Dining Plan, ADRs, etc/ with young kids -- good idea?

[DisneyCruiser2008]

We are planning to go to WDW for 10 days next summer... I am trying to decide whether we want to do the dining plan? We will have a 4 y.o. and a 7 y.o. I know that we are going to want to do 2-3 character dining experiences... On one hand, I like the idea of having dining prepaid and handy (and maybe saving a little $$).... on the other hand, since Disney recommends making ADRs for pretty much all of their TS restaurants, I wonder if we will feel tied down by the dining plan? It's hard getting from place to place with 2 little ones... I worry about making it in time for a bunch of ADRs.... What have been you experiences? Would you go for it or not?

[bangzoom6877]

We went last July for 5 nights with our sons. They were 3 and a half, and 14 months old, and we loved the dining plan. We had the basic DDP.

We are going back to WDW for 10 nights next July. We are planning to get the basic DDP again. We love character meals, and the DDP fits our vacation eating habits. We are more dessert people than appetizer people, we love to indulge in the desserts on vacation since we eat very healthy the majority of the time, and we prefer to have a sit-down dinner every evening while on vacation. We also take the boys out to dinner about once a week, and we have taken them to nice restaurants, and they generally behave very well. I have received many compliments about how well they behave from people I don't know when we are out in public. So I know they can handle TS dinners. On vacation in general, we tend to eat a quick lunch and a sit-down dinner. So what we do is have a quick breakfast in the room most mornings (we do the occasional character breakfast as well because they are fun, but we pay for those OOP), head to the parks before rope drop, eat lunch at the parks around noon, stay a little longer and leave by 2:30 to take an afternoon break. We then either go back to the park for dinner between 5 and 6 PM or we go to a resort TS restaurant at that time for dinner.

The key for us last summer was to keep the boys on their normal eating schedule. They ate breakfast when they woke up, lunch at their normal lunchtime and dinner at their normal dinner time. For example, I would not schedule a dinner at 8:30 PM with my boys because I know that is not a good time for them, and I feel it is neither fair to them nor to the other diners in the restaurant.

I think the key to knowing if the DDP is right for you is to first evaluate how your children behave in restaurants, if you feel the family could stick to a scheduled meal each day, and around what times of the day you prefer to be in the parks enjoying the attractions. We always go to a theme park first thing in the morning, it is just what we prefer. Others prefer to sleep in and go at 11AM or so.

Next summer my boys will be 3 and 5 when we go back to WDW for a 10-night trip. As I said, we plan to get the basic DDP again. The deluxe plan is too much food for us, especially on 10-night trip. Can't even begin to think about what we would do with 80 snack credits! :lmao:

No matter what option you choose, you will have a wonderful time at WDW! Enjoy your trip!!

[Faldred]

We did fine on deluxe with 3 kids, admittedly younger (almost 4, and twin 2-year-olds). The twins are mildly autistic (no official diagnosis, but enough to qualify for special ed programs), so keeping to a normalish schedule was very important to them.

Such an approach requires detailed trip planning. You need to put a lot of effort into not only planning your ADRs, but coming up with a complementary touring plan that will allow you to take good advantage of your park time while positioning you close enough to where you need to be at set times for meals. You don't have to be "park commando" about it, just detailed enough and flexible enough to keep yourself on a pace to enjoy both the attractions and the meals.

[LoriFromBama]

We went last year with our 5,4, and 9 month old with the DxDP. We are going back in Sept and doing the same thing because it worked so great for us. We did every character dining that they could stand and though the adults were exhausted from all of the picture taking and autograph signing during the meals;), the kids LOVED every minute of it. It was also a nice break to be able to stop in the park, sit down, and enjoy a meal and it saved us lots of time standing in line for a lot of the characters at the meet-n-greet spots. If you plan ahead and schedule your meals in or near the park you will be at, you won't have a hard time making your ADR. If you want to do the character dining, definitely make your ADR's ahead of time.

So, from my experience, I say go for it!

[Elmo888]

We've done DDP twice with young kids (2 and 6 the first time, 3 and 7 the second time), and I would absolutely recommend it to have TS meals. It gives everyone a chance to sit and relax. And during the summer, you are out of the heat, too.

Also, I think that it saves time from standing in character greeting lines. Do 2 or 3 character meals and let the characters come to you!

Planning the ADRs just requires you to plan your days, which I didn't find to be a problem. I used the Unofficial Guide to WDW book and the corresponding web site and figured when/where we wanted to spend our days, leaving some flexibility. It isn't as much planning as one might think. It is more of "we want to eat at this restaurant/which day will we be near it" or "we want to spend this day at this park/which restaurants are in or near it".

We always get park hoppers, so even if our kids want to spend a day at MK, we could still head to Epcot for dinner. This isn't a requirement, but it just adds to your flexibility. I just felt like we could do nothing (hang around the resort) on some days and still just go to dinner! So, I didn't really feel any pressure.

[brymolmom]

We've done it a couple times. Honestly sometimes by the end of the trip, the family is tired of sit down meals. This time, when we go in August - we're staying 8 nights and have 7 meals - doing the Luau one night to keep # of meals down. I would recommend doing some breakfasts and/or lunches. I know for my family sometimes everyone's too tired/hot by the end of the day to sit for a long-ish meal.

Also - for us as a whole, we don't like overdoing character meals (3 max per trip) - they are so chaotic and no one really eats much or if we do it's a lot of 'quick take a bite before Minnie reaches our table'. And that gets to be old to us. I know a lot of people do way more though.

All in all we LOVE the dining plan. Just good to figure out what would work best for your family.

[tlriv5]

My girls have all been older since have done the dining plan, but we have loved it! To make it easier on you I would make my ADR's for a restaurant in the park and not try to do much resort hopping. I find that is when it interfers most with our day. Of course if you are at MK then it is easy to hop on the monorail to take a break in your day to eat at Chef Mickey's or a Ohana breakfast with the characters. I recommend both of those and they were easy to get to also. I usually try to pick my restaurant choices and then plan what days I think I might be at that park. It is more stressful for me to try plan it and make the ADR's, but once we are there everything has always worked out with very little complaints! Good luck and have fun!

[disneynewbee]

I think it would be nice because with young kids and the heat it's nice to have a table service meal to sit in the AC and recuperate.

[Mommy2SabrinaJeremy]

We did free dining last September with 2 kids, dd6 & ds5. It was great! We got to have 4 character meals and the best part was I wasn't nagging my kids to eat all their food because I wasn't actually paying for it. That made my vacation a lot more enjoyable.