Is CS breakfast a waste of the dining plan?

[Michelle1125]

Is eating CS breakfast at the resort the only way to get our money's worth? We are staying at Kidani Village and we were going to order lunch stuff from Garden Grocer and eat breakfast in the parks. I think we would be better off eating breakfast in the room and lunch in the parks though. We were going to do it the other way around because then we could go back to the room for lunch and naps for the kids.

 

[TDC Nala]

Depends on what you want the dining plan for. If it's strictly a moneysaving venture for you, eat breakfast in your room and use the credits for more expensive meals where you don't have to give up your dessert allotment.

Another way to approach the dining plan is to use it in the way you think will be most convenient for your family, without taking notice of how much the items you are purchasing would have regularly cost.

 

[ncc1701]

Take a look at the breakfast menus in the parks to see what's out there for CS breakfasts.I believe in Epcot the only breakfast CS option is Sunshine Seasons

 

[TDC Nala]

Epcot - Sunshine Seasons
MK - Main Street Bakery or Sleepy Hollow (which I believe only sells waffles)
DHS - Fairfax Fare or Starring Rolls
AK - Pizzafari

Those are the in-park CS breakfast options.

 

[catne]

we generally just eat cereal bars or granola bars for breakfast (which we bring in our suitcases)...not usually very hungry in the AM at Disney, and don't want to waste a bunch of time waiting for food at the resort counter service which always seems to be way too busy in the mornings. Same thing at the parks...don't want to waste that valuable low-crowd morning time standing in line in park to get breakfast either. So we eat our granola bar & drink our coffee in the car on the way to the park (or waiting for the bus) We just use our counter service for big lunches, eating fairly early in the park -like 11:30--nice to beat the crowds and be able to find a table easily. And then we head back to our resort for a break. If we're near the park exit at lunch time, we'll just go back and eat at our resort counter service place...they don't ever seem to be very busy at lunch time. Then we take our afternoon break at resort, heading to park or resort table service for a sort-of early dinner (like 5:30ish)

On occasion, if our schedule works out right, we will split one of the breakfast platters (they are quite large...like scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, biscuit, waffle and bacon) and then we'll split one of the large lunches in a park like the chicken & ribs combo platter at Cosmic Rays in Magic Kingdom. So we'd use hubby's counter service to split a breakfast, then my counter service to split a lunch. Then each use a table service for dinner. When getting those big platter/combo meals this works out well for breakfast & dinner. Other times we'll use a snack credit in the AM to get one of those large pastries they have out at breakfast time.

 

[Michelle1125]

It's really more about how nice it is to already have the meals paid for, but I don't want to waste a bunch of money either. I do know that getting to Jambo will be kind of inconvenient. Thanks for the list of CS breakfast places, that helps.

 

[Michelle1125]

Thanks Cathy, those are good tips.

 

[havoc315]

Are you getting free dining or paying for the plan?
If paying for the plan, using CS credits for breakfast makes it much harder to break even, as CS breakfasts typically run $5-$10 less than lunch/dinner.

 

[Michelle1125]

Are you getting free dining or paying for the plan?
If paying for the plan, using CS credits for breakfast makes it much harder to break even, as CS breakfasts typically run $5-$10 less than lunch/dinner.

We will be paying for the dining plan.

 

[LJSquishy]

We will be paying for the dining plan.

If you are paying for the dining plan and decide to eat CS breakfast and eat your lunches in your room, you will certainly be overpaying. You would be much better off paying out of pocket for all of your meals without a doubt.

If you intend to keep your dining plan, I would personally eat a light breakfast in the room (muffins, cereal, cereal bars, etc) and have an early CS lunch at whichever park you are at before nap time. Then you can return to the parks after nap time for more fun and dinner or eat dinner at your resort and use your snack credits in between meals...or even use your snack credits for your breakfast muffins, cinnamon rolls, etc like what I will be doing when I go.

 

[havoc315]

We will be paying for the dining plan.

Then you have 3 choices, the way I see it.

1. Cancel the ddp, and eat exactly the way you want, for less than the price of the dining plan. ($8 cs breakfast plus $3 snack plus $33 dinner, is still a few dollars cheaper than the ddp)

2. Keep the ddp, eat exactly the way you want. Accept that you are losing money, in exchange for pre-payment convenience. (pre-paying $50 in order to get $45ish in value). If you eat expensive enough dinners, you may still save a couple dollars.

3. Change your eating preferences in order to get more "value" out of the plan.

 

[mb_uh]

There are very limited breakfast options in the park and you will lose prime time eating then unless you eat at the resort before the park opens.

Lunch meals are much more varied an you could still bring the food back to the room to eat if you wanted or eat at the resort.

 

[vinotinto]

I just wanted to chime in and say that you can probably use a lot of snack credits at Mara in Jambo. This works if your family members are early risers - get up early, take shuttle to Jambo, hit Mara, hop on bus at Jambo to the parks. Some of the things you can get for a snack at Mara are: yogurt parfait (yogurt+granola+fruit), fruit salad, grape bowl, yogurt, chocolate milk, side of sausage or bacon. They also had pastries, but I did not pay attention to what they had as I don't eat them for breakfast. You can probably purchase a platter OOP, and share among your family, supplemented by the snacks purchased with a snack credit.

Then, have an early lunch at the parks (or at Mara, on your way back, if you think your kids will fall asleep on the bus and wake up cranky and then refuse to go to sleep in the room - just speaking from experience here), and rest/nap.

 

[ReneeA]

I really love my rope drop mornings at the parks. Love beating the crowds, love touring when it's not blazing hot (we go the end of August every year), and aren't big breakfast eaters. So to us, a CS breakfast is a waste. We do occasionally plan an "off park day" and on those days, we do grab 2 breakfast platters to go and split them between the 4 of us. DD8 and I also will often share a CS lunch in order to have a few extra CS credits for the mornings.

What we normally do is place a grocery order with gardengrocer and have breakfast foods delivered to the room, along with bottled water, beer & wine, and milk for the kids to drink. That way I'm not "wasting" snack credits on bottled water and not paying $8 a bottle for a Sam Adams.

 

[SnipsNSnails]

It depends how much you eat. We found that for several of us, a full CS lunch and TS dinner was way too much food. Instead we'd share a CS breakfast, share a CS lunch and each have our own TS dinner. Yes, the CS breakfast is less $$ but if you aren't going to eat half of the more expensive CS lunch, you're better off splitting the two meals and have the food get eaten. If you can eat the full CS lunch, then yes, it more worth your $$ to do so. We would often send one or two people to get breakfast and bring it back to the room, we brought lunch back once too. The CS have lids that fit on the plates and large brown bags with handles at the registers that make carrying several meals at once quite easy.

 

[Phatoomch]

It really depends on how you like to eat - we would have a big breakfast to fuel up so would use a CS so we could have omelettes & bacon, then just have a snack (Usually the dessert that came with the CS meal like a muffin) whereas my parents used a snack credit and had either croissant & jam, pastry or fruit salad using their refillable mug for a drink, a cs lunch (my mom is diabetic so has to eat regular) then we'd all have a TS meal together which was great quality time, talking about our magical day

On the DDP I worked out we saved money everyday whether it was a couple of bucks or $70 - I loved the freedom of knowing it was paid for and not having to worry about getting the check and thinking "How much " it didn't matter how much.

 

[Blackbeltdisneygirl]

we generally just eat cereal bars or granola bars for breakfast (which we bring in our suitcases)...not usually very hungry in the AM at Disney, and don't want to waste a bunch of time waiting for food at the resort counter service which always seems to be way too busy in the mornings. Same thing at the parks...don't want to waste that valuable low-crowd morning time standing in line in park to get breakfast either. So we eat our granola bar & drink our coffee in the car on the way to the park (or waiting for the bus) We just use our counter service for big lunches, eating fairly early in the park -like 11:30--nice to beat the crowds and be able to find a table easily. And then we head back to our resort for a break. If we're near the park exit at lunch time, we'll just go back and eat at our resort counter service place...they don't ever seem to be very busy at lunch time. Then we take our afternoon break at resort, heading to park or resort table service for a sort-of early dinner (like 5:30ish)

On occasion, if our schedule works out right, we will split one of the breakfast platters (they are quite large...like scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, biscuit, waffle and bacon) and then we'll split one of the large lunches in a park like the chicken & ribs combo platter at Cosmic Rays in Magic Kingdom. So we'd use hubby's counter service to split a breakfast, then my counter service to split a lunch. Then each use a table service for dinner. When getting those big platter/combo meals this works out well for breakfast & dinner. Other times we'll use a snack credit in the AM to get one of those large pastries they have out at breakfast time.

I didn't take the time to read all the posts, but I thought I would echo this last paragraph. We share our CS credits too. That way we are able to stretch them and get breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. Hubby and I will share one credit, two sets of 2 daughters will each share one credit, and our teenaged son will usually use one on his own (you know teenaged boys!) That way our family of seven only uses 4 credits for each Counter Service meal. We are able to have extra meals then. Sometimes we will use a snack or two to make the shared meals a little bigger. Anyway, just another option for breakfast eating. We don't usually take long to eat in the AM regardless of how busy it is. We just eat quick and head out for rope drop!