So, who's cooking more in their villas these days?

[Micca]

Sorry about that experience Xizor. A a rule of thumb, many Dis-ers never order pizza from the places that slip flyers under your resort door. While there are many reputable pizzerias that will deliver quality food to WDW resorts, evidently many of the "under the door" places have a lousy rep.

 

[Ms.Mouse]

When planning for our trip last summer, we decided to try to eat in our room since it would be cheaper in the long run than the dining plan or OOP cost. Well, in our opinion/experience, it was cheaper as far as dollars and cents BUT, to have to leave the park to go to cook, eat, clean up and get back into the park was a HUGE hastle for the ones doing the work. We've learned our lesson.....We will eat breakfast in our room and lunch and dinner in the parks.

 

[MELSMICE]

When planning for our trip last summer, we decided to try to eat in our room since it would be cheaper in the long run than the dining plan or OOP cost. Well, in our opinion/experience, it was cheaper as far as dollars and cents BUT, to have to leave the park to go to cook, eat, clean up and get back into the park was a HUGE hastle for the ones doing the work. We've learned our lesson.....We will eat breakfast in our room and lunch and dinner in the parks.

We always eat breakfast in the room but will only eat lunch or dinner there if it's convenient. We've never returned to our room just to eat & then head back out. I agree, it's a waste of time & a hassle. Doesn't save much of anything, IMO.

 

[franandaj]

We like to plan some downtime in our trips. My spouse needs naps and time out of the scooter. We never spend an entire day at a park, just too exhausting. If we go in the morning, we may eat lunch in a park and head back to the room, or maybe just plan on fixing it there. We'll relax before heading out for dinner. If we plan to cook dinner in the room, we'll most likely take our time in the morning, hit a park or DTD get lunch out, and come back to the room for dinner. We can watch a movie relax and get ready for an early morning. I enjoy spending time at the resort as much as I like the parks.

On our upcoming four night DLR trip, we plan on eating in for two dinners, breakfasts, and maybe a lunch.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I see no reason to make a special trip back to the villa to eat, but we do occationaly plan a meal back at the villa.

 

[Nparrotte]

The table service prices do seem to be on the rise but I figure I am on vacation and it is what I look forward to so I will continue to dine out as long as I can afford to.

 

[Nparrotte]

We always eat breakfast in the room but will only eat lunch or dinner there if it's convenient. We've never returned to our room just to eat & then head back out. I agree, it's a waste of time & a hassle. Doesn't save much of anything, IMO.

TOTALLY AGREE!

 

[staceymay00]

I get tired of eating restaurant food every day, especially Disney food. We loved having a kitchen last week. I don't like to cook all that much even at home, but it does not bother me at all to make a simple dinner or two on vacation. We are either back from the parks by dinner time, or we take a mid day break and return to the parks after dinner. Lunch we usually eat at the parks.

One helpful thing I did was order groceries for the week from Garden Grocer...so worth the extra expense to avoid grocery shopping upon arrival. We drove so I brought some non-perishables and mostly ordered the refrigerated items we needed. One night I cooked chili - simple recipe - and we had leftovers on another night, and one night we ordered pizza and salad from Giordano's and had some leftovers for lunch the next day. We almost always eat a quick breakfast (bagels, yogurt) in our room before heading to the parks. We did eat out a lot of meals but it was really nice having some non-Disney food throughout the week. Saving money is an added bonus, but the main reason is because while I love Disney I can only handle so much of their food in a week.

 

[staceymay00]

TIW is nice but what does it save you if you deduct 20% then add back 18% for a mandatory tip? Kind of defeats the purpose I thought.

It does still save money unless you were not planning to tip. I suppose someone who strictly tips 15% is not getting quite as much of a discount with TiW as someone who tips 18% or more. The Disney table service restaurant prices really are quite high, though, and then the resulting tip is higher, so I can relate to your feeling of sticker shock over the prices. It's still expensive to eat at WDW even with TiW. We ate at 'Ohana (2 adults, 1 disney adult child, 2 children under 10) and our total bill using TiW was $160. I did have one mixed drink or the bill would have been closer to $150, but wow, that's an expensive meal!

On Saturday's it appears that by some hook or crook a pizza company named Romano slid a coupon/advertisement under our door.

We got one of those fliers at OKW. Housekeeping came for T&T the next morning and saw the flier in the garbage and told us to call the front desk right away if we get another one. I can recommend Giordano's for delivery at WDW. Prices are not rock bottom but their food is good. We have twice had them deliver to us on site without any problems. They are well known for Chicago style deep dish pizza but they also have thin crust.

 

[Lost boy]

Just finished my garden grocers shopping list, we always eat breakfast in room and bring snack bars into the park. Wife and I will return mid-afternoon and make an early dinner and be back in the parks by 5 or 6. Sometimes we'll stay in the parks and eat but most days we cook simple stuff. Boys will come and go but with both having pt jobs now they'll spend some of their own cash and eat in the parks which is nice. Before DVC we ate all our meals in the parks and with 4 kids that was big bucks for mostly fast food junk.

 

[msp2mco]

We are probably like everyone else. After several trips and experiencing many of the restaurants, we found we weren't craving the restaurants or feeling that we were missing anything. Now we eat a lot of meals in our room, and I try to make things that are interesting but easy.

 

[franandaj]

I get tired of eating restaurant food every day, especially Disney food. We loved having a kitchen last week. I don't like to cook all that much even at home, but it does not bother me at all to make a simple dinner or two on vacation. We are either back from the parks by dinner time, or we take a mid day break and return to the parks after dinner. Lunch we usually eat at the parks.

One helpful thing I did was order groceries for the week from Garden Grocer...so worth the extra expense to avoid grocery shopping upon arrival. We drove so I brought some non-perishables and mostly ordered the refrigerated items we needed. One night I cooked chili - simple recipe - and we had leftovers on another night, and one night we ordered pizza and salad from Giordano's and had some leftovers for lunch the next day. We almost always eat a quick breakfast (bagels, yogurt) in our room before heading to the parks. We did eat out a lot of meals but it was really nice having some non-Disney food throughout the week. Saving money is an added bonus, but the main reason is because while I love Disney I can only handle so much of their food in a week.

I agree wholeheartedly with you, except that I DO like to cook. I get tired of the rich food, large portions, and having to go out, be civilized. Sometimes it's nice to sit on the couch in your PJs and eat comfort food watching TV or a movie.

 

[wbl2745]

We've only been to a DVC resort twice (VGC and AKV) since buying in last year, but both times we've cooked breakfast. When I travel on business I never eat breakfast in the hotel. They always price things way out of line. Generally, we eat breakfast in the room, one sit-down meal, and graze the rest of the day.

 

[Hunclemarco]

We've done both the dining plan, TIW, and no plan.... We tend to eat every other day at the parks, Breakfast every day in our room. And if we do eat at the parks, we generally get the lunch specials as our main meals.

 

[mhawk4]

We were at AKV from the 22-28th and ate most meals at our room. Every morning I made toast or bagels, cut up apples, put juice in bottle, threw that all in my bag with yogurt and off we went to the park. We then snacked as we went along. We would stop for some kind of snack and maybe a cs meal. Since we parked hopped we would sometimes go back to the room, get lunch or dinner and then head out again. We would have another snack or two and I would also bring a few snacks. I ordered through Garden Grocer and it worked out great.

We did find AKV a little out of the way to go back to during the day. BLT would probably be closer next time and it is our home but wanted to stay at AKV to see the animals for our first trip. What other DVC would you recommend for easy park access?

We ate one lunch at Tusker House on Christmas Day which was very good although expensive. I have celiac disease and cannot eat gluten and it was so easy to eat there.

 

[MELSMICE]

What other DVC would you recommend for easy park access?

Boardwalk Villas or Beach Club Villas. Very convenient to both EPCOT & DHS.

 

[maburke]

Sorry about that experience Xizor. A a rule of thumb, many Dis-ers never order pizza from the places that slip flyers under your resort door. While there are many reputable pizzerias that will deliver quality food to WDW resorts, evidently many of the "under the door" places have a lousy rep.

So how do these guys get past the gate to put out their flyers?

 

[staceymay00]

So how do these guys get past the gate to put out their flyers?

Catching a resort bus at DTD is one possibility.

 

[magicalmcwho]

We cook/ate several meals in our villa. We were in one-bedroom and had spaghetti, pizza, and other items that we cooked in the villa.

 

[tjkraz]

We actually eat less in our rooms than we did 3-4 years ago.

When the kids were young and often taking daily naps, we would eat breakfast in the room and then go out for a few hours. Around lunch time we would return to the room, eat something from the fridge and then put the kids down for a nap. Most we ate in Disney restaurants was 1x per day.

Now that the kids are older, breakfast is the only meal we consistently eat in the room--and even with that we often do a character breakfast buffet at least once.