Travelling to WDW first time without dining plan

[sg07]

We are travelling to Disney for the first time without dining plan.We would be staying in pop century with 23 month old and a five year old.Any tips to save on food and other things??
Thanks

 

[minnierocks]

Have breakfast in the room...
We pack styrofoam plates and bowls, cereal, instant oatmeal (we bring a hot shot for hot water),breakfast bars, and other quick breakfast food...and we have breakfast before leaving our room...The resort store has milk and we just keep it in the cooler, changing the ice in the morning and evening.
We share meals...many places have huge portions (Flame Tree BBQ is one) or order kid's meals for everyone...
We eat our table service meal at lunch time, because lunch prices are much cheaper than dinner prices...
We pack snacks and water in our bag and munch on those throughout the day, which saves on buying snacks...

Just some things that we do...hope this helps!

 

[sg07]

thanks for the great tips but how do you heat water.My son drinks a lil lukewarm milk and I don't know how will I do that/?

 

[imthatgirl]

we eat outside the world if we are trying to save money. we eat breakfast at either ponderosa or golden coral. they are about 3.99 for the buffet. same with dinners they have cheap buffets on route 4 and 192.
i cant see eating in the room being very cheap or convenient. at the values you have to rent a fridge for 10 dollars a day. thats not cheap, breakfast costs less than that. plus all the supplies, its not something i would do.
lunches in the park can be shared, or even if you dont the counter service lunches arent too bad.

 

[sg07]

we eat outside the world if we are trying to save money. we eat breakfast at either ponderosa or golden coral. they are about 3.99 for the buffet. same with dinners they have cheap buffets on route 4 and 192.
i cant see eating in the room being very cheap or convenient. at the values you have to rent a fridge for 10 dollars a day. thats not cheap, breakfast costs less than that. plus all the supplies, its not something i would do.
lunches in the park can be shared, or even if you dont the counter service lunches arent too bad.

I would be staying at Pop century .Are these restaurants in WDW??

 

[minnierocks]

thanks for the great tips but how do you heat water.My son drinks a lil lukewarm milk and I don't know how will I do that/?

I don't know how to heat milk...for heating water, we take a hot shot (it's little gadget that can be bought at Walmart for under $20), you pour water in the top and it heats water very quickly! Then you put your cup underneath and push a button to dispense it. I suppose you could heat water (it's close to boiling) and put it in large cup, placing a bottle in the hot water to heat it...
I've never done it...but it should work...

 

[imthatgirl]

I would be staying at Pop century .Are these restaurants in WDW??

well..no...there are no cheap restaurants in the world. if you want to eat inside you will not be saving money.

 

[minnierocks]

I would be staying at Pop century .Are these restaurants in WDW??

No...you would need a vehicle to get there. While we have a van...my DH drove 16 1/2 hours to get there, so he likes the fact that he parks it and is done driving for the week. We use Disney transportation all week, so all of our meals our on-site.
Taking breakfast food would be more difficult if flying, but we always drive so we just take it with us. I really like the convenience of having it in the room. We use the drawers to store it and the kids will eat while I finish getting ready for the parks...for us, it really saves time and $$!
We never rent a fridge...we use our cooler. Believe or not, the milk stays really cold! We fill it with ice (from the resort ice machine) before heading out to the parks and DH refills it, upon returning from the parks. While not the most convenient...it does save us $$.

 

[minnierocks]

Oh...one more thing we did that worked out great last time...
We headed back to the resort for dinner and while I ordered a large pizza...DH headed back to the room to get some pop (from our cooler) and we had dinner for four of us that cost $15. Not the healthiest meal, but it was a nice night to just chill a bit...
We ended up doing this twice...

 

[timzagain]

thanks for the great tips but how do you heat water.My son drinks a lil lukewarm milk and I don't know how will I do that/?

My youngest DD, now 10, feels she can't sleep without hot chocolate and has been like that since she was a toddler. At home I make it with milk, but when we're vacationing, I always travel with a few packets of Swiss Miss (or similar) to give her the nightly hot choc fix! Heat water in the in-room coffee maker!

During our recent stay at All Star Music, my sister travelled with a cheap electric kettle to make bottles for her 11 month old son. Wal Mart has them for about $15.

Alternatively, you could heat milk in the microwave at the food court and take it back to your room in an insulated mug.

I'm not sure if microwave rentals are possible for your room, but you could explore this option if the rental cost doesn't totally obliterate your projected food savings!

 

[sg07]

Wonderful!!Thanks for the great advice.Hoping to have a great trip

 

[DisneyBrat]

As a family of 5 we did this last time. Order a double cheeseburger and extra bun. Share the fries Also we took the plastic wonderbread sandwich keepers with peanut butter sandwiches some days into the park. Our fanny packs had other goodies to eat with the sandwiches so therefore we didn't have to buy a meal. Water was made tasty with Country Time Lemonade packets from our fanny packs Free water if you ask for a cup at food stands or counter service. Hope these little tips help you! I know it saved us some $$$$

 

[MSSANDRA]

Before the dinning plan, we did several things to save money and calories on food! We did take breakfast foods and ate most mornings in the room. One trip we were doing low carb and we took cheese sticks and ham chunks for breakfast and just took a large cooler. These food held us a lot longer than ceral type items. We also have done pizza in the room, using our own drinks. Another thing we used to do on our early trips when money was really tight was take our own chips, cookies and drinks and just get a sandwich from the food court for dinner sometimes. Even with the dinning plan ,which we always get now, we share counter services all the time. We never have to pay OOP for any food as we stretch our CS and Snack credits over two meals a day and have NEVER not been full. If they will eat what you are eating, I would not buy seperate meals for the children, or buy one adult and one child and then get more food if you need it.
Do your math however. You might find you come out cheaper with the dinning plan

BTW- Heating a bottle or a sippy of milk in hot water works great. That is what we did all the time with our DS.

 

[rynosmom]

We are a family of 4 and when ever we used to eat CS meals we would waste so much of the fries. We now just ask for the Cheeseburger and state we do not want the fries. This is much cheaper and so much less of a waste. We also buy 2 large sodas and ask for extra cups so we can split them. Breakfast in the room is also a great savings our DS's are fine with a bowl of cereal in the am. We pack cereal bars in our suit cases as well. They are great hold me overs until the next meal.