Question re etiquette

[Pennies]

What is the general thinking on this. If you are staying at a hotel that has a large buffet style breakfast with a huge selection of foods, is it OK to have breakfast and then take enough food for the family to have a packed lunch / picnic thereby saving on buying lunch?

The odd croissant or apple but a whole picnic? No!

I wouldn't take as much as your woman, but I think a lot of hotel prices are theft; often hotels can charge what they want as you have no other options.

I also would never take things like face cloths, extra bottles of shampoo, etc. I think I am entitled to a cheese roll and a piece of fruit from breakfast.

Oooh I always take the mini shampoos and things, most exciting bit about staying in a hotel!

It's tacky, cheap and theft.

However, it's frustrating when your kids don't eat much at breakfast when you know they are going to be hungry later. I found a fail safe way to get around this problem. I just asked whoever was in charge of they minded if I took a couple of things for my kids lunch. I wasn't once turned down and often we were brought bags and napkins.

It was always obvious that the kids hadn't eaten very much for breakfast and we made sure we didn't go overboard. It much nicer to be honest.

Haha slimytoad Disneyland is the only time I have done this. And even then I felt terribly guilty and terrified I would get caught!! We are going again next year and i think I am going to buy a meals package before we go, regardless of cost, so I don't have the temptation to do this at breakfast again!!

Oh and I always take everything provided for me in a hotel room, shampoos, tea bags etc. If I am staying more than one night I put all the tea bags and coffee sachets into my suitcase so they refill the next day! They are included in the cost of the room so they are mine!

Although I don't do this is the little family run B&B we stay in over the summer cos I feel bad for some reason, like I am fleecing a friend! Even though I still feel perfectly entitled to...

Brits tend to not do this but other Europeans do.

I think it's greedy and not on.

A muffin, pastry or piece of fruit = ok in my ethical framework.

Making up a sandwich = not ok.

As long as there's enough for everybody, I don't see the problem. Leftovers will end up in the bin anyway.

I'm like HappyYoni - no appetite 1st thing. Takes me at least an hour, usually 2 to be able to eat after waking so if a venue had buffet breakfast, I'd take something for later

I said earlier that I thought it was theft and I wouldn't do it but on reflection I might do it at somewhere like Paris Disneyland but only a few things.

It's all you can EAT, not all you can TAKE!

though I have been known to sneak away with a couple of extra Nutella pouches

I'd take a couple of Babybels, but nothing more. Maybe an apple or two.

Once saw a couple at an all you can eat Chinese load up their plates with food then, once they were sat down, scrape it off their plates into zip lock bags. The bags of food then went into one of those shopping trolleys (not the supermarket kind, the bag on wheels type). They had one of these each and they just kept going back and loading up. Can't say they were particularly surreptitious about it either. Some people have no shame.

No, it's not OK.

But apparently it's the done thing if you go to DisneyLand, according to many a MN thread

Just eat a lot so you don't want much lunch!

A cheese or a pastry for the road is ok. I never eat much at breakfast so I. Don't feel it's taking the piss. Fruit is also fair handbag game. Bagging up a packed lunch on top of scoffing down a 3 course breakfast is embarrassing.

Effin do you think that they took it home and popped it all in the freezer? Hey Presto! Chinese takeaways for a month for twenty quid. Genius.

Course it's not ok. I couldn't believe the Disneyland thread I saw on here once.

Everyone seems to do it at Disneyland Paris. Setting etiquette aside entirely, IME (of my mother insisting in making up sandwiches at breakfast to keep unrefrigerated in 30C heat) it is the ideal way to get yourself food poisoning. apparently the festering meat and dairy couldn't possibly have been what made me violently sick; that would be ridiculous.

It also produces the least appealing lunch imaginable. And it's embarassing and annoying to be making lunch at a buffet breakfast.

Just eat a huge breakfast or budget for lunch while out.

Bloody Nora! I am always at the front of some people. In Florida years ago, at a Ponderosa Steakhouse, a family ordered a steak each, went to the buffet and loaded their plates with veg etc and then asked for doggy boxes. A full dinner went in each box and the family returned to the buffet for another full dinner of pasta, meatballs etc... We were all bloody amazed, and perhaps a bit jealous at their nerve!!

I often can't face breakfast in the morning. I've been known to pocket roughly what those around me were eating (normally a roll and a croissant) for lunch while drinking coffee and orange juice.

But my experience has been with smallish European hotels where what you're expected to eat for breakfast is put on your own table, and it's either "out" in such a way that it will be thrown away if not used (cheese and ham slices on a plate) or it's the sort of stuff which would be stale and inedible the next day anyway. So no guilt from me.

The ziplock bags of chinese food also sounds like a brilliant recipe for food poisoning to me. The rice especially will be able to produce oodles of nasty bacteria in ziplock bags in a shopping trolley while you take them home. Lovely.

Yes if you are at Disney

Also at Premier Inn on a few occasions the staff have offered us paper bags to take out food. The last time dd wanted croissants but we were running short of time & they also told us to take muffins for later when I said the kids had had enough.

On holiday we were all inclusive but going out for the day. I asked the reception about getting a packed lunch. They gave me a Tupperware box and told me to make sandwiches etc from brekkie buffet. Then gave us a cool bag to put it all in. This is ok if you have asked.

I think within reason its ok but far easier, less shaming and nicer to ask first. Most places are happy to help if asked unless of course you have just scoffed your body weight and expect the same again packing up for lunch. Yes you pay for breakfast so eat it or take a little and ask for snacks for later. I like to take a bit of extra fruit or perhaps a muffin or babybel. But only if they are ok about it. mind you when the kids were little and I was away I used to go through agonies trying to steal the mini jams as a treat got clocked in one place so confessed and the waitress brought me a bag full always asked if they minded after that and never yet had a snooty response or a no.

why is it ok at Disneyland?

It's expensive but surely that isn't a surprise?