Staying onsite, eating affordably?

[bumbershoot]

If you order a soup or salad here, you can ask for it to be prepared on the side so you can use the bread later. We've done this -- it's plenty of bread for a few small sandwiches.

Wow, great idea! I mean, I've gotten the bread separately before (while ordering the vegetarian chili, and on this last trip when getting the egg boule (we don't get the bacon)), but we just take chunks of bread and eat them later. I hadn't thought about making slices for sandwiches! We LOVE PB&J sandwiches on sourdough, too, so I'm not sure why we hadn't thought of it.

Of course, you'll need a bread knife for that.

Still not planning on renting a car, but did buy an inflatable booster seat on Amazon to bring just in case. 3 weeks to go..

The BubbleBum? It's a good one! Difficult to get unhooked if the child is hooked in properly, but still, it gets the child so they fit into the seatbelt, and that's what is important.

There's a National/Alamo location on Katella not too far away from the Grand (right next to Alpine Inn), and they have a shuttle van. You can find all sorts of codes and coupons on mousesavers.com; I have always found something good to use there for our National rentals. Don't forget to check out the airline frequent flyer codes on mousesavers; you don't have to be *flying* a particular airline to use the FF code, you just have to HAVE a FF account with that airline. I've found Alaska and United codes to be the best overall, but try them ALL out if you end up wanting to book something. With the location being close, you could just rent a car for the day if you didn't want it the entire time.

WE love visiting Trader Joes and Vons. By going away from the Land, we have found Souplantation, which is about the same as Sweet Tomatoes. Really tasty buffet that is worlds cheaper than anything close to DLR. We like going to Panera sometimes; it's very close to Trader Joes. If you have need for things from Target, there's one of them across from the Trader Joes/Panera area. CVS pharmacy is next to Trader Joes. And it's all in a parking lot with a large mall, just in case anyone needs clothes.

That IHOP is usually referred to as the most expensive IHOP in the nation.

Yep! I believe I read it's even more expensive than IHOPs in New York City.

 

[BensDaddy]

Thanks. I'm still going to try and avoid needing a rental car. I'm pretty cheap. We're Walmart shoppers. ;-)