Bringing your own food to WDW

[lisamarie]

We are going to WDW in the near future with my inlaws. There is a HUGE debate about the best way to do food. FIL is Mr. Cheap. He says we should bring snacks and go back to the condo (20 mins away) for lunch and dinner. I think he's insane. DH agrees with FIL. I say we pack our lunches and put them in a locker or the car (if they really don't want to do a locker) or buy a stroller and cart it around with us (DH says no to this) or use a backpack. Then eat out for dinner if the park closes late or go home for a late dinner if the park closes at 7pm. (My plan is what my sister does so I know it would work, though they had a child in a stroller all the times they've gone so carting it on a stroller was a no brainer while our youngest is 5 and not in a stroller)

 

If you bring your own food to WDW, how do you handle it? If it makes a difference, we're a family of 5, adding 2 for the inlaws but they will probably do their own thing no matter what we do.

[Snow]

Sorry, what's WDW?

[lisamarie]

Disney World

[jujsky]

We had the meal plan when we were there, but we ate breakfast in most days (we bought some bagels and muffins) and we did bring snacks in our backpacks, like fruit, goldfish crackers, etc. I don't see why bringing lunch in a backpack wouldn't work. I'd definitely do at least one meal/day out. My view is it's not a vacation if I have to cook all the time.

 

If it makes you feel better, my MIL is like this too. She has a timeshare and doesn't understand why anyone would go out to eat during vacation when they can make their own food there. I hate doing that! As I said -- if I'm cooking and doing dishes, how is that a vacation for me? I'm doing the same crap I always do in a different location after running around all day. I also don't like cooking in a kitchen that isn't mine. That might sound silly, but it's just how I feel. I don't mind breakfast or packing a lunch, but I refuse to cook dinner while I'm on vacation.

[Lily_Grace]

20 minutes away = 2 hours of lost park time at the least. It doesn't make sense. First you have to get out of the park, then back to your car at the T&T center, then leave, hurry and eat, drive back, park, and make your way back into the park. The money you'd save on food is lost on the tickets. And to be honest, you wouldn't save that much as opposed to finding the biggest bang for your buck in the park. Cosmic Ray's has a large meal, Liberty Tree does a family style, and there are plenty of large snacks available. DH and I did the 'lets go out to the parking lot' at Busch Gardens, and after buying the groceries and losing the park time, it wasn't worth it monitarily or logistically. If it could be done easily I wouldn't mind it at the Magic Kingdom but Epcot is definitely a foodie place.

 

If you're going to bring food, then each family should be responsible for packing lunch/dinners in each person's backpack. Bring things like the individual peanut butter cups to help you feel fuller longer and plenty of water.

[Tess in the Burbs]

it's a pain to get out of the park, back to the room, and back again, even if you are using the free transportation. It will eat time out of your day.

 

We took a small cooler in and had a cheapo stroller I bought for the trip. It's nice to just leave a stroller parked somewhere all day and go back to it when you need it. We didn't even push it around, just left if near a ride we would come back to. Worked great. Even left purchases and it was all there 4 hours later. They have lockers but they are usually up front and a pain.

 

I get wanting to save money but just pack a meal and find a bench. Don't waste your time on the idea of going back to the room.

[lisamarie]

So I can just park the stroller with our cooler on it and leave it for the morning? DH is against pushing a stroller with us all day. If you bring backpacks, what do you do with it on rides?

 

I tried to tell DH how we would lose 2 hours by leaving. We'd have to make our way to the front of the park, to our car, drive 20 minutes, make lunch, clean up, drive back, park, make our way back to the park and the rides. 2 hours down the drain out of our probably once in our life time trip. No thank you. I would rather use all my Christmas money on eating out than do that. And I don't want to cook dinner and clean up after all that walking.

[jelbe5]

We ate breakfast at our condo in the am, packed lunch and stored it in the lockers and bought ice cream in the park. Worked out great. We ate lunch quickly because we all wanted to get back to rides. :-)

 

We only did WDW one day, so we wanted to maximize our time.

 

I say pack a lunch!

[Luckymama]

You can bring food into the parks ----you just can't lug or pull around a large cooler. I suggest putting the cooler into a locker right after you enter the park.

 

 

[Jennifer in MI]

I haven't read all the responses, but we've done Disney a number of different ways. If you don't want to pay for many meals, but also don't want to leave the parks for your meals, here is what I would recommend.

 

Eat a BIG breakfast at the condo. We did a number of "dinners" for breakfast - stick a chicken in the crock pot at night and potatoes in the oven in the morning and eat!

 

Pack a dinner. Simple dinner. Sandwiches, a bag of chips, fruit, granola bars, etc. Take in empty water bottles (we have the collapsable kind). Take in a stroller. You have young kids and that's a LOT of walking. And, it doubles as a way to carry your food. Easy. Disney makes it really simple to have a stroller there. LOTS of stroller parking conveniently located! Honestly, I'd much rather push a stroller than have a backpack. Between the extra weight and the HEAT with it on my back, I much prefer the stroller!

 

Eat LUNCH out. It's cheaper. You won't be too hungry because you will have had a HUGE breakfast. Find the restaurants where the portions are large (I can help you with those recommendations if you want!) and split them. Even my bigger boys are okay with splitting some of the meals!!! They are THAT big.

 

That is what I would do. It would be minimal cost (just lunch out) and MUCH easier than leaving the parks for two meals. (Does your FIL know that driving to Magic Kingdom is a HUGE pain in the butt??? We stayed in a condo two miles off the entrance to Disney. It took us an HOUR to go door to door to MK. You have to park your car, take a tram to the monorail, take the monorail to MK. Not quick!!!)

[I.Dup.]

Leaving the park for lunch and dinner is a stupid idea. Sorry.

 

I agree with bringing simple things like sandwiches into the park for one meal and eating the other meal at a restaurant. We've only ever eaten at counter-service restaurants there, and they are still terrific.

[FriedClams]

We always stay at a condo and I'm cheap. Here's what we do:

 

Big breakfast at the condo

Pack snacks, including fun treats for the kids.

Carry empty water bottles and Crystal light individual packets

Pack a lunch. We do PB&J, chips, cookies. Almost every day but we like it and it doesn't go bad.

 

With this, there's no need to leave the park. And, no one cares if you carry food. We carry a backpack and it's really no hassle at all.

 

For dinner we eat half at the parks (sit down, nice) and half off property while park hopping. Usually around 4 so we don't miss much. By then everyone needs a break. Our favorite place off park is Sweet Tomatoes down the road from Downtown Disney. It's around $40 for a family of 4, all-you-can-eat, and it's fresh salads, pasta and baked goods. They have really good food and drinks. We really like it and usually eat there a couple of times.

[I.Dup.]

Sweet Tomatoes is SOOOO good!!!!!!

[DianeW88]

We get the dining plan and eat all our meals in the park, so I can't help you there. LOL However, I will say that a five year old NEEDS a stroller at WDW. You will walk miles each day and the littles can get very cranky and tired. At that age, I wouldn't be without one.

[Ottakee]

I would not leave the park to eat. Take some stuff in with you.

 

I agree that a 5 year old will need a stroller some/most of the day as it is a LONG day and LOTS and LOTS of walking. It is super easy to leave stuff in the stroller. We did that with the wheelchair when we went and never had an issue.....just don't leave your camera/cash/credit cards in there.

 

If FIL really wants to leave, let them and you meet up with them in the park again when they get back.

 

If you like burgers several of the burger places have condiment bars where you can get more veggies, etc. for your burger which helps fill you up. I also ate kids meals almost all of the time we were there. It was PLENTY of food. If in doubt, order less then you think you will need and if someone is still hungry order more but very often you can share and still be full.

[sbgrace]

We did a good breakfast at the condo, snacks and lunch hauled into the park, dinner at the condo most days when we did WDW. On days we were going to stay through dinner at the park we usually went in later so could get breakfast and lunch at the condo. I would not leave the park for lunch and dinner. I'd feel I was wasting way too much park time. If you're doing shuttles from the condo that further limits your options in terms of coming and going. If they are driving in and paying parking they are adding to their expense in a non-food way.

[lmrich]

We packed lunch in our backpacks. We had two that we switched out carrying. Each kid had thier own water bottle - empty at first because of the weight. We brought a ton of snacks. I made a bunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all at once, cut up oranges, apple slices, carrots, cookies, granola bars, yogurt tubes. Honestly we were full until 7:00 or 8:00 with an ice cream snack around 4:00. Dinner was at the condo and was stouffers or something I had already made and just had to dump to cook. I used paper plates as well. It is vacation! Have fun!!

[lisamarie]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I needed experience to validate my point of view. I'll buy a stroller at WM when we go shopping there for food since we don't own one anymore, use it to transport food and kid, and call it a day. Good point on the big breakfast. We're not big breakfast eaters by nature, but we'll have to make an exception for the week we do Disney. And I'll add water bottles to the list. I'm thinking the plastic disposable ones so we can freeze them overnight and use them as our ice packs as well as for water.

 

The inlaws are paying for all of our trip except food so I don't understand why DH is being such a poop about this. We set aside $2K for the trip before we knew we wouldn't need to pay for much. So the money is there. Why waste our time? If the kids truly need a rest, we'll take them to a show. Or leave at dinner time rather than close the park down.

[besroma]

Not sure if this would work for you, but we took a jar of peanut butter and bagels and ate those for breakfast so that we could get to the parks early.

 

Then, we ate early lunches (around 11 am) to beat the crowds. CS meals are the cheapest and are a good deal if you split them. If you can convince everyone to eat a few lunches in the park, you could stay in the park through the day, then eat dinner at your place at night.

 

Columbia Harbor House and Cosmic Ray's has good food and very large portions.

 

Have fun on your trip!