ways to save at WDW

[mdhiggin]

When we took our last trip, we didn't want to pay for a refrigerator or bring a cooler, so each night before we went to bed, we filled the sink with ice from the hotel and stuck bottled drinks in it so they would be cold the next morning.

We are also a family of five and can share two adult meals and a child meal with two extra empty plates they provide at the restaurants. We're all full when we're done, and sometimes there's still a little food left over. The only restaurant this didn't work at was Nine Dragons(I think that's the name) in Epcot. Their portions were surprisingly small.

[Bohms4]

I'm assuming that you didn't use the dining plan, right?

[mdhiggin]

No, we didn't use the dining plan. It would have been more expensive. We do have the Dining Experience card for Annual Passholders. We also get the cups from the hotel food court, but sometimes you just need some drinks in your room, hence the ice in the sink.
The DE almost paid for itself in discounts on our first trip with it, and we'll probably go back two or three more times this year.

[mdhiggin]

Is anyone else cheap at Disney?

[disneymom15]

We always ask for a cup of ice water at the counter service rest. instead of buying bottled water. We also share our meals at times.

[Johnno52]

>Is anyone else cheap at Disney?<

LOL! I think we are all cheap at times.
But are you confusing "cheap" over "smart" vacationing?

If you visit WDW quite often (once ot twice a year) or even with many family members there are many ways of saving money as you have posted.

Just because "you are on vacation" doesn't mean you have to go hog wild on everything. Sharing meals is a smart way to go as we find that the portions at many US restaurants are too big for us.
My DW loves the kid size portions and enjoys getting them whenever she can if she likes the meal. My twin nieces (16) both share a every meal and then can never finish them off.
We definately are off the DDP for that reason.

So don't feel "cheap", you are doing the right thing! We will now call it "Saving for your next trip"!

[mrsgaribaldi]

We share meals too. It's to much food for one person. We also share drinks since they will get warm faster if we each have one. Sometimes we share snacks too. :mickey:

[faline]

You can also consider bringing breakfast foods with you and having that meal in your room before you leave for the parks in the morning.

[Tiggerlovr9000]

We also will share meals. Last time we found the portions at Rainforest Cafe to be enormous. Way too much food was wasted..

[ibrowse17]

We try to make our big meal of the day lunch, which is a bit cheaper than dinner. We also take breakfast food and snacks with us to eat in our room or camp site:thumbsup:

[Sean Riley Taylor's Mom]

We are also a family of 5.

We always eat breakfast in our room. We are DVC members now and have a full kitchen that we get stocked by Garden Grocer.

But, before we were members we still ate breakfast in our room. Cereal, bagels, oatmeal, etc. Our kids are big breakfast eaters so, it saves us a lot of money.

Lunches are in the parks. The kids all get kids meals.

They get one snack in the parks in the afternoon. I always bring one snack for each child in the am and that is their late am snack.

We share bottles of water throughout the day. They get warm fast so, that is a better option for us.

We are not super cheap...lol...but, we do try to save some money for fun things!:mickey:

[FlaTinkRAMESAM]

You can also consider bringing breakfast foods with you and having that meal in your room before you leave for the parks in the morning.

This is what we do whenever we stay onsite. Not only is it cheaper than spending almost $15 in the morning for 2 of us by the time we get meals and drinks, but it is quicker. We grab our pop-tarts/breakfast bars/etc. and we are off!

Me and my daughter usually share an adult meal at CS restuarants when we go for the day. She never eats all of her kids meals, I never eat all of the adult meal, so it is like throwing money away. She and I both love the chicken and fries, so we get the little nuggets (I love the nuggets so much better than the strips, especially for this purpose) and fries and I get her a chocolate milk and I drink a bottle of water that I brought with me and we eat very cheap. And we both get full.

When we stay for trips though, I tend to just kinda get whatever... I dunno why... lol Maybe I figure if I've spent all this already, what's some more? Baaaad logic.

[KineGirl]

I buy glow bracelets and necklaces from the Dollar Store for night time World wandering instead of buying in park. I also buy anything Disney I can come across in there.. coloring books, crayons, stickers, scrapbook materials, big pens. I also picked up some ponchos & pirate costume things last year. My DD is 17 and still loves getting a travel bag full of these goodies. :mickey:

We drive usually so we always bring cases of bottles water, snacks & breakfast items.

[#1donaldfan]

We normally do pop tarts / cereal in the room......we're a fam of 5 too, and our stays are at POR with a refer included....we do, do some TS breakfast's which are great, but we normally are not early eaters.....

Sometimes we're so busy "playing", we even skip lunch and grab some popcorn and munch while in line.....Dinner's are our biggie......:thumbsup:

[Jasminegirlsmom]

I see a lot of people post that they share meals. I am always afraid that to try as I'm worried that Disney frowns on it. Has anyone ever had any problems with cast member/servers when sharing a meal?

[bruin1344]

Two times of the recent times I went to WDW, I was on college kid's budget. We pretty much saved money by picking up groceries like breakfast foods, orange juice, and water at the supermarket. We did limited table services meals and did mainly counterservices for lunch and dinner. Epcot has some great counterservices in World Showcase in addition to table services so we didnt get tired of eating the same counterservice foods.

[Love of Disney]

We bring breakfast foods to eat in the hotel room, juice, water, and miscellaneous snacks for the days and nights. We also bring the snacks and some drinks into the parks, that way we only have to buy minimum. :cool:

[mdhiggin]

I see a lot of people post that they share meals. I am always afraid that to try as I'm worried that Disney frowns on it. Has anyone ever had any problems with cast member/servers when sharing a meal?

No one has ever said anything to us for sharing meals, but all they can say is no, right? I ask for extra plates when we order, so they know what we're doing.

[Speedy1998]

You can also consider bringing breakfast foods with you and having that meal in your room before you leave for the parks in the morning.

This is what we do, we also bring a cooler and fill it with ice so that we have juice and milk with breakfast.

[FlaTinkRAMESAM]

I see a lot of people post that they share meals. I am always afraid that to try as I'm worried that Disney frowns on it. Has anyone ever had any problems with cast member/servers when sharing a meal?

No, in fact, they have been very accommodating to my loud 3 year old who demanded a mickey plate from me once when we were in line. She just knows what she wants...lol They heard her (I wasn't about to ask) and they put a mickey plate (the kind that the kids meals come on) and a cookie on the tray when they gave it to us. They smiled and told my little one "here you go princess" and that was it. By no means do we expect that every time, but it was certainly a nice little bit of Disney magic to keep a hungry 3 year old little diva happy!

[JMTStone]

I'm with SRT's Mom. We are DVC members who ship food down before we arrive (except the eggs).

We eat breakfast in the room. That way, everyone has eaten by the time the morning showers are done and we're not waiting around. Bagels, Eggs for Protein DH, and cereal for the kids. We leave after that and are ready to ROLL.

We also have those "snacks" in the room for the kids who can't wait until dinner and after we get back to the room.

We bring our leftovers back to our room/fridge when it won't be too much of a hassle to take it around the parks.

[Dakota Rose]

We bring snacks and refillable water bottles from home. And usually we'll have breakfast and dinner with just 1-2 snacks in between. DH "has" to have a "real breakfast" while I'm happy with a piece of toast, so we usually eat the food court or if he gets a big breakfast, I'll just eat his toast kind of thing. That's about as close as he gets to "sharing" food. And I like the kids meals usually.

[Texas Tinkerbell Too]

We also make a trip to the store upon arrival. I feel really "cheap" because we buy not only breakfast items (bottled water, juice, milk, cereal, cereal bars, fruit) but also snacks and quick lunch foods (bread, lunchmeat, chips or lunchables for the kids). We wake up, get ready, eat our "continental" breakfast, and I pack sandwiches for lunch. Then, we eat dinner at the parks (counterservice or tableservice). We save lots of money. :mickey:

[thumperbug]

We usually bring breakfast foods and snacks...this time I am shipping it ahead of time. We also usually bring our own milk..the Parmalet milk that doesnt need to be in the fridge until you open it (or prior to if you want it cold). We usually have a 1 br villa so it is breakfast in the room. We are not big breakfast folks so DH has a cereal bar with his tea and DS has his bowl of cereal. We always bring snacks to the parks. Chips, crackers, cereal bars, cookies, fruit snacks. At night we pre fill our bottles with bottled water (purchased by the galloon) and freeze them.

We generally have 1 big meal a day..generally a sit down dinner. We snack during the day and if there is something we want...we get it. While we make efforts to save money, we also don't deny ourselves the things that make our Disney trip magical.

On our last trip in Feb we had a regular room in the CBR so we didn't have a kitchen. But we did have a nice sized fridge (standard with the room) so we were still able to pretty much do the breakfast thing in the room. While the fridge did not have a freezer...we were still able to freeze bottles at night as the back of the fridge was so cold everything froze anyway.

One thing I am trying on our next trip is bringing a small cooler (found one for $1 at dollar story) which I will bring to the parks to keep extra water and juice cool.
I also buy the glow sticks at the dollar store. I usually get a bunch and decorate my DS stroller. He thinks its cool.

[Belle619]

You can also consider bringing breakfast foods with you and having that meal in your room before you leave for the parks in the morning.

We do this all the time. I usually buy a box of breakfast bars (Quaker are really good) and we eat them while we wait in line to get into the parks. This way, we're full enough to feel content, but not too full for lunch/snacks later in the day.

We also share meals/snacks at counter service restaurants, like those in Epcot. Not only does this save money, but we are able to try more things without filling up too fast.

And it isn't always an issue of being cheap - a lot of time when on vacation, hotels don't have refrigerators in the room - so, to each get a meal we won't finish is foolish because we'll have to throw it away just because we don't have a way of keeping it cold. I just hate to waste perfectly good food.

[mdhiggin]

Thanks for all the replies. It's great to hear that I'm not alone with my "saving for my next trip".