Whether you are buying the Disney Dining plan or not, saving money on food is probably top of mind when planning your Disney trip because everything Disney is expensive (Amen?!).
We just got back from our Disney trip and it was amazing. My 2 year old is officially obsessed with Mickey Mouse now. And the wonder and excitement that my 5 year old had as she watched Tinkerbell fly down from the fireworks show was pure joy.
But you can’t have a Disney trip without a lot of up front planning! Thankfully we used a travel agent (that also happens to be a long time friend) and she did all the hard work for me!
Dining is one of those up front things that you need to plan so that you can get the character meals that you want and eat at the time that you want.
At Disney you can choose to pay as you go or purchase a dining plan. We chose to use the Dining Plan on our trip to make things easy. Since our little one is only 2, we only had two purchase 2 adult plans and one child. But that is still a pretty penny.
So after purchasing that, I wanted to plan out loosely how we would use our credits and where we might need to fill in with supplemental meals or snacks.
I decided to save money on breakfast at Disney World as a way to stay on budget and will show you how to do it too!
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Save Money On Breakfast At Disney World
So if you want to save your quick service meal for lunch and your table service credit for dinner, you will need to do something for breakfast.
You can always use one of your snack credits to grab a bagel, muffin or a donut but we liked to save our snacks for fun snacks at the park.
That left us needing something for breakfast.
Yes we could pay out of pocket for a meal at the resort but that gets expensive quickly even if the kids shared.
Breakfast Cost At The Resort
Here is a breakdown of what you might pay at a quick service resort restaurant for breakfast.
Mickey Waffle Basket Kids Meal $6.99 (One child and one toddler to split)
Breakfast Platter $10.99
Bagel Sandwich $8.99
Total: $26.97 – This would be even higher if you needed a second kids meal
That means you would spend $134.85 in five days for breakfast. I know it is vacation but I can feed my whole family breakast, lunch and dinner for a week at home for around that much money.
How To Eat Cheap Breakfast At Disney
So if the thought of spending $100+ bucks in 5 days on breakfast doesn’t sound magical to you, there is a solution.
With all of the grocery delivery options, you have a lot of easy options to make Disney a bit more frugal.
Order groceries, have them delivered to the hotel and eat a cheap breakfast. It is that easy.
Amazon Fresh Order
Here is a sample order that you could do to save money on breakfast at Disney World by using Amazon Fresh.
2 bunches of Bananas $2.58
Kellogg’s Mickey Mouse Frozen Waffles, 10 ct. $2.90
Aunt Jemima Syrup $2.82
Jimmy Dean Croissant Sausage, Egg and Cheese, 8 ct. $8.98
Total $17.28
This would feed my family for the same 5 days for a fraction of the cost of eating at the Disney Quick Service restaurant.
Use your refillable mugs to grab coffee or soda.
How To Prepare the Food
There will not be a microwave in your regular hotel room. But there is an easy fix.
The quick service restaurant will have at least one or 2 microwaves and a toaster. So you could toast up a bagel or a waffle or microwave your breakfast sandwiches.
This area is separate from the area that you actually make your food purchases.
When I thinking about this idea, I read a bunch about it on Disney forums. Some think it is inappropriate to use the facilities to warm your own food. However, many think it is just fine.
I happen to be in the latter category. The gift shop sells frozen TV dinners so you obviously would need to be able to warm that up. I see no reason that you can’t use the facilities of a hotel that you are staying in.
There are napkins and cutlery available as well. But I just tucked a few from home in my checked luggage along with some paper plates.
More Ways To Save At Disney With Grocery Delivery
If you would like to indulge in a couple of beers after a long day at Disney, you can save a lot by having some alcoholic beverages delivered to your room.
A bottle of beer cost about $8 at the quick service restaurant at our resort.
Or you can get a 12 pack of bottles from Amazon Fresh for about $16.
That is a big savings!
Do you have another idea to save money on breakfast at Disney World? Or just a Disney savings tip in general? Share it in the comments!
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