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Save money on vacation by enjoying meals cooked in your hotel room. Pizzadillas are easy to make and stuffed with kid-friendly flavors.
Most of the time, our schedules and budget do not allow for a typical vacation where you pack up and head off to some exciting location for a week or two. Instead, what usually happens is we sneak a few days away here and there throughout the year.
Last year we hit a few different hot spots in southern California. We stayed at an Extended Stay America near the beach in San Diego for a couple days, went to a water park and visited a mountain cabin in Big Bear with the whole family. I wrote a whole “What I did this Summer” report if you want to see pictures. 🙂
The year before, we stayed at an ESA in Huntington Beach and visited some great local parks and beaches. Adventure Park was so fun and rugged-perfect for boys. You can read more about it here. It doesn’t matter where we go-staying in a hotel overnight is what makes it a vacation for us!
This year, we kicked off the summer a little early and headed to Orange County for a couple magical days at Disneyland! Once again, we stayed at Extended Stay America, which is literally around the corner from Disneyland. It was so exciting to be right there and get into the parks first thing in the morning.
The main reason we choose to stay at Extended Stay America locations is their kitchen amenities. The prices are competitive already, and when you add in the extra feature of a full sized kitchen, it just makes sense! We save a fortune on food just by not having to eat out for every single meal! We brought cereal for breakfast and took advantage of the free coffee and “breakfast-to-go” options down in the lobby every morning. We packed our lunches to go and ate dinners in the room.
Every kitchen comes stocked with the pots, pans, a toaster, a coffee maker, dishes, silverware, etc. They even provide dish towels and soap for cleaning up. The rooms are clean, large enough for our family, and the employees as this location were exceptionally friendly and accommodating.
The only thing missing from the kitchen that would be in a typical home kitchen is an oven. So when planning meals for a hotel, stick with things you can cook on the stove top or in the microwave. Pizzadillas are a great option for hotel dinners.
Pizzadillas
Ingredients
- 4 flour tortillas
- 4 tsp pizza sauce
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese or mix mozzarella and Colby Jack
- 1/2 cup pepperoni slices or other desired toppings
Instructions
- Heat a pan on Med/High and spray with cooking spray
- Spread a little pizza sauce on the tortilla, getting as close to edge as you can
- Add cheese and toppings
- Carefully place the tortilla in the pan (topping side up) and allow to crisp up a bit while the cheese melts. Then fold it in half and finish crisping on both sides.
- Slice into triangles and serve with extra pizza sauce for dipping
Nutrition
Normally when you’re trying to keep a tight budget, fun little extras like these are off the table. Thanks to generous grandmas and the extra money we saved because we ate meals in the room, the boys each got souvenirs and fancy snacks at Disneyland. Little things like that are what make vacation special!
Check out these other posts for more great hotel room meals:
Microwave Caramel Apple Oatmeal
Microwave Mug Mac and Cheese
This post was originally sponsored by Extended Stay America
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Ray says
Hotel stays, I generally travel to a location for 10 days for work and stay in a standard Hampton, Marriott or Best Western room. Small Microwave, Small refrigerator and not much surface area to prep any kind of meal on. I have stayed in some Extended stays which offer full size fridge, cook top oven, dishwasher and utensils and cookware (those are nice, but usually out of budget for business travel). To offset that, my company throws $70/day at me for per diem. I generally spend $10 of that on lunch and alcoholic beverages (at the hotel with dinner), breakfast is free at the hotel. Lunch is a giant italian hoagie for $16 that is cut into 1/4’s … lunch for 4 days. Alcohol (or non-alcoholic drinks) and mixers is usually about $6/day cutting out going to a bar and making it myself. This leaves me with $60 for for my dinner entree that I rarely spend more than $20 on for 1 nice meal. Usually I spend $14 on a 12″ pizza and that is my dinner for 2 nights ($7 per night). Let’s just say I generally put $50 tax-free in my pocket per day. For the $11 that I usaually spend a day on food, it’s just not worth trying to save by cooking myself (maybe I could save another $20 a week with additional labor) and hauling around cooking gadgets and food items that need to be chilled. With that said – a family vacation at an extended stay hotel (shop when you get there) will be a lot cheaper doing things yourself especially with free breakfast, homemade sandwiches for lunch and then spend your money on dinner, but cook a couple of nights in the extended stay kitchen.
I have cooked your Pizzadilla recipe at home and is was very good – giving it 5 stars, but it’s not necessarily a hotel-centric recipe. You could double wrap them in foil and use the hotel iron on high for 3-4 minutes per side, but other than that you need a cook top at a minimum.
Nicole Burkholder says
When we go stay in a hotel as a family (if it’s more than a night) we will always opt for a place with a kitchenette so that I can cook meals. Yes, cooking them on a stovetop is definitely better, but my kids are totally OK with microwaving a quesadilla in a pinch 🙂 They typically make them for themselves that way.
Shelby says
My girls think Walking Tacos are a must for every hotel vacation! lol! It makes me.laugh because it started as a camping tradition!!!
It’s really easy so it’s fine by me! 😁
I love the idea of Pizzadillas – we’ll have to try that one. We do Pizza Grilled Cheese – grilled cheese madw with white american & pepperoni dipped in pizza sauce or served with tomato soup. Yum!
Nicole Burkholder says
Hey, anything that works for camping works for a hotel stat, too! 😆 Walking tacos are fun!