Disneyland restaurant food is notoriously expensive. While the experience of Disneyland dining is nice, it is certainly not worth $20 per person. Even worse, the Disneyland food quality (except in a few locations) is poor.The experts don’t eat at Disneyland restaurants because they know it is a waste of money.I don’t recommend avoiding Disneyland restaurants for your entire trip. Some of the nicer Disneyland restaurants are definitely worth visiting (more on these in later posts). However, if you just want to grab a quick lunch or dinner, you will pay too much and get poor quality if you eat Disneyland food.What Disney won’t tell you (but all the locals know) is that there is a strip Mall just across the street from Disneyland. You’ll pay half the price of Disneyland food and the food quality is much better. It’s the secret alternative to Disneyland dining.
In this strip mall is a Subway, Pizza (including by the slice), Mexican, Chinese. Everyone knows what Subway is like. I’ve eaten at the Pizza place many times and the quality is much better than what you’ll find in Pizza Port. A lunch special is about $5 compared to $10 for the equivalient Disneyland food.To get there, exit the Disneyland main gate (don’t forget your hand stamp) and go left (away from Downtown Disney). As you get to the end of the property, go right at Harbor blvd. The strip mall is half a block down on the opposite side of the street at the corner of Harbor and Katella. It’s a nice 5-10 minute walk along the palm-tree lined Harbor blvd.A family of 4 can expect to save about $30 and you’ll be able to avoid the crowds and enjoy some good quality food.
This entry was posted
on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Disneyland Tips, Places to Eat.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I don’t recomend leaving the park if you have little ones. High Prices or not the trouble gettign out of the park and back can cost you 2 hours of time depending on crowd, where you are at when you get hungry and the 20-30 min walk from the exit in disneyland. If you want to save money share meals. Most of the large meals can feed 2 adults easy and 2-3 kids depending on age. For a family of four four Subway sandwiches about $23-24. Two plate meals like chicken fingers or BBQ $18-22. Same price less time.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Yes it will take a little extra time to eat outside of the park. However, 2 hours is a bit of an exageration. If you only have 1 day to visit the park it might not be worth it. But since most people visit for multiple days losing an hour of park time isn’t a big deal. It’s also a nice way to get out of the crowds to recharge for the rest of the day.
If you are planning to park hop, you will be leaving the main entrance to do that anyway so if you time that around a meal, you don’t really lose much time.
October 17th, 2009 at 11:25 am
The best locals’ tip I can possibly give you, as far as saving money at Disneyland goes, is to use the picnic area and pack your food. It’s located right before you go through the security checkpoint, all the way to the left, hidden behind some green hedges. The lockers there cost about $10 to $15 for the day, and will fit a small cooler. (and jackets too if you get the big one)
I pack plenty of water bottles, sandwiches, small bags of chips, sodas, etc. and enjoy the picnic area. It’s only three minutes walk from the front gate of either park, it’s quieter than the restaurants, and you’re not paying $10 per sandwich and $5 per bottle of water all day.