I'm running the numbers every which way for our next trip - and I'm not finding it to be as good of a deal as I'd hoped.
We're a family of five (2 adults, three kids)...
I see where staying off-site is a savings on the hotel part of the trip... But food? It seems if we stay off-site that we'll spend just as much on food - but we'll have to seek it out and deal with it.
How do you handle food if you stay off-site? Do you cook your own meals? Eat at off-site restaurants? A combination? Do you leave the parks frequently?
I'm finding the off-site type planning to be confusing
The savings appeals to me, but it also seems like a big hassle. Thoughts? Ideas? Did you spend as much on food as if you just bought the dining plan?
we definitely save money by staying offsite.
As a family of 5, I like having more room ... a hotel room with my 3 kids is not much fun. I have a teenager, pre-teen, and kindergartener. When they were younger, and the baby really was a baby, hotel rooms weren't bad. But now that everyone uses the big potty and sleeps in their own bed, it's nice to have the space
For starters, I book condos through
www.afvclub.com or
www.govarm.com. I'm also looking at the $199/week deal at Skyauction. I won't pay a lot of $$ for lodging. I also research & choose resorts within close proximity to WDW (see my signature for places we've stayed) so we have the option of taking a midday break if we choose. We've found that our travel time is often LESS when we stay offsite than when we rely on the Disney buses.
I feel like we save money when we're offsite, but not only that, I feel like we're eating better. I don't do a lot of cooking, really ... but to have a fridge to keep fresh fruit and veggies to snack on is great
Here's what we typically do:
breakast (in the condo)
: some mornings I'll do a quick egg scramble & toast, french toast, toaster waffles, etc. while everyone else is getting ready. other days the kids will eat a bowl of cereal or grab a granola bar on the way out the door to the parks. My kids will usually eat a banana or other fruit in the morning, too.
lunch: counter service in the parks, usually around 11am.
- - midday break at resort - -
After we swim, nap, or whatever ... we're usually hungry. LOL. We have chips & salsa, cheese & crackers, or other heavier snacks before going back to the parks. The park we're going to sort of dictates how much we're going to eat. If it's Epcot, it's a light snack, because we know we'll be snacking our way around the WS. If it's MGM, we eat more and plan on popcorn and Mickey bars while seeing Fantasmic.
Another example: we stayed at Cypress Pointe in April. We disovered almost immediately how close it was to Pizzeria Uno. Twice during the week, we called ahead and picked up pizza on the way back to the condo for a meal. Cost less than $30 for a family of five, roughly the same cost as eating a CS meal, was more filling, and tasted better.
We rarely, if ever, eat at the WDW table service meals. For the money that costs, I can buy a lot of food somewhere else.
I use my weekly grocery budget (that I wouldn't be using at home since I'm on vacation
) to do my food shopping.
)
