Eating Meals In Your Villa--The VGF Deluxe vs. Resort Studio Controversy

[sarah4770]

I wake up hungry, so I like breakfast in the room. Also I don’t want to get dressed and ready to go out of the room for breakfast while on vacation. I like to take my time in the morning. And I also dont want everyone else to feel stressed out because they have to get ready to go out for a meal.
I like being able to have eggs and things for sandwiches in the room.
Some in my family ( including me) have bouts of insomnia. So in a Resort studio, you can’t even have a glass of milk and a piece of toast a 1 am if you get a little hungry. That’s bull.
Disney caters to kids. They should at least have a proper mini fridge in the rooms, like just about every other hotel in America.

 

[Sandisw]

I wake up hungry, so I like breakfast in the room. Also I don’t want to get dressed and ready to go out of the room for breakfast while on vacation. I like to take my time in the morning. And I also dont want everyone else to feel stressed out because they have to get ready to go out for a meal.
I like being able to have eggs and things for sandwiches in the room.
Some in my family ( including me) have bouts of insomnia. So in a Resort studio, you can’t even have a glass of milk and a piece of toast a 1 am if you get a little hungry. That’s bull.
Disney caters to kids. They should at least have a proper mini fridge in the rooms, like just about every other hotel in America.

I think it will be interesting how it goes once people start staying who are used to a regular studio.

But yeah, no way to heat yourself a snack when you get back from the parks. That is always a big thing for the people I travel with.

 

[Nursemanit]

I don’t always cook , but I do use delivery apps and eat in the room - Where do you eat in this room?

 

[Sandisw]

I don’t always cook , but I do use delivery apps and eat in the room - Where do you eat in this room?

There is a couch…which becomes a bed…and coffee table. The couch just doesn’t face the TV.

 

[Her Dotness]

I don’t always cook , but I do use delivery apps and eat in the room - Where do you eat in this room?

I presume you're referring to the resort studios?

There is a table/desk with chair across from the bathroom. One person could eat there. Others might share the small round accent table near the sofa or sit on beds.

This is why I maintain Disney sought to cater to people preferring not to eat in their room, other than perhaps a handheld pastry or snack with tea or coffee. Which is rather peculiar since room service is available for both VGF1 and BPK. However, the standard GF rooms haven't more than a desk with chair. The RS are consistent with those, I suppose.

 

[bakerworld]

DH isn't much for eating. He likes to eat late at night just before bed and it's usually a salad. I use to eat like this but have since adapted to needing food around lunch. LOL We do enjoy 1br with a full kitchen but we have to 'think' about cooking food. Our biggest problem is we don't eat on the same schedules anymore.

 

[Sandisw]

I presume you're referring to the resort studios?

There is a table/desk with chair across from the bathroom. One person could eat there. Others might share the small round accent table near the sofa or sit on beds.

This is why I maintain Disney sought to cater to people preferring not to eat in their room, other than perhaps a handheld pastry or snack with tea or coffee. Which is rather peculiar since room service is available for both VGF1 and BPK. However, the standard GF rooms haven't more than a desk with chair. The RS are consistent with those, I suppose.

I guess we will see how well these do in terms of booking and how willing people are to forgo the simply things found in the deluxe studios, not only at VGF but all others as well.

I know I have said it a lot, but cooking is not the same as wanting to have things for in room snacks or light breakfast items.

Even when we did the dining plans, we had leftovers and loved that we had place to store or heat later.

 

[DonMacGregor]

I just find it fascinating that they can suspend even the most minor perk, and all hell breaks loose in a cacophony of dissent, but they remove all vestiges of what actually makes a DVC "studio" a "studio", and not a standard, run of the mill hotel room, and the change is received with a muted chorus of (somewhat righteously indignant) "mehs"...

 

[Sandisw]

I just find it fascinating that they can suspend even the most minor perk, and all hell breaks loose in a cacophony of dissent, but they remove all vestiges of what actually makes a DVC "studio" a "studio", and not a standard, run of the mill hotel room, and the change is received with a muted chorus of (somewhat righteously indignant) "mehs"...

I am going to add that I have been watching availability and they did not fly off the shelves when booking opened for all owners. Early December went fast…but plenty of dates stuck around.

Sure, there are a lot of rooms, but I won’t be surprised if they don’t end up adding some of those missing elements back.

Even the survey here show the majority people do some level of eating in the room.

 

[DonMacGregor]

I am going to add that I have been watching availability and they did not fly off the shelves when booking opened for all owners. Early December went fast…but plenty of dates stuck around.

Sure, there are a lot of rooms, but I will be surprised if they don’t end up adding some of those missing elements back.

I just rented out points, using the board sponsor, for two rooms in the new building for December 23-25.

 

[RKS03]

On paper I love the two queens and I think it’ll work well for us. However the lack of a real mini fridge is incredibly shortsighted. That will be a loss for us.

 

[Her Dotness]

...they remove all vestiges of what actually makes a DVC "studio" a "studio", and not a standard, run of the mill hotel room, and the change is received with a muted chorus of (somewhat righteously indignant) "mehs"...

I don't think this change would go over AT ALL at the other DVC/regular resorts which have fewer restaurants than does the GF. Nor do the others have room service currently.

Perhaps the luster of the RS will wear off fast once people realize these aren't the usual DVC studio style, which I suspect newbie DVCers who bought in may not know.

 

[DonMacGregor]

I don't think this change would go over AT ALL at the other DVC/regular resorts which have fewer restaurants than does the GF. Nor do the others have room service currently.

Perhaps the luster of the RS will wear off fast once people realize these aren't the usual DVC studio style, which I suspect newbie DVCers who bought in may not know.

Which is why I would have been fine with them simply calling the new villas "Resort Rooms" instead.

It's like a car manufacturer trying to sell you a "bed-less pickup" by claiming their new sedan has a "really big trunk and fold-down rear seats".

 

[Her Dotness]

Which is why I would have been fine with them simply calling the new villas "Resort Rooms" instead.

While I get your point, I think that label would have resulted in confusion with the regular GF rooms which are Disney resort rooms. "A resort room? Is that at the GF or the VGF?"

I propose there'd have been far less uproar had the RS point cost been even 5 lower per night than the DS. That would have indicated they're not on a level with the original studios.

Perhaps that was Disney's intent in labeling them Resort Studios, that "resort" implies less housework by the guest.

It's like a car manufacturer trying to sell you a "bed-less pickup" by claiming their new sedan has a "really big trunk and fold-down rear seats".

I can see the RS concept not only appealing to those not eating in their room but also to the thrifty-minded wanting an upscale stay that'll increase in value rather than being a $1k+ one and done per night. The GF on the cheap longterm, so to speak.

 

[Shellyred8]

We rarely use the microwave, but the "beverage cooler" vs a real fridge is sometimes important to us.

 

[beamreach]

I'd like to get a better sense of how much "must have kitchenette" actually governs the choice of the VGF deluxe studio over the resort one.

For instance, it's just me and DH. We've never fixed meals in our studio except once when we had Cali Grill leftovers and couldn't think of anywhere we wanted to eat out.

That's largely because we'll glom onto the Deluxe dining plan again once it's offered and thus could easily stay in a resort studio, fixing and eating nothing in our villa.

With no dining plan, we might do more eating in, particularly since we'll be staying in 1 bedrooms henceforth.

What are your eating-in habits? Your family makeup? How important is a kitchenette to you?

we actually prefer the resort-style hotel room...we would never cook our own meals on vacation with all the great dining options at Disney!

 

[beccasmom]

We have ordered from Garden Grocer for several years. At first this was to ensure water, beverages, and snacks were available. However, we gradually started to have some breakfasts (eggs, cereal, bagels, OJ, etc.) in our unit and we still do that on several mornings. I usually also order some cold cuts, a frozen pizza, fruit, yogurt, etc. to fill in here and there when staying home is more preferable to eating out. There are sometimes leftovers to heat up as well. And we will order pizza sometimes when enough of us are around.

We don’t schedule a lot of ADRs and they are mostly for lunch. Counter service is pretty much fine for us. So we do cook, but it’s pretty basic nowadays although I have done “dinners“ in the past (quite a while back and only once or twice during a visit).

 

[Boopuff]

The cook/housekeeper is on vacation so no cooking! But I do like to get easy breakfast stuff (bagels, yogurt, bars etc. just something to start the day and usually snacks and beverages

 

[kirstenb1]

We're a 2br family. We always have breakfast in the room, and usually dinner. Dinner is just really simple: fixings for tacos/nachos. Lots of veggies, mostly, with some meat/cheese. A couple of days into vacation, I'm really craving fruits/veggies. We go in June, so the heat is a factor. We store tons of beverages in the fridge too.

 

[TinkB278]

I wish there was a “few to none” option that didn’t mention a microwave. We like to have the full mini fridge for things like apples and muffins from home but don’t use microwaves at home or on vacation.