Help me survive a travel lodge holiday, family room, holiday with toddler on a budget!

[ToddlerAdventure]

A few months ago we booked a few nights in a travel lodge type hotel, close to an attraction. Basic, with just tea and coffee facilities.

I don't want to waste money on expensive "you're a captive customer so we will rip you off" type food.
Issues:
•hotel is budget so the breakfast is a rip off.
• it's on the motorway so unlikely to be near much.
•obviously no fridge

I want to take as much supermarket food as I can but I am struggling with what to take that isn't complete crap.

There will be no fridge - solutions for storing milk etc? Run a bath of cold water? Would long life milk be ok?

No toaster- breakfast ideas? I could do pre wrapped croissants or bagels but would rather not...they don't fill me up for long enough and, quite frankly, bung me up.

Lunches- I will buy all the fruit and snack options but nowhere to store margarine...it would be ok in cold bath water wouldn't it?! I could make basic sandwiches? But, again, nowwhere to keep anything cool. Don't fancy warm, salad sandwiches.

Evening meal I accept will need to be eaten out.

Have you got any clever suggestions for food when you have limited options? And how to survive sharing a room with a 3 year old

You can boil eggs in a kettle

Breakfast - Boiled eggs, blueberry mufffins, fruit, fruit puree pots for toddler

Can you not pick up lunch whilst out at another supermarket daily?

I would take a cool box and a toasted sandwich maker.
I would cook eggs on it in the morning and bacon.
I would also take croissants and jam.
Uht milk and orange juice is fine for a few days.
In the evening I would have cheese and bean toasties and some options hot chocolate.

If you are good with UHT/long life you just get UHT milk and open one a day. If not take three smaller fresh milk cartons freeze them and let them slowly defrost in a cool bag.

Porridge pots or sachets are good. Some you can even make with water. Kids would prefer the prewap chocolate croissant, id prefer a cheesy bread roll

Wraps mean you don't have to worry about margarine. If you are not reasonably relaxed about such things, cooked chicken you can freeze and allow to defrost no worries . If you are fastidious in your food storage hygiene, tins of tuna are better. Bag of salad and mayonnaise, wraps are good to go.

If your really frugal cous cous and cooked meat or tinned meatballs can work for tea.

Oh this is my specialist subject, I have been living in a place like this for the last 4 weeks (horiffic house move) with DH & 2 DC

Porridge bars for breakfast, basically porridge in a cereal bar type of thing. Or porridge pots that you just add hot water. We have lunch at school/work or cheaply out/at friends/family at the weekend. We've got activities tonight so we've had bread rolls from the bakery at a supermarket, a small pack of the 50p ham that they sell, small pack of ready sliced cheese & fruit.

Key is to but small quantities of the better quality stuff so that you don't store/waste it.

Lights out for everyone at bedtime. I've watch pretty much all of the brexit shenanigans on my phone, in the dark, with headphones!

Ask me anything else, I'll tell you what we do! Hopefully we'll be in our very beautiful house very soon!

Pot porridge.
I get mine in Lidl. All you need is boiling water and a spoon. You could add fruit or jam if you like.
Brick noodles, just pour on boiling water, stir, leave 5 mins then eat. So take a heatproof dish/tub. Plus fork.
If the weather is cold put butter and milk on window ledge. If you can - not in direct sunlight 😂😂
Consider pitta breads/wraps and primula cheese. Marmite is good for sandwiches.
Whatever you do, have a lovely time x

I don’t know about travel lodge but at premier inn the kids eat free for breakfast when the adults have a cooked breqkfast. Might be worth checking, if you haven’t already.
Porridge pots that just need hot water would be good for breakfast.
Mine children would not like uht milk on cereal - yours may be fine !
Lunch - you could just buy sandwiches - eg boots or m&s lunch deals fairly inexpensive.

Sounds like a lot of hassle.

Absolutely, all part of the fun

Nice pot noodles and pot pasta, cup a soup in a pot also good!

For breakfast you could do fruit and instant 'just add water' porridge. A couple of small cartons of UHT milk - one per day as it won't last once opened - can be used for tea/coffee.

For lunch - can you not take fruit/biscuits/juice and just get a sandwhich/pastie from greggs? Seems like a lot of faff otherwise.

Evening meal - just find a cheap and cheerful pub nearby. For example, near is there is a toby carvery - not Michelin star quality but actually a reasonable meal and not expensive

Eat your breakfast at the nearest supermarket that has a café. Loads cheaper than Brewer's Fayre type restaurants that are normally next door to this type of hotel.

Yeah I'm dreading getting the toddler to sleep! Hopefully she will be exhausted!

Also, ring the hotel and all of they've got vending machines, won't be cheap but three lat one we stayed in did ice cream putts and pints of milk.

We've done a few of these.
If you're at a Days Inn by the motorway, then there is likely to be a mini M&S or Waitrose or similar which will sell breakfast stuff & milk and a McDs or Greggs which might do for tea. Otherwise, pizza delivery to the room.
We all eat together, do bedtime & then lights out until DC went to sleep at which point it was lights back on again.

We do this a lot:
Porridge pots and cereal bars for breakfast
Philadelphia keeps better than butter so use that for sandwiches
Take squash if you drink it and the mini bottles to top up tap water when you are out.
UHT milk is fine, or as pp suggested buy a pint a day on your travels.
Take nice evening snacks if you’ll be in. We stayed in a travel lodge over Xmas and took quality street and some small decorations

Can you not bring the toaster with you? Just put it away in a bag or box when not using it? Same with a kettle from home you could use it to boil eggs? I would be bringing some brioche type bread that doesn't need butter but most sunflower type spreads would be fine in cold water. You can get instant porridge pots that just need boiling water. How about tinned rice pudding, baby rusks, baby jars of fruit puree, tinned fruit anything in a tin doesn't need a fridge anf belvita breakfast biscuits. Also tuna + sweetcorn rolls, peanut butter, Nutella, even jam. Anything like tinned beans, baby carrots, tinned new potatoes, peas or soup can be heated in the kettle once the tin is opened and kettle not too full.

Anything like tinned beans, baby carrots, tinned new potatoes, peas or soup can be heated in the kettle once the tin is opened and kettle not too full.

I will feel like a survivor of a zombie apocalypse!

Get a cool box. Free pints of milk, these will keeps the cool box cold and will slowly defrost over 3 days. (Or take them out as needed) You can also freeze juice or smoothies in cartons. Then the cool box will stay cold enough for yogurts, cheese etc.

Try and find a Wetherspoons nearby for breakfast but have a look on camping threads for cool box advice. Freezing bottles of water and putting them in helps. Tuna tuna fit sandwiches and wraps as PPs have said

Ok loving the suggestions of freezing the milk and using them to keep the box cool. Great idea!

*Freeze obviously not free!!

TokyoSushi us too, due to a house disaster insurance job we spent 2 months in a similar style hotel last year.

Some travel lodges do a pack up breakfast so you get a small bag of porridge pot/milk/fruit, cos there’s no restaurant. I suspect that’s what the op doesn’t want to pay extortionate ££s for.

We had a small fridge for milk bought daily from the Lidl next door, but wouldn’t have bothered with that for 2 days. Lots of cereal bars, loaf of sliced bread, jar of jam or chocolate spread, pretzels, juice cartons, biscuits, pasta pots, those snack tuna tubs. Kitchen scissors to cut the sandwiches into two/four. Lots of wipes! Take 3 large bottles of mineral water, Robinson’s squash pods (like concentrated squash in a tiny pouch), and child’s lidded drinks beaker.

To be honest with a toddler I’d eat your main meal at the attraction and suck up the cost, while muddling through breakfast and dinner in the hotel room. No fun when a toddler has to wait until everyone is washed and dressed before then travelling to a breakfast spot, same problem with faffing around trying to go out for dinner when toddler is tired after a day out.

Would avoid hearing anything in the kettle due to the scale inside. Also you get told off by the hotel if food in the kettle sets the very sensitive fire alarm off (we didn’t do this but other “guests” did)

Boil eggs in kettle provided.
How about taking a camping stove for an al fresco fry up in the car park, or road side?
Take a camping table for the stove or use your boot as a cooking station.
Camping fridge (can be mains or plugged into fag lighter thingy in the car) or large cool box filled with ice cubes from petrol station or super market for cold goods.
Paper plates and plastic knife, fork, spoons.
Morrison's do good value brekkies as a treat.

We stayed at legoland but ended up eating in a harvester pub nearby as one kids couldn't stand the smell of the restaurant. That was super cheap

Boil eggs in a kettle and bring a toaster for breckie or porridge pots.
Tina sandwiches for lunch.
Or coolbox with the items you need previously frozen.
Slow cooker for tea?
There are lots of pot noodle/pasta type things that just need boiling water, just balance it out with lots of fruit!