How would you plan meals on deluxe dining plan?

[shellbelle]

I am helping a friend plan meals for her family who is doing a grand gathering. They have purchased the deluxe dining plan. They have mostly dinners planned at table service restaurants. They have two 2 table service restaurants so far (CRT and HDDR).

They are not really interested in the signature restaurants because they do not have to worry about what they are wearing and having to go back to resort to change.

My question is would you plan a table service restaurant for breakfast or lunch, too?

Are 2 sit down meals in one day too much?

If you have any experience with the Dxdp, I'd love to hear it. :flower3:

[inkedupmomma]

That is exactly what I do. I plan a breakfast and a dinner TS. I usually do hddmr,crt(2x) and then maybe another show or something of that nature. I have a few 3 ts meal days as well. (2 to be exact) I mean if they think 2 ts meals a day is too much then the dxdp may not be beneficial for them. Feel free to PM me if you have an specific questions though! I would be glad to help! [that goes for anyone who has any :)

[lisa3383]

Most if not all of the signature dining restaurants DO NOT require you to go back and change at the hotel! I wounldn't walk in looking like a slob, but I don't go into the parks like that either (unfortunately, not everyone follows this advice). Your crocs and polo tee shirt are perfectly acceptable in CRT (MK) or Brown Derby (Hollywood Studios), both signature dining restaurants inside the parks.

I'm not saying signature is better, but don't let it stop you from eating where you want to!

That being said, I've done the Deluxe plan before - it's great! Remember, your credits are per night of stay, not per day! Keep this in mind when you make your reservations.

I also liked the big breakfast, big dinner approach. We did later breakfasts so we could do rides first thing when the parks were relatively empty and lines were shortest. Snacked for lunch (you won't be that hungry) and Big dinner again!

I highly recommend doing the Brown Derby (2 credits) with the Fantasmic VIP seating! This is the best restaurant at Hollywood (in my opinion) and it is pricey (UNLESS you have the plan!). Also, now that Fantasmic is down significantly in number of shows/week - VIP seating is becoming more necessary. Don't forget to make ressies for this early!

Good luck!:goodvibes

[smiths02]

On the DxDP, if you don't want at least 2 TS meaks per night, then you are probably not getting your money's worth.

If all they want is TS dinner and they only want 2 2-credit options, then they would probably do better on the basic and then pay OOP for the one of the 2 credit meals and any other snacks/CS they may need...

[smiths02]

Also, with a grand gathering, they will be eaten alive on the tips for 2 TS meals a day which may be another argument to do the Basic and pay OOP for the rest of the stuff

[frannn]

We had been to WDW a handful of times in previous years, so we were ok spending extra time eating. We are also used to eating 3x/day at time, so this wasn't too much of a stretch at WDW. For about 5 out of the 10 nights we were at WDW, we did B, L, D. A lot of our meals were character ones, mostly for the entertainment value, especially breakfast. For lunch, we would eat at places that we really enjoyed the food (LC, CR, TI, etc). We had dinner every night, using snack credits for either bkfast or lunch when we did a signature meal. Many snack credits were used for frozen drinks in lieu of sodas. We did all TS, because we could. On days that we ate all 3 meals, we had bkfast 7-8ish, lunch 1ish, and dinner 6-7 (except when we did dinner shows). So, even if we weren't starving by our ADR time, we were ready for a break. I scheduled 2 of the 3 meals in the same park each day. So, for example, we did H&V Play & Dine for lunch, and FDP at the BD for dinner. We probably did Cape May for breakfast that day. This gave us freedom to hop between 2 parks, and take a break before dinner if need be. The one thing I didn't take into consideration was DTD time. I had left 2 open mornings- 1 for the outlets, and 1 for DTD. But, since I had no meals scheduled in DTD, we didn't spend too much time there. Your friends might consider Mickey's BBQ if they have toddlers. Not many people love it, but my DD6 did, and the food was pretty good. Dress up is definetly not required! The Brown Derby is a good FDP option as well.

[shellbelle]

Thanks for all of your replies. I knew I could count on you!:worship:

I really want to help them make the best of their deluxe dining plan. I will take another look at their plans and add some breakfast and lunch reservations. If they become overwhelmed with meals, they could always cancel at most locations.

I'll let you know what we decide. More input is always welcome! :cheer2:

[Colleen27]

I am helping a friend plan meals for her family who is doing a grand gathering. They have purchased the deluxe dining plan. They have mostly dinners planned at table service restaurants. They have two 2 table service restaurants so far (CRT and HDDR).

They are not really interested in the signature restaurants because they do not have to worry about what they are wearing and having to go back to resort to change.

My question is would you plan a table service restaurant for breakfast or lunch, too?

Are 2 sit down meals in one day too much?

If you have any experience with the Dxdp, I'd love to hear it. :flower3:

We plan most of our days to have either a TS breakfast or lunch and then a signature dinner, or room service breakfast and a 1TS dinner. Only a couple times have we had 3 meals in a day, and those days we had 2 sit down meals and 1 quick service.

Disney's dress code for the signatures is pretty relaxed. We were comfortable going to dinner in our park clothes most days. The only day we went back to the room to change between park and dinner was our Animal Kingdom day, and we planned on that because we knew we'd be wet from riding Kali River Rapids.

[Rupan]

The math makes it ver difficult to justify the DxDDP unless you use 2 TS credits per day. Another option if they are worried about eating too much food is to eat at a couple of 2 credit restaurants. Then you wont have to worry about scheduling so many meals.

I have heard some say that the 2 credit meals are not worth it but I disagree. I think it can be a good way to use up any spare credits you have on a restaurant that you may not have gone to otherwise.

[Tam1067]

We're doing DxDDP on our upcoming trip. I think 3 TS meals a day is too much for most people; however, if you break it up to about 2 TS credits used per day and then do the other meal as either a CS or snacks, you will come out ahead.

So for us, we're always doing a TS dinner. Two nights, we'll be doing signatures, but the other six nights, we're just going to standard TS places.

Four mornings, we're planning to do character breakfasts. The days we're not doing those, we'll use snacks for breakfast.

The days we use snacks for breakfast, we're doing TS meals for lunch. The other days we'll use meal credits for CS meals.

I've spread it out this way so that we're not spending all day in TS places, but at the same time, we're getting to go to the TS meals we want to go to, and we'll get our money's worth out of the deluxe plan. As long as about 2/3 of the total meal credits you use are for TS meals, you will come out ahead on the deluxe plan. I've run the numbers many, many times.