What Do You Do About Meals??

[panfan]

Although we have been to WDW many times in the past--this is our first trip to BWV since buying. ( we are in a 1 bedroom may25-30)

Our past trip have all been in hotel rooms so we ate all meals out. Now that we will have a kitchen I am just trying to plan out the week. What do most of you guys find yourselves doing??
I can see eating maybe breakfast in but we do enjoy eating out on vacation and a character breakfast or two. (DS6 and DS2)

Just wanted to know what is "normal" since i'm a newbie DVC'R

 

[TIdoublegaER]

Many DVCers don't use the kitchen. We tend to eat dinner out only once or twice and cook the rest of the meals in our room. Unless we are doing a character meal, we will eat breakfast and most lunches in the villa. While I enjoy going out to eat occasionally, I get burned out really quick if I have to eat out 3 meals a day or even just dinner every night.

 

[ncligs]

"Where is the kitchen"?? We thought they were just ornaments in the 1BR and 2BR's.

P.S. My DW refuses to cook on vacation...and I don't blame her.We usually just have breakfast in the rooms,keep drinks,snacks,coffee,etc.Occasionally order pizza.

 

[Chuck S]

We usually (but not always) have breakfast in the room and we have a few snack handy. We tend to have a nice full service lunch in the parks, and a counter service dinner.

 

[labr]

We are visiting our DVC "home" for the first time this summer. However, in the past we stayed at the Disney Institute - partially because of the kitchen. Generally I cook most of the time that we are there. We may eat out once or twice but we find it nice to eat at the villa about mid-day, take a break and then head back to the parks. That way everyone gets a break. Our DD is 8 and it is easier to just eat in because she doesn't like to wast time eating when at the parks. We may do a character meal once and the buffet at Germany in Epcot since it is excellent.

I really don't mind cooking during vacation and its really great for breakfast.

 

[anniet]

We're there for 14 days in January so we do a mix. We eat out, we heat up leftovers and we pick up a rotisserie chicken from Publix. We stay in a studio so no "full" kitchen. I'm not sure I'd use the stove anyway.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

We NEVER cook in the villa....Heck, we don't even cook while at home! That being said, we do use the fridge, coffee maker, and possibly the micro to heat left overs.

 

[debbiebones]

We'll be taking our first trip home in November at BCV and I'm planning on putting the kitchen to good use. We have a 3 and 4 year old and they just don't have the patience to eat every single one of their meals in a restaurant.

I know how costly eating out can get and while we'll certainly try some of the nicer restaurants while in WDW, I prefer to be more economical when it comes to eating breakfasts and lunches in our villa. That's one of the reasons we bought into it, knowing that we'd have a full kitchen to do some of our own cooking.

Deb

 

[RoutemanDan]

We have some breakfasts in the villa and stock the fridge for late night snacks.

 

[JOC]

We haven't been "home" yet but will stay in a 1BR when we do go. We stayed at Fort Wilderness cabins last year and ate breakfast and a light dinner in the cabin; our main meal was usually a character lunch. My husband does the cooking and likes to cook so I'm lucky!

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

I cook the vast majority of the meals in the unit. But, I love to cook, so, no a big problem for me. We do a couple of breakfasts out also a couple of dinners and if we happen to be in a park at lunch time, we will eat lunch there.

 

[CaptainMidnight]

We have small children who still take naps during the afternoon. We tend to eat breakfast in the room, eat almost all lunches out at a nice restaraunt with PS reservations, and then dinner is sometimes in, sometimes out right after naptime. Don't know if that helps. We do use the kitchen, but many times it's for preparing food we've bought like subs, sandwiches, or something to heat up. That's just us.

 

[ducklite]

Most breakfasts, sometimes afternoon snacks (cheese and crackers, fruits, etc.), plus wine/beer/soda, and every now and then microwave popcorn or ice cream.

I don't cook at home, I'm not going to start on vacation!

Anne

 

[MinnieGi]

We have stayed at OKW only once and are officially going "home" to BWV in Oct. But at OKW we ate breakfast almost everyday in our villa except when we had our Cindy breakfast. Lunch was usually a sit-down in the parks or at a resort. Dinner was often light and off-site. We often had snacks in the room. Since we have a 2yo we had lots of snacks on hand. We never used the stove, but sure made use of the fridge. Its just so nice to have somewhere to store snacks instead of crowding up space in an already crowded hotel room.

 

[wdw1972]

There's so much good food at wdw - everything I eat I buy there. Breakfast is eaten in my studio/villa, but for other meals I go to some of my favorite Disney restaurants. If I want to eat at home, I'll do it when I'm not on vacation ;-)

 

[nezy]

WOW! I really thought everyone did use the kitchen!! No, really , I did!

Anyway, we do-alot. We find it saves us alot of money we rather spend elsewhere. We always have breakfast in the roo-unless it is a character breakfast. We pack snacks and drinks for the parks, but have a big lunch that holds us over , in the parks -maybe a snack for dinner.

On non-park days we will cook 2 or 3 meals and snacks, depending on where we are. We do not however make plans around the meals-if we are out and it is more convenient to eat out, we will. We also like to have nachos and snacks while enjoying the resort.

I have pre-made and frozen some of our meals(when we drive), otherwise fajitas are easy and quick. The cooked rotisserie chickens are also good. Of course the old standby pizza is always a hit.

 

[chrissyk]

We always eat breakfast in our room, even if we're in a regular hotel room. I'm just not a big out-to-breakfast person. This time around, we're going to get lunch supplies and have lunch in our room most days of our 7 day trip. We're going to have dinner out every night, which is enough eating out for us. When we were eating lunch and dinner out, I found that I was never hungry for dinner and I'd end up ordering an just an appetizer. We definitely like to eat dinner out and try different restaurants when we're on vacation, but eating out 3 meals a day would get tiresome (and expensive!) for us.

 

[FredS]

We usually eat a light breakfast in the room. Other than that, we have snacks -- microwave popcorn, chips, fruit, cookies maybe. We use the refrigerator for milk, cokes and bottled water. I have never once turned on the stove. The posts mentioning things like the type of pans I skim over because I couldn't even have told you if there WERE pans in the unit. There are so many wonderful restaurants and foods that we can only experience at WDW, and we often don't return to the room until late at night.

Hm, maybe we can convince DVC to have some units with the small, studio-type "kitchen" setup and use that other space for a larger living area, or perhaps another bed??

 

[Richyams]

Over the course of twelve nights, I will have three or four major breakfasts, real serious stuff, lots of everything, there are 6-12 people in the GV. I make some real cool stuff. I will have one or two dinners, and of course a fridge full of pigs feet for snacks.

Coffee, late night nachos, crab cakes, pizza rolls, heavy Belgum chocolate ice cream with malt to sprinkle on....the thought af that malt and ice cream just gave me the chills, its so good.

We don't use the kitchen alot, but it definitely adds a whole lot of comfort to the vacation...hey, isn't that why I bought DVC???? For comfortable vacations, it works real well.

 

[Lesley]

Last December we planned to have a couple of meals in our villa....we did a seafood boil (forgot our big pot...so we had to split up the cooking....but it worked out in the end) and steak sandwiches. We also ate most of our breakfasts there and had lots of snacks, etc... We tend to be 2 meal a day folks...but we also has some meals out in the parks and restaurants.

I like the idea of making and freezing some things in advance since we generally drive. I generally make and freeze pancakes for us to have over several days at home...and I could do this for vacation. Same thing goes for chili, stew....any number of things. The one thing I don't like about cooking on vacation is that it takes up vacation time...but then again, it saves a lot of money! I've gotta save if I'm going to buy more points! LOL