Can't decide whether to do the meal plan

[cono0507]

I just booked a WDW trip (our first! so excited!) for this spring. After a LOT of debate (and reading the threads here), I decided not to get a meal plan. We are staying at Wilderness Lodge, have a park hopper pass and will have a car to drive.
I booked two character breakfasts - the princesses at Norway and the Playhouse Disney gang at Hollywood and Vine.

So my thought was since we'd have a car, we would have all of the other breakfasts in our room (buy yogurt, milk, cereal and keep in the room), buy lunches in the parks and go off Disney property for dinners. I really hate the idea of scheduling my trip around my dinner reservations so that is why I hesitate to do a meal plan.

Anyone ever regret opting out of the meal plan?

[billysmommy]

We've never used the dining plan. It just doesn't fit for us. We always order apps and very rarely dessert so we would still be paying for the apps and not eating the desserts that are included. I saved our receipts last time and compared the costs of our meals to what we would have paid for the dining plan and it was less for us by paying oop.
We'll have some snacks in the room but eat all our meals on property. It's tough to leave the parks while you're having fun to drive off property to dinner. We usually stay at the Boardwalk and usually end every day at Epcot (lots of dinner choices) and its an easy walk back to the hotel afterwards.

[sste]

I don't have personal experience with meal plan versus without but we aren't doing it for the following reasons:

1. My DS is not patient in restaurants. Dining with him is stressful and not enjoyable!

2. We really like flexibility in our travel and don't want to worry about using up dining points.

3. I am a low-level foodie and I am pretty sure that the Disney food is going to be "just OK" in my opinion

4. I feel like meal plans, all inclusives, etc encourage me to overeat. And in general eating out every meal makes me feel sick. So, there is no way I would do a deluxe dining plan.

5. DS at age 3 only has so much mental energy to "hold it together." I think the line waiting is going to be a challenge for him for the attractions and I think he might melt down with more than a few sit down meals. I guess I am not sure about the dining plan structure but it seemed like you wouldn't use all your possible meal points if you did counter-service only.

6. I find it aggravating to wait to order, wait for food, and then wait for check. I have bemoaned for the past ten years the fact that restaurants don't have a credit card swipe so you could just pay and leave. So, I am better suited to breakfast at home and, again, counter service!

Anyway, plenty of people love the dining plan. I list all of the above just because I think these are some factors you may want to consider and think about whether they do/don't apply to your family.

[hillview]

I like the dining plan. That said my kids are pretty good at eating out, we enjoy the character meals and taking a break. We did it last year and we broke even and saved maybe $200 over a week. I like it because it it taken care of.
/hillary

[Momof3Labs]

3. I am a low-level foodie and I am pretty sure that the Disney food is going to be "just OK" in my opinion


Lower your expectations if you are doing mostly counter service. I love to eat out but dread counter service meals at WDW because the quality of food is so sub-par, IMO. Table service is marginally better, and sometimes decent, but not amazing, especially considering where you live!

[cono0507]

I don't have personal experience with meal plan versus without but we aren't doing it for the following reasons:

1. My DS is not patient in restaurants. Dining with him is stressful and not enjoyable!

2. We really like flexibility in our travel and don't want to worry about using up dining points.

3. I am a low-level foodie and I am pretty sure that the Disney food is going to be "just OK" in my opinion

4. I feel like meal plans, all inclusives, etc encourage me to overeat. And in general eating out every meal makes me feel sick. So, there is no way I would do a deluxe dining plan.

5. DS at age 3 only has so much mental energy to "hold it together." I think the line waiting is going to be a challenge for him for the attractions and I think he might melt down with more than a few sit down meals. I guess I am not sure about the dining plan structure but it seemed like you wouldn't use all your possible meal points if you did counter-service only.

6. I find it aggravating to wait to order, wait for food, and then wait for check. I have bemoaned for the past ten years the fact that restaurants don't have a credit card swipe so you could just pay and leave. So, I am better suited to breakfast at home and, again, counter service!

Anyway, plenty of people love the dining plan. I list all of the above just because I think these are some factors you may want to consider and think about whether they do/don't apply to your family.

Those are many of the same reasons I didn't sign up for it - my kids are not big eaters and get bored quickly in restaurants. We never order dessert so that would be a waste. I see the benefits of the food plan but I'm thinking I probably made the right choice for my group in skipping it. We'll see how it goes!

[TwinFoxes]

I really think there's no one right answer. I posted in a recent thread it was great for us. But I don't think it's a mistake not to get it.

I do want to point out that DH, who does the budget, loved it because he wasn't mentally keeping track of how much meals cost. It was all paid for already, so he could just relax that little bit more. Since he told me that, I'm sure I'll always book the DDP (i'm the travel agent in our family.)

[egoldber]

We've never done the dining plan and never missed it. It does not suit our Disney experience at all. We would hate to be tied down to that many table service reservations and prefer to be flexible.


Lower your expectations if you are doing mostly counter service.

Really? I have always found the CS at WDW, IMO, to be a relatively good value vs the cost of TS. I think most TS is atrocious for what you pay.

[lhafer]

We went to Disney for 10 days for the first time right after Thanksgiving. We went during a free dining period, so I guess that made the choice a little easier.

I liked the dining plan. We have a 4.5 year old DD and a 10 month old DD. They both were fantastic during our dinners. I liked the dining plan because the food was paid for. We just only had to worry about tipping.

I based our reservations based on what parks we would be at that day. I made up an itinerary way before hand, and we stuck to it. It makes it a lot easier not to have to leave the park for a reservation, especially since we didn't have a car. We had a couple of down days as well, and those days I chose to make reservations at other resort restaurants.

As for a PP saying they never order dessert - neither do we! But being on vacation at Disney - it was special, and my 4 year old being able to order a dessert just for herself really made her day!! She's a very picky eater and she did okay with all the foods. And actually for someone who has a TOTAL sweet tooth, she would order ice cream, or whatever and would take a few bites and be done. It was a special treat for DH and I as well because we never get dessert when we go out normally either.

The food is average. There were a handful of restaurants that were better than the rest. But I come from a food mecca city, so it's really easy to say that food is mediocre compared to food here.

[dfb05]

We had free dining in September, I liked the IDEA of the dining plan, but dind't really like it for us. We went with our 2 kids (14 month old DS & 4 year old DD) for our daughter's 4th bday. I loved being able to go to all the different restaurants, and thought, when I added up the character & sitdown meals we had that it seemed to be worht the money, but i thought the sit-down meals took way too much time out of our day. Our little ones needed to go back for rest/naps at mid-day, and are NOT nightowls, so sit-down dinners took up most of our nights. If we had free dining again, i'd be sure to book mostly sit-down breakfasts, and limited lunch or dinners, OR try to take advantage of some 2-credit restaurants that you normally wouldn't go to maybe? We are hoping to go back in September and are not planning to get the dining plan. Maybe when the kids are older we can try it again and see how it goes!

[sewarsh]

Read my review from our November trip.
I'm SOO SOO glad we didn't and my reviews states why.
Just too much scheduling and too much food.
We personally wouldn't get our $'s worthh.

[liz]

Not worth it with little kids- I really don't think there would be much savings. When our family of 5 went in October, we probably spent the same amount of money out of pocket as the price of the dining plan (we ate exclusively at the WDW and bought some groceries using Garden Grocer). We had a pin code for a hotel room, so we decided that was the better savings. Again, we liked the flexibility the other PP mentioned.

OTOH, if my kids were older - I would get it. DS1 amazes me with his appetite sometimes. Makes me nervous for when they are teenagers and growing like weeds.

[egoldber]

OTOH, if my kids were older - I would get it.

Actually I think it's the best value if you want to do a character meal each day. Typically older kids want to do more rides and attractions, not spend time sitting at meals. They can have a sit down dinner any time.

[cckwmh]

we went in early december on the deluxe meal plan - and left with credits to spare. that being said - we definitely got our moneys worth. we did many 2 credit meals.

next time we go i may not do the meal plan again. the sit down meals were very time consuming. we would end up asking for our checks when our food was delivered because at many meals it would be 30 minutes + from the clearing of our table to when we were given the checks. It was very slow.

it really depends on the type of trip you are doing. we were stuck to our reservations, and some days it was great - others it wasn't.

[liz]

Actually I think it's the best value if you want to do a character meal each day. Typically older kids want to do more rides and attractions, not spend time sitting at meals. They can have a sit down dinner any time.

Really? I am only asking because my kids definitely eat three meals a day. I can't imagine skipping meals for them now and especially in the future when they would be older. I always assumed that when we returned to WDW, I would get the plan (well, at least time it to get free dining). Just curious about the answer- I am saving all these tips for our next trip (probably not for another 3+ years though).

[egoldber]

LOL! I don't mean skipping meals. But getting a quick counter service meal vs doing a full sit down meal.

[liz]

LOL! I don't mean skipping meals. But getting a quick counter service meal vs doing a full sit down meal.

No, no :ROTFLMAO:! That's not what I meant!

In your earlier post, I thought you meant that getting the meal plan is not as cost effective for older kids because they wanted to go on rides more often and not eat? I didn't understand what you meant. Sorry if my post was confusing.

What I meant to say is, since I know that we would be eating at every meal (and the kids would want their own meal at that age- last trip we split meals), wouldn't it be more cost effective to get the dining plan versus paying out of pocket?

[bnme]

What I meant to say is, since I know that we would be eating at every meal (and the kids would want their own meal at that age- last trip we split meals), wouldn't it be more cost effective to get the dining plan versus paying out of pocket?

I have that problem now that older DS is 8. But he often wants to order from the adult menu so that would be a whole other problem! No, you can NOT have a steak every time we eat out!

The meal plan does not work out for us. When tips where included I think it was a better deal, especially if you did 1 or 2 character meals - the money savings on the kids side made it easily. But it requires too much advance planning or willingness to be flexible or wait for us. I wonder how the new QS meal plan would work out, though. I have not researched that one.

[egoldber]

The regular dining plan assumes you would eat at least one full service meal a day, which we would not typically do. We usually do a combination of eat in the room and counter service. We also like to go offsite at least once or twice.

The QS plan is not considered a good value vs paying OOP.

[klwa]

We've done a trip with and a trip without. I'd do it again, but that's our style touring. It really wasn't difficult to plan which park which day & then head over in the direction of our meals at about the right time. Because of our kids eating habits, we did most of our sit downs at lunch, which also allowed us to decide if we wanted to stay in the park later, or go back to the resort to get supper there. (The trip without, we had made plans to have a sitdown every day & then the ILs (who were fronting the money for a family trip) changed everyone's reservations to not include the dining plan without telling us until 2 weeks before we went down. Because they didn't tell us until too late, we couldn't add it back on. Needless to say, I was annoyed. And had to spend a night changing all of my reservations to breakfast so we didn't spend more than we would have with the DP.)

Really, though, it sounds like you ARE somewhat planning around meals, just in a different way. Going off property for supper most nights would have been time consuming for us, and on nights we wanted to stay later, etc, feeling like we needed to get out for supper would have been annoying.