Do you eat at the hotel or do you traipse through the lobby with grocery bags?
 

We have a running argument -- when on vacation, do most people eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks at the hotel or local restaurants or do they go to a local grocery store, green grocer, 7-11, etc and buy food and drinks to keep in the room and eat meals (esp breakfast and snacks) in the room?

We traipse through the lobby with grocery bags containing cookies, chips, pretzels, bottles of soda, wine, liquor, pastry/breads, cheese. I can't see paying $30.00pp for breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton. What do people with kids do? - $3.00 for a bowl of cereal!

When my children were small, we tried to mostly stay in apts or suites that had a fridge. When staying in hotels, if we wanted a big inexpensive breakfast, we usually went out of the hotel.
Funny picture you bring to mind of a big family "traipsing" through the lobby with grocery bags :)

The only time I've ever brought groceries into a room was when we were in London with a one-year-old. They don't like children at restaurants at night and the room service was strange but they have these great ready-to-eat sections in the Tesco Metros in London so we did that every night. Other than that, we eat breakfast and lunch at diner-type places and dinner at nice restaurants, usually not in the hotel.

You'll receive some pretty insulting looks schlepping grocery bags through a city-based Four Seasons. And in answer to your question, if you can afford to stay there, you can afford to let the kids eat there.
At a Hampton Inn or Radisson or whatever, frankly I don't think anyone cares whether or not you bring food into the room.

If we are staying someplace for just one night, then restaurants it is. For longer stays for our family (including 2 teenagers) we always seek out a suite with at least refrigerator, microwave. Also, many chain all-suite hotels have buffet breakfasts included. For the other 2 meals we tend to eat one in a real restaurant and the other is less formal - even pizza in the room, a snack type place.

Unless the place is really designed with an almost full kitchen, we never haul all that stuff to room. We might instead stop at a market and get a roasted chicken, big salad bar and loaf of bread if we did not feel like going out - but it is a day-to-day decision and shopping.

The most embarassing grocery moments are when we are staying in a hotel with refrigerator and I let the kids stop at a market before we check in. They are usually hungry and tired and buy everything in the store - just as if they were shopping at home. When we check in, if there is valet parking and you must unload bags and parcels onto the curb to be taken up to the room, I feel like I should be on the Beverly Hillbillies.

Go for the bags! It is YOUR room...you are paying for it!

I ALWAYS do what I want...if I want to eat breakfast for $50 at the hotel, I do. If I want to eat pop tarts on the lanai/terrace, then that is what I do...I am the GUEST and I get to DECIDE...it is UP TO ME!

The hotels try to imtimidate to gouge their guests...you are fool if you let them win! Eat what YOU want when YOU WANT...same goes for wine and other bevvies! Why should you feel sheepish about bringing a bag of stuff you bought into a nice hotel lobby...the only people who see you could never afford to stay there and thus should not be judgemental, and if they are, TOO BAD!

If you want to take some groceries through the lobby of a 4-star hotel, just put them in a nice tote bag and put a sweater or jacket on top? Some people want to stay at a top-notch hotel and not get royally screwed for a bag of chips. Now, taking a cooler in with you is another story... (hmmm, I wonder how you could disquise a cooler?? Guess I've got some homework to do... LOL)

I do a bit of both but hit the grocery a little more often when my kids (12 & 14) are traveling with me. My twig of a son thinks 7 McD's cheeseburgers is an appetizer so I'm always grateful for a buffet... lol

On a recent solo trip to Scotland visiting friends, I actually got tired of restaurant food. I had a ball going to the market and picking out fresh things to make dinner with. Of course, I was in a home with a kitchen so that skews things a bit.

But in a hotel, I say it's your room. Eat in it if you want. Obviously a bit of tact is called for when schlepping those grocery bags through the lobby. If anyone raises an eyebrow, just play dumb and say, "Wow! We found this cool new tourist attraction called a grocery store! Look at everything we found!" *grin*

~ Sheryl

Travleis: We have schlepped groceries through some of the fanciest hotels. Ritz-Carltons, Four Seasons, Hyatts, Hiltons, Loews, etc. Even brought Mom an Entenmann's Raisin Loaf when she was staying at the Waldorf. She actually called up the management of the Ritz in Battery-Park city because she wanted a coffee maker in the room - she wanted the convenience of having a cup of tea before she got up and got dressed in the am and didn't want anyone bothering her by bring it from room service. I don't think I've ever been given a dirty look, but then I wasn't really looking and wouldn't really care. Sometimes when the maids and doormen see you with these things, they'll tell you their favorite Markets - that's how we found a great one in Jamaica.

I'm not sure it has anything to do with being able to "afford" $30 for breakfast for the kids. It is really more of a mindset. I can afford to eat in these hotels, but it just doesn't seem worth it to me for things like breakfast and snacks. If little Johnny and Susie are happy with warm oatmeal or Frost Flakes, why get them dressed, drag them down to the restaurant for the breakfast buffett of which they will only eat the oatmeal or frosted flakes? They just want to get to the beach/pool.

Gail: LOL, been there, done that. The most groceries we ever brought in was 4 bags.

Heartburn: Coolers get wheeled in with the rest of the luggage! lol

I traipse right through the lobby with bags and coolers as well. I would rather make sandwiches and have a picnic for lunch then eat out for a nice dinner. Last year we even grilled in a Colorado Springs motel parking lot with a little smokey joe. I'm not a big is one of my breakfast eater, so I always have at least pop tarts in the room. And the money you save by eating breakfast in our room frees up more money for the vacation savings account. Plus, it is a great cultural experience to go grocery shopping in another country.

atraveler:

I'm glad I'm not the only one that likes foreign grocery stores. *smile*

One day for lunch in Edinburgh I stopped by the deli of the local grocery and got one of every little tidbit I'd never heard of before. We had a great meal.

I also found out that they've never heard of flavoured coffee creamer and that pressed coffee is heaven sent.

As the primary grocery buyer for my family, I had a good time just going up and down the aisles comparing things. I think it indulged my fantasy of living like a local for the two weeks I was there. ;o)

~ Sheryl

Yes, We traipse through the lobby with the food while I laugh at the people in the expensive restaurants who are laughing at us. We're the one's who end up with more money for the fun stuff.

red63corvette, no trip is complete until I've visited the grocery store! My husband is used to it, but my sister thought I was nuts when I drug her to Marks & Sparks in Dublin in the fall. Now she is a convert as well.

Heartburn3 .. There are collapsible coolers. We pack (collapsed)with regular baggage going there, use as cooler in the room and then pack 'em with laundry as checked baggage going home. Works great. I think ours came from WalMart.

Once when staying at a the Mauna Lani on the Big Island I decided to go down to the local Sac 'N Save to buy a few provisions (soft drinks, snacks, etc.) I coiuld not justify paying $3.00 for a can of Coke or $2.00 for a candy bar. Begrudgingly I ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant, despite the fact that a Belgian waffle cost $9.00 :L. Even though I was on a business trip and my employer was paying the bill, I don't believe in wasting money. Luckily there were many good and resonably priced restaurants in Kona that I went to. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind going to an expensive restaurant, but I do not want to be gouged on the other hand either.

I usually only want coffee first thing in the morning, as does my husband. So we will usually order coffee for two from Room service, then when we are ready to leave the hotel, if we feel like breakfast, we go somewhere else. I usually hate breakfast in hotels because there are so many people smoking and I really have a problem with that first thing in the morning.
The last hotel we stayed in was the Adams Mark in Florida..their little store in the lobby sold snacks and drinks, so I think if we had carried a shopping bag of groceries in, no one would have noticed.
I think carrying groceries into a hotel would not attract that much attention, but "TRAIPSING" might :)
(picture high heels and little mincing steps)

This thread reminds me of the time we visited Charleston, SC with my sister, brother-in-law, and their two daughters, both under the age of six. Our two were seven and under. We drove from Atlanta in our minivan, seatbelts for seven; we were a party of eight. Guess who had to share a seat with half her fanny hanging over the edge. We stayed at the lovely Ansonborough. Each room was set up as a suite complete with a little kitchenette. Did I mention it was the blazing summer? We dragged all the kids through historic Charleston for the day and decided that dragging them through a restaurant would be bad for us; worse for the restaurant. Waltzed across the street to the Harris Teeter grocery store, emerged with frozen pizzas and high hopes of a restful evening. Put said pizzas in oven and recapped our adventures of the day. I'm sure we must have had a bottle of wine or two for cocktail hour because we certainly weren't paying attention to the baking pizzas until the room filled with smoke. Heavy billowing pizza burning smoke. I can't remember what we ate for dinner that night but it wasn't pizza, and shortly thereafter the hotel changed hands and the new management removed the kitchenettes, leaving only harmless coffee makers.

We can afford to take
3-4 week road trips staying in motels by conserving, and food is a great way to do it.

I refuse to ever camp because i'm on vacation, too!!!!!

We travel with lots of snacks and beverages, and we cart those in most nights. We have many lunches from our cooler, picking up deli goods and making sandwiches in a nat'l park or roadside rest stop. Fun times!

We'll stay in nat'l parks as much as possible, but if not, we'll choose lodging that includes a continental bfst...hol inn exp and hamptons are usually very good.

Dinner is always out, but on the inexpensive side as much as possible. Love the nat'l park restaurants AND their cafes!

Food has never been a major part of our trips, unless a beach vacation (seafood) or our one trip to the UK, where we indulged much more than we should have ;) We'd much rather have more nights on the road!

Doesn't anyone else find it a bit inconsistent (and perhaps even ludicrous) that one can afford to stay at the Ritz Carlton and then complains about the price of breakfast?

In American hotels, if a hotel has a lobby through which we would have to traipse, that is sometimes enough of a deterrent to bringing in more than snacks that are cheaper and usually more healthy than machine fodder -- fruit, trail mix, juice. But much as I love breakfast food, when traveling I usually have a large early midday meal and a smaller dinner (unless there's a special restaurante we've planned on), so all we really ever have in the room is juice, perhaps a muffin, and tea-that-tastes-like-coffee thanks to the in-room coffee maker.

However, for some reason, if we can get to our room directly from the outside, it's just the sort of place we're likely to import all kinds of food. Maybe it's that hotels with lobbies are near or have within them decent restaurants and we're on a non-budget trip to begin with -- while direct-access means we're in a motel on a budget and not interested in the McD's next door.

In Europe, it's a different deal and, yes, I love those European grocery stores, bakeries (alas), etc. If we're on a budget there, it's usually one meal in a restaurant and one picnic, either in the room or on the fly.