Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner (for my Honeymoon)

[Bride2be101610]

Hello Disney experts,
I am "Disney Restaurant" overload.
I am going for my Honeymoon in October 2010 and I need a GOOD lists of
restaurants. My Fiancée and I will be in Disney for 6 nights. (one of those will be just in time for a nice dinner.)

- I need your advice and help! Also, would you suggest one restaurant a day or 2 a day?
-We have the top meal plan, and the park hopper passes w/ water parks as well.
THANKS DW Friends !

 

[Dizfan4life]

My DH and I LOVED Cali Grill and Jikos! Both of those are signature restaurants and let me say they were fantastic!! I have never been at these two, but I heard Narcoosses and the Le Cellier is really good! My friends LOVE Chef's de France (sp?) and Coral Reef. Congrats to you and DF and have a fantastic wedding and honeymoon!!

 

[goofy&tigger2]

The restaurants that we keep going back to are : Chefs de France, California Grill,Nine Dragons,Ohana,Whispering Canyon,Yak and Yeti. And for breakfast Kona Cafe. For deserts Ghiaradelli Soda Fountain in Downtown Disney and Beaches and Cream at the Beach Club Resort (have the Kitchen Sink)

 

[AirGoofy]

When you say, "Top Meal Plan", do you mean deluxe dining plan? If so, with the three meals per day, you could a late character breakfast (1 TS) around 10:30 AM and an early signature dining (2 TS) for an early dinner around 5:30 PM. Then, you could use those snacks for lunch each day.

Signature Dining includes:
California Grill
Jiko
CRT
Flying Fish
Artist Point
Narcoosee
Citricos
Fulton's

Character Breakfasts
Ohana
Cape May
Chef Mickey
1900 Park Fare
Crystal Palace
Tusker House
Akershus
CRT

 

[Bride2be101610]

I just called Disney b/c I was really worried.

I have the 1 Table, 1 quick, and 1 snack.
-I am not sure if doing the Cinderella (castle) dinner is 2 Table dinners. I think I want to do at least one side down everyday.

-These "quick" meals - do I need to book these? If so where?

-Snacks? Are these's just "around the park"?


(Anyone know anything about magic hours?) I am staying at the Disney Caribbean beach resort the week of Oct 18th-24th.

Thank you everyone!

 

[AirGoofy]

I just called Disney b/c I was really worried.

I have the 1 Table, 1 quick, and 1 snack.
-I am not sure if doing the Cinderella (castle) dinner is 2 Table dinners. I think I want to do at least one side down everyday.

-These "quick" meals - do I need to book these? If so where?

-Snacks? Are these's just "around the park"?


(Anyone know anything about magic hours?) I am staying at the Disney Caribbean beach resort the week of Oct 18th-24th.

Thank you everyone!

Here is a link to the dining plan pdf. Look over the PDF, and with you DP, don't do signature dining. If you do, then it will take 2 per meal, and you will not have enough. The QS are walk up restaurants, and you do not need a reservation. Most have seats inside and some outside. The snacks are located anywhere, including QS places, that have the snack symbol. And, yes, the CRT is 2 TS; however, how often do you get to eat in a castle? You can always use 2 TS for CRT and pay OOP for other meals. We do the DP, bring food to eat in hotel for breakfast, eat QS for lunch, and still buy a couple meals OOP. Breakfast meals are cheaper.

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/me...alog/WaltDisneyWorld/en_us/PDF/2010Dining.pdf

Here's a link to the Disney Park Hours.
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/calendars/?asmbly_startDate=20101009&asmbly_endDate=20101019

Good luck and congratulations. DW and I honeymooned at WDW 10 years ago. It was wonderful and we keep going back.

 

[Bride2be101610]

How do I buy the CRT (Cinderella's round table)? Can I buy that one dinner as an extra Table dinner?

The woman on the phone (from disney said) I had to upgrade my dinning plan in order to add more? Know anything about that? She said she wasn't 100% sure b/c the reservation department needed to do that?

A friend of mine told be that you can go to a restaurant at night and watch the Magic Kingdom fire works?

That crab house on the boardwalk? Is that included in the dining plan or no? I am a Maryland girl (We have the best crabs not sure about the crabs in Florida)

 

[AirGoofy]

When you do the DP, you only get 1 Snack, 1 QS, and 1 TS per person per night at WDW. If you are staying 6 nights, you each can have 6 credits. Most of the TS are 1 credit, so you would have 6 meals per person. If you do a signature dining or CRT that takes 2 credits, then you could only have 5 total meals each.

As for the person you're speaking with. You can choose to upgrade your DP to the DDP, which gives you 3 credits per day per night, and 2 snacks per person per night and 1 refillable mug per person. Or, if you stayed 7 nights on the DP, then you would get 7 meals per person per night. Or, you can keep the original DP and make additional reservations, knowing that some will be covered on DP and others you will pay out of pocket. You do not have to upgrade the DP. With CRT, you will have to leave a credit card to guarantee the reservation. If you are not on the DP, then they will take pre-payment in full. Look over the 1st PDF I sent in the previous post. It lists all the QS and TS, those that need "2" and those that are characters. Also, use the Dis to type in the name of the restaurant look at the menu to see if you want to do it. It is under dining at the top. Good luck!

 

[ajkoos]

...I suggest you go purchase "The Unofficial Guide To Walt Disney World 2010". It's a GREAT resource for all things Disney and it will answer all your DP questions...

Congrats to you and your Fiance' and enjoy your trip. Me ,the DW and the DS and DD are headed down that way in August.

 

[Dizfan4life]

How do I buy the CRT (Cinderella's round table)
A friend of mine told be that you can go to a restaurant at night and watch the Magic Kingdom fire works?

The restaurant that your friend could be referring to is California Grill. It is at the top of the Contemporary Resort and it will take 2 TS credits because it is a signature. However, you won't be disappointed in the meal and atmosphere! If you are wanting to eat there make your ressies about an hour and a half to two hours before the fireworks. That will probably put you towards the end of your meal when Wishes will start. They also have a viewing deck just outside the restaurant and they pipe the Wishes music in.... I think this is a fun thing to do once in a while for a special occasion !

 

[Lamandpercy]

We have eaten in California Grill for our anniversary twice and are doing so again this year, the food is fabulous! They have always given us a great table and although I was apprehensive about sitting by the window (I am afraid of heights) I really enjoyed it. We got to see the Water Pageant from our table then the fireworks too, we could also see IllumiNations at Epcot in the distance.

 

[Hopefully]

We always go to Disney with the regular dining plan - the one you have. We eat a light breakfast in our room and use the CS (or quick service) credit for lunch in the parks. We have a sitdown, restaurant meal each evening.
A couple of thoughts.
First of all reservations (ADR's) are availble 180 days in advance. You are with in that window now. The most popular restaurants book 6 months in advance. So you need to decide and make ADR's ASAP. You do this by calling Disney Dining, not the regular reservation line.

You are going durning the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. It is GREAT. Over 20 countries set up booths around World Showcase lagoon and they sell tapa sized portions of their native food along with native beers and wine. It is lots of fun, and lots of food. Over the years you have been able to use snack credits for these food choices. This is how we "spend" most of our snack credits for the week. We generally spend one day/evening eating around the world and save that nights TS credit. We then apply that extra credit to be able to go to one Signature Restaurant (2 TS credits) during our stay.
Personally we love Jike at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. It is a beautiful restaurant with warm, friendly servers, excellent wine, and good food. You could also use 2 credits to go to California Grille. If you time it correctly you can see the MK fireworks, Wishes, from there.

Take a look at the menus at allears.net. They have a good overview for you to choose where you would like to eat.

The best bet is to choose a restaurant in or near the park you will be in each day. The resort restaurants are also great, so don't ignore them. WDW is huge and you don't want to spend a lot of time criss crossing the World to go an ADR. We generally plan which park which day and then choose our restaurants.

Good Luck. Planning is half the fun.
(Oh and Congratulations on your upcoming Wedding)

 

[Hootch]

to focus on now is the table service locations. These can be booked 180 days out so your window is already here. Some of our favorites are:

Magic Kingdom
Crystal Palace and CRT (we have a young daughter so princesses have been a must.)
Ohana and Kona at the Poly
The Wave at the Contemporary

Epcot
Biergarten, Le Cellier (hard to get ADR) and Restaurant Marrekesh

DHS
50s Prime Time Cafe and Sci Fi Drive Inn (stick with the burgers)

Animal Kingdom - Yak and Yeti

Disney has signature dining which takes two credits. CRT, mentioned above, is one. Jiko in Animal Kingdom Lodge, California Grill in the Contemporary, Artist Point in Wilderness Lodge and Flying Fish at the Boardwalk are my favorites.

If you really want to dine you can move to the deluxe dining option. That should be $30/day per person. That gives you three table service meals a day. With that I think it's a good idea to have a late breakfast and then a signature meal. The drawback to the plan, besides the cost, is that you have to plan your touring around your meals.

Quick/Counter service meals do not have to be booked in advance. You can spend some time reading these boards and looking at menus to figure out where you want to eat. Some of our favorites:

MK - Columbia Harbot House and Cosmic Ray's
DHS - Backlot Express
Epcot - Sunshine Seasons, Mexico, Morocco and German pavilions
DAK - Flame Tree BBQ
DTD - Earl of Sandwich and Wolfgang Puck Express

It looks like you will be there for the food and wine celebration in Epcot. Many of the booths have items that can be purchased with snack credits.

For more information on what your snack credits can buy look at this thread:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2381706

The only thing you need to worry about now (besides your wedding and bachelorette party) is the tables service ADRs. Some book up very quickly.

 

[Bride2be101610]

Well thank you ALL for your help! You all are wonderful....

LOTS to think about now. I can book on Wednesday the 21st.

I do want to the restaurant that overlooks the MK fireworks. I think I may have to do that one. Cali grill.

I think I may just book the CRT on my CC and then use the rest of the credits for other days. You can carry them until midnight correct.

 

[Bride2be101610]

Okay.....
It has been a very productive afternoon!

I have used all the links (the menu's, the hours, and the information on table service dinners).

I ended up calling Disney and moving my meal plan to the next one up ( 3 table services, and 2 snacks per day, per person) It was a little more $ but much cheaper then paying out of pocket. (plus, i don't want to carry cash, or a bank card on me in the parks.)

After taking your advice and talking to friends, family, and Disney employees:
I am going to make up a calendar of magic hours at all the parks and then make the dinning reservations according to those hours. (Seems like a lot of work -but I am sure it will be worth it)


We are getting to Disney on Monday (afternoon) and there for 6 nights.
Here is what we are thinking (please give advice) PLEASE

California Grill - Contemporary Resort (late dinner/fireworks at MK)

Kouzzina -Boardwalk (Later after parks close) *I like Cat Cora

Le Cellier *- Epcot (Fiancées pick)

Chief Mickey -Breakfast-Contemporary

1900 Park Fare (Supercalifragistic Breakfast) Grand Floridian (mad hatter is there w/ Alice & Mary Poppins) [/COLOR]

Mama Melrose? (Hollywood Studio's) ?

Yak & Yeti (Animal Kingdom)

Cinderella's round table (MK- definite booking)

Il Mulino New York Trattoria - WD World Swan (where is this)

Coral Reef - Epot

Citricos/Narcoossee? (what one if any or both?)

Spirit of Aloha (Polynesian * definite booking)

 

[Haley]

Your list of places looks great!

I am from MD and went to WDW on my honeymoon last October!

 

[tinkgurl]

To celebrate, here's a list of some good restaurants:

The Coral Reef
Kona Cafe
Cali Grill
The Wave
Citricos
Narcoossee's
Jiko
Hollywood Brown Derby
CRT

Here's a tip, if you don't like any of the CS places at the MK, head over to the Poly and eat at Capt.Cook's! If you don't like any of the CS places at AK, head over to AKL and eat at The Mara!

 

[megsher]

Here were our honeymoon plans. We never ate breakfast on site. We stayed in a time share off site with a full kitchen so we had breakfast there.
MK- Lunch- Pecos Bill
DHS- Lunch- Sci Fi
Epcot- Lunch- Biergarten

Dinner- California Grill- timed for fireworks

We also had ice cream at Ghiradelli's and drinks at Port of Orleans, before our carriage ride.

We also went to Universal and had lunch at Margaritaville.
Other meals were eaten off site or in our condo.

 

[vinotinto]

I don't think Il Mullino is on the Disney Dining Plan. The rest of your list looks good - I've made some similar ADRs.

 

[AppleSister1]

Making the calendar with the EMH etc may seem like a lot of work but it will pay off in the end! That's the way we always start....

Your list looks good!

I would suggest swapping Mama Melrose for Brown Derby...not sure what kind of food you like but Brown Derby is a very relaxing, adult enviroment and we really, really love the food.

Also...Coral Reef is great, as is Le Cellier, but have you considered another World Showcase meal? Maybe a lunch? Chefs de France? Marrakesh? Simply because they are different than what you might get at home.

The view at Narcoosee's is great, but I have to say we were a bit disappointed with the meal. Everything was very salty. Odd. Maybe it was a bad night in the kitchen.

California Grill is a sure winner. We also enjoy Flying Fish immensely.

Have fun!!