Dining plan question and dining thoughts

[katrinabennett]

We arrive Monday afternoon to our hotel. We are going to get the dining plan. Do we get meals that day? We check out Saturday morning - are those meals also included?

I am thinking that 1900 park with Cinderella and the sisters for our meal on the day we check in. Then my daughter will see the characters right away and get in the spirit.

We plan to do MK on Tuesday. Try to arrive for rope drop and enjoy the park. Break in the afternoon. Make our table service option for 5pm for dinner. Crystal palace.

Day 2. AK - Tusker house breakfast. Stay there until mid afternoon. Go home and rest then hop to MK for evening. Cinderella royal table for dinner.

Day 3- break day. Obama for breakfast or 1900 Park again with different characters. Maybe a luau that evening for dinner.


Day 4 - Epcot - akershus for breakfast. If can't get then will do it for dinner. Then ride the frozen ride right away. Take an afternoon break and return to MK after or go back to Epcot.

Sound possible? If we can't get the reservation for CRT for dinner on day 2, then I would trade day 2 and day 4.

Staying at Port Orleans.

[krz1211]

The dining plan is per night of your stay, so for a 5 night stay- 5 quick service & 5 table service (plus snacks). They can be used on check in & check out days. Cinderella's Royal Table is a 2 credit, so you will need to take that into consideration when planning your credit use. It looks like from you plan you have 7 TS credits.

[nsl]

I would not recommend Crystal Palace for dinner. If you want table service I'd opt for Be Our Guest that day.

You have a character meal almost every day. At least for my family, that would be far too many characters. There are a lot of really good restaurants that have interesting themes (Coral Reef at Epcot features an aquarium wall that is easily visible from every table, for example) but no characters if you're mostly just interested in a cool experience.

Definitely plan to go back to Epcot after your break on Day 4. It's my favorite park, so I may be a tiny bit biased, but the dinner options there are really great (San Angel Inn was our favorite during our last trip--very solid Mexican food, and a neat atmosphere for the kids) and there's a lot to do if you just wander around World Showcase before Illuminations.

[katrinabennett]

Aug 13, 2016 17:54:54 GMT -5 nsl said:

I would not recommend Crystal Palace for dinner. If you want table service I'd opt for Be Our Guest that day.

You have a character meal almost every day. At least for my family, that would be far too many characters. There are a lot of really good restaurants that have interesting themes (Coral Reef at Epcot features an aquarium wall that is easily visible from every table, for example) but no characters if you're mostly just interested in a cool experience.

Definitely plan to go back to Epcot after your break on Day 4. It's my favorite park, so I may be a tiny bit biased, but the dinner options there are really great (San Angel Inn was our favorite during our last trip--very solid Mexican food, and a neat atmosphere for the kids) and there's a lot to do if you just wander around World Showcase before Illuminations.

But isn't BOg in the park? I wanted a character meal with princesses (although she would love Mickey too I think) on the day we arrive and won't go to the park. We won't arrive until 3pm ish.

[nsl]

BOG is in the park, but your Tuesday plans have you in MK. Were you wanting to be somewhere else for dinner that day?

[katrinabennett]

Aug 13, 2016 18:51:35 GMT -5 nsl said:

BOG is in the park, but your Tuesday plans have you in MK. Were you wanting to be somewhere else for dinner that day?

oMG. I am an idiot. Sorry. Thanks. And now since I have too many dining credits and character meals - maybe drop that one or do CRT for dinner that day.

[bronxgirl]

Is your daughter really into characters? The trip that we had a dining plan we did character meals every day and it was pretty fun. I wouldn't want to do that again , but it was really fun for that trip. when we had the dining plan we were there 7 days, 6 nights, so one day of meals wasn't covered. we were able to share some quick service meals which covered the disparity, so we didn't have to pay OOP for any food.

[nsl]

Aug 13, 2016 19:55:24 GMT -5 katrinabennett said:

Aug 13, 2016 18:51:35 GMT -5 nsl said:

BOG is in the park, but your Tuesday plans have you in MK. Were you wanting to be somewhere else for dinner that day?

oMG. I am an idiot. Sorry. Thanks. And now since I have too many dining credits and character meals - maybe drop that one or do CRT for dinner that day.

No worries!  I'd just really look at what the different dining options are for each park/day and try to plan the best options for your family.  My boys really don't care much about characters these days, and I find the whole character experience kind of stressful to begin with (tracking who's been to the table, who we haven't seen, etc...), so I tend to plan for 0-1 character meals per trip.  This board is super helpful, though, and hopefully we've been able to give you some useful feedback on your plans!
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[ribollita]

I think that it may be confusing/overwhelming/a PITA to have so many meals at resorts that aren't yours. Getting from POR to Grand Floridian or the Poly can take a long time (but not always). The monorail has been spotty lately. Yes you can take a boat from MK to a resort but since this is your first time you don't know your way around yet.

I would think the easiest would be to do all meals at your resort or a park. Or Uber if you're ok with that.

I love OHana but we usually go after a day at MK for dinner.

ETA: we ate at Skippers Canteen a few days ago and really liked it.

[katrinabennett]

Aug 14, 2016 6:12:06 GMT -5 ribollita said:

I think that it may be confusing/overwhelming/a PITA to have so many meals at resorts that aren't yours. Getting from POR to Grand Floridian or the Poly can take a long time (but not always). The monorail has been spotty lately. Yes you can take a boat from MK to a resort but since this is your first time you don't know your way around yet.

I would think the easiest would be to do all meals at your resort or a park. Or Uber if you're ok with that.

I love OHana but we usually go after a day at MK for dinner.

ETA: we ate at Skippers Canteen a few days ago and really liked it.

What's a good choice in Disney springs? Maybe that's a good choice for our day off?

[dcrunnergirl52]

Aug 14, 2016 7:07:40 GMT -5 katrinabennett said:

Aug 14, 2016 6:12:06 GMT -5 ribollita said:

I think that it may be confusing/overwhelming/a PITA to have so many meals at resorts that aren't yours. Getting from POR to Grand Floridian or the Poly can take a long time (but not always). The monorail has been spotty lately. Yes you can take a boat from MK to a resort but since this is your first time you don't know your way around yet.

I would think the easiest would be to do all meals at your resort or a park. Or Uber if you're ok with that.

I love OHana but we usually go after a day at MK for dinner.

ETA: we ate at Skippers Canteen a few days ago and really liked it.

What's a good choice in Disney springs? Maybe that's a good choice for our day off?

The lunch we had at Wolfgang Puck Express was amazing. I'm still dreaming of the pizza, my kids' mac and cheese (which was gourmet level), and DH's sandwich. It's fast casual but delicious if you're there for lunch.

[ribollita]

Aug 14, 2016 7:07:40 GMT -5 katrinabennett said:

Aug 14, 2016 6:12:06 GMT -5 ribollita said:

I think that it may be confusing/overwhelming/a PITA to have so many meals at resorts that aren't yours. Getting from POR to Grand Floridian or the Poly can take a long time (but not always). The monorail has been spotty lately. Yes you can take a boat from MK to a resort but since this is your first time you don't know your way around yet.

I would think the easiest would be to do all meals at your resort or a park. Or Uber if you're ok with that.

I love OHana but we usually go after a day at MK for dinner.

ETA: we ate at Skippers Canteen a few days ago and really liked it.

What's a good choice in Disney springs? Maybe that's a good choice for our day off?

Definitely Wolfgang Puck for QS. For TS my kid looooves TRex.

What I'd do though is spend the evening at a park. It shouldn't be much more to add a day on to your tickets, and a dinner in a park plus 3 FP is what I'd do!

[katrinabennett]

Aug 14, 2016 7:28:23 GMT -5 ribollita said:

Aug 14, 2016 7:07:40 GMT -5 katrinabennett said:

What's a good choice in Disney springs? Maybe that's a good choice for our day off?

Definitely Wolfgang Puck for QS. For TS my kid looooves TRex.

What I'd do though is spend the evening at a park. It shouldn't be much more to add a day on to your tickets, and a dinner in a park plus 3 FP is what I'd do!

We are only doing 3 days, a 4th day would be $50 each I think to add on. I suppose if we did a QS meal, we would save the cost of dinner.
But I'm worried about us getting exhausted. Lol

[was5]

We did a 3 day trip a couple years ago. It was the first time our kids went. DD was almost 7 and I wanted her to have the character experiences before she grew out of them.

We did a character meal each day we were at the parks but didn't do one on the day of arrival. The day of arrival we just ate at the hotel (AoA) and swam, but I understand wanting to get into the mood with a character meal on the first day. Our park days were MK, HS, MK. We didn't do Epcot or AK (we didn't have park hoppers). Anyway, we did CRT for an early lunch our first day at MK, Hollywood and Vine for lunch day 2 with Disney Jr. Characters and breakfast at Ohana day 3 with Mickey and Pluto. I felt like that gave us a good variety of the characters. We had our car with us so it wasn't an issue getting to the Poly early in the day.