How to save $ on Breakfast & Lunch

[yup I'm Goofy's sis]

My favorite trick is to stock up on the Buddig-type deli meats, which you can also freeze ahead. Each individual package is a couple of ounces, perfect for a sandwich, no containers or zip-locks to come open in the cooler. It's not gourmet, but it's OK!

On our recent trip to POR, we did rent the fridge for milk, sandwich fixin's, and leftovers, but we also used our cooler to keep lots of sodas cold. We've done it before without the fridge, but sometimes getting enough ice is a hassle. If you drive, bring block ice or freeze gallon jugs--that will stay frozen in a Coleman cooler for a week!

I also found that bread and milk were available at the resort shop for convenience store prices. [We bought bread and milk at our last gas stop, and brought everything else with us from home. I can't fathom taking the time to shop in Orlando when we're that close!]

We also let the kids fill their own belt bag [or cargo pockets] with snacks for in the parks--they graze at will [hey, it's a vacation!] and it lets us postpone meals until we really want to take a break.

One of the best tips I got from these boards was about the disposable Dixie brand "to-go" cups with lids, which lets you carry coffee to the bus stop without hauling a refillable mug or sloshing it as you walk. That was great--everyone in my family is happier if I get my coffee in the morning!

 

[monorailsilver]

We just got back a few weeks ago and this is what we did:

I shipped a box directly to the Polynesian. My daughter was 15 months old at the time and I she is a picky eater. We planned on renting a fridge (which we never got charged for WHOOO HOOOO!!!! which that alone saved us $70).

Anyways, I packed 100 diapers, 1 box of wipes plus 2 refills, about 10-12 juice boxes and a few little bottles of juice, assorted cereals (the little boxes), nutrigrain bars (big ones for my husband and 'bites' for my daughter), pretzels, raisins, gold fish, Kix cereal in throw away containers for snacks, pringles (for the lunch we thought we'd buy), zip lock baggies, Hostess mini-muffins and I can't think of what else but a few more snack food things for my daughter.

This worked out great since while either my self or my husband was getting ready in the morning, my daughter could eat. We didn't have to get dressed and run out to Captain Cooks and spend an arm and a leg on a bagel (or the other expensive breakfast food). We were also able to leave the room and continue giving our daughter breakfast as we had her in her stroller and she could eat and continue eating as we boarded the monorail (she takes forever to eat).

Also, we had a collapsable cooler which we brought milk down. I am not cheap but I am frugal and milk is all my daughter drinks (besides juice at times). We didn't rent a car so I couldn't go to a grocery store when we got there, I didn't use the taxi service with the 1/2 free grocery stop and basically I couldn't justify spending $1.29 on a pint of milk a few times a day when I paid big bucks for a deluxe resort and knew I was going to get a mug for $9.99 which didn't include milk as my free refill in drinks.

So all in all our box which weighed just shy of 40 pounds cost about $15 to ship down via UPS (granted my husbands work nicely paid for it!) saved us bundles on breakfast and snack foods. I strongly suggest shipping a box if you are flying. I will do it the next time I go too.

 

[Mic]

Unless you are just accustomed to eating a big dinner, I would suggest making lunch your big meal. It took us a few trips to figure out this worked best for us. The biggest time and money saver is undoubtedly eating breakfast in the room. Before joining DVC, we purchased a cheap ($10) toaster at Wal-mart, along with bagels, waffles, cereal, etc. to eat in the room. It got us to the parks earlier(when they still offered EE), and saved us a lot of money. We are usually ready for a break about lunch time, and having a nice, sit-down lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant is always better than waiting in a counter-service line. After lunch, we either finish touring the park we are in or head back to the resort to swim. We have dinner in the room(order pizza, make sandwiches, etc.) before heading back out to the parks for the fireworks. Sometimes, we never make it back to a park, and have had to cancel our priority seatings for dinner more than once.

 

[singitalto]

In addition to all the other great ideas, I have taken a hotpot to WDW. We use it for tea, hot chocolate, oatmeal and cup of noodles. I also plan on using it for mac and cheese and rice-a-ronie this time. (My son is VERY pickey and will eat rice or mac and cheese for dinner)

Also, I bought an electric cooler earlier this year for a camping trip that I plan on using for our WDW trip in a couple of weeks.

 

[Girls Scout Leader]

I, too, have heard of mailing yourself a package to your resort to arrive before you do filled with non-perishable foods, plastic bowls and spoons, ziplocks, all the things you don't want to take up extra room in your siut case. Any helpful hints about this? Do the resorts have a prolem with holding your package til your arrival?? I'd hate for them to send it back!!

 

[frannn]

I packed an extra carry on with snacks & breakfast food that we used for souvies on the way back. The prepackaged bagels worked well with tuna or pb & j. Crackers, popcorn, and chocolate worked well for late night snacks. Unfortunately, DH has Temptation as his middle name and kept asking if I wanted ice cream, etc from the food court. So, the moral is, the $ saved on some things is $ that can be spent on other fun stuff!

 

[Bev J]

We have one hard side suitcase that I fill with snacks and breakfasst type items, cereal, poptarts, granola bars and lots of juice boxes. We found it easier to buy from Sams Club at home dump the boxes and pack the little packages in 2 gallon zip lock bags. We would buy a foam cooler, milk, soda and water when we arive. We eat breakfast some mornings in the room or sit out by the resort pool. Then put some snacks and drink boxes in the fanny pack for the parks. This really cut back on kids begging for things they really did not want. They could snack whenever they wanted from the fanny pack. A britta water bottle saved big bucks on bottle water in the parks also. We buy a gallon of water at the store to make coffee in the room, the water in Orlando is gross!!
That hard side suitcase comes in handy for the return to protect any fragile things we bought and the 2 gallon zip bags held the few clean clothes we had left so the dirty stuff was in the other suitcase and went straight to the laundry room when we got home.
Don't worry about feeling cheap, there are plenty of things at WDW to spend your money on. Like PINS!!

 

[eeyore0062]

We usually combine breakfast and lunch as none of us are huge breakfast eaters, and then eat an early dinner, before the prices change from lunch to dinner!

 

[crystalbeaver]

when we went to Disney was have the guy who picked us up at the airport to take us to a store. I believe that we had about 30 minutes to shop.

We bought all the breakfast and snack and lunch things that we would need for our 10 day trip. We did spend $150 US at the store but when we worked it out, $150 divided into 10 days is only $15 a day for four people. It was a lot cheaper than buying food at the food courts. Of course we bought the refillable mugs at the food court which are also a big savings.

Sherrie

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[whozit]

Girls Scout Leader:

I shipped a box to my resort ahead of time with no problem. I did call the resort first to verify that they would accept it. They said no problem and they gave me the address to ship it to (it was slightly different than the address shown on my reservation, although either address may have worked). They told me to address it to: “Resort Guest ‘your name here’ “ Arrival date : mm/dd/yy then put in the resort name and address. When I checked in, they had a note in my file that they were holding a package for me and offered to bring it out to me or have bell services deliver it to the room.

I sent my box by UPS ground (it cost me about $15 for a 30 lb package). That was cheaper than USPS (later I saw on one of the posts on this site that the USPS doesn’t deliver to the resorts, but UPS, FedEx and someone else does, you might check with your resort to find out who delivers to them). I shipped my box so that it arrived 3 days before we left home, that way I could use the tracking number and confirm that the package arrived and have the name of the person who accepted it….I figured if there was problem, UPS would have a couple of days to locate the package before I left home (it arrived on schedule, no problem).

Shipping the items ahead worked out great for me. I shipped individual boxes of cereal, I measured out “grown up” cereal into individual ziploc snack bags, raisins, dried apricots, foil pouches of tuna, triscuits, wheat thins, aerosol cheese (I had never used this before, but it was pretty good and needed no refrigeration), granola and cereal bars, Chex “morning mix”, single serving applesauce and pudding cups (this was a big hit), peanut M&Ms, juice boxes, packages of cheese/peanut butter crackers assorted cheese & cracker packages, cookies, and Frito-Lay “snacks to go” (these are new in our area, I don’t know if they are available everywhere, but they are chips or other salty snacks in a plastic container (about the size of a pringles can) with a recloseable snap on lid….these worked well in the backpack, as the chips didn’t get crushed), candy. I also shipped various sizes of ziploc bags (some were used for ice in the cooler, the 2 gallon size and “EZ Fill Tall” worked well for wet shoes (we brought sand shoes with us to Animal Kingdom and wore them on Kali River Rapids, then put the wet sand shoes in the ziplocs and put them in the backpack….much better than walking for hours in squishy shoes)). I also packed plastic utensils and paper bowls, but as it turned out, they had these at the food court, so I would use those instead of sending my own the next time. There was still some room in my box, so I filled in the nooks and crannies with ponchos, sunscreen, hats, and whatever else I could fit in. The more I could fit in the box, the less I had to lug through the airport.

One more hint: If you use backpacks at the parks, if you have the see through plastic or nylon mesh ones, you’ll get through security quicker (they don’t have to unzip everything to see inside, they can just look in and turn it around and see everything).

Where in Michigan are you from? We used to vacation regularly in Grand Haven (a lot cooler in August than Orlando!)

 

[Girls Scout Leader]

Thanks for reply! I had not thought too much farther than Pringles and Little Debbies. Yes, we have those Frito Lay snacks here, too. Great idea. I will be printing off your suggestions and keeping them on file..we don't go til June 2004 and will be staying, hopefully, at Shades of Green. Don't know if the "new and improved" SoG will have a food court.

By the way, we are about 1 1/2 hours north of Bay City, closer to the "Other Side" from Grand Haven. Have friends there. So cool...

 

[patman]

I stay off site at condo type lodging now, but when I stayed at hotels the styrofoam cooler and hotel ice works fine. I drive between parks and had another small cooler in the car with lunch packed. Tuna fish, Ham, turkey what have you. It takes about 1/2 hour to go between parks in that time everyone else ate. Me, I ate my sanwhich waiting for the tram! If you stay offsite but close by on 192 or LBV it really not much more time to get back to your hotel unless your on the mono line. Also a small 6 pack can cooler with juice boxes and water will save you $15 min every day.

 

[IowaGirl]

We stay offsite now and we enjoy the savings in food. We only stay at a place with free breakfast, we eat a counter service lunch around 2:00, have a mickey bar, or other snacks around 6:00, and save dinner for outside of the park.
For our 10 days at WDW/Universal/IOA/and the beach we spent less than $500 for food for a family of two adults, two kids. We even ate at the 50's Prime Time cafe one lunch, and our dinners were delivery pizza, Denny's ,McDonalds, Wal-Mart Cafe (we had to make a run anyway) and delivery Italian.
It wasn't fancy, but we were full, we didn't want to spend a lot of time eating at the parks, just ride the rides!!!!
Our fanny packs had a few snack in it, plus we drank LOTS of water that we brought.

 

[mm6mm6]

Hey CountryDuck!
We stayed at the CBR and loaded up the 50 quart cooler at the ice machine. We bought half gallons of milk at the CBR's Port Royale store. We brought with us, donuts in resealable bags, big cereal boxes and disposable plastic plates, bowls and spoons/forks. It worked super well! Breakfast in the room with some apples and bananas bought at the resort as well.

 

[karyn]

Just recently returned from Disney and stayed two nights at the Contemporary. I packed the extra sink with ice to put juice boxes etc. in there. The maid came in the next morning and took a spare garbage can from the room( i think it was from our room) and lined it with a thick garbage bag , packed it with ice and covered it with a towel. I wasn't sure at first if i liked this idea but it worked out fine with all the sealed stuff. I don't know if i would do this with loosely wrapped items. This is just an option.

 

[Wildcard]

When my gf and I go, we buy a huge box of granola bars from a local volume store (Costco). We also purchase two refillable mugs from whichever resort we are staying at. Then we just have soda (or coffee) and several granola bars each day for breakfast. This hold us over until lunch.

 

[Jordan's MOM]

We too do breakfast in the room most mornings. We drive so we packed a large, hard sided cooler with all kinds of breakfast items. Cerals, muffins poptarts and small cans of juice just to name a few.We also took a case of water and lots of soft drinks. A hard sided cooler can also be checked as luggage and drinks could be picked up as wal-mart on arrival.

We also did our big meal of the day as lunch quite often. Plenty of food and better prices. We also learned to really read the menu. Often we could order in a way that would give us plenty of food for less money. Ex.I would get a combo meal and then just add a grilled cheese for DS and we shared the fries and drank from our water bottles.

We as used the food court a lot when we stayed at ASMo. We would get sandwiches and take them back to our room to eat with chips and drinks from home.

We hate to pay big bucks for fair fast food and like to save our money for the nice places we really want to eat.

 

[momofdbsdc]

There are 7 of us total. I purchased 3 cases of water at K-Mart last week for $2.99 a case. I have also been picking up crackers, capri sun, cereal, and other little items along the way. i figure if I add an item or two to my shopping list a week, it won't be so bad when we get there. we are driving, so I am planning on bringing our cooler. We are staying at the HIFS, so breakfast is free. Plus any meals that we decide to eat there, the kids eat free with a paying adult. I am also planning on bringing some microwaveable meals and sandwich fixings.

Kim

 

[colleen121]

dumb question but how do you keep icepacks for your cooler frozen if you dont rent a fridge/freezer combo

 

[whozit]

If the ice packs that you are asking about are the "blue ice" type freezer packs, you won't be able to keep them frozen. If you start out with the blue ice in your cooler (for instance if you drive to WDW and pack these in your cooler from home), once they thaw, you'll need to remove them from the cooler and substitute ice. Once you are at the resort and loading your cooler with ice, it works better to use ziploc-type bags filled with ice instead of just packing the ice into the cooler. Then, on a daily basis, as the ice melts. remove the ziplocs, empty the water from the bag and refill them with ice. We found emptying the water from the individual bags easier than emptying water fromt the whole cooler.

We flew in, so we used the ice filled ziplocs exclusively, but if I were driving, I think instead of the blue ice packs, or ice cubes, I would leave home with frozen blocks of ice (like 1/2 or 1 gallon plastic milk jugs (the bigger, the better) filled with water and frozen). With the smaller surface area to volume ratio, those larger blocks of ice will thaw out much more slowly than either the smaller blue ice packs or the bags of ice cubes.