To Cook or Not to Cook, that is the Question?

[LIFERBABE]

I don't cook much at home, my schedule puts me in much later than DH and DS18 (who is always hungry). At HH I made lasagna, spaghetti with frozen meatballs, later meatball grinders, crockpot chicken and rice, and we grilled burgers and hotdogs one night. We ate out at Sea Shack, and Guiseppes. Breakfast was in the villa. With DS and 2 friends, eating out more would have required a home equity loan!

Im like you. My schedule makes it so my MIL does most of the cooking for fear her Grandbabies might starve! She sends over bags of food almost daily and at first I was offended, but now I appreciate the help that I would receive no matter if I was Rachael Ray in the kitchen! I like to cook for my family on vacation because I have time, I really like the DVC kitchen layout, it's cozy and easy to keep clean and fully stocked, and we get to enjoy everyone at the table at the same time.

I do the Frozen Meatballs too!! That is one of my easy recipes. Spaghetti, a jar of Ragu and those frozen meatballs from Sams. My boys really like that. And we make our own Earl Of Sandwich style Cannonball sandwich.

I plan on making lasagna and breadsticks and salad for our family reunion 1 night. One night we will do Mexican and Im having BBQ catered for our Family picnic at SSR. If I dont want to cook or do anything else, I book a cruise

 

[Tiger926]

We go for usually 2 weeks each summer (sometimes extra 1 week trips in March or December) and we never cook. I don't cook at home at all (father's a chef), and so since my hubby does all cooking, he doesn't want to do it on vacation. We eat onsite and do so very healthily (usually no counter service, unless on DDP and we only eat healthy options) as we have food sensitivities and allergies. We sometimes eat our light breakfasts in our villa - juice, toast, muffins or fruit, but that is it.

Tiger

 

[Uncleromulus]

Haven't cooked once since we bought in 1992. The most we've ever done is make coffee in the morning.

 

[ont/ohana]

We eat most breakfasts in the room. Kids are very early risers(6am) and after a night at fireworks they can pretty much eat in their jammies while DH and I are having a shower. We eat most suppers and lunches out. We get a grocery delivery with lots of fruit, milk, juice, eggs and bacon. I love to eat a snack before bed, so grabbing an apple is very convient for me!! DH loves to cook as well but hardly gets a chance to at home!

 

[gracelrm]

We've always done breakfast in the room, (unless we're doing Chef Mickey's or something) and usually lunch (sandwiches and chips). We almost always take a break during the day and come back to the resort to swim - so having lunch in the room is a no brainer. The only time we've cooked supper was when we took DH's family with us and had a group of 21. We did a couple of meals that time to save money. I've always been tempted to cook at HHI, thinking we wouldn't have to get cleaned up after the beach/pool, but have never actually cooked (does thinking about it count??). At HH, DH loves so many of the restaurants that it's hard to not go out. In the next few years, as the kids get a little older and may start bringing friends along, I think we'll do more cooking in the room to save money.

 

[tomerin]

we definitly do breakast in the room. save money in the long run and one can get ready while the others eat so it saves a little time and stress. we also stock up on snacks for our afternoon breaks. we also have some lunch items in case snacks just wont do it. we try to make our adr's for around 4-5pm this way we can actually eliminate lunch, replace it with some decent snacks.

but never ever do we make dinner. eating around the world is almost as important to us as the attractions are.

 

[Luigi's Girl]

I never cook in our villa on vacation and hopefully will never have to. I have never even made coffee. Eating at the restaurants where we make our ADR's and spur of the moment counter service and snacks are just another part of our vacation fun!

 

[Paticake]

It depends! We usually do breakfast. Eggs ,pancakes, bacon. During our Oct.2006 trip my husband and brother cooked breakfast for the crew every morning. We used the grill for hot dogs and hamburgers one night and another we did frozen pizza. In Jan 2007 we only had coffee and juice in our room. Usually we cook more if we are with family members. We are going to have a 1 bdr. at Vero in Oct for just the 2 of us. We are planning on cooking breakfast most mornings but that will be it.

 

[CheshireCat]

I might do breakfast or lunch in the resort.....but never dinner. I just love the nighttime ambience......and won't ever be seen in a resort at dinnertime. I think I hear the dinner bell....bye now.

 

[GGOOFY1]

We have breakfast and dinner in the Villa. I always cook dinner the night before, that way the kids can come and go and eat whenever. I guess it is a vacation for everyone but mom!!! We always plan one dinner out for our "Celebration Dinner". The kids pick their favorite restaurant on the last night of our trip.

 

[jco_direwolf]

Sign us on to the cooking Breakfast list. Normaly it's only breakfast, or a coming home late night snack. One time we CANCELED reservations at Cal Grill to eat in, we just didn't feel up to getting ready and heading back out to eat.

To be honest it's a nice option. Plus having the fridge for soda, that saves alot.

johno

 

[tjkraz]

We eat breakfast in the room and often lunch, too. It's part of our routine to head back to the room in the middle of the day, and it's no great burden to throw together lunch.

In my opinion, sitting in a restaurant is almost always the most frustrating waste of time in any Disney vacation. We stay in One and Two Bedroom Villas because we want the luxury of stretching-out. I'd much rather be eating a sandwich on the balcony or curled up on the sofa rather than waiting for someone to refill my glass in a Disney restaurant.

Dining out one time per day is enough for me. I'd be miserable if we were repeating that process 2-3 times per day.

The current ADR situation doesn't help either. We always travel in a largish-group (4-8 people) and getting reservations on short notice is difficult. I have enough trouble trying to schedule 5-6 meals months in advance, much less 15-18 meals.

 

[jarestel]

Dining out one time per day is enough for me. I'd be miserable if we were repeating that process 2-3 times per day.

Reading your post I remembered that even though we tend to dine out fairly often, we find ourselves really weary of resturant food at the end of a Disney week. We definitely look forward to some "regular" food at home. Maybe we should cook for ourselves a bit more when we're on vacation!

 

[Longhairbear]

As we fly in, and never rent a car, we would cook ALOT more, if groceries were readily available at the last minute on site. I mean more than what is offered at the various resort stores, which vary widely from place to place. Even if DTD had a real grocery close to the bus stop would be welcome. Sometimes you feel like a homemade hamburger, or a broiled steak, or a baked piece of fish, or fresh produce for good salad. For guests that don't have cars, it would be nice to take a DTD bus from the parks, do a quick grocery stop, browse what looks good, that you're in the mood for, buy it, take it to your room and cook it up. Just like what we do when coming home from work, or any other time we stop off to get dinner fixin's on the way home from someplace. Alot of times we are too tired to find a restaurant that doesn't have a long waitlist, at the last minute to eat after leaving the parks, and rather just cook something at "home". And who hasn't thought of something you needed or wanted for the morning, coffee, eggs, juice etc.?

 

[AnnaS]

As we fly in, and never rent a car, we would cook ALOT more, if groceries were readily available at the last minute on site. I mean more than what is offered at the various resort stores, which vary widely from place to place. Even if DTD had a real grocery close to the bus stop would be welcome. Sometimes you feel like a homemade hamburger, or a broiled steak, or a baked piece of fish, or fresh produce for good salad. For guests that don't have cars, it would be nice to take a DTD bus from the parks, do a quick grocery stop, browse what looks good, that you're in the mood for, buy it, take it to your room and cook it up. Just like what we do when coming home from work, or any other time we stop off to get dinner fixin's on the way home from someplace. Alot of times we are too tired to find a restaurant that doesn't have a long waitlist, at the last minute to eat after leaving the parks, and rather just cook something at "home". And who hasn't thought of something you needed or wanted for the morning, coffee, eggs, juice etc.?

We used Gardengrocer.com on our last trip and it was great. Will definitely use them again when we have no car.

As I said in an earlier post, we barely cook any dinners (just breakfast and quick snack) - but after 6/7/8 nights of eating out - everything tastes the same or I feel exactly like you said - you give me a nice plain steak, chicken breast cutlet, or burger -

Don't get me wrong I love eating out on vacation - since I cook at home 5/6 nights a week but it is great to have the option in or out

 

[NMW]

DDP is very expensive and a waste, IMO, when you have your own kitchen.

In a week's stay, we'll eat all of the breakfasts except one in the room, half of the lunches, and two or three dinners.

We invite friends, so we have fun cooking meals together with great bottles of wine, appetizers, etc.

Not sure why some people think cooking is so difficult, or detracts from a vacation. It's part of our vacation....

That is how I feel about cooking when we do our "beach" vacation in the summer. We do Outer Banks NC, or Myrtle Beach SC every summer. We love renting a big house, hanging out with friends, drinking wine and steaming hard-shell crabs, clams, etc. Cooking is part of those vacations.

We do not have the same feel about our Disney trips at all-and we like that they are different! We like hotel DVC resorts. We don't cook and really aren't in the room much at all. We buy no groceries. We leave in the early AM-we do a lot of 8 AM character breakfasts. We never, never come back to the room for lunch ever. We do a TS dinner every night and return to the villa after 10 PM most nights. We have always done the parks like this, even when our kids were babies. I don't want to cook at Disney-ever. I have to say with out sounding too dramatic, it would ruin the Disney vacation for me if I had to leave the parks to go back and make lunch. Making dinner in the villa would be equally dissapointing. We don't really hang out at the pool on Disney trips either-we want to be in the parks.

 

[jarestel]

We leave in the early AM-we do a lot of 8 AM character breakfasts. We never, never come back to the room for lunch ever. We do a TS dinner every night and return to the villa after 10 PM most nights.

There you go, a prime example of different strokes. That schedule would be a royal PITB for me, but if it works for you, that's all that matters!

 

[pilferk]

Okay, getting ready for our first trip 'home' and my question is, how many owner's cook during their vacation? I don't cook at home now so I'm trying to figure out why anyone would want to cook on vacation?

As for 'home cooking', I have a husband for that. He is a much better cook than I am, and my three boys will back me up on that one!!

Okay, I can handle cereal, eggs and toast, other than that, look to the Man.

I'm not sure I would qualify what we'll be doing as "cooking" so much as preparing meals in the room. We're going to do breakfast in room pretty much every day, and will be doing one dinner in room, though we'll be "supplementing" with some stuff from the food court. In other words, we'll do the salad and some sides (brown rice and veggies) in room, but the "meat" part of the meal will be bought from the food court....because nobody wants to be baking, broiling, or frying meat in the room...it takes too long.

 

[jimmytammy]

We have eaten breakfast in room many times, but just cereal, poptarts. Last trip, we cooked pizza and spagehetti. We wouldnt spend a lot of time on fixing big meals. We were like you, why spend vacation cooking meals, but it turns out not so bad. Keeps from having to find somewhere to eat or having to have ADRs everyday.