How to keep food in a room with no fridge?

[Fintastic]

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.

I'm definitely fine with a cooler as long as it keeps our milk cold! Even better if I'm not spending a ton of money on it. I'm a cold cereal junkie so I'd be in Heaven if I could eat that for breakfast in our room every day.

What do softside coolers look like?

 

[robinb]

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!

Yup! Me too . It keeps beer pretty cold too .

 

[rockyroad]

A soft sided cooler works well.

However, if you are staying in a moderate, many have two sinks and you could fill one with ice and stash some things in there.

I also pack a plastic rubbermaid pitcher with snacks and at the resort use it to fill with ice at the ice machine. Then I always have fresh ice water in the room.

You could probably even use a cardboard box lined with plastic bags in a crunch.
Just put it where if it leaks it won't damage anything.

 

[GoinToDisney]

I am planning on using garden gracer to have food delivered. I figured I would buy some fruit like peaches and pears and a bix of Cheerios and some "Lil milk" (parmalat), which doesn't need to be refridgerated.

 

[learnhome]

great ideas! Thanks!!

 

[momto1disneyfan]

We flew to disney this past August and put a collasible cooler in our suitcase. We would buy a big jug of milk at night, since we were staying at Pop the restaurant does get really crazy in the morning. We just filled it up twice a day and it kept everything quite cold. We are driving this August so we will be just bringing our regualar cooler and doing he exact same things. We've been to disney 5 times and done the same thing everytime

 

[Disney Doll]

I would do the cooler thing and change the ice twice per day.

My DSIL & DBIL used to do this at WDW all the time when their kids were little. They kept the cooler in the bathtub, except for when everyone needed the bathtub for showers...then they just kept it in the bathroom on a towel on the tile in case it leaked.

Or rent a fridge for $10/day from the hotel.

if you don't have a car, you could pack a collapsible cooler...it's soft-sided and folds up, and can be used as an extra suitcase for the trip home. Or you can pick up a styrofoam one at a local grocery (if you have a car) and just toss it when you leave...I think the styrofoam ones are less than $5.00.

 

[dawnball]

What about something like this?

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

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

We had one of those once (for long car trips without messing with ice). It didn't live long. It ran for around 100 hours total - the power adapter failed, then the fan failed, then the cooling unit itself failed. Not a very good buy, IMO.

 

[IDoDis]

When we went last May some friends of ours that had a rental car picked up a $5 styrofome cooler for us at Wal-Mart. It worked great! We kept 1/2 gallon of milk in there, along with sodas, and the single size servings of O.J. We refilled the cooler with new ice each morning and then again before going to bed. The milk stayed colder than it did in our fridge at home. On our check-out day, I put a sign on the cooler saying "free -- please take me" and left it next to the ice machine. An hour later when we were leaving, I checked and the cooler was gone. I didn't have the heart to throw it out thinking maybe someone else could get some use out of it.

Anyway, it worked great. We were on the dining plan which included 2 meals a day, so only ate a light breakfast in the room each morning (cereal for the kids, bagels for DH and I). Brought an extra suitcase and filled it with the one serving size bxes of cereal (we brought cheap plastic bowls that were 4 for $1.00 at Wal-Mart), granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, Chex Mix, etc. I also brought a few ziplock baggies so we could put what we needed in those and kept them in our backpack. Since we were on the dining plan, we ended up bringing back lots of our snacks though!

 

[JustMeFran]

Unless you are staying off site, sorry if I missed somewhere saying you were, *ALL* Disney resorts, including Values, have fridges.

 

[Marionnette]

Unless you are staying off site, sorry if I missed somewhere saying you were, *ALL* Disney resorts, including Values, have fridges.

You just bumped a zombie thread from 2006. There were no refrigerators in the Value Resorts back then.

 

[IDoDis]

You just bumped a zombie thread from 2006. There were no refrigerators in the Value Resorts back then.

Yeah, I turned off email notifications after I started posting on these boards almost 10 years ago because my email box blew up the day I started posting replies! This must have been from before the time I turned off notifications because I got an email saying there was a reply!

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

It easy to reply to a zombie thread as they pop up at the bottom of threads now a days. as a recommended threat

 

[lustergirl]

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!

The value resorts have had fridges for sometime now.

 

[lustergirl]

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.

I just seen your cat pic. I have a tortoise shell just like yours. Her name is Mousetrap and she is my best friend.

 

[lustergirl]

OMG: just noticed this is a zombie thread

 

[SirDuff]

OMG: just noticed this is a zombie thread

I was going to point that out in your posts about the values having fridges for a while now . Totally true, but not true in 2006 - which is when the person you quoted wrote that. When I started reading, I was totally confused (because I knew that all the hotels had fridges), until I thought to look at the date!

 

[JustMeFran]

OH Boy! Did not even notice! Sorry, it was down the bottom...

 

[kla]

Oops, posted before I saw the "zombie thread" warning!