Can You Bring Your Own Food To Walt Disney World? Yes! Food inside Walt Disney World Orlando Parks can be very expensive. Thankfully, Disney allows you to bring your own food into the parks. You are also allowed to bring in a soft sided cooler that is smaller than 24 inches long, 15 inches wide and 18 inches high.
You can pack frozen water bottles (they melt in the heat), sandwiches, chips, snacks, fruit, treats, etc in your cooler and save about $50 per meal (for a family of 4) by eating your own food. You’ll also save park time by not having to spend time waiting on a quick service meal!
You can find more information on what is and is not allowed in the parks on the Disney FAQ Page.
What foods do you pack for your day in the parks?
If you are going to eat Counter Service meals, here are some meals you can split.
Learn more about Walt Disney World Dining and get suggestions for where to eat, how to use the Disney Dining Plan and more.
Beth says
I think this is a great idea– i just wonder if it is feasible. Are the lockers where we would store the food convenient? Is there a good place to eat? We’ll only have a day in each park, so we don’t want to spend a lot of time running back and forth getting our packed food.
Jeremy says
By soft side cooler, does this mean collapsible like the picture shown or can it have a hard plastic liner in it? I have a soft sided cooler that has a hard plastic liner to hold ice. Would something like this be allowed?
Laurie says
We bring beef jerky, gummies, dried fruit, nuts, granola bars and LOTS of crystal light and 1 water bottle each packed in a backpack (with an outside netted bottle holder) that we refill often at the water fountains. We also bring along some candy for “cranky times”. By using a backpack, our hands are free, we don’t ever lose anything, and I have pockets to keep our wallets/keys/pin lanyards. Also, plastic bags for when we DO buy a turkey leg (which we always do – our ONLY purchase at the parks) since we never can finish a whole leg at once…we can bag it up and carry it around for later. Oh…and more plastic bags for our electronics for on Splash Mtn!
Grace says
We live close to Disneyland and have done this for years.
Michele says
We always take plenty of water/bottles. We like to take string cheese, crackers, some fruit, and beef sticks. Try to take things that would be a little more filling.
Shannon M. says
By hoagie rolls, I meant actual sandwiches….Silly me.
Shannon M. says
We started bringing our food into the parks when our kids hit the teen years. Everybody grew into the “grown up meals”, and our food budget was the same.
1. We bring in hoagie rolls. I save condiment packets and bring them with us, usually some fruit, and a tube of pringles does the trick.
2. We also bring in Brita water bottles. Each one has a filter and you can filter out the heavily chlorinated water this way. Many water fountains have cold water, so we can drink as much as we want. On a side note, I saved my Walgreen Register Rewards so the water bottles didn’t cost my anything. I bought them one at a time, as I accumulated the rewards.
3. We have used Restaurants.com in the past for on property meals. They haven’t had them on recently, but there are plenty of options for restaurants just off property. We ate at the House of Blues this way. I had 2 gift cert that I got online months prior for our Disney trip. We split our large group and ate at 2 tables, but we didn’t mind. This way, we didn’t violate the stipulations of the gift cert.
BEST OF LUCK. IT CAN BE DONE!!!
Gretchen says
Since we are traveling with a toddler under 3 who’s not on the dining plan with the rest of us we definitely plan to utilize a cooler and bring in some food for him. In the past we’ve just put granola bars for an emergency in our backpack, but I think we’ll pack some other food for him like PB&J or gogurts maybe. I’m undecided on what would travel well for him.