Snacks right outside the Movie theatre are to purchase, but you are allowed to bring stuff in from the free food and drink areas, you don't have to buy the movie snacks.
We bring "movie theater" snacks from home; that way we don't have to spend extra money, and we get what we want (not that they don't have good snacks there, but we are picky!). If you want to be really cheap, get a drink from the beverage station on Deck 9 and bring it with you rather than buy a soda.
To be clear, the theater with the snack-stand outside is the Walt Disney Theater where you can buy snacks at Preludes. It is open limited hours before the shows. Also CMs will come into the theater before the show and take beverage orders.
The movie-theater is the Buena Vista Theater on Deck 5 and there is not a snack-stand by it.
But as previous posters have mentioned, feel free to bring in your own snacks / food to either theater from other ship venues. We liked to grab a bag of potato chips from Pluto's and a drink from the Deck 9 beverage station to take to the movies. We were thrilled to find that you can get chips without having to order through room service - that was a nice addition, DCL! The one thing I said after our early cruise experiences was that I missed the "salty/crunchy" snacks... there was plenty of food and plenty of sweet, but not much salty/crunchy. but I digress...
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