we've done basic dining, free dining and deluxe dining. Deluxe was too much food & too much restaurant time for us. Basic/free dining was perfect.
We used the counter service credits for lunch every day - either in the park we spent the morning at, or back at the resort if we were taking a rest/swim break. We used table service for dinner every night. We stopped at park bakery before our mid-day breaks & bought pastries for next day's breakfast with our snack credits (take large zip-lock bags to keep them fresh.) We rarely wanted in-between meal snacks in the park...Disney meals kept us well fed. For the occasional Mickey ice cream bar or dole whip, we paid cash usually. We really liked the air conditioned table service meal every day - great relaxation time & made it feel more like "vacation" to have food served to you in a beautiful setting (all their restaurants are so nicely decorated & themed.)
Couple of things - one, it rarely takes two hours to eat a Disney restaurant meal - they are VERY efficient getting the orders processed, cooked & served. Two hours would be at a Signature restaurant (the two credit places like California Grille, Jiko's, etc.) More common is for people to feel a little rushed. If you are not getting appetizers (they don't come with the basic/free dining meals) it will not take you 2 hours to eat at a Disney restaurant - the vast majority of our Disney restaurant meals were 1 hour or less. And two, most Disney character meals are just one table service credit (only the dinner shows like Hoop Dee Doo or Aloha are 2 table service; also all meals in the castle are 2 table service.) So the Disney character meals are a fabulous opportunity to do character meet & greets without standing in long hot lines in sweltering heat & humidity. Even with having the characters stop at your table for pictures you'll still average maybe an hour & 15-20 minutes for character meals.
