DVCNews Debates: In-room meals

[DVCNews]

The presence of a full kitchen or kitchenette in all Disney Vacation Club villas provides owners with an economical way to approach vacation dining. *Rather than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on Disney restaurant visits and/or Dining Plan purchases, members can dine in their villas as often as they wish. *

Topic: *What are your favorite meals to prepare in the villa during DVC resort stays?

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[libeachs]

We love a good breakfast of oatmeal, eggs or fruit pancakes. Morning hunger is not a pretty thing in my family.

[KNWVIKING 2.0]

Yuengling

[denlo]

We usually get studios. And we're on vacation, don't want or need to eat in. We will bring leftovers home for another meal. And I always have cereal and snacks, including fruit, maybe yogurt, milk, cheeses, bagels. When my DSIL's familys joined us at Kidani in June bought five times as much and found what snacks we're needed for 3 preteens and two teens. On the last morning I realized that we still had fruit some juice and pizza slices. Between them they ate big breakfasts of cereal, juice and either packed some snacks and fruit for the trip home. The teen boys finished off the last 4 pieces of pizza.

I just realized we did order pizza from Pizzahut one night.

But when my family goes with us in 2013 we'll have do breakfast most mornings, maybe light lunches, and an occasional dinner, cooking things that are Italian (SIL is is Italian) or casseroles with sides. It will just depend on the budget, as I can't see us paying for the DDP for 21 people, I know we will probably pay for one special meal using our TIW wonderland card(s). A lot will depend on how they do the parks and and whether the families do afternoon breaks and the schedule for the wee ones, 4 so far under age 3 and two more 3/4 year olds.

[dsnydi]

We have always made sure we have what we need to prepare breakfast in our villa before heading out for fun at the parks.

We have had groceries delivered from the resort, but we've found that we do much better having Garden Grocer deliver groceries as they have a much larger selection.

We also purchase drinks and snacks. This saves us a lot of money in the parks as we can load up our backpack twice a day.

[beepy]

There are Kitchens in the DVC Villas? Who knew.

Truthfully, when we go on vacation, we prefer to eat out. When at the World, we use the dining plan or TIW. So the kitchen doesn't get much use. The refrigerator gets some use, but the kitchen island ends up being a "catch all."

We do get some things for breakfast in the room, but nothing involving a stove.

I am sure the day will come when we do more in-room eating, but it hasn't happened yet. We enjoy the room in the larger villas, but the kitchen is secondary.

I am guessing it will be a different story at Aulani, or any of the non-theme-park resorts.

[Maturod1]

Yuengling

I too enjoy preparing Yuenling. It's something that I never get to prepare at home as my state doesn't allow it.

[MelPel]

Since 2 members of our family are very picky eaters, we generally cook/make our own meals in our Kitchen. We love the fact that we can do this. We usually use Tiffany Town car when we fly into Orlando and they offer 1/2hr grocery stop included in the price, and we stop along the way to the Villas to grab groceries at Publix. This works out great! Prices are better and we all get what we want for breakfasts and snacks and beverages etc.

Mel

[Sean418]

With regards to having in room kitchen. I have found it invaluable to have the in room kitchen of a one or two bedroom villa when I stay at SSR. It makes it very convenient for breakfast and for lunch. Thus saving on meals. I also found that going to a grocery store outside of the Disney complex, such as Winne Dixie just outside, and buying the groceries I need for my time saves money. I also only eat out maybe 3 times on my stay. I love going to Raglan Road, House of Blues and the Turf club is good . However, I also enjoy just going to the room and being able to just throw a sandwhich together if I am not in the mood to be waiting to be served.

[Ranger275]

We just got back from 6 nights at a SSR treehouses and BLT two bedroom plus two days of driving each way. The entire week including the drive down and back from Michigan we fixed every meal ourselves excecpt for 3 meals and two of those were on the drive back. In the resorts we fixed every meal except lunch at the Magic Kingdom. It helped that we only went to the park for one day so the rest we were at the resorts anyway and just fixed our meals instead of eating out.

Now if I had my choice we would eat out some meals but we were on a tight budget this time so that limited our food choices and visiting the parks. We had a great time anyway and spent a lot of time at the resorts which we normally don't and eating in saved us a lot of money.

We packed coolers for the drive down and had sandwiches on the way with snacks. We did bring a few grocerys with us on the drive but most we bought at Wal-Mart which there is a fairly new one within 4 miles of the parks.

While cooking in isn't our first choice it worked out well and made our vacation possible. If we had gone to the parks more we still would have had breakfast in the room and possibly dinner as even when we went to Magic Kingdom we came back to rest and eat and then went back after dinner.

We do have 7 people in our family so eating out even at a inexpensive Disney or even non-Disney restaurant gets expensive fast. We have done the dining plan in the past but it was nice not to be tied to a time and place this time.

it is easier if you have a vehicle to get food and supplies and in the past we have brought extra frying pans or other things.