Would you share your $ saving tips with me?

[ehrawn]

Yeah, while official policy is that outside food isn't allowed, the reality is that it is within reason.

Per DL policy, most glass containers, alcoholic beverages, and large coolers are prohibited, but most food and drinks are allowed. https://disneyland.disney.go.com/faq/parks/permitted-items/

 

[bcla]

Per DL policy, most glass containers, alcoholic beverages, and large coolers are prohibited, but most food and drinks are allowed. https://disneyland.disney.go.com/faq/parks/permitted-items/

You need to poke around for the outside food policy. However, many repeat visitors understand the unofficial policy is that not going overboard and not having a picnic inside the park is OK to a point. This different than WDW official policy, which allows outside food.

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/faq/dining/outside-food-in-park/

Q. Can I bring outside food and beverages into Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park?

A. At the present time, you can enjoy your own food and beverages in an ideal setting at the complimentary picnic area—conveniently located outside the Main Entrance to Disneyland Park.

However, with the exception of food items for Guests with specific dietary restrictions, outside food or beverage items are not permitted in either of the Disneyland Resort theme parks.

The Disneyland Resort features a variety of great dining options for almost every taste and budget—including a wide range of choices to help accommodate Guests with food allergies or intolerances.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/faq/parks/outside-food-and-drink/

Q. Can I bring my own food into theme parks and Disney Resort hotels?

A. Guests are allowed to bring food items—such as snacks or foods that do not require heating—into Disney theme parks. Inform a Security Cast Member of any food items when you enter the park.

​

 

[CandMmommy]

Thank you all!

 

[felice]

Even though my wife and I stay in Staybridge Suites on S Manchester Ave rather than HOJO, we make use of the provided breakfast there (which is rather good) to eat a fair-sized portion of food that keeps us in good stead for most of the rest of the day. We can also make up bagels with cheese, again from the hotel supplies, which we take out with us and have for lunch some days too. In the evenings we have usually ordered something from the takeaway places that appear in the regular hotel monthly magazine - usually they will serve enough to cover 2 evening meals for us as a couple, as opposed to just one. The CVS Pharmacy is also a good place to stock up on required bits and pieces (not just food or medicines) as their prices are relatively cheap.

 

[beachdreamr1229]

I haven't read all the other responses, so I apologize if I'm repeating a lot.

Bring your own snacks. Even if you are flying in, you can walk to the CVS on Katella and Harbor and buy some snacks.
Share a pasta from Pizza Port. It's easily enough for 2. My family of 5 buys 2 pastas and some breadsticks and it feeds us all.
For breakfast, go to McDonalds on your walk to the parks. We stay at HOJO a lot and it's very convenient.
Bring a refillable water bottle of some sort and use the filtered water spigots to refill instead of buying a ton of waters.

If you're really into cutting costs and either have a car or don't mind walking a ton, I have a friend who walks to the Costco nearby and gets hot dogs there for lunch or grabs a pizza for dinner. I personally think that's crazy because it's a bit of a walk (3 or 4 miles), but it is something I hadn't thought of prior to meeting my friend that would save money. If you have a car, it seems like a great way to save.

 

[Rubygoose]

How much is HOJO? I couldn't find a decent enough deal for there for our dates so I decided I'll be 'saving' money by going to the new Homewood Suites - Convention Center. I have a teenaged boy though so not sure that OP will save as much. There is a full, hot breakfast included there...so my plan is to have a nice big breakfast every day, then bring a bunch of snacks and drinks to the parks and likely have ice cream as our 'lunch' in the park. Then for dinner Homewood also has free drinks and food Mon - Thu which we will take advantage of 2 of the nights. On the days we'll be at the park later - I plan to bring sandwiches in a cooler - get a locker outside the parks and eat in the picnic area there. Honestly I am anticipating that this will be one of the lowest food budgets for a vacation in a long while. I did book one table service meal, but hope to have enough Rewards points to pay for that one.

You can use the Disboards discount code LNDB to get a pretty good discount.

One of the strategies that we used for saving money a couple years ago was to get APs, even though we don't live close by. We knew that we were going to go two summers in a row, so we first went at the end of August 2014 and then we went a week earlier in August in 2015. We managed to get 16 days in the parks on those APs, so 2 8 day trips, and we were able to be in the parks for a couple hours on arrival and departure days. We got really good rates on the onsite hotels, and got to use the discount on dining and souvenirs.

Another thing that we do to save for any trip is we reduce how much we eat out at home. We usually eat out once a week, on Saturdays. If we have a 5 day trip, that's 5 dinners out, so we need to stop eating out 5 weeks before our trip. We try to be really strict about this, but we break the rule if there's a birthday around that time.

When we're at the park, we like to share meals and we try to only eat 2 big meals a day instead of three, and eat little snacks that we bring in to tide us over. If we're doing a character breakfast, we usually do it late in the day and count it as lunch. We usually pick up several bags of Turkey Jerky and nibble on those in the lineup - it keeps the kids protein levels up and keeps us full until the next meal.

 

[paintingoncelluloid]

I LOVE the idea of taking pictures of souvenirs. In addition to helping choose between things, I think there are instances for me when having a picture of something (like an adorable decorative thing) is probably almost as good as actually having it...

The other best suggestion I have for saving money doesn't have to do with money, exactly, but is to take care of yourself: stay hydrated, eat regularly (even if you don't feel hungry because of heat/excitement), and make sure you have a hat/sunscreen/comfortable shoes, etc. I always make my worst money choices when I am uncomfortable: buying an expensive soda because I'm thirsty with a headache, paying for a table service meal because my feet hurt, or impulse shopping because I'm tired. Taking care of yourself will not only mean you're happier, but your wallet will be happier, too!

 

[smartlabelprint]

Does pizza press have gluten free?

 

[jayhawk4]

We always make a stop between the airport and the hotel for bottled water and snack items.

Others have mentioned buying clothes at Target. My favorite Mickey shirt is from Target. It looks just a plain Mickey Mouse on s gray shirt. It looks like something they might sell in the park, but it was $10 at Target instead of $29. I wear it on our annual DL trip every year.

 

[lurpee]

Here's what we did last time/doing this time...

Things I do before getting to Disneyland...

Whenever I go to Target (I live 90 minutes away from the closest one) I buy at least one $50 entertainment card. With my Red Card I recive 5% off so I pay $47.50 or $95 for every $100. You can use those cards to buy your tickets directly from Disneyland. I also buy my laundry detergents there and other cleaning supplies and there often seems to be a deal where you buy two or three and get $5 or $10 gift cards for Target. So I JUSTIFY this as putting it towards the entertainment cards. So last time I went to Target I got one $50 Disney card for $47.50 and since I had $15 in Target Cards from other purchases I tell myself I got the other $50 card for $35 (you have to use the gift cards before the 5% is taken off with the Red Card).

The other thing I do is that the girls will receive a new Disney Costume for Christmas with a gift card for their personal spending. I'll buy the costumes when they're on sale in October. There are better sales after Halloween but less costume choices. I'll use the GC's I purchased at 5% off if I get them from the Disney store. I also saved my older daughter's old costumes so my younger daughter can wear a different one every day really. If DD4 decides to be a princess for Halloween we won't get her one for Christmas and will just use that one.

I am debating whether or not to buy my Park Hoppers at Safeway. They often have deals where on Gift Cards you receive 4 times the points towards your Gas Rewards. So I have bought a $50 gift card before which meant that it was as if I bought $200 in groceries and therefore received $.20 off a gallon in gas. Not huge savings but I figure if I am going to be going to Disneyland and buying gas, might as well get cheaper gas.

I will also go to the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce website and print out any coupons I see that I think I'll use.

I will make DDs autograph books. It's super easy to do.

I am also 90% sure that I am going to get an annual pass for myself this time. Due to the fact that we love the dining experiences there and will spend a lot of money on that, I am thinking that the 15% savings we will receive by having one AP holder for dining, the $120 savings we will receive by not having to do the PP+ each day, and the 20% off of some merchandise (we'll probably only buy ears and a tshirt for DH), and apparently there's a discount with BBB...The downside of this is that I won't have the MME that DH and DDs will have. Also I justify the AP because I want to go back to DL for my 40th birthday in November so the savings would hopefully repeat themselves.

Once I get to Anaheim...

Last time I walked to Target and got a case of water. This time my sister, who lives in LA, will be picking us up so we'll be going by Target and buying a case of water and several gallons to refill as I drink a gallon of water a day. And I'll be using the Red Card for 5% off of course ;-) We willl also bring snacks with us--either from home or buy once we get there. We will also be saving $40 or $50 this time by not having to have a car service or taxi pick us up from the airport. When we leave we will use a car service.

We are staying at a hotel that has a large continental breakfast. We will eat early there every morning however at least once, but possibly twice, we will do a character breakfast. We will do the breakfast as late as possible so that we can treat it almost as a large lunch. We will receive 15% off with the AP.

When we went in December 2012, Pizza Press was a hotel down from us and super cheap. My entire family (I think there were 19 of us) ate there constantly. I hear they've moved but we'll definitely hit them at least once while we are there. In 2012, they had a check-in on FB discount available. I kind of doubt they still do that but it's worth a try!

I feel like I am not remembering everything. I'll come back and post it again if I think of something and will definitely be looking through everyone else's posts!

 

[kailuagirl]

Bring your own water and snacks. Take things to keep in your room to make sandwiches or some cheese and salami and crackers, cereal, yogurt, hummus, fruit, carrots, etc. Anything to cut down on having to buy food. Like others, we eat in line in the morning, muffins, yogurt, fruit, etc. Food in the parks is fun but after a couple days I honestly don't want to eat anything there anymore.

We also bring our same mickey ear headbands each year. We have about 4 different ones so my daughter and I just change it up every day. If we see a new pair we really like we might get it, but so far, the ones we have are our favorites.

I bring glow sticks for dd for everynight. I don't by dd things the first time she see's it, unless it's something Dumbo that she doesn't have. She's a Dumbo collector. Usually by the end of the trip she won't want what she saw anymore or will have found better things. Downside of this is, we have missed out before and what we wanted was sold out. So it is a chance you take that's for sure. But honestly, it's overwhelming and when we have bought a lot of things, we get home and they never get touched by any of us

 

[Indiana Scott]

My son is a picky eater and has a light appetite. I find that I can give him Uncrustables for 2 or 3 lunches during our week long stay. It saves a lot of money and to him it's comfort food.
It also allows my wife and I to eat at places where there's nothing he would like.

 

[choirboy501]

Does pizza press have gluten free?

Yes. It's $2 more.

http://www.thepizzapress.com/

Additional tip: order online, then go pickup. There is always a line out the door in the evening past park closing time.

 

[Sagginit]

Does pizza press have gluten free?

They do but they do not have great reviews as it appears they CC, I chose not to eat there myself. There is a California Pizza Kitchen nearby and they take much better precautions from what my research told me so we ate there instead. We also did order ahead and picked up.

To save $ we ate only one meal a day in the park, packed snacks, and ate two meals in our room. We got dinner offsite 3 times so we then had leftovers that were lunch/dinner in our room the next day. I brought in a lot of snacks and had no one question it. The hotel wasn't super cheap but I got a discount using AAA and Orbitz (split stay, discount was not available each night on each site). We didn't splurge on any extras like desert parties or dinner packages.

I bought all my souvenirs at once using my disney visa for the discount, so you can't combine that with GC but if you run over its an option.

 

[Indiana Scott]

If you've stayed at a hotel before, make sure you call them to see if they will give you a returning guest discount. We just did that and got an additional $13 off the best rate we could find.
That will pay for one persons lunch!