Toystoryfan32
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2007
One of the nice things about planning this off site trip has been that there has been no discussion re: dining plan vs. not doing the dining plan. We can't do the dining plan. And I am OK with that.
The dining plan as it exists now is not a good deal for us. We don't eat dessert. All of our kids are Disney adults, and the price is outrageous for 5 adults for 11 days. We like to eat table service... but not every single day.
What Kiah and I ended up doing was reading a lot of dining reviews to suggest what our family might like. You should know that in my little family of 5:
Dan won't eat onions, peppers, or tomatoes. He'll eat salsa, or ketchup, he just won't eat any of those things in a recognizable form.
Me won't eat fish. Dan says I'm picky, but that's really my only line I won't cross.
Tater is a Vegetarian. Just a regular old "I don't eat meat" vegetarian. It's been a learning curve for me to figure out what to have in the house for him so that he could get enough protein. Going out to eat takes a little more thought because we have to make sure that the restaurant has a decent vegetarian option. We went to Applebee's once and he ended up eating onion rings. It was the only non-meat option that sounded good to him. We need to make sure he has some choices over those two weeks.
Kiah eats healthy. She likes fresh ingredients, non-processed food. She does not usually eat with the family if we eat fast food. She'd prefer to stay home and make a salad or peanut butter sandwich (on whole grain bread, of course). I don't know how she does it. I eat healthier now, but I get really cranky if I can't eat a cookie if I want.
Ches Girl is an All-American eater. She doesn't have to flip through a menu for a half hour to find something acceptable. Give her a burger and fries or some pizza and she's a happy girl.
Given all this, we tried to balance places Dan would like with some more adventurous choices for my teens. Our ADR list is a work in progress. What this means is that I've made all the ADRs with no input from Dan. And probably a week before we leave, Dan will actually become interested in where we're eating and go through and cut the ones he thinks are not worthy of our budget dollars. Therefore, I've made more ADRs than we'll probably use, but do plan to cancel them as appropriate.
Our current ADR list includes:
Crystal Palace for breakfast before the park opens. We really enjoyed getting into parks before opening last trip and our favorite was CP. I thought this was probably Dan would want to cancel (he feels our kids are too old for character meals), but I said something about it and he told me not to cancel it yet. That tells me he still likes the idea of getting into the parks early. We have this scheduled for our first morning. Hoping we decide to keep it.
Prime Time Cafe for Father's Day. This is Dan's favorite place to eat in the whole world, so why wouldn't we eat there for Father's Day? He loves home cooking.
That's my sister and her family, my group, and my mom at Prime Time in 2007. Everyone has aged a bit since then. Great meal, though. I had an adult beverage flowing through my system... can you tell?
Tusker House lunch. My teens really pushed for Boma for this one, but I really feel that is too far outside Dan's comfort zone. So Tusker House it is. Not sure how I feel about it being a character meal, but the teens are so excited about it that I now we won't cut this one.
Plaza at MK for dinner. If I can get us the Wishes dessert party, this one will get cut. I really want the dessert party. Kiah really doesn't. I'm going to win this one because I'm the mom. I have yet to actually be able to sit and see fireworks at Disney. We've watched them from behind the castle, from the bridge to Splash Mountain, from everywhere but the hub. And I like dessert. I have my heart set on the desssert party. And Dan the budget man said I could book it. Kiah really likes the menu at the Plaza, but I think we could probably get the same sandwiches, etc. at Panera. So it goes.
Sci Fi Dine In. This is Tater's favorite place and frankly, the CS options at Hollywood Studios are just not good. I went ahead and made this ADR, knowing we might need to drop some and thinking that this would be one that I wouldn't miss too much. So basically I knew Dan would want to cut 2 or 3, and I needed to give him 2 or 3 that wouldn't break my heart.
Ohana breakfast. Ches loves Lilo & Stitch and this was the last TS meal we did on our last trip. We went to MK, did rope drop and a few things we loved, went to Ohana for the last possible seating, had an excellent, relaxed brunch, then back over to MK to see Philharmagic... and then we said goodbye to Disney. We want that to become a tradition, so I've booked us the last seating for breakfast. We won't drop this one.
Ches loves her Stitch.
Mythos at Islands of Adventure. Mythos gets such rave reviews that I thought we should give it a try. I know Dan will be all over the fried chicken wrap with mashed potatoes inside. That is the stuff his dreams are made of.
So that's pretty much it. We're only doing one Epcot day and plan to snack our way through the day. All other meals will either be CS or off site. I did hear there's a Cantina Laredo in Orlando (not far from Universal) and that's my favorite place in the world so maybe we'll check it out. Maybe we'll spend an evening at Dave & Buster's. I'm fairly flexible. Seems strange not to have an ADR every day, but it's nice to be able to know we have some good ones and that the rest we can do what we want, when we want.
Your ADR's look great. We have ressies at Sci-Fi and Prime Time too. I agree that HS just does not have great cs restaurants and my kids love the atmosphere at 50's and Sci Fi. My 16 year old is also a vegetarian so we try to pick a few places that suit her. She loves Ches De France so made a ressie there for her. My youngest is a carnivore for sure. She is a healthy eater but she is more adventurous then our older daughter when it comes to food. That said we never buy the dining plan either, it is so expensive and we just dont eat that much. Plus I will have four adults by the time we travel to WDW again. I wish we had made a reservation for Ohana for breakfast, I love it there.
Love the hats!