If you are cheap about food at DW come in.

[ohiopollworker]

I am sooooo frugal.  We are going to be spending a fortune on flights and hotels and park tickets.  Spending big money on food might send me over the edge.  Plus in non-dramatic terms, we will be hard pressed to stay within our budget just with flights/hotels/tickets, and although we could increase the budget, we have other priorities.  

BUT I will never ever ever drag my crockpot to DW, lol.  My goal on vacation is not to spend time cooking.  I don't even know if I care about having a kitchenette, because all I want to be doing is microwaving a can of soup or something!  

So who has done DW with an eye to keeping food costs low but not going crazypants?  What was your plan of action?  How much did you spend on food? 

[momof2]

We stay offsite. We have breakfast in our 2 bedroom villa that has a full kitchen. Quick stuff, but cheap (my kids eat frozen waffles, my husband has cereal, etc). We then take snacks to the parks and add something quick for lunch (hotdog, pizza, etc).

Honestly, I cook at night. But, we drive so I take a huge cooler with frozen stuff (like I premake spaghetti sauce so I am just cooking some noodles). If I flew there, I would probably shop as soon as I got there and do something like a frozen pizza, a rotisserie chicken, etc. We just don't spend that much on food when we go, but I could not give you a dollar figure.

[firedancer10288]

Aug 21, 2016 13:36:50 GMT -5 momof2 said:

We stay offsite. We have breakfast in our 2 bedroom villa that has a full kitchen. Quick stuff, but cheap (my kids eat frozen waffles, my husband has cereal, etc). We then take snacks to the parks and add something quick for lunch (hotdog, pizza, etc).

Honestly, I cook at night. But, we drive so I take a huge cooler with frozen stuff (like I premake spaghetti sauce so I am just cooking some noodles). If I flew there, I would probably shop as soon as I got there and do something like a frozen pizza, a rotisserie chicken, etc. We just don't spend that much on food when we go, but I could not give you a dollar figure.

Mostly this. We stay somewhere with a full kitchen and have groceries delivered when we get there (Garden Grocer). We do a big breakfast in the morning. I pack a backpack full of snacks and PBJ. We do a quick service early dinner/late lunch if we're staying at the park late for fireworks. If not, then I cook a quick dinner when we get "home".

ETA- I spend probably $125-150 on groceries for the week (about the same I'd spend at home). I factor $30/meal for the 3 of us inside the park. And that's only once or twice each trip). Like I said though, we do quick service mostly, and don't make reservations anywhere unless it's a special occasion.

[lala]

Are you staying on site? Will you have a rental car?

We stay onsite in a studio - so micro, fridge & toaster. We have a grocery order delivered after we arrive. In general we are frugal people but we don't go crazy cheap in Disney b/c we are food people and we reduce our lodging & air costs other ways. I have zero interest in cooking full out meals, but we like having stuff for breakfasts, snacks, cocktail hour, etc. So we get bagels, cream cheese, yogurt, wine, beer, fruit, cheese, pretzels/crackers, milk, etc. That's more about convenience for kids, avoiding meltdowns than saving money - but that is nice, too. We'd be buying groceries at home anyway.

[ilikedonuts]

How much do you want to spend? I mean if you have any intentions of eating out, its not going to be like $300 for the week for 4-6 people. But you can easily save by having breakfast at your hotel, bringing pbj for lunch (though a week of that might get really old) and only doing counter service meals and no sit downs.

[bbdoll]

My mom and I took the kids to Disney in June. We arrived on Sunday night and stayed until Saturday. I spent about $500 on food for the week for me and the two kids. We did mostly counter service with a few table service restaurants. At the counter service restaurants, I got one kids meal and split between the two kids most times. I would usually add a side dish extra. We brought our own drinks into the park. I got a kids meal as well, many times. In that heat, I don't get very hungry. We did the breakfast at Garden Grill, lunch at Biergarten, dinner at Mama Melrose and lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern. Everything else was counter service and we brought our own snacks into the parks, so no extra money there. We did breakfast in the hotel room before we went into the parks, with the exception of the Garden Grill day. Cereal, toast or Pop Tarts.

[gardengal]

How cheap do you need to go? You can plan to just eat out 1 meal/day. Breakfast always in room, PB&J w fruit for some lunches, cheese/crackers/salami/fruit for a dinner or two. Or hummus, pita, olives, grape tomatoes, etc kind of mezzo platter. We do a lot of picnic style supper on vacation.

You can get grocery delivery to your hotel.

Also, the France cafe in Epcot has "pizza" (they call it something fancy) for a good price.

[sessy]

We had groceries delivered to our hotel. Ate in, and packed lunches to take in the park with us.

[orval]

We stay off site. Always have breakfast in the room. We bring snacks and water to the parks. We also usually share meals. I found that the kids meals are large, so we sometimes get two of those to split between the 3 of us. Or don't get the extras like fries/chips etc. You really don't need them and can have a snack later.

[jeaniebueller]

If you are staying offsite, eat breakfast at the hotel, budget for eating lunch at the park and either cook in the evening, stop at a grocery store or get takeout.

[Deleted]

Breakfast in the room is the easiest way to save like 60.00 a day for 4 people.

For lunch check out CS locations like Cosmic Rays or Flame Tree Barbeque that have some splittable options.

If you are near Fort Wilderness Trails End Buffeteria has a reasonably priced buffet. You can also get take out fried chicken or pizza from there window and eat at the picnic tables outside. Bring your own smores stuff and check out the FREE Chip and Dale Campfire afterwards. They show a movie too. Afterwards you can watch the Electric Water Pagent go by. Honestly it's a pretty fun night out to go over to the Fort. Maybe budget extra for a carriage ride?

The Plaza in MK is comparable to a CS meal in pricing and is sit down and in AC and the food is good.

I have ordered a pizza for dinner a few times. DO NOT order the pizza from the slips they slide under the doors onsite. It is a scam.

Via Napoli can be reasonable if you order a large pizza and salad to split

I also have groceries delivered and have made lunches / dinners to eat at the pool. I bring a little collapsable cooler and put crackers, sunbutter, grapes, hummus, baby carrots cheese and yogurt in and then we have a little appetizers for dinner party at the pool. They also deliver booze. Which is awesome.

If you want a character meal breakfast is cheapest. Always.

If you want to bring lunch into the parks in MK Tom Sawyers Island has a picnic area, In Epcot there are some benches in the Japanese Gardens in the World Showcase.

At Hollywood Studios Starring Rolls has HUGE sandwiches that are TOTALLY splitable and delicious. The cupcakes there are also ENORMOUS and honestly impossible to finish yourself. They are only open until like 2pm though.

ALWAYS budget for ice cream, popcorn, and other special snacks. It's BIG part of the trip for me and I would be pretty miserable if I couldn't eat my snack waiting for the parade.

This has nothing to do with food, but bring your own light up shit for the kids for parades and fireworks. I go enough that I caved and bought a Mickey light up once AND have gotten 3 trips AND multiple parades/ Festivals at home out of the darn thing so it was worth it BUT if you only go once in a lifetime or once every 5 years or so then bring your own. I have even found Disney themed light up toys at the Dollar Tree.