pack. Also, LOTS of water.

We've even been known to split a meal because we aren't that hungry. LOL -- that wouldn't happen at home though.

Epcot is a bit different. We tend to just snack our way around alot. Fish & chips. While waiting for Illuminations, I save our spot, & DH goes to get a serving of nachos which we share.

I ALWAYS come home with HUNDREDS of unspent food $ I budgeted. People who travel with us agree, they have not been hungry at all either.

 

[DawnM]

We have a cooler that claims to keep food as cold as a fridge for up to 5 days. We fill it with ice about every 3 days even though it doesn't seem to need it that often. They sell them just about everywhere that coolers are sold. It has come in very handy when we were on the road or in places without a fridge.

Dawn

 

[Fintastic]

What about something like this?

http://store.colemancampingstore.com/thco.html

Would we be allowed to plug that in in our room?

 

[XYSRUS]

We just kept perishables in a cheap, disposable styrofoam cooler we got at Publix. We only had to fill it once a day and everything was fine-milk, jelly, juice, water. Then at the end of the trip everything was able to be thrown away. Really easy.

 

[BethR]

What about something like this?

http://store.colemancampingstore.com/thco.html

Would we be allowed to plug that in in our room?

Oh I think you would be allowed, but IMHO totally unnecessary. Look closely and you will see that the electric cooler will hold VERY little. You could get a small refrig (dorm sized) for not much more (or perhaps even less) than you would pay for that cooler.

Doing the regular cooler with ice works VERY well. But if you are not comfortable with that, then I would suggest that you buy your own refrig, try to get into one of our Refrigerator Swaps (check the thread "stuck" at the top of this board) or rent a refrig from Disney for $10 a day.

Good Luck! Let us know what you decide to do.

 

[Stein]

We use the styro coolers from a drugstore and keep milk, water, beer and juice in there. I fill it in the morning and again in the evening. It stays very cold, no problems at all. We sometimes keep yogurt, cheese or lunchmeat in there as well.

 

[marthachick]

We brought along a collapsable cooler in our checked luggage since we were using ME & didn't want to rent a car. Replaced ice 2 x day a.m. & p.m. & it worked great!

 

[MEM]

We brought along a collapsable cooler in our checked luggage since we were using ME & didn't want to rent a car. Replaced ice 2 x day a.m. & p.m. & it worked great!

We did the same, in the days before the Moderates had free fridges. Spent a whopping $1.00 on a soft-sided collapsible cooler at a yard sale.

I recommend keeping the ice cubes in ziplock bags, otherwise they will water-log things like juiceboxes...they swell up like you would not believe.

On the trip home, the cooler becomes an extra suitcase.

 

[ogreenlee]

Watery ice is actually colder than the ice with no water. I usually put anything that can get waterlogged, like juice boxes, in a ziplock instead of the ice in the ziplock. Just make sure your cooler is plugged well. You don't want to come back to your room flooded. YIKES!

 

[MEM]

Watery ice is actually colder than the ice with no water. I usually put anything that can get waterlogged, like juice boxes, in a ziplock instead of the ice in the ziplock. Just make sure your cooler is plugged well. You don't want to come back to your room flooded. YIKES!

We have done it that way too - but the ice in the bag is safer than the ice loose in the cooler. Also, we have been known to put the cooler in the bathtub or on a towel on the bathroom floor.

 

[ogreenlee]

All I know is that beer easily freezes in ice water.

 

[NeedaVacation03]

We packed a softside cooler in Sept. for our 1st stay at POP. That was one of the best ideas I got off this board (next to the shoeholder for all our stuff ) It kept the stuff cold by just adding ice in the am and pm. The milk stayed cold all week and everyone was happy. I lined it with a giant ziploc and just put the ice and milk inside and sealed it up. Worked like a charm.
The ideas from this board make me look a genius to DH.

 

[ogreenlee]

Ooh ooh ooh! A trashbag would work, too, depending on the size of your cooler! And I really like rolling coolers.