You're on vacation. Why are you cooking in your room?

[Bucketfoot]

For the same reason we bought DVC in the first place. To save money on our Disney trips

Plus as a diabetic, I need to eat breakfast before taking medication and sure as heck don't want to have to do this in the parks!

 

[zackiedawg]

I don't bother with an Owner's locker, as I drive to Disney and go 4-5 times a year for 4-5 night stays - anything I may need I can pack in my car.

In 28 years at DVC, I've never actually cooked a dinner or lunch in a villa. I've reheated leftovers a few times, but generally don't like to cook when at DVC. However _ I do regularly cook breakfasts in the villas. I don't like to do breakfasts in restaurants - always prefer to eat in my comfortable sleep clothes and relax with breakfast and coffee, then get ready and change to go out for the day. I bring butter, cheese, bread, salt, pepper, bacon, coffee, and a knife (the knives they supply can't slice cold butter as the cutting grain goes the wrong direction so I bring my own). When I get to DVC, I head to the store and buy eggs and milk...then I've got everything I need for breakfasts in the villa.

 

[Moneypenny]

First, we rarely eat out at home, either. Second, we personally are DVC owners because we like to relax at Disney, which means we don't always want to leave the room for every meal. We are fortunate to currently spend about 3 weeks/year there, and when we retire hope to increase that to 5-6 weeks. I don't mind cooking, and my DVC "cooking" is currently very simple - grilled cheese, egg sandwiches, heat and eat meals, bagged salad, reheated leftovers from park/resort/Disney Spring meals/etc. I'm much happier spending 15 minutes in my cool air conditioned (or dry, when it's pouring rain) DVC kitchen making or heating up food than walking to the resort food service or spending 60-90 minutes each way on Disney transportation getting to another location. Like other posters have said, we pick up snacks and treats at the parks to keep in the room so we almost always have something "Disney" for dessert or treat.

Also, a week of restaurant food messes with my insides. I don't have the iron gut I had in my 20s...

 

[D-Trick]

Check back with us after you've been a member for 15 or 20 years. If you're still regularly paying for 3 meals per day and rope dropping theme parks, you're probably in the minority.

+1!

I bet the OP is only buying DVC to use on studios.

 

[Disdreaming479]

Although there are foods I look forward to having at wdw, 3 meals a day (7-8 days) is too much time and money spent. I also do not care for how loud the breakfast restaurants are before I’ve had coffee. I’m getting an owner’s locker next trip for several reasons including saving money on baggage and food while at the resorts. Have you eaten the pool bar food? It’s not great.

 

[tom1944]

Because sometimes I want to.

 

[kanerf]

I just make breakfast in the room. It is the least cost-effective meal to get out at any of the WDW restaurants, though I will usually do one breakfast out during a stay and the rest prepared in the room.

 

[LavaMama]

I'm with you though which is one of the several reasons I would never buy into DVC.
With that said why are you purchasing?

I see most of the comments seem to be from families with kids and needing to save time and money. I think I get it. We're just in a different place. We're buying DVC because we want to be able to visit more frequently. When we were younger and dating, we'd come multiple times a year. After getting married, buying a house and having a baby, and then later starting a business, we had no time or money to vacation so trips were reduced to every 5 to 7 years at the most and then, only maybe. Our son is grown and the business can run for a few weeks without us so we can now get away from time to time and we really need to make sure we do for our marriage and mental health. We love Disney (we were married at the Poly), so we are buying DVC to make sure we prioritize taking these trips. We've never been rope droppers, we take our park days slow, often go later in the day / early evening and take in the sites more than rushing around trying to get on rides. This will be our escape from our stressful lives so there is no way either of us wants to be cooking at Disney. Who knows, maybe we'll change our mind in the future, but right now, I want someone else to do the cooking.

 

[TCRAIG]

I go to WDW solo now and always get a 1 Br - I prefer to make my own breakfast before heading out to the parks - pancakes and bacon or sausage…I also prefer a plain tuna salad sandwich for lunch (with chips, NO pickle)…etc…I cook a lot in the room because I’m just not a big fan of a lot of Disney food…I’m just not a big foodie!

 

[Travel60]

We don't visit WDW or DVC for the parks. It is our "instead of owning a condo in Florida" place.

Saving money is part of it but also the size of meals when eating out. Our normal breakfast is cold cereal or oatmeal with maybe fruit/nuts. DH occasionally does the bacon/eggs thing or pancakes. For lunch, I usually have a sliced apple with cheese or peanut butter. DH usually skips lunch because he slept in and ate late breakfast. We eat out for dinner maybe every other night and cook something simple the other nights (or leftovers).

Cheaper and healthier.

 

[cvjw]

Check back with us after you've been a member for 15 or 20 years. If you're still regularly paying for 3 meals per day and rope dropping theme parks, you're probably in the minority.

Another member in the minority. Purchased DVC in 2007, so 17 years ago. We no longer rope drop, but we also don’t cook in the villa. We eat out every meal while at Disney. Plenty of healthier options and we can split a meal if not wanting to eat a lot.

 

[tjkraz]

I see most of the comments seem to be from families with kids and needing to save time and money. I think I get it.

Not really, but that's part of it. My biggest takeaway is that you're trying to paint everyone with the same brush, and it's just not accurate. My kids are adults and I could certainly afford to pay for every meal. But the idea of sitting in a disney restaurant 21 times over the course of a week....no thanks. I'm careful about what I eat...even on vacation. And buying a few things for the kitchen gives me better control over my diet. Even if what I do is technically called "cooking", it's not exactly preparing Thanksgiving dinner. I can cut up a salad. Or throw a couple chicken breasts on the stove.

Your original post questioned why "many people" have crock pots, mixers and rice cookers in owners' lockers. In reality, I don't think there are a large number of people who store cooking appliances in Florida. Some do. But not tens-of-thousands of DVC owners. My locker has rain ponchos, extra shoes, phone charging cables, backpacks, MagicBands and a variety of stuff I don't want to haul to WDW every time we visit. It allows us to travel lighter.

Bottom line is everyone vacations differently.

 

[BeachClub2014]

Hmmmm, why do we cook in our room while on vacation? Because we can, and oddly enough, feel similarly about doing laundry in our room while on vacation.

We average around 18 nights a year at WDW, and there's only so much restaurant food my innards can tolerate.

 

[Toolulu22]

We are not foodies or big eaters. We eat breakfast in our room everyday except check out day. DH just wants an egg & cheese sandwich. I’ll have oatmeal, a yogurt or a smoothie. Not heavy cooking, it not only saves money, but controls what you are eating. Eating 2 or three meals out every day is too much food quantity and too much processed salty food. Just unhealthy to do at WDW in my opinion.

We don’t cook elaborate meals. We also only spend mornings in the parks or golfing, then chill in the pool. Making a salad lunch or something similar is nothing. Dinner is typically the meal we eat out. At home, we eat out 2-3 times a week so both cooking and eating out are no big deal.

 

[TiszBear]

I just celebrated my 25th anniversary of being a DVC owner (Boardwalk and Grand Floridian) and I have never made a meal of any kind nor have I utilized an outside grocery delivery service nor do I have an owners locker. My family or whoever traveled with us, we budgeted for all types of meals. On those vacations were we rented a car (stays of 7 days), after we checked in we would head to to the local Winn Dixie and pick up a case of soda, a case of water, orange juice and a small creamer and some snacks. Then we would head to Perkins and have lunch and pick up some of their bakery items. If at anytime during our stay we need a few more bakery items we would get them at Boardwalk Bakery or Gasparilla's. If our stays was less then 7 days or we didn't have a car we would pickup items at the resort. To this day, I have never turned on the oven in any of the resorts and still don't plan too. But each family is different and what works for one may not work for others.

 

[beccasmom]

We enjoy a light breakfast in our room (bagels, coffee, toast, cereal). We generally rotate between a table restaurant lunch or dinner, but not both - it gets too pricey and it’s way too much food for me.

I usually order cold cuts, frozen pizza and some quick snack items for the room for days when we head back mid-day for lunch and a break or when we’ve made no dinner plans. And someone is invariably ready to nosh at any given moment in time!

In the past breakfast and sometimes dinner was more of a “production” - eggs with bacon or sausage - and once we even did a ham dinner when we had a big crowd and were in a GV (and Goodings was still around). But it’s much more casual now.

 

[DonMacGregor]

+1!

I bet the OP is only buying DVC to use on studios.

We only stay in 2BR and we've never cooked a meal in a DVC villa.

 

[Maleficent's Dad]

Most of our reasons have been covered by posts above. We've been members for 25 years and average 4-5 trips each year. We've been to virtually every restaurant on property, some dozens of times.
The kitchen gives us flexibility!
1. We're not park commandos any longer, so leaving the parks during the day is a good thing for us.
2. Restaurants at Disney, even though they do update their menus, get repetitive and boring.
3. Cooking together is a FUN activity for us.
4. Cooking your own food is (99% of the time) a healthier option than eating out.
5. There is a significant savings involved by not eating out all the time - just price out a breakfast out as compared to what you can do in your room.
6. We have dishes that we like that aren't too complicated - and we are not at the mercy of a specific menu if we're not in the mood for something.
There are other reasons, but these are the highlights. Nowadays, we rarely feel the "need" to eat out unless something new opens or is refurbished. We loved Topolino's when it first opened, and now? Eh... We've enjoyed some of the newer places like Woody's Roundup BBQ in Hollywood, but that's not the type of place I'd hit several times a year. We don't have high expectations for the upcoming Cake Bake Shop, but we will definitely try it as soon as we are able.
DVC has been wonderful for our family. The kitchen and laundry are HUGE plusses, especially on longer trips. I don't care if people cook in or eat out; it's none of my business. I'm not sure why this topic comes up every few years.

 

[Memorymakerfor4]

We have found that spending a little time in the room doing “normal” things feels good on a vacation where everything is different. My kids can relax by themselves, I’ll do a load of laundry, drink a cup of coffee on the patio, stuff like that. It helps tone down the overstimulation.

 

[gregskellington]

I wish I had enough points to be in one bedrooms every time so I could cook more!