Dining plan - yeah or nay?

[almostmom]

In January, we are heading to WDW for our first family trip, and I haven't been there since childhood, so this is all new.

We'll be arriving around 11am on January 1 and leaving at 7pm on the 5th. So 4 nights, and almost 5 days. I'm thinking we'll do MK for 2 or maybe 3 days. AK for one day. Not sure about the rest yet. Still haven't made any reservations for meals or anything, but I hope to do some character meals, definitely a princess one if we can get in.

We'll be staying at Wilderness Lodge with my parents and also my sister, husband, and their 2 year old. I'm responsible for figuring out the details, and am just engaging in this overwhelming process!

I have read many of the varying opinions on here - some do the plan and love it. Others don't and love not doing it. What do you think? Also, if we do the plan, I'm guessing my parents would pay for it. If not, I'm guessing we would be buying our own food during the day...

I assume we will often go back to our hotel for downtime mid-afternoon. Not sure if that matters in terms of this.

Any suggestions are welcome! Our kids will be just 5 and 7, and are not adventurous eaters.

Thank you!

[Momof3Labs]

First of all, don't skip Epcot. It's my kids' favorite park - they'd take it any day over MK! Give it a day, at least.

Second, you can go online to allearsnet.com and see the menus and prices for the various restaurants. And go to the disneyworld.com website (need to log in) and see availability for dining reservations. It may be pretty hard to get good times for such a large group at this point. If you can't get reservations, it will be hard to use your dining credits, and they will end up going to waste. ETA: Given that you are going over New Years' when the parks will be VERY crowded, you probably won't get good reservations at this point, unless you are very lucky. That would lead me to want to skip the dining plan this time around.

Finally, you are getting a discount on the room, or free dining, right? There are lots of promotions for both into 2011 - go to mousesavers.com for more details. I'd do the dining plan for free if paying rack rates for the room, but would take a room discount of similar size over free dining, given the option. ETA: Discounts may not be available for those holiday dates, but do at least check into it.

I can send you a crowd calendar for your travel dates - Jan 1 is a "10" (out of 10) - I don't think that I'd even plan to do a park that day, or at least not MK.

[almostmom]

Great - thanks for the info! This is really helpful.

So, it does look like we can get free dining for those dates - can you tell me why we shouldn't do that? I'm not sure I understand how taking that free dining would interfere with room discounts. And do I need to contact a travel agent, as mousesavers suggests, to book that?

Good to know about Jan 1. Maybe we'll spend that day at the hotel, since we're at Wilderness Lodge and it sounds pretty nice. If we ordered a 4-day ticket (assuming we weren't going to go to the park on the 1st), can we alter that once we are there, if we do decide to go?

Thank you!

[TwinFoxes]

First of all, don't skip Epcot. It's my kids' favorite park - they'd take it any day over MK! Give it a day, at least.

Second, you can go online to allearsnet.com and see the menus and prices for the various restaurants. And go to the disneyworld.com website (need to log in) and see availability for dining reservations. It may be pretty hard to get good times for such a large group at this point. If you can't get reservations, it will be hard to use your dining credits, and they will end up going to waste. ETA: Given that you are going over New Years' when the parks will be VERY crowded, you probably won't get good reservations at this point, unless you are very lucky. That would lead me to want to skip the dining plan this time around.

Finally, you are getting a discount on the room, or free dining, right? There are lots of promotions for both into 2011 - go to mousesavers.com for more details. I'd do the dining plan for free if paying rack rates for the room, but would take a room discount of similar size over free dining, given the option. ETA: Discounts may not be available for those holiday dates, but do at least check into it.

I can send you a crowd calendar for your travel dates - Jan 1 is a "10" (out of 10) - I don't think that I'd even plan to do a park that day, or at least not MK.

:yeahthat: We are going to give the DDP a whirl next week. I think a lot of it depends on your style of touring. For me, I think the sit down meal will help us relax. Both DH and I can be go go go when it comes to Disney. Now that we have DDs, we have to remember to let up bit, and I think the meals will be a nice respite. Others feel tied down by having to be somewhere at a certain time, and they also don't like that the sit down meals can take too much time. Oh, one other reason I'm glad we're doing the meal plan, most of the quick service food isn't food I like.

One word of advise, make your advanced dining reservations NOW. They can be booked 180 days in advance, so a lot of people have already made their reservations for January. If there's any place you really, really want to go, just try to book it. It doesn't matter if you're unsure about buying the dining plan or not. You can book them, and then add the dining plan later. If you find that the must have place is already booked, keep trying, there may be cancellations. Have fun.

[Momof3Labs]

Great - thanks for the info! This is really helpful.

So, it does look like we can get free dining for those dates - can you tell me why we shouldn't do that? I'm not sure I understand how taking that free dining would interfere with room discounts. And do I need to contact a travel agent, as mousesavers suggests, to book that?

Good to know about Jan 1. Maybe we'll spend that day at the hotel, since we're at Wilderness Lodge and it sounds pretty nice. If we ordered a 4-day ticket (assuming we weren't going to go to the park on the 1st), can we alter that once we are there, if we do decide to go?

Thank you!

You can either get a room discount or free dining, not both. In order to get free dining, you must pay full price for your room. You can book directly through Disney (I usually call when using a discount). Note that the number of discounted rooms (or free dining discounts per type of room) are limited and may not be available on your dates.

If you decide to change from a 4 day ticket to a 5 day ticket, you can do that at the hotel or at the park and just pay the difference in price. Note that when parks hit capacity, they do not allow in more people, so be sure that you can get in before paying for the extra day.

[bnme]

I would get the free dinning if it was the same or less then the other discount, or only a little more. I am not a fan of the DDP. You mostly need to have a reservation for all the table service meals if it is a busy times, and I find that hard to manage/commit to. And I am a pretty seasoned Disney traveler. It is even harder if you are traveling with a group.

It may be more doable for you since your time frame only requires 4 ressies. If you book 2 character meals and 1 other dinner you should be in the clear and make out dollarwise. You could always grab a breakfast at your hotel to make up for the 4th meal.

[klwa]

I think a lot of it depends on your style of touring.

:yeahthat:
We're going in December for our first trip on the dining plan. Last time we went, in-laws decided (based on TA advice) not to get the dining plan, but then ended up wanting to do a sit-down meal every night. In the process, all but one of the reservations I had made before the TA told them to cancel the DP got cancelled, and we had to eat at the hotel restaurant just about every night. And FIL later realized that he would have been MUCH better off buying the DP in the first place. If that sounds like you're style, then the DP will PROBABLY be better. If you'd prefer counter service meals mainly, you can get just the quick service meal plan & pay out of pocket for a meal or two at the sit down places. As others have mentioned, you'll have to kind of look over the DP costs, the restaurant costs & see if the restaurants you want have availability. If you do breakfasts sit-down, it isn't as cost effective to do the dining plan in general. (We stayed after in-laws left last time & I just moved all of our dining those days to late breakfasts so we could justify not having DP.) If you do non-buffet sit-downs & wouldn't order dessert, it's not as cost effective to do the DP. You just have to look over all the variables.

Oh, and can't remember if PP listed it or not, but you can check availability of restaurants (& make reservations) here: http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/reservations/dining/

[egoldber]

you can get just the quick service meal plan

In general, the QS meal plan is not considered a good value. The full service plan is a good value if you plan to eat a sit down every day. But the daily cost of the QS plan is only a few dollars less per day vs paying OOP, so you're generally better off getting a room discount.

Also, my kids often split an adult CS meal, or we order meals without a soda or a side, so there a lot of ways to save money with CS meals.

[alien_host]

We did the dining plan in May and thought it worked for us. We paid for it as we rented points from a DVC member. I would do it again.

1) It is a lot of work. Like PPs have mentioned you should plan on making ADRs for each table service you plan on eating so you don't run the risk of not getting a TS meal.

2) Review the menus and have a game plan on where you want to eat. That way you aren't running all over the place figuring out where you want to eat for quick service.

3) We did not leave WDW property at all during our 6 night stay so it worked perfectly.

4) We booked a lot of our dinners at the resort restaurants. Since we planned on going back to the resort in the afternoon for a swim, it was easy to swim, rest, wash up and then eat at the resort (we were at BLT) or at a nearby resort.

5) I do feel you should try and eat EVERY meal and snack to make it work the $$. If you skip a TS meal then you definitely are losing out. If you have snack credits left over you can get some things to take home...mickey rice krispie treats etc.

6) We ate most breakfasts in the room and still ate every meal credit. We only ate breakfast out once as we are not early morning folks and we were worried it would take up too much time, we would get to the park late etc.

7) I often used snack credits to get milk or juice to have for breakfast. I'd pick it up at the quick service place at our resort and keep it in the fridge. People also use snack credits to get pastries at the Main St. Bakery for breakfast in the room.

8) You can often share QS meals and split them since some have large portions...this does free up extra meals if you like to sit down for breakfast.

9) May seem obvious, but use your credits first before paying cash for any meals/snacks so you don't have leftover credits...especially for snacks since extras can sneak up on you at the end.

10) Kids are requiried to order off of the kids menu if there is one available. Which, if your kids like kid fare (chix nuggets, hot dogs, burgers etc) it shouldn't be a problem.

11) When we went, the adult TS and QS meals included a dessert....we aren't "all the time" dessert eaters. So if you think you won't indulge in dessert then you do "lose" a bit. I was able to get some QS places to substitute a bottle of water for dessert but YMMV. The TS desserts were yummy so we did eat those! Kids typically get say nuggets, carrot sticks, drink and grapes (or maybe a cookie) as dessert at QS. Adults can get things like carrot cake/chocolate cake at lunch for QS.

12) MOST IMPORTANTLY....get a Dole Whip Pineapple float as a snack at Adventureland at MK....it is $4 but one of the best snacks ever! Use a snack credit! ;)

Have fun!

[Moneypenny]

We don't do the dining plan and it works out well for us, but that's just because of the way we eat and do the parks. I know many people really love the dining plan and feel it's a great value, but it seems to work best for us to just pay OOP.

We generally take advantage of early morning hours, so we just do a quick bowl of cereal or something in the room. I buy a half-gallon of milk and have bottled water delivered to the room (from Costco) so for $10 I have that all covered for the week.

We don't like to be tied down to a particular reservation in a certain spot at a certain time. Sometimes we are too tired, or having fun where we are, etc and don't want to leave to get to the reservation.

DD has more adult tastes in food, I guess, but is generally not at all interested in the offerings on the kid's menu. Since the dining plan forces you to use kid's meals, we'd end up getting stuck with chicken nuggets or the equivalent all the time. She much prefers to share whatever DH and I are eating. Generally, two counter service meals feed the three of us just fine.

Have a great time!

[almostmom]

OK, so this is all super helpful.

I'm now on the site looking into making some reservations, and I am floored that the cost of going to cinderella's castle for breakfast will be $156!!!!!! Am I just in la la land? This so does not seem worth it, but makes getting a free meal plan worth it! Wow!!! Is this really worth it?

[hillview]

I like the DDP -- we eat TS almost every meal and we do a bunch of 2 TS credit meals with characters so for us it is slightly better than OOP but I like to have it taken care of.
/hillary

[egoldber]

We are more like Moneypenny. We like to get to the parks early and prefer to tour vs eat in the restaurants. We do 2, maybe 3, TS meals in a week. We are snackers vs big meal eaters and this works well for us.

[Momof3Labs]

OK, so this is all super helpful.

I'm now on the site looking into making some reservations, and I am floored that the cost of going to cinderella's castle for breakfast will be $156!!!!!! Am I just in la la land? This so does not seem worth it, but makes getting a free meal plan worth it! Wow!!! Is this really worth it?

Yes, character meals are super-expensive. If you can even get a reservation at the castle - those usually fill up 6 months in advance, unless someone cancels. Note, too, that you have to pay a deposit for a castle reservation, and you lose the deposit if you don't cancel at least 1 day (I think) in advance.

[egoldber]

I am pretty sure it is 48 hours in advance.

[almostmom]

I think we will be like that too. After going to an all you can eat resort last year and focusing on the different restaurant options but then having the kids run around the tables during these meals, I don't care that much about sit down restaurants with my kids! Not enjoyable at all. The lounge at Wilderness with pizza and pub food sounds perfect for me! Although I like nice food, that just isn't why I'm going to Orlando!

But if we do want to do a character (princess) meal, plus the hoop-de-doo thing (since we're staying there), then it might make sense, assuming we can pick up lunches with the plan on the go at the parks during the day. I imagine breakfasts being cereal in the cabin, so I know everyone is full and charged for the day.

I think I need to run this all by my parents, who are paying for all of this, and get their take. They don't seem to think they have a discount on the rooms, so then it can't hurt to get the free meal plan I guess.

All this advice is super helpful as this is quite overwhelming. The links have been great.

One more question- if I reserve a cinderella's castle meal, even if I charge it to my credit card today, I can cancel it anytime (up to the day before) and get my money back, right? Just checking...

Thank you!

[egoldber]

After going to an all you can eat resort last year and focusing on the different restaurant options but then having the kids run around the tables during these meals, I don't care that much about sit down restaurants with my kids! Not enjoyable at all.

This is exactly what my younger DD is like. She can be great in restaurants OR she can be a maniac. If the latter, it is so beyond fun for us. And after a disastrous experience on our last trip at the Epcot princess meal, when we had finished our meal almost a full 30 minutes before the princesses bagan circulating, that was it for sit down meals for us!

[lhafer]

But if we do want to do a character (princess) meal, plus the hoop-de-doo thing (since we're staying there), then it might make sense, assuming we can pick up lunches with the plan on the go at the parks during the day. I imagine breakfasts being cereal in the cabin, so I know everyone is full and charged for the day.

I think I need to run this all by my parents, who are paying for all of this, and get their take. They don't seem to think they have a discount on the rooms, so then it can't hurt to get the free meal plan I guess.

All this advice is super helpful as this is quite overwhelming. The links have been great.

One more question- if I reserve a cinderella's castle meal, even if I charge it to my credit card today, I can cancel it anytime (up to the day before) and get my money back, right? Just checking...

Thank you!

If you really want the castle experience, go for it. If you want the Princess experience, you might want to see if Akershus is available as an alternative. Also, there are only so many free dining rooms availble. It's weird. But say for example, there's 100 dining plan options that are available (there are ovbiously WAY more than that, just trying to keep the math simple). So 100 reservations can be made for a full rate room with free dining. Once those 100 reservations are made, that's it. Even if people cancel their trip - that doesn't "free up" a free dining option. So be sure to contact Disney and make sure there are still free dining room reservations available.

We are going for the first time right after Thanksgiving. I decided to do the Dining Plan. We'll see how it goes. We are going for 10 days, and I have about 4 character meals planned, which should more than pay for itself. I chose not to do the castle this time around because I have a 4 year old a 7 month old. I wanted them to be able to remember it. So we will do it next trip, when the 7 month old is 4 or 5. I also chose to make more lunch reservations in the restaurants in the parks we will be at that day. I figured it would give us at least one "good" meal a day for sure, and it's a good way to take breather/break in the middle of the day. Then we can decide if we want to go back to the resort, or stay longer in the parks. I have a couple of dinner reservations for character meals, and an Akershus reservation for a late breakfast. But I also have about 3 down days where I don't have anything special planned. I am hoping this works well for us.

Good Luck!

[fivi2]

I think we will be like that too. After going to an all you can eat resort last year and focusing on the different restaurant options but then having the kids run around the tables during these meals, I don't care that much about sit down restaurants with my kids! Not enjoyable at all. The lounge at Wilderness with pizza and pub food sounds perfect for me! Although I like nice food, that just isn't why I'm going to Orlando!

But if we do want to do a character (princess) meal, plus the hoop-de-doo thing (since we're staying there), then it might make sense, assuming we can pick up lunches with the plan on the go at the parks during the day. I imagine breakfasts being cereal in the cabin, so I know everyone is full and charged for the day.

I think I need to run this all by my parents, who are paying for all of this, and get their take. They don't seem to think they have a discount on the rooms, so then it can't hurt to get the free meal plan I guess.

All this advice is super helpful as this is quite overwhelming. The links have been great.

One more question- if I reserve a cinderella's castle meal, even if I charge it to my credit card today, I can cancel it anytime (up to the day before) and get my money back, right? Just checking...

Thank you!

Just wondering - you mention a Cabin. Are you at a Cabin at Ft. Wilderness or a hotel room at the Wilderness Lodge? (they are different resorts) Because I think that will make a difference as to how useful the dining plan might be.

[almostmom]

We are in cabins...

[fivi2]

We are in cabins...

I would do a quick search over on the camping forum of the disboards. IIRC a lot of people think the dining plan is kind of a waste at the Cabins.

We did not do the dining plan when we stayed in a Cabin, but we aren't dining plan people!

Anyway, I would read and see. I think the problem is that there aren't as many places to use the dining plan over at Ft. Wilderness. Also a lot of people use the full kitchen in the Cabin. If you are spending most of your time at the parks, then perhaps you would still make good use of the dining plan, I really don't know. But I would look at what others have done over on the Camping forum.

Ft. Wilderness was a lot of fun - we enjoyed the Cabin. It is not the same as the Wilderness Lodge though. I did a review on here a while back, you can probably find it easily. (I will look for it). Transportation to and from the Fort as well as around the Fort can be an issue, but we found it okay for the most part.