If you are a regular at a local theme park or if you go to lots of sporting events you may be used to seeing signs that outside food and drinks are prohibited.
But guess what? You CAN bring food and drink into the parks at Disney World!
And, there are so many reasons why this might make sense for you.
Common reasons for bringing food (and drinks!) with you into the parks
Money
One of the biggest reasons you might want to bring in your own food or drinks is the cost savings. Even if you only brought in water, for a family of 4 that is over $10/day.
And that is if you each only drank 1 bottle a day. In my family we usually bring a bottle in the morning and 1 in the afternoon.
That saves us $20+ per day that we can use on other things.
Like Dole Whips.
Food restrictions
Other people choose to bring in their own food because of allergies or dietary restrictions. Or maybe they just have a super picky eater.
If you are traveling with somebody that has to be extra careful about what they eat or maybe they just choose to only eat certain items, bringing your own food with you into the parks may make a lot of sense.
Want an easy way to get food to your resort room? Consider having some groceries delivered!
Tips for bringing your own food with you into the parks
- Whatever your reason, when deciding what to bring into the parks the only things that aren't allowed are glass containers and alcohol.
- When it comes time to eat your food, the number of available benches seems to have dwindled in the past years (or maybe I'm just getting older and need to sit more) but you usually can find a spot. As always, when in doubt ask a Cast Member and they can direct you to somewhere nearby.
- Need to store stuff in a cooler? Like wagons, you can't have anything that you can pull behind you but smaller, soft-sided coolers are definitely allowed. But, loose ice (ice not in Ziploc bags) is not.
- If you have a stroller you may have room to store a cooler in that (which makes it even easier to bring some items into the park with you).
- If you need more space (or if you don't have a stroller) all the parks have lockers that are available for rent.
Some final thoughts
We will say, compared to other venues (like Six Flags or even a football or baseball game), the food prices at Disney World are fairly comparable and for many people the unique dining opportunities that Disney has are part of the experience, so you may not want to bring in every meal (or even every snack).
BUT we *do* think it makes a lot of sense to save some money on things that aren't unique to Disney World (like bottles of water!) so that you can spend your hard earned vacation dollars on things you may not be able to get anywhere else - like dinner in Cinderella Castle.
