Check out this ultimate list of the best snacks to take to Disneyland!
Disneyland and Disney World are some of the most popular places to vacation. Who doesn’t want time to get away from the stresses of life and spend time together creating memories? Everyone wants to know the cheapest place to buy tickets, the best places to stay, which rides to go on first, and the list goes on. My family went to Disneyland for the first time in 2015 and it was so fun! I learned a lot about planning and what I wish I’d known before going. However, one question that I see asked all the time in groups and on Facebook is “What are the best snacks to take to Disneyland?”
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Disney’s Outside Food and Drink Policy
Taken directly from Disney’s website concerning outside food and drink:
“Guests are allowed to bring food items—such as snacks or foods that do not require heating—into Disney theme parks. Inform a Security Cast Member of any food items when you enter the park.”
That’s pretty broad if you ask me!
What This Means For You
As a visitor of the park, you are welcome to bring any food or drink (except alcohol) into the parks that doesn’t have to be heated up. This gives you a huge variety of options! When my family went, we knew we wanted to save money by only eating one meal inside the park each day. That meant we ate breakfast at the hotel and packed ourselves a lunch to take with us into the park, along with snacks and drinks, which we replenished when we went back to our hotel mid-day.
Now, this could be a little overwhelming depending on the number of days you’ll be at the park and how big your family is. But my goal is to provide you with some options of what to take into the park and how to pack them and then you can pick and choose what will work best for your family.
Pack It Up
Cooler
Before we left home to drive to California from Utah, we picked up a small cooler from the store. (We bought this one.) When choosing it, we looked for one that had a hard plastic insert, zipper/mesh pockets on the outside and big enough to hold an ice pack. It also had to fit in our stroller since we didn’t want to carry it around on our shoulder all day, nor did we want to have to put it in a locker. (Check HERE for size restrictions.)
Plastic Containers
This was a suggestion I saw on Facebook and I thought it was genius! If you are going to be bringing any snacks that are easily smashed or need to be divided up into smaller portions, you can grab some small plastic containers with lids to put them in. We have some from Rubbermaid that would work perfectly and you could easily refill them.
Bags
Sandwich or snack sized bags that zip at the top are a handy way to divide up portions for those things that don’t need to go in a plastic container. I’d recommend just bringing a box with you that you can fill up with snacks at your hotel or the larger cooler in your car. We try to save and reuse these as much as possible. You could also look into buying reusable sandwich bags!
*PRO TIP* Pack your snacks the night before you go to the park, if possible. This will save you a lot of time in the morning when you’re trying to get out the door!
What Snacks Should I Bring?
I’ve divided this next section into categories to make it easier for you to choose the best snacks to take to Disneyland based on what your family likes to eat. Try to choose a variety of options so you’re not eating the same snacks all day, every day.
Fruits/Veggies
- Carrot sticks
- Celery sticks
- Peppers (cut)
- Broccoli (cut)
- Cauliflower (cut)
- Cucumbers (mini, sliced or spears)
- Cuties (small mandarin oranges)
- Grapes (frozen or fresh)
- Plums
- Berries: blueberries, strawberries, raspberries
- Bananas
- Apple slices
- Applesauce (cups or squeeze pouches)
- Ranch/PB/Hummus in individual portions or small plastic containers
Crackers/Cookies
- Crackers (w/hummus)
- Pretzels (w/PB)
- Graham crackers
- Goldfish crackers (Have you seen the Mickey shaped goldfish crackers mix?)
- Cheez-Its
- Snack size cookies (individually packaged)
Dried
- Granola bars (ones that don’t have chocolate because they will melt and make a mess)
- Nut butter bars
- Dried fruit
- Nuts
- Craisins/raisins
- Jerky
- Fruit rope/Fruit leather
- Trail mix
- Fruit snacks
- PB Bites
- Protein/Energy bites (We love these monster cookie energy bites.)
Dairy
- Frozen Gogurt
- Danimals
- String cheese, Babybel cheese or Tillamook cheese
- Hard boiled eggs (technically a protein)
Lunch
- PB & J sandwich
- Frozen Uncrustables (will be thawed by the time you’re ready to eat them)
- Bagel w/cream cheese
- Lunch meat and cheese sandwich
- Tortilla wrap with lunch meat and cream cheese
Drinks
- Powerade/Vitamin Water
- Juice Box/Capri Sun
- Water bottles
- Crystal Light flavor packets or liquid flavoring, such as Mio
*PRO TIP* You can ask for cups of ice water at any location that has a drink station and just fill up your empty water bottles from that! Also, having flavored water really helps you drink more and tastes better even if it’s warm.
Other
- Plastic spoons, forks, or knives
- Napkins or wet wipes
- Gum
- Mints
I hope you got some ideas about the best snacks to take to Disneyland!
What do you think of this list? What else should I add to it? I’d love to get your suggestions and continue updating it to create an ultimate snack ideas resource!
Looking for tickets to Disneyland?
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22 Comments
Such a good list of snacks! I never would've remembered to bring wet wipes or napkins! Pinning this as a reminder
Now I'm craving a snack…AND Disney!!! Great list!
Coming Up Roses
This is an awesome list. Disneyland is so overpriced, I'll be sure to take these along next time!
I love going to Disney! We always bring a few snacks, even though my youngest is seven. We are fans of freezing water bottles to bring in. They stay cold for awhile, and then we have ice inside when we add more water.
We bring food in too, it saves a lot of money!
Great ideas! Love the frozen Crustables. Bringing your own is such a great idea! Saves lots of money and time standing in line.
So many great snacks! I do the same when I go so that I can save some $$ and maybe have a nicer dinner experience. 🙂
We are going to Disney World next week! We take in snacks and drinks, too. I have Celiac disease, so my choices at DW are pretty limited. My toddler does better with things she is familiar with.
WOW! I am surprised that you can bring food into Disney World. Good to know though! Love all of your ideas.
Jenn
joyfuliowan.com
Great information on what to bring. We are saving for the next 2 years to go to either universal, animal kingdom or disney. I am a planner at heart, so this will help.
Thanks for the snack ideas! It's good to know that they allow you to pack food and bring it into a Disney park. It can get really expensive if you have to buy food all day at the park.
Well this is genius! Pinning for our Disney trip one day!
These are great tips for snacks! We typically do the same thing when we go to theme parks and when we had Disney passes, we'd plan one meal a day, or sometimes even just one meal a trip inside the park and all the others we'd bring in.
What great ideas, I can tell these would be a life saver with kids!!
These are fabulous snack ideas..and would save a ton of money too. Thank you for sharing.
I can't even imagine how much money you would spend if you bought everything there.
Definitely some great ideas! Thanks for sharing!
We have the Dining Plan when we go this fall (it's included with hotel in value months — woohoo!), but we'll still be taking some snacks for the kids! I love the idea of trail mix. Granola bars and cheese sticks are two of our snacking go-to choices, as well!
Love this! We are planning our first trip for February with two little ones and I’m so glad to find all the tips I can get! We’re flying so I plan to make a grocery store run the day we get there to stock up on all the snacks for the week!
We’ve never been to Disney but this look super helpful if we went!
We always brought food in when I was growing up. I love the variety of ideas on this list!
These are awesome snack ideas for in the parks. My kid’s love pretzels and fruit snacks. We also found the Disney good2grow juices were fun.
Great list. Just wanted to mention that hard boiled eggs are not dairy. So I’d move them to a protein category