Lunches? Do you pack?

[gmar1210]

How does everyone keep the foods from spoiling like chicken and how do you heat up food. Can’t imagine eating a cold hot pocket for lunch

 

[Klayfish]

How does everyone keep the foods from spoiling like chicken and how do you heat up food. Can’t imagine eating a cold hot pocket for lunch

We stay offsite, so we have a full kitchen. So anything we cook stays in the fridge, like you would do at home. When we take it to the parks, if it's cold, like DW does in her salad, we have ice packs we put in our soft sided cooler bag (which in itself is insulated). It'll stay nice and cool for many hours, even in mid-summer. No concerns whatsoever about spoiling.

As for HotPockets, and same would go for anything else hot (we'll do chicken nuggets, peas, corn, mac and cheese, cut up boneless/skinless chicken for me, etc...), we have about a half dozen of these things. We put the food in them, microwave it in our rental house and it'll stay warm for literally 6 or 7 hours, even in winter. If we actually wait 6 or 7 hours it's not smoking, burn the roof of your mouth hot, it's "warm". But more often than not, if we're eating dinner in the park, we don't arrive at the parks until 3 or 4 and we usually eat around 6, so it's still pretty hot. Picture doesn't give scale of size, but they'd hold about 2 soup cans if you filled it with liquid, so they're not that huge...to fit a Hot Pocket in, we have to cut it in half.

Really, it's so much simpler than I think people feel it is. It takes us less than 10 minutes to prepare and pack a full lunch. Dinner is about the same amount of time. When we cook, it's nothing complicated and doesn't take much "work". We'll throw 6 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breast in the oven while we're just relaxing for the night. So it's no work at all. That'll last quite a while. Same with making something like mac and cheese for the kids. We'll make 2 or 3 boxes at once...making boxed mac and cheese is as simple as it gets. It'll last a long time. Veggies are usually frozen bagged veggies like peas or corn. Heat in the microwave and it's done. Or we'll do baby carrots, which is literally zero effort. For us, it's worth the minimal effort it takes. We spend literally 25% of what a lot of people do in food, sometimes less...and that includes the treats we'll buy for the kids in the parks.

 

[Klayfish]

Oh, and to add, I'm sure a logical follow up question is "How do you lug all of that around the parks?" The answer is "We don't". We have a Wal-Mart umbrella stroller, one of those $15 ones. We plop the food bag into the stroller seat, it fits perfectly...and we even put the food bag handles over the stroller handles which adds extra security so it doesn't fall out. When we enter the park, we leave it in stroller parking somewhere near where we're going to eat and go about our business. Easy peasy, we walk around bag free. Come back to it when it's time to eat. When we're done, sometimes we bring it with us, but most of the time, we just leave it there again and pick it back up on our way out.

 

[HopperFan]

To factor in the plans ... you aren't supposed to bring in any food to Universal unless needed medically. So we never pack there, but not an issue as the food there is reasonable, good and big quantities. We usually share meals as it is too much food. And yes, get the big donut in Simpson area - FUN, huge and good. Water and some snack packets would be all we take in.

Universal:
Acceptable Items

• Bottled Water (maximum 2 liters)
• Small snacks that do not require heating
• Any food required for medical purposes and medically-indicated nutritional supplements
• Any food required for special dietary needs
• Baby food/baby formula
• Soft-sided insulated bags no larger than 8.5" wide x 6" high x 6" deep

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Disney:

We eat in the room; Yogurt, Muffins, Bagel & Creme Cheese, Fresh Fruit, Granola Bars, OJ boxes ... or if offsite hotel with breakfast we eat there.

We usually dine out for dinner; Disney TS where it works, Disney Springs, Offsite and occasionally at food court. At Disney TS we have found we can save lots and have some really good meals if we order a table of appetizers and no entrees.

We do mix it up at lunch ........ pack or maybe skip with late breakfast/early dinner or dine in park if dinner is cut back.

What we pack; MUST be cold food, not dealing with hot. We tend to go with ease and repeat ourselves, it is fine with us. We are not food focused people so as the other meals are varied it doesn't matter. Like another poster we buy top end lunch meat, I prefer Honey Baked Turkey and Hams, we bring good rolls, they tend to not get soggy, we bring packets of condiments so they can be put on when we eat (again less soggy), we also put them in plastic containers so they don't get smooshed then use the container as our plate, we bring tubes of Pringles type chips as the tube keeps them from getting broken. We put it all in a backpack with a frozen thing or frozen bottle of water that we can drink later when it's melted. We might buy a couple snacks or not - like I said we aren't food focused. Bring water in, or water bottle with filters, or just get free ice water at quick serve locations. Lots of places to sit and eat in each park - so that isn't an issue.

AK has lots of good food, so we rarely pack lunch for there. MK has some of the worst, so we usually pack for there.

 

[nesser1981]

I had no idea we couldn’t bring food to universal! Thank you!

Really, we’ll only be packing twice if we can’t take to universal.

To factor in the plans ... you aren't supposed to bring in any food to Universal unless needed medically. So we never pack there, but not an issue as the food there is reasonable, good and big quantities. We usually share meals as it is too much food. And yes, get the big donut in Simpson area - FUN, huge and good. Water and some snack packets would be all we take in.

Universal:
Acceptable Items

• Bottled Water (maximum 2 liters)
• Small snacks that do not require heating
• Any food required for medical purposes and medically-indicated nutritional supplements
• Any food required for special dietary needs
• Baby food/baby formula
• Soft-sided insulated bags no larger than 8.5" wide x 6" high x 6" deep

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Disney:

We eat in the room; Yogurt, Muffins, Bagel & Creme Cheese, Fresh Fruit, Granola Bars, OJ boxes ... or if offsite hotel with breakfast we eat there.

We usually dine out for dinner; Disney TS where it works, Disney Springs, Offsite and occasionally at food court. At Disney TS we have found we can save lots and have some really good meals if we order a table of appetizers and no entrees.

We do mix it up at lunch ........ pack or maybe skip with late breakfast/early dinner or dine in park if dinner is cut back.

What we pack; MUST be cold food, not dealing with hot. We tend to go with ease and repeat ourselves, it is fine with us. We are not food focused people so as the other meals are varied it doesn't matter. Like another poster we buy top end lunch meat, I prefer Honey Baked Turkey and Hams, we bring good rolls, they tend to not get soggy, we bring packets of condiments so they can be put on when we eat (again less soggy), we also put them in plastic containers so they don't get smooshed then use the container as our plate, we bring tubes of Pringles type chips as the tube keeps them from getting broken. We put it all in a backpack with a frozen thing or frozen bottle of water that we can drink later when it's melted. We might buy a couple snacks or not - like I said we aren't food focused. Bring water in, or water bottle with filters, or just get free ice water at quick serve locations. Lots of places to sit and eat in each park - so that isn't an issue.

AK has lots of good food, so we rarely pack lunch for there. MK has some of the worst, so we usually pack for there.

 

[TwoMisfits]

I had no idea we couldn’t bring food to universal! Thank you!

Really, we’ll only be packing twice if we can’t take to universal.

You can bring single serve snacks...you can't bring meals...use that to your advantage...

 

[runwad]

When we went when the kids were small we stayed off site and had a back pack cooler that we used for our lunch. We froze water bottles to keep the food cold, things like pb&j, canisters of pringles, and fruit. Each kid wore their own fanny pack that had a spot for a water bottle and they brought their own snacks, raisins, peanuts, granola bar, peanut butter crackers...they could eat a snack whenever they wanted.

We brought a stroller too, just to put the back pack cooler in and pushed around the parks. Of course back then I had a change of clothes/swim suits, water shoes, so all that was pushed around in the stroller.

Last year was our first year back with the kids as teenagers and young adults and we went bag free, talk about heaven.

 

[Darcy03231]

I like to bring things that hold up well and I've found that wraps tend to do better than bread. Cereal bars, fruit/nut bars, bags of nuts, gogurt, pretzels, fruit (apples & oranges), popcorn, string cheese, all tend to pack well. We also bring our own water bottles and refill them during the day. I prefer straight water, but will bring flavor packs for the kids.