It’s would be easy enough to claim that what you have in the cooler is for your specific food allergy or whatever. I guarantee that they don’t want to be in the business of inspecting your cooler’s food and questioning you about your allergy. They’ll do a cursory check for bottles or booze but they won’t go into the details of what’s in your sandwich.
I guess it was Disneyworld that I was thinking of…
(See post #14)
And this doesn’t include the cost of lodging.
I wonder, is Disney World still doing great business, or has attendance fallen off the last few years?
I am a well known huge Disneyland fan and I think the trick is- much like anything in life- choosing wisely.
Sure, you can get some soggy, crappy burger and fries or slice of pizza and a Coke for $12 at one of the walk up “restaurants” in the park — OR you could eat at the beautiful sit down restaurant, the Blue Bayou. At the Bayou, you get unlimited bread and butter, a DELICIOUS salad (seriously, huge with dark lettuces, great dressing, wonderful toppings, very filling), a lunch entree that I guarantee you wont be able to finish, and a drink for $18. With the pizza or burger, it’s not “real” food, so you’re going to be hungry again soon thereafter and get some more over priced junk. With the Bayou, you aren’t going to want to eat again all day AND you’ll have left overs you can take with you.
And this isn’t counting downtown Disney or walking 2 minutes across the street from the Main Gate and eating at Denny’s or Mimi’s or whatever else is out there.
WDW appears to be doing fine–but I believe they have been offering more discounts lately to keep attendance up. I haven’t noticed much difference in the crowds in our last few visits. (We’ve been twice in the last year, and are going again around Christmas. I fully expect the Christmas/New Year’s crowds to be absolutely insane.)
As for food, it’s one of the highlights for our trips to WDW. There are dozens of sit-down restaurants in and around the parks, including some 4-star restaurants such as the California Grill at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, or Jiko at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. See here:
The only downside to the restaurants is that you have to plan ahead–don’t expect to get in to a WDW table-service restaurant without a reservation. We’ve already made all of our restaurant reservations for December, for example.
Ex-Disneyland worker here:
I worked there from 2001-2007 and I can say that they don’t seem to take attendance and things into account when they increase prices. We had some slow years and months after 9/11 and right before the 50th anniversary in 2005, but prices steadily increased.
They also mentioned that profits came from concessions like food, and that gate prices don’t make nearly as much.
Nope, still looks like a crooked penis! 
Even the workers don’t like paying the food prices. There’s a McDonalds, IHOP, and Denny’s right across the street from Disneyland. If you’re willing to trek out that far for lunch and dinner, do it. You’ll save like $10 per person.
That’s me! Yes, you can bring food into the park. There’s no official rule against it but obviously they may frown on you bringing a whole steak dinner or something, but I’ve brought large bags of snacks, trail mix, large water bottles, etc. into the park with no problems. They only check for weapons and stuff like that. I’ve never seen anyone being denied entrance for food. Of course, that’s not to say a bad manager may not make up some phony excuse to bar food, but if you keep it things like sandwiches nicely wrapped or in tupperware containers, they won’t deny you entrance. And if they do, make a fuss about it and they’ll probably let you through anyway
In my 5 years there, I’ve never seen that rule enforced. People go in with snacks and water and juice all the time. I think the best advice I can give is to pack sensibly. Someone may bring up that rule if you have large coolers full of food, but not if you have a backpack with a bag of snacks or a sandwich.
Yes, the Disney workers are really good about letting things go in the name of maintaining the “show” of the place. I once got a friend’s rather large toddler in for free after claiming he was big because his dad’s tall. The manager came out, accepted the excuse at face value, and the kid got in for free (he was like 6!)
When we went when I was a kid, we all tromped out to the parking lot at lunch and dinner times to eat out of the trunk of the car. We had six kids–even in 1983, the tickets were killer. Buying the food was not to be considered!
Just out of idle curiousity, dont they give workers some sort of (hopefully huge) discount on the food?
My boss at the time got a tour of Disneyworld as part of some management seminar, specifically a tour of the underground tunnels. He said you wouldn’t believe how many people assumed he was an employee and told him he’d have to shave his goatee off quickly.
I’ll agree the prices for food are not outlandish, just on the high side. A small bottle of Coke from the refrigerator costs $1.89 at a gas station, so $3 for a big cup of pop is in the ballpark for refreshments.
There are employee cafeterias “backstage”, with normally priced food.
I guess that makes sense, as I suppose that most workers wouldn’t want to hang out for a couple of hours after their shift in order to get a cheap meal, no matter how good (or inexpensive) the food might be…
Do employees get an allotment of free park passes per year to share with friends and family?
Against Disneyland’s rules
There’s a nice picnic area with lockers just outside the entrance. Better that than lugging around a cooler.
I fully agree, but for a family that will be pushing a stroller anyway, I would get a small cooler that can fit on/under the stroller for snacks, drinks or somesuch…
Yep. Not sure what the rules are for Disneyland, but at Walt Disney World employees can let in at least one person using their employee ID (and as many as 10, depending on their level of seniority), and also get at least 8 comp tickets a year that anyone can use.
How about other costs such as their liability insurance and defending themselves against every person who trips on their own shoelaces and suddenly sees dollars? I can’t imagine either of those are cheap, yet, sadly, they do nothing to enhance your day at the park.
Liability insurance is built into the cost of everything. It shouldn’t have gone up any more for Disney than for, say, a supermarket. In any case, Disney is self-insured, so its liability insurance cost is actually lower than most businesses’.
I just talked to someone who came back from Disney in Florida and they said that the food and concessions and stuff were cheaper than they had expected (they equated it to airport style pricing) and that the park allowed people to bring in outside food and drinks and even had picnic areas and stuff set up where you could eat your non-Disney food. I was a little surprised.