Disney dining plan

[jgenie]

We're booking a trip for early Feb. 2013 and trying to decide if we should add the dining plan. They are running a special right now and the price for room, tickets and dining plan is less than we were looking at paying for just the room and tickets. We can book a room only and save a % plus buy tickets from Undercover Tourist or we could book a room, pay full price for admission tickets and add on the dining plan for $90 per day for 4 adults and 2 kids. The dining plan at this level will give us 2 QS meals and 1 snack per day. If we upgrade and pay about $160 per day for 4 adults / 2 kids we would get 1 TS meal, 1 QS meal and 1 snack per day. DC will be 5 and 3 when we go and as of now still nap daily. If you've made it this far - Thanks! and I have questions.

- With a 5 yo and a 3 yo of which at least one will most likely need to nap, will we have time / energy for a sit down meal every day?

- We know we want to do at least one character meal - hopefully Crystal Palace for an early bfast or if possible the latest bfast slot we can get. I'm guessing for 4 adults and 2 kids that will cost us $150 +. Is that correct?

- We won't have a car. How hard is it to get to the other resorts if we wanted to have a meal most likely dinner somewhere else? Also, are there other things to do and see at the other resorts? I'm thinking we would book an early dinner reservation at another hotel and then wander around a bit after dinner before heading back to our hotel.

- Are there other character meals that we will regret not going to? If so, which are your favorites? Why?

Not related to dining but....

- for park hoppers is the $57 per ticket and for the entire length of stay?

- if we book the package for 4 adults / 2 kids and someone isn't able to go but we find out before the 45 day window, will we get a refund on that portion of the package?


TIA

[acmom]

We have done the dining plan the last 2 trips. First time DD was 18 months and we did quick service. This last time DD was 3 and DS was 18 months and we did the regular dining plan. We were very glad we did it both times and will do it again the next time we go (hopefully this winter with the promo).

We picked the regular one this past time bc we knew we wanted to do several character meals and they were included with that. I was unsure about the sit downs with young kids but it worked out great. We got to the parks early, headed back after lunch for nap and then did pool/beach/dinner. We skipped the park hopper bc we thought it would be too much for our kids to try for 2 parks in one day.

For character meals, we did crystal palace, chef mickeys, garden grill at Epcot, 1900 park fare (cinderella meal at grand Floridian). We did a mix of breakfast, early lunches and early dinners. We also tried to pick mostly buffets and family style bc then there were more choices for the kids, food came faster and our DS ate free (under 2). We the first available lunch slot at crystal palace, which worked well for us (had been at park since opening) and enjoyed it.

We were at Polynesian and it was easy to take the monorail to Grand Floridian for an early dinner. Haven't tried it on the buses though. Kids really enjoyed that meal- DD danced with Cinderella and stepsisters were really funny. Very nice princess meal that was cheaper (included for 1 credit in dining plan vs 2 for Cinderellas castle) and much easier to get a reservation.

Chef Mickeys was great too- classic Disney experience with all the main characters (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, daisy, goofy, Pluto) and yummy breakfast food. We went early and made it to MK for rope drop.

HTH! Have fun planning!

[Momit]

We went in April (DS was 3.5 or so at the time) and did the dining plan TS, QS and snack each day.

We were very happy with it - the only thing we really didn't use was the snacks (other than a few Mickey ice cream bars), so we got a bunch of bags of trail mix and some Minnie Mouse cookies on the last day and brought them home with us. The desserts with every meal were a little overkill but we enjoyed the different Mickey shaped treats.

All of our TS meals were character meals. We wanted to do those with DS and we didn't really care about trying any of the "fine dining" options anyway. We did lunches and dinners, no breakfasts because we're early risers and wanted to take advantage of the morning extra magic hours as much as we could.

Our character meals were
-EPCOT Akershus dinner - great. It was princesses but DS still enjoyed it, they paid lots of attention to him, and the food was good
-1900 Park Fare Grand Floridian - Cinderella etc. This was our least favorite. IMO was crowded, noisy, lots of Type A people (one example, woman rushes into restroom and shoves past everyone in line yelling "my baby doesn't feel well" and goes into a stall. The kid seemed fine, I think they just wanted to cut in line). The characters were nice here, just not the other patrons. Food was ok.
-EPCOT Garden Grill - Chip and Dale. This one was pretty good, but the wait was FOREVER. It muct have been almost an hour past our reservation time, which I know isn't really a reservation, but it was the only time we had to wait).
-Crystal Palace - Pooh etc. This one was good.
-Animal Kingdom - drawing a blank on the restaurant name. Good. Probably second favorite after Akershus. Donald, Mickey, Goofy, Daisy in safari outfits.

We found good places for quick service and avoided the fast food type fare people complain about at Disney. Starring Rolls at Hollywood Studios and our resort QS restaurant were both good, as was the food court at EPCOT. We brought cereal to have in the room for breakfast every morning, plus we used our resort mugs (included in dining plan) for coffee and hot chocolate. I also made breakfast cookies to take in a ziploc if we were running late to get to a park for rope drop.

ETA just saw a couple of your other questions. I believe when you add park hopper option it's for the duration of your stay. You'll want this if you plan to do a meal at a different park from the one you toured that day

We didn't find it too bad to travel from our resort to the dinners. It is a little trickier getting from resort to resort (like for 1900 Park Fare at Grand Floridian).

We also went back to our room for a nap every afternoon. We had a couple of days where we pushed that as late as possible and DS fell asleep on the shuttle. Also had a couple of short days where we just went to the pool in the afternoon and ate a quic service dinner at the resort