Post by milehighmama12 on Aug 14, 2019 20:39:19 GMT -5
We are just starting to plan our trip-going early June 2020 and will be there 8 days) It will be our first (and probably only) trip to WDW. It will be me, DH, and DD (7). A couple questions:
1) All the meal plans seem to offer SO much food. In general we aren’t big eaters and I wonder if it’s really worth the cost. How do you decide whether to do a meal plan rather than just paying as you go?
2) If we get a table service plan (which is what DH is leaning towards) do we have to make reservations for all meals or is it reasonable to just play it by ear and walk in when we’re ready to eat?
3) Reasonably, how much time is spent at each meal for table service? Since this is probably our only trip I don’t want to waste a lot of time at meals.
Post by curbsideprophet on Aug 15, 2019 6:07:28 GMT -5
I agree that the plans seem to offer a ton of food. It is definitely possible it is not worth it to you. I have used this calculator in the past to help me estimate
Some people also feel they need to order the most expensive things on the menu and not what they really want to get their money’s worth.
I would make reservations for any table service meals. Some restaurants might be able to take a walk up reservation but I would not rely on it. Especially if I was on a dining plan with credits to use.
I would estimate a minimum of 60 minutes for table service, 90 minutes for character meals and 120 minutes for signature meals. They ask you to check in a little early, sometimes you are not seated right away. Table serves can take a large chunk of time.
I used the estimator also. Because we wanted to do a number of character meals/special meals, it worked out for us to do the meal plan. I also am one of those people who really enjoyed the convenience of having it "pre-paid" and just being able to scan snacks at will without ever pulling out money to pay. I think we probably came out about even in the end.
We really enjoyed our sit-down meal time as it made a nice break. I think 60 to 90 minutes is about right. We did really long days at the park so the meals/breaks were an important part of the schedule.
With one child, you can easily get by without the meal plan, but you can do the calculator to see how things come out.
You DEFINITELY would want to make reservations. you can always drop/change them later, but definitely PLAN for your meals. You can/should even plan on where you want to go for quick service, so you aren't floundering around wasting time trying to decide where to go in the midst of a hot and busy park.
Post by revolution on Aug 15, 2019 12:21:46 GMT -5
We are fans of the table service dining plan. It's 2 meals and a snack or two for the day and we enjoy a sit down meal mid afternoon, early evening so we can take time to relax and decide if we are done for the day or re-energized to keep going for more of the evening hours. We also enjoy doing character meals.
We do a counter service mid/late morning and table service late afternoon/early evening. Snacks as needed or wanted throughout the day or when we get back to the resort. Table service is about an hour, give or take 15 minutes. Counter service can be quick if you want it to be, it dosen't take long to get the food and you eat and go. We generally don't plan where we are going to eat those. We find a place close to wherever we are and get food then.
You absolutely want to book reservations at 180 days out from your first day. You can book for your whole trip then.
I agree that the plans seem to offer a ton of food. It is definitely possible it is not worth it to you. I have used this calculator in the past to help me estimate
Some people also feel they need to order the most expensive things on the menu and not what they really want to get their money’s worth.
I would make reservations for any table service meals. Some restaurants might be able to take a walk up reservation but I would not rely on it. Especially if I was on a dining plan with credits to use.
I would estimate a minimum of 60 minutes for table service, 90 minutes for character meals and 120 minutes for signature meals. They ask you to check in a little early, sometimes you are not seated right away. Table serves can take a large chunk of time.
All of this. Definitely do the dining plan calculator to see if it is worth it. For some it is and others it is not. It is all family dependent.
If you want to do even a few character meals you'd probably want the meal plan. They are so outrageously priced that it makes the dining plan worth it. Or maybe they are outrageously priced because it makes people with the dining plan feel worth it?
I follow a FB group for Disney Dining and there are so many people who end up cashing in QS and Snack credits at the end and up coming home with a million rice krispy treats. I don't know, at a minimum, I eat two meals a day, so I'm not sure what happens.
If you want to do even a few character meals you'd probably want the meal plan. They are so outrageously priced that it makes the dining plan worth it. Or maybe they are outrageously priced because it makes people with the dining plan feel worth it?
I follow a FB group for Disney Dining and there are so many people who end up cashing in QS and Snack credits at the end and up coming home with a million rice krispy treats. I don't know, at a minimum, I eat two meals a day, so I'm not sure what happens.
I see that in some of my Disney groups. Are these people just picky as hell and will only eat very specific items? Or do they really only eat like a bowl of cereal and a sandwich each day? I devour 3 full meals a day at WDW and 2 full meals plus a ton of snacks at Disneyland. I'm walking 8-12 miles every day and my body wants fuel.
The snack credit thing just boggles my mind. 2 snacks a day is so easy to do- get fancy ass Starbucks in the morning and get a Dole Whip float in the afternoon. Grab baked goods for breakfast. 1 QS, 1 FS and 2 snacks a day is an average food day for me at the parks.
I did see someone in one of my Disney groups that horded all their snack credits to use at Ghiradelli; they redeemed 14 credits and walked out with a really nice cooler filled with chocolate.
If you want to do even a few character meals you'd probably want the meal plan. They are so outrageously priced that it makes the dining plan worth it. Or maybe they are outrageously priced because it makes people with the dining plan feel worth it?
I follow a FB group for Disney Dining and there are so many people who end up cashing in QS and Snack credits at the end and up coming home with a million rice krispy treats. I don't know, at a minimum, I eat two meals a day, so I'm not sure what happens.
I see that in some of my Disney groups. Are these people just picky as hell and will only eat very specific items? Or do they really only eat like a bowl of cereal and a sandwich each day? I devour 3 full meals a day at WDW and 2 full meals plus a ton of snacks at Disneyland. I'm walking 8-12 miles every day and my body wants fuel.
The snack credit thing just boggles my mind. 2 snacks a day is so easy to do- get fancy ass Starbucks in the morning and get a Dole Whip float in the afternoon. Grab baked goods for breakfast. 1 QS, 1 FS and 2 snacks a day is an average food day for me at the parks.
I did see someone in one of my Disney groups that horded all their snack credits to use at Ghiradelli; they redeemed 14 credits and walked out with a really nice cooler filled with chocolate.
This is a good point...with all the walking and the heat we probably will need to eat more than we are used to. We aren’t picky at all so I’m not worried about finding food we want.
If I get the table service plan we are allowed to use the credits at a quick service, correct?
Also, if we have a table service reservation and at the last minute decide not to use it is there any penalty?
If you want to make the plan work for you, you should absolutely plan to use your table service credits for table service, or you are basically way overpaying. Make the meal a destination and a fun part of your day. You need to cancel by the night before (or something like that--check rules) or you will be charged a certain amount per person on the reservation.
We did have credits left that we used to buy snacks at the end, but really, a big part of that was because I got sick one night and it changed up our meal plan. It also put a huge damper on my ability to eat snacks for the next few days, even when I was mostly better.
If you get the meal plan, you just really need to plan for it, I think.
You can split up your quick service credits quite a bit--I.e. maybe only buy 3 meals for 4 of you, and thereby save a quick service credit for another time. This can help cover more meals and/or additional snacks.
Post by alleinesein on Aug 15, 2019 23:49:16 GMT -5
milehighmama12 You need to cancel 24 hrs in advance or you will be charged a $10 per person no show fee. There is a loophole if you truly need to cancel a same day reservation; you can modify the reservation and change to a future date and then cancel it later on but I don't really recommend doing that because you might forget and still end up getting charged.
Also, you dont need to eat a full meal if you have a reservation. You can opt to use it as an afternoon recharge break and grab a drink, a light snack or dessert.
Post by curbsideprophet on Aug 16, 2019 6:26:06 GMT -5
I disagree that only a few character meals make it worth it. Even with a couple of expensive meals we could not get the dining plan to make sense.
Some of it depends on how your order. Do you get drinks/apps/desserts for everyone at every meal? If so then it might make sense for you.
I definitely would not plan to use TS credits at a QS restaurant. That would definitely be a waste.
OP you sound like you don’t want to make many dining reservations. From what you have said it seems like the plan would be too restrictive for you. You can get TS reservations day of, but you never really know what the options will be. I would not want to rely on this if I had TS credits to use.
I think you might be better off making a few key reservations then just searching for ADRs if you want another sit down meanwhile you are there.
We did not like the dining plan because we found it too restrictive. Sometimes I like to order just an appetizer, or there were times I wanted a side salad to share something with DH. We do not drink a lot of alcohol and we do not need a dessert after each big meal, especially because we got two snacks every day. We did do some character meals but we still felt like spent lots more than if we would have gone without the plan. Another negative was trying to keep track of the credits and plan appropriately. My friend ended their vacation with 25+ snack credits (what a waste) so they went to the gift shop and bought enough trail mix and cookies to fill a half suitcase. I wanted to avoid that, so sometimes we would get 3 snacks when we only wanted 2, for example. Overall, we will skip the plan next time.
I can't speak for everyone, but Disney trips are rare for us (once every 3-4 years) and we're all wound up while we're on them. Stress = lost appetites in my family. We eat lunch or dinner at a table service pretty much every day of our trips, but beyond that people don't feel hungry enough to eat both a snack (particularly one that would be expensive enough to make the meal plan worth it) plus a quick service meal (ditto) every day. I run the numbers after every trip, and the meal plan has never made sense based on the way our family eats at Disney.
Thanks for all of the great info! I have 2 other questions:
1) what are the quick service meals like? DH is afraid it would be like eating McDonalds everyday for a week. Is that really what the quality is like?
2) if we don’t get a meal plan we can still make dining reservations, just not as early, correct?
Thanks again!
There is a wide variety of quick service options, but most of them are nothing like McDonalds. You can get fairly decent quality of all different types of cuisine, as well as several healthier choices. Anybody can make dining reservations 180 days out.
You can also find menus on the WDW website and at allears.net. That will give you a good idea of what your options are.
I thought quick service meals were pretty good. There is a lot of variety. You can see menus online. Everything from burger/fries (but more like table service than fast food), veggie/meat/noodle bowls, barbecue, Tex-mex, all sorts of things. The big difference is that table service is generally more relaxing. Quick service may be busy and involve waiting in lines, finding tables with trays of food, etc.
Thanks for all of the great info! I have 2 other questions:
1) what are the quick service meals like? DH is afraid it would be like eating McDonalds everyday for a week. Is that really what the quality is like?
2) if we don’t get a meal plan we can still make dining reservations, just not as early, correct?
Thanks again!
1. Some of them are burgers and fries but not all of them. Pecos Bills in MK is Tex Mex and was good last time we had it. Sunshine Seasons in the Land pavilion at EP has a variety of options. If you are there during a festival there should be food booths. At Animal Kingdom there is Yak and Yeti, Flame Tree BBQ and Satu'li Canteen. I would check out some of the menus online. It certainly does not have to be like eating at McDonald's all week.
2. There is not correlation between the dining plan and when you can book reservations. Anyone can book at 180 days. If you have an onsite stay you can book for the length of your stay at one time up to 180+10. If you are staying for 14 days you will not be able to book all 14 days at the beginning.
Post by covergirl82 on Aug 19, 2019 7:42:56 GMT -5
I have found that paying out of pocket works better and is a better deal for my family.
*Also - My DS is 10 and is not a huge eater, and also still likes mostly "kid food." If we got the meal plan, we'd have to pay for him as an adult, and he would never eat that much food for it to be worth it, nor would he really want the meals on the adult menu. By paying out of pocket, we can still order off the kids menu for him.
My personal experience having done both (meal plan and paying out of pocket):
Meal plan pros: 1. We could eat the most expensive item and not feel guilty for the splurge. 2. We could try a bunch of different desserts. 3. We got a lot of food. (Although this could also be a con.) 4. You can sometimes get a meal plan for free based on specials Disney runs.
Meal plan cons: 1. We ended up with around 10 snack credits and absolutely no room to bring any snacks home. 2. We are not big eaters, so most meals were too much for us. 3. We sometimes ate when we weren't very hungry, just so our credits weren't wasted. 4. We still had to pay tip out-of-pocket, so that was an additional cost to factor in.
Out-of-pocket pros: 1. We had much more flexibility for meals, and don't have to worry about having more/less TS meals planned than the dining plan allows. 2. We ordered based on how hungry we actually were. DH and I shared an appetizer and a meal on a few occasions on our last trip, which was a cost savings. We also ordered water more at TS meals (and drank water from our refillable water bottles at QS) and ate fewer desserts, which saved some money and calories. 3. We have the Disney Visa Rewards credit card, which saved us 10% at some of the restaurants (I remember Kona Café and Whispering Canyon Café off-hand). We also cashed in reward dollars before our trip, and it covered around half of our meal costs.
Out-of-pocket cons: 1. We had to budget more carefully due to meals being a variable cost. 2. We ate fewer "splurge" meals (e.g., filet mignon).
We have done WDW with and without the dining plan (same week of the year, same people, even same resort). Cost-wise it was a wash for us. There wasn’t a significant savings for either using the plan or going our own way. Even in hindsight I’m torn on the best course of action. With the dining plan I enjoyed not worrying about what we were ordering (too much - still had to tip on amount of the bill). There was also a learning curve so we were the ones spending 10 snack credits at the candy shop at the end. It was a lot of food and most of us love food. However, without the dining plan I liked that we weren’t beholden to a plan of how to eat. We still ate in table service restaurants but felt freer to cancel things if we wanted to (or just eat all snacks one day).
If this is a one time trip with a 7 yo I would probably err on the side of getting a dining plan. Budget a significant amount of time for TS meals though - not only dependent on type of meal but time of day and popularity of restaurant. It wasn’t unheard of to spend up to 2 hours at dinner (not including transportation). If you’d rather spend your time on rides/shows than dining, then keep that in mind. QS is much more than chicken fingers, especially at the resorts and Epcot.
Post by Doggy Mommy on Aug 20, 2019 18:28:06 GMT -5
If you aren’t big eaters, don’t want to spend a lot of time eating at restaurants, and would rather play it by ear than make a bunch of reservations, then I don’t think the dining plan makes a lot of sense for your family. You can book whatever table service meals you want and just pay as you go.