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This week, I want to discuss with you the benefits of eating your breakfast in your room or as you make your way to the parks.
My first thoughts of this occurred during a stay at the Pop Century. On our fourth day, fed up with the long crazy lines and mass hysteria of the food court, my family tried to come to eat earlier to help avoid the massive crowds in Everything Pop. In addition to the annoyance we felt for the crazy lines, the cost of the breakfast for my son was $5, around $10 for myself, and around $10 for my husband. We finally found a table after braving the beverage bar. The entire process took us nearly an hour! I decided then to begin bringing our breakfast.
Some items that I found easiest to pack were muffins that I had made at home, breakfast bars, fruit, cereal (to use with the half-gallon of milk I purchased from the gift shop/food court), pop tarts and doughnuts (not for me), and oatmeal. Some of these items are easy to grab and go, while others require plates or a bowl. The plates and bowls are available in various places throughout the food court or can be brought with you.
If bringing food is not your style, maybe instead try buying items in bulk in the gift shops there in the Disney hotels. The items included there are loaves of bread (perfect for toast), doughnuts, and cereal. These items can be purchased soon after check-in so you do not get caught with bulk amounts of food with you throughout the day.
For my family, we average a 5 night vacation. I am not saying that we eat on the fly every day. However, if we do this on 4 of the mornings, we save $100! Also, grabbing our food and eating in the food court we save about 30 minutes per morning. That is 30 minutes of EXTRA sleep I know I need while at WDW!
Past Strategies – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4 cont, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
My family (3 girls and 1 guy) eats light anyway. Breakfast most mornings at home consists of a bowl of cereal. So mixing cereal and pop tarts with english muffins and bananas or apples is easy for us. If your family is used to a big breakfast, I don’t know how well that works.
Because we’re on the go more at Disney that at home, we toss in nuts and trail mix for a mid-morning snack at the parks. That gives us some protein to keep us from getting cranky.
Breakfast is by far one of the easiest places to save money. Those are all good tips.
I love the idea of the nuts and trail mix. I also bring fruit snacks with me, the fruitabus are good! They are made of applesauce, all natural and are flavored. They are sort of like a fruit rollup but better for you:) I like them because they do not make me thirsty!
I 100% agree with avoiding the food courts for breakfast! We usually rent a car or use a shuttle service that gives us a 30 minute grocery stop to get to Disney. At the grocery store, we pick up cereal, cereal bars (for the late sleepers), milk, fruit, cases of water and snacks. This not only saves us time getting breakfast, but like you said money. We can purchase all I listed above for less than it would cost us, a family of 5, for just breakfast at the food court.
The purchasing of the food when you get there is a great benefit of owning a car. We found out the hard way what a benefit a car is when you travel when my son got sick last year when staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort. I have never felt so stranded before! But if you do not have a car/want to afford one, you can always bring a bag dedicated to foods such a cereals, etc. I do that when traveling with just my son.