Picnic

[SaiyanHajime]

I was just looking on Chessington's website, and I saw this...

Picnic Lunch Bags
There is a lot to think about when organising a family day out – especially when it comes to packed lunches. Amongst all the other things that you have to do why not leave this one behind…after all your day should be about having a wild adventure, and not about carrying lunch boxes! Find out more.

http://www.chessington.com/plan-your-tr ... -here.aspx

Heh, which is funny... But it brought back insane memories of my family carting around a huge cooler case filled with soggy sandwiches and packets of crisps, penguin bars and five alive juice cartons. I have a particular memory of my older cousins going on Ramases Revenge and me standing there with a marmite and cucumber sandwich watching whilst parents, grandparents and my aunt sat on the rocks behind.

When I worked at the park in 2010, I remember being handed so many gigantic cooler bags on Fury to place on the far side of the platform whilst people rode. And I remember thinking then "oh god WHY do people do this?" It must be such a pain in the arse.

Were you/are you one of those people? Were your parents? What do you think about bringing food with you to a park, is it worth it or not? How well do you think parks price their food?

 

[Martyn B]

I tend to buy picnic-y stuff when I go to the smaller parks. I dont bother carting it around the park though, I just leave it in the car.

 

[Pokemaniac]

You'd have to donate a kidney to buy a decent meal at TusenFryd, so upon going there I STRONGLY advise bringing your own food. I always do, just a couple of sandwiches in a lunch box and a bottle of water. An apple too, sometimes.

However, when going to parks with my family, we usually find a place to sit down and buy some food. Park food is a tad cheaper in Denmark, where we used to go "parking" - TusenFryd was too close to be any sort of holiday destination for my family, and if I went there, it was usually with my cousins.
I do remember, though, that we used to go to a waterpark about two hours' drive from home. On those trips, we'd leave early, and bring with us a full breakfast we ate when we stopped on our way there. Perhaps we saved some of it for lunch too, I can't remember.

So I think the answer is:
Day trip - bring own food
Park trip while on holiday - buy food.

 

[furie]

I immediately thought of Nic seeing this topic. Problem In Chair, Not In Computer :lol:

Yes, we picnic as most people can attest to. Even a small picnic is essential when you have four or five people in a group to feed/water at a park, especially kids who get very grumpy and tired if dehydrated or low on sugar.

We're down to about one and a half backpacks now, which is forced because we no longer have a pram to dump everything onto. It also means we don't carry around three meals for up to five people any more :lol:

To be honest, we do the same pretty much wherever we go. Is it about £1.70 now at Merlin attractions for a bottle Coke or equivalent? That's fine if you're on your own, couple of those and a few bits of on-park food and you may still squeak change out of a tenner. For a family it's at the very least £40, usually up to £50 or £60 for one meal and a carry drink for the day.

To be fair though, the picnics usually cost us the best part of £20, so it's not a massive saving :lol:

I've never been one for big cool-boxes and the like, it has to be practical to carry the picnic around otherwise it makes what can be a tiring day a nightmare. As with the cost, most people do this once a year maybe, but if we're out two or three weekends a month, it makes a huge difference in terms of how much effort you want to put in, and how much you want to spend.

 

[Error]

Every year for our Cedar Point trip, my family would bring about 2 coolers and a large picnic basket. We didn't bring it around the park (I don't think we could), and we just left it at the picnic pavilion. The only reason we did it was because food was incredibly expensive.

 

[Ian]

When I was a nipper, my mum would treat me and my brother to Paultons Park and Chessington or Thorpe every summer. I have fond memories of watching my mother slave away the night before making loads of ham sarnies and packing them in a massive cool bag the next morning.

It's only when I started going to theme parks on my own did I eat the delights found in-park.

We'd never sit and eat the picnic, we'd eat in the queue lines and walking between rides. On one occasion at Thorpe Park, the coolbag fell off a spare seat on Thunder River (as the rapids was known then) into the water. That spoiled my day as I never got round to eating the Trio bars and drinking the last carton of Umbongo. I sulked all afternoon until Mum bought me an oversized pencil with the Thorpe rabbit mascot on top. Ahh, happy memories

 

[nadroJ]

We did used to take a cool bag, but leave it in the car. When we decided it was time for lunch, we'd all camp somewhere and wait patiently for dad to walk to the car retrieve the cool bag and bring it back. After eating we would then put all of our rubbish back into the cool bag and dad would then walk it all the way back to the car, yay!

Like you Ian, I never ate in-park food until I went to the places sans parents. Kind of prefer the picnic.

We used to have proper treats in those cool bags too. Pink 'n' white marshmallow wafers, billy bear ham sandwiches, Gold bars, Pom Bear crisps and the best of all were these Tesco version of Panda Pops that had mental flavours like candyfloss and rhubarb and custard. So many e-numbers <3

 

[Martyn B]

I only ever really got taken to Pleasurewood Hills as a child, but back then they used to have Smokey Joes, the public BBQ's, so we just packed the rolls and raw meat and off we went!

 

[Ben]

Haha, my dad used to do this. With wet crisps and apples <//3

We used to spite and just, buy McDonalds when he let us go off, haha.

My dad's SO stingey with stuff like this, and he's a director in his company, so he aint poor. He also buys TECHNIKA teles <////3 urgh. I'd rather die.

Yeah, urgh, it was the worst. I never would. I take like, sweets and a can or something, but, never a COOLER. I don't see the problem for like, people who are paying £200 to get there and then get in, just to pay another £20. Really, that's gonna KILL you so you need to spend a tenner on getting food, money going to Tesco to get it, and then lug it around all day? They're the ultimate worst.

 

[Martyn B]

He also buys TECHNIKA teles <////3 urgh. I'd rather die.

I sympathise with you on that! :lol:

 

[SaiyanHajime]

OH MY GOD JORDAN POM BEAR!

Ian's post had me in absolute stitches.

 

[kimahri]

Pom Bear crisps

http://myfacewhen.com/183/

I do recall one time where we took a Picnic for when we went to Flamingo Land the first time (Lucky?). I think we either took it to the park and ate it near a big cat enclosure and a bin of wasps and threw rubbish in there in order to not get molested by excessive wasps... Or we all went back to the car and ate the stuff there. If that was the case I probably sat in the boot :3

 

[nadroJ]

Pom Bears are ultimate <3

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

With wet crisps and apples <//3

LOL!

Actually this is something me and my mom ALWAYS make fun of my stepdad for. No matter where we seem to go, he has his stupid portable barbecue or some type of dumb cooler. He's not a cheap person but it seems like he hates spending money on food, anywhere (except the last vacation, they went to eat out twice in three days... I was shocked, but of course I wasn't there). One year at Geauga Lake we had to walk back to the truck, set up the barbecue on the truck bed, and cook hot dogs .

If I'm with myself or my dad though, there's never a cooler.

 

[peep]

Oh I like the idea of this topic a lot but before I share my 2 pence...

marmite and cucumber sandwich

What madness is this!? I like marmite but, with...cucumber? DOES NOT COMPUTE.


Right, on topic now

My Dad is really stingy so he would have to carry this sort of plastic cooler thing with a couple of these ice containers to keep everything "fresh" (read as: soggy) around the park all day, I think sometimes he would go as far as putting it in a locker if it was available. Sitting on that field at Chessington next to where Fury is is usually where we sat down to eat, back when there used be a slide and that on the field for us kids to go run off and play on for a bit while the parents got a rest.

Some of the families I see having picnics now seem to be taking it to the next level, it's like a proper restaurant or something. Usually when it's a large family. They'll have several coolers and just endless amounts of tupperware containing random courses. It seems like a lot of effort to go to and it looks a lot more costly and annoying than actual park food.

Oh that's something, anyone else have everything in tupperware? (actually, thinking about it that might be a good general polls topic, hmm)


I'm going to join in on the pom bears love <3

 

[Darren B]

No matter where we seem to go, he has his stupid portable barbecue

That's awesome! If i could get away with knocking out a BBQ half way through the day i really would, but it's just not done in England, I don't think i have ever seen anybody at a UK park do it :/

As for me, i never went to a theme park as a child, but since i've been going to them i've never taken a picnic, eating at the park has always been part of the treat for me.

 

[peep]

No matter where we seem to go, he has his stupid portable barbecue

That's awesome! If i could get away with knocking out a BBQ half way through the day i really would, but it's just not done in England, I don't think i have ever seen anybody at a UK park do it :/

I've got a feeling I've seen it before or definitely heard about it before. Yeah UK parks don't like you doing it, health and saftey and all that, pretty sure they come along and put it out.

 

[Jake]

The rents USED to always do this, but they're nowhere near as tight as they were back when I was little, so now when they go out on day trips etc (obviously not parks, but other stuff) they just get fast food I think. They ALWAYS go to spoons (they have a list of all the outlets and have 'spoons creds'. No joke <3).

I also used to be quite tight, remember all the pasta pots Ben, haha?

Then, we started getting student loans which put an end to that. I waste a ridiculous amount of money on absolute faeces now </3. Meh.

 

[Hixee]

I still do take a picnic most of the time I visit parks. It's cheaper, better, more convenient and I prefer the food far more if I get it myself. Call me stingy, but it works for me!

I think it does come from growing up with parents who liked to make/take their own food on days out. We've never had the cooler issue, we always tend to have fairly practical rucksacks that we can fit the food in.

Picnics ftw!

 

[Ben]

I also used to be quite tight

Ha.

remember all the pasta pots Ben, haha?

To be fair, they were amazing <3 And it's fine when you're like, 16 and have no job <//3 Then, yeah, student loan and working and that'll just, never happen again.

Sometimes have those pasta pots for lunch now though, they're still fab <3 They're like, £1.50 now though <//3 The outrage <//3