Lunches? Do you pack?

nesser1981

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 10, 2011
If you do, what do you usually pack? What holds up best?

If you don't, what are the best values for a family of 5?

We're only doing MK, Universal/IOA and AK this trip, and I really want to cut down of food costs.
 
If you do, what do you usually pack? What holds up best?

If you don't, what are the best values for a family of 5?

We're only doing MK, Universal/IOA and AK this trip, and I really want to cut down of food costs.

We don't pack lunches, but we handle food so we don't need more than 1 CS in the park/day. We have a nice heavy breakfast (bacon cooked early in the week after kids are in bed, toast, fruit, milk, juice, coffee, cereal, pastry, eggs, waffles, etc - everyone gets 2-3 things & 1 has to be a fruit, and a drink or two) and hit the parks around 10am with some heavy snacks and bottled water in tow. We eat a hot dinner-like CS around 2-3pm and stay through the evening shows (between 7-8pm when we go)...then on the way home, I ask everyone what they want (and we agree on 1-2 things, so I'm only making 1-2 things), we get home around 8:30-9pm and I make smoothies as I walk in (SO crucial to family happiness and sanity after heat). After everyone has a fresh fruit smoothie in hand, I start making the meals, which look much more like a "lunch" - deli meat sandwiches, rotisserie chicken clubs, BLTs, frozen pizza, microwaved chicken tenders, boiled hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and apple slices, etc. I'll open a bag of chips and put out strawberries or sliced bananas or sliced oranges, tell everyone to get what they want, and call it a day...after the heavy breakfast, the all day snacking, and the hot CS, no one eats all that much late (one kid literally always asks me for PB and apple, which is all she ever eats with the smoothie)...which is great for me, b/c I can get everyone fed in 15 minutes...
 
We don't pack lunches, but we handle food so we don't need more than 1 CS in the park/day. We have a nice heavy breakfast (bacon cooked early in the week after kids are in bed, toast, fruit, milk, juice, coffee, cereal, pastry, eggs, waffles, etc - everyone gets 2-3 things & 1 has to be a fruit, and a drink or two) and hit the parks around 10am with some heavy snacks and bottled water in tow. We eat a hot dinner-like CS around 2-3pm and stay through the evening shows (between 7-8pm when we go)...then on the way home, I ask everyone what they want (and we agree on 1-2 things, so I'm only making 1-2 things), we get home around 8:30-9pm and I make smoothies as I walk in (SO crucial to family happiness and sanity after heat). After everyone has a fresh fruit smoothie in hand, I start making the meals, which look much more like a "lunch" - deli meat sandwiches, rotisserie chicken clubs, BLTs, frozen pizza, microwaved chicken tenders, boiled hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and apple slices, etc. I'll open a bag of chips and put out strawberries or sliced bananas or sliced oranges, tell everyone to get what they want, and call it a day...after the heavy breakfast, the all day snacking, and the hot CS, no one eats all that much late (one kid literally always asks me for PB and apple, which is all she ever eats with the smoothie)...which is great for me, b/c I can get everyone fed in 15 minutes...

I was thinking one meal in the parks, but I thought they'd probably rather have the fun snack, than a boring meal. This helps a lot! Love the smoothie idea.
 
I was thinking one meal in the parks, but I thought they'd probably rather have the fun snack, than a boring meal. This helps a lot! Love the smoothie idea.

Share snacks...at Universal, I'll buy the CS meal plan for 2 adults, use it on whomever eats the most expensive CS meals, and use the snacks/drinks for fun shareable items:)...we've shared the Lard Lad Donut, Butterbeer, Harry Potter ice cream, etc...

(PS - I normally go when the plan is BOGO 50% off, so it really helps me make out:)...if it's not BOGO 50% off, you can still do the same for the kids' meal option, which might actually be the better deal:))...

https://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/tickets-packages/universal-orlando-dining-plan/index.html
 


It's been 6 years since our last trip, what does "CS" stand for?

Great suggestions! Thank you so much!
 
It's been 6 years since our last trip, what does "CS" stand for?

Great suggestions! Thank you so much!

Counter Service...

So, an Universal, if someone wanted the Simpsons Bucket of Bait from the Flying Dutchman ($15.99) and a Butterbeer ($6.99 - these are a snack), you've paid for the plan and have 2 drinks to get - I'll usually get a Pumpkin Juice (which counts as a drink - only butter beer is a problem, at least last time I was there) and a bottled smoothie and everyone is really happy...

Or in IOA, if someone wanted Spareribs and Chicken and Ribs (both from 3 Broomsticks - $16.99 and $15.99) and a Pear Cider (personally love this - it's $3.49), I'd have a snack and drink again to share (which only costs me an additional $3)...

When this is BO GO 50% off, it's a no brainer, b/c 2 folks in my family of 6 always want an expensive entree (and 2 want cheap ones, so they just get them with water and we share all the beverages and snacks the 1st ones get)...

Note - 1 Lard Lad donut (a snack - costs $5.99) feeds 3-4...you won't want more donut after that:)...
 
Th
Counter Service...

So, an Universal, if someone wanted the Simpsons Bucket of Bait from the Flying Dutchman ($15.99) and a Butterbeer ($6.99 - these are a snack), you've paid for the plan and have 2 drinks to get - I'll usually get a Pumpkin Juice (which counts as a drink - only butter beer is a problem, at least last time I was there) and a bottled smoothie and everyone is really happy...

Or in IOA, if someone wanted Spareribs and Chicken and Ribs (both from 3 Broomsticks - $16.99 and $15.99) and a Pear Cider (personally love this - it's $3.49), I'd have a snack and drink again to share (which only costs me an additional $3)...

When this is BO GO 50% off, it's a no brainer, b/c 2 folks in my family of 6 always want an expensive entree (and 2 want cheap ones, so they just get them with water and we share all the beverages and snacks the 1st ones get)...

Note - 1 Lard Lad donut (a snack - costs $5.99) feeds 3-4...you won't want more donut after that:)...
That's awesome! Thanks! How do I find out about BO GO? We're going soon, first full week of February.
 


Th

That's awesome! Thanks! How do I find out about BO GO? We're going soon, first full week of February.

It would be listed in deals they offer in their e-newsletter (they only offer it at certain times - this may not be one:)...

But the other nice thing is you can buy the deal at a lunch register, so you can decide at the time you are eating...
 
It would be listed in deals they offer in their e-newsletter (they only offer it at certain times - this may not be one:)...

But the other nice thing is you can buy the deal at a lunch register, so you can decide at the time you are eating...
 
We pack lunches on some days. We lean more towards things like bagels, trail mix, apples, peanut butter. We are from the north east and do a lot of hiking. We “snack” instead of eating a big lunch.
 
We pack ALL of our food...lunch, dinner, snacks (though sometimes we will buy dessert for the kids). We have the advantage of staying offsite...I know a lot of people prefer onsite, but if we had to do that, it would be a deal breaker...so we have a full kitchen. Lunches will usually consist of things like pb&j for the kids, that's what they ask for. But we can also make them lunch meat sandwiches, or if we don't mind them eating "junk" we'll do something like Hot Pockets. DW will pack a salad, which takes almost no work because she buys the pre-made mix from Publix and then just throws some boneless, skinless chicken breast in. I'll do peanut butter on a wrap, or maybe lunch meat on a wrap. Then we pack fresh fruits or veggies, such as apples, oranges, carrots, etc... Add in some chips/pretzels for the kids and we're set. If we're going to be in the parks for a while, we'll also pack a snack for between lunch and dinner for the kids. Packages of peanut butter crackers, yogurt, snack bars, etc...

Dinner is somewhat similar, but I won't go into detail because you only asked about lunch.

Our food costs are literally a small fraction of what most peoples are. I read about people spending $50, $75 or even $100/day per person. I haven't done the exact math, but we spend very roughly $6 or $7/person per day, and that includes the snacks we'll sometimes buy them in the parks and the one or two meals we will actually go out to eat for. If you just look at the food we pack, it's probably $5/person per day or less. Our summer trip was 17 days long, and I think we spent a grand total of roughly $750 to feed our family of 5...again, including treats and eating out.
 
I was thinking one meal in the parks, but I thought they'd probably rather have the fun snack, than a boring meal.

Not sure what the ages and eating habits of your family are, but especially when the kids were younger we always wound up purchasing the equivalent of “one meal” in the parks, but not at one time.

We had lots of food in the room that we would eat for breakfast, during our long afternoon break, and later in the evening. We would also bring a few snacks into the parks to munch on throughout the day.

We would get a few counter service meals to share and then later on get another CS meal or two and share that. None of us wanted a “full” meal especially if we were there at a hot time of year. And this way we also got to try more variety. So we would wind up buying about 5 meals per day, just not in one sitting.

My kids are teenagers now and still 3 meals is usually plenty between the 5 of us. If we purchased more, we would either feel sick or wind up throwing some of it out.
 
My youngest is 5 and super picky. The older 2 are 9 and 12. You guys have all given me so great ideas!

Thank you so much!
 
When I was a kid, we’d get annual passes and come down often (from NC). To do that at the time, we stayed offsite and brought in our lunch. We had a pack of crackers for everyone, a little Debbie for everyone, a piece of fruit, and not sure what else. Part of the trip was picking out your flavor of crackers and little Debbie at sams club before we went!! That allowed us to come much more often. We typically still did a TS dinner. We camped out on various benches for this, and I remember it fondly!!
 
We pack our food. Pretty much ditto what Klayfish said above. We learned to pack them in the large rectangle ziplock leftover containers because the squirrels get into our stroller. I "splurge" on good lunchmeat, cheese, and onion rolls when we go to Disney. We usually snack while standing in line. It kind of gives us something to do during the wait.
 
We pack our food. Pretty much ditto what Klayfish said above. We learned to pack them in the large rectangle ziplock leftover containers because the squirrels get into our stroller. I "splurge" on good lunchmeat, cheese, and onion rolls when we go to Disney. We usually snack while standing in line. It kind of gives us something to do during the wait.

Containers, got it! Great idea. I think after reading all of the suggestions, I'm going to try and keep the cost to one special snack in the parks and maybe a group snack, plus bring lunch and plenty of snack foods and water.
 
Containers, got it! Great idea. I think after reading all of the suggestions, I'm going to try and keep the cost to one special snack in the parks and maybe a group snack, plus bring lunch and plenty of snack foods and water.
My son did a 5 week conservation program. They had to pack lunch every day from whatever the leaders bought. He made a lot of wraps because they tend to last longer than bread and don't smash. We had to send him with a plastic storage container. They used these to pack their lunches. It kept their stuff from getting smashed in their backpacks. Also they didn't need plastic bags. Since it was a conservation organization, using those would go against their principles, but it's also a money-saving method. I personally would use the baggies and put them with their contents in the containers to keep everything fresh. Let each person fill their container with whatever they might want for the day.
 
We pack our food. Pretty much ditto what Klayfish said above. We learned to pack them in the large rectangle ziplock leftover containers because the squirrels get into our stroller. I "splurge" on good lunchmeat, cheese, and onion rolls when we go to Disney. We usually snack while standing in line. It kind of gives us something to do during the wait.

Yes, great point, I forgot to mention that. We use a lot of plastic Tupperware/Ziplock containers, as well as small "soup size" Thermos containers. We stick it all in a very large soft sided cooler bag with a zipper. We've probably done this at least 150 times over the years, and never once had an issue with a squirrel. I've seen them get into open backpacks, where people just leave a bag of chips or something. But with our soft sided cooler fully zipped and the food in plastic Tupperware, I'm quite confident they aren't getting in.
 
With the heat and humidity here, I would be very selective on which items I would be bringing into the park for lunch. Trying to keep things cold/cool is a battle.

I would go the big breakfast route, bagels/ cream cheese, salmon, cereals, milk, juice, some type of protein, messy omelets or scrambles whatever you prefer to call them, fruit like strawberries, kiwi...

I would carry with you a couple of apples, oranges, tangerines, something that can with stand being in the backpack. Some type of granola bar or protein bar again watch which ones as everything sorta melts, dried fruit raisin, cherries or a mix, I hit up Aldi and make my own trail mix, individual/single serve crackers chips, pop corn ..... Bottles of water you can refill they will give you water and ice at the QS locations.

You can share QS meals super easy, for our family of four when the girls were teenagers, we could share 2 meals and get and order of chicken fingers, or and extra side.

You could also do a TS meal and share... We would head into Rainforest at AK, share the Awesome appetizer Adventure for 19.99 and a order of onion rings for 4.99 and soft drinks and be out the door at around 50.00 bucks... If we were really hungry we would get the Awesome Appetizer 19.99 and the Beef Lava Nachos 17.99 with soft drinks and be out the door for around 70.00. We would grab dessert Mickey ears in the park later on.

Then I would stick to making a deli bar for when you get back to your resort, bread, deli meat and cheese, deli potato salad, macaroni salad, cole slaw, guacamole and hummus with chips, carrot / celery sticks with ranch or blue cheese dip. If you have a oven you can get some frozen fries, cheese sticks, or see what other oven made options you can come up with.

Our friends stay off site at Orange lakes or West Gate, and on arrival day, they stop at Publix load up on groceries for the week, and place a to go order at Olive Garden swing by and pick it up on the way to the resort, they order a pan of lasagna, and a pan chicken parm. with a extra containers of sauce and a pan shrimp alfredo which is what the eat for dinner the 1st night.. It comes with salad and bread sticks... They munch off of that for 2 or 3 days. They live on a farm and ranch and the nearest Olive Garden is about 300 miles, so this is a really treat for them...

I would take time to look at the menus and do some homework on what would work for you family, being prepared is your most important tool to saving money.
 
With the heat and humidity here, I would be very selective on which items I would be bringing into the park for lunch. Trying to keep things cold/cool is a battle.

I would go the big breakfast route, bagels/ cream cheese, salmon, cereals, milk, juice, some type of protein, messy omelets or scrambles whatever you prefer to call them, fruit like strawberries, kiwi...

I would carry with you a couple of apples, oranges, tangerines, something that can with stand being in the backpack. Some type of granola bar or protein bar again watch which ones as everything sorta melts, dried fruit raisin, cherries or a mix, I hit up Aldi and make my own trail mix, individual/single serve crackers chips, pop corn ..... Bottles of water you can refill they will give you water and ice at the QS locations.

You can share QS meals super easy, for our family of four when the girls were teenagers, we could share 2 meals and get and order of chicken fingers, or and extra side.

You could also do a TS meal and share... We would head into Rainforest at AK, share the Awesome appetizer Adventure for 19.99 and a order of onion rings for 4.99 and soft drinks and be out the door at around 50.00 bucks... If we were really hungry we would get the Awesome Appetizer 19.99 and the Beef Lava Nachos 17.99 with soft drinks and be out the door for around 70.00. We would grab dessert Mickey ears in the park later on.

Then I would stick to making a deli bar for when you get back to your resort, bread, deli meat and cheese, deli potato salad, macaroni salad, cole slaw, guacamole and hummus with chips, carrot / celery sticks with ranch or blue cheese dip. If you have a oven you can get some frozen fries, cheese sticks, or see what other oven made options you can come up with.

Our friends stay off site at Orange lakes or West Gate, and on arrival day, they stop at Publix load up on groceries for the week, and place a to go order at Olive Garden swing by and pick it up on the way to the resort, they order a pan of lasagna, and a pan chicken parm. with a extra containers of sauce and a pan shrimp alfredo which is what the eat for dinner the 1st night.. It comes with salad and bread sticks... They munch off of that for 2 or 3 days. They live on a farm and ranch and the nearest Olive Garden is about 300 miles, so this is a really treat for them...

I would take time to look at the menus and do some homework on what would work for you family, being prepared is your most important tool to saving money.

Thank you! Yes, we are planning to hit a grocery store as soon as we get there. We're staying in a condo off property. Love the Olive Garden idea!
 

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