more dining plan questions--well because I am dense.

[sersee05]

Hey guys..we are a family of 5 and finally have decided to go with the free dining. I think it will be worth it with three kids 12, 7 and 5. We are thinking about definitely making res for dinners...and most likely will use cs credits for lunch.

What do you all do for breakfast then? Do any of you upgrade to Deluxe so all your meals are taken care of? What would be the upgrade with free dining?


I am sure this has been asked many many times..but what are you suggestions for dinner..I know Cali grill is supposed to be good. What about certain character meals?

Thanks!

 

[scard192]

What do you all do for breakfast then?

Use a snack credit, pay OOP or bring/buy breakfast foods to eat. We ordered a few things for breakfast from Garden Grocer.

 

[notaclue]

On the regular DDP we paid out of pocket for breakfast. We've never bothered with taking food or buying food to eat in our room. This year we're doing the DXDDP so we can have a nice sit down breakfast and lunch if we want it.

We've never found a bad restaurant at Disney. Seems like when we take the kids and grandkids everyone enjoys the buffets because there is something for every taste. Especially like Biergarten, Cape May Cafe, and Tusker House. There are alot of favorable reviews here for Boma also. Some of the resorts have very good TS meals too.

Hope you have a fantastic vacation.

 

[sersee05]

We are not buying park hopper passes..Our package has has a 4 day myw base ticket...with dining plan.. Are the dining plan options only for food inside the parks? Are the restaurants on disney property but not necessarily inside the parks? I ask because we are going to Seaworld one of our days...and can't waste a ticket going back into one of the WDW parks for dinner.. could I go elsewhere?

 

[notaclue]

The dining plan may be used at most restaurants inside the parks and at most of the Disney resorts, and at some places in Downtown Disney. The resorts have some great restaurants. Here's a link to the 2009 Dining Plan; scroll down for a list of participating restaurants.

http://allears.net/pl/packages09a.htm

 

[wolf2961]

Use a snack credit, pay OOP or bring/buy breakfast foods to eat. We ordered a few things for breakfast from Garden Grocer.

We do the same. Always pick up some breakfast stuff, yogurt, donuts, cereal, etc at Target on the way from MCO and have that for breakfast. We keep a cooler bag with us and keep milk, juice and water iced down.

 

[Mickeyfollowers]

My family are not very big breakfast eaters. I bring like ceral bars, or pick up some fruit in the park then we grab CS between 11-12, and eat dinner around 6 if we can. This works for my family. I just can't see getting the DxDP and have to have all those sit down TS and waste time sitting there when I could be doing something else. That is just to much food to me, the regular DP is plenty. Eating all that food would make me too tired to walk around the parks.

 

[HaleyB]

We sometimes pay oop, sometimes use a snack credit, sometimes use a CS credit for 2 meals which we split, then split 2 CS meals for lunch. It is plenty if not too much food without adding anything.

If you go off property one day just use that days credits on a Resort or DTD meal, or use them on another day for a 2 credit meal.

It is 1 credit of each kind per person per night. 7 nights is 7 of each credit per person. You can use all 7 on day one, or spread them out any way you want. You don't need to use them daily.

 

[Missytara]

When I am on vacation, I prefer to eat a large breakfast (CS); have two snacks during the day and then a nice dinner (TS).

So I am going to use one snack credit during the day and pay the other OOP.

 

[Rainkiss]

We're not big breafast eaters, we're planning to buy one of the resort mugs each for free coffee refills in the morning, and pack granola and fruit snack bars for breakfasts. Grab lunch a little early, before places get too jammed, catch a snack in the late afternoon/early evening, then dinner after 7:00 once the crowds have cleared out a bit.

 

[laceemouse]

We do the same. Always pick up some breakfast stuff, yogurt, donuts, cereal, etc at Target on the way from MCO and have that for breakfast. We keep a cooler bag with us and keep milk, juice and water iced down.

Yep, a bottle of milk from the food court is one snack credit and is enough for 2 or 3 of us. There are also donuts and stuff available with a snack credit. We had a room fridge and bought a few others breakfast items out of pocket, used 2 refillable mugs for coffee, etc. It was plenty of food for us, and we have big kids.

 

[clanmcculloch]

In the past, we've split a couple CS meals for breakfast. Each meal comes with 2 drinks so we get a total of 4 drinks with breakfast. DH and I get coffee in our refillable mugs, we use 2 of the 4 drinks for the kids' breakfast drinks and the other 2 drinks we get at least 1 bottled water for the parks (we share and refill at drinking fountains; we don't mind the taste of Florida water) and the last drink is either a second bottled water or some kind of drink for DH or one of the kids for later while hanging around the resort. We always have a fridge in our room so we toss the bottled drinks in the fridge.

Then for lunch we either have snacks or split a couple of meals.

Occasionally for breakfast we'll just use snack credits for a light breakfast and then eat lunch earlier. These days lunch is typically bigger lunches.

When we do a TS breakfast, lunch is definitely snacks as we're typically not hungry by lunch time. We actually will split a couple of snacks these days as we can't all eat a whole snack after a huge all you can eat TS breakfast. We then eat CS meals for dinner.

 

[sersee05]

thanks for all the info guys..you are definitely a wealth of info!! What are the refillable mugs and where can you use them?

I must have coffee in the morning..I didn't check if my room has a maker..so I gotta figure that out! LOL

 

[tlhbdm]

To upgrade to deluxe it is 31.99 per person(10 and Up) per night and 10.99 per child per night(ages 3-9)

 

[clanmcculloch]

thanks for all the info guys..you are definitely a wealth of info!! What are the refillable mugs and where can you use them?

I must have coffee in the morning..I didn't check if my room has a maker..so I gotta figure that out! LOL

You can get the refillable mugs in the food court of your resort. You can use them as much as you want from the drink station in your resort's food court. Depending on which resort you're at, there might also be a drink station by the main pool (I know there was at SSR). We use ours for our morning coffee, even when we have a coffee maker. I'm not a coffee gourmet and drink Maxwell House at home so Disney coffee is fine for me (there are plenty of threads around the DIS about the quality of the coffee which is why I said this last part). We also use it for drinks when we go back to our resort to relax or in the evening when getting the kids to bed. They also make great souvenirs. I think they now cost $12.95 +tax.

We only buy mugs for us adults. They don't have any juice at the drink stations. My kids don't drink carbonated beverages and because they're allergic to milk they can't drink the hot chocolate.

All moderate and deluxe resorts have coffee makers. Value resorts do not.

 

[Faldred]

To upgrade to deluxe it is 31.99 per person(10 and Up) per night and 10.99 per child per night(ages 3-9)

By my math, the child upgrade is $10.00, not $10.99, per night. ($20.99 DxDP vs. $10.99 basic DDP).