What next for meals?

[Dfdisneymomma]

We are staying onsite and getting the disney dining plan that includes one QS, TS and snack each day. We have ADRs each day - 2 breakfast, 3 lunch and 1 dinner. What do you do for the other meals? OOP? Bring food - which might be harder. Upgrading looks like it would be $750 which is crazy!

 

[suefly]

You can use a snack credit, pay out of pocket, or skip meal altogether. I find that I am too full to eat three meals everyday. That also depends on how much you eat. You could also split meals. Or purchase kids meals which cost less and might be enough food. I have brought or purchased food for the room, better for breakfast. Granola bars, poptarts, cereal, bagels. You can use the toaster in the food court.

 

[wdwrule]

Most often we've brought instant oatmeal, cereal, etc to eat in the room for bfast. (Hot water from coffee maker/gallon of milk from resort shop) Then we do a QS for lunch then TS for dinner. We feel we get more "bang for the buck" this way with the dining plan. Plus at home, dinner is our biggest meal of the day. Everyone is different though.

 

[emsstacey]

We did several breakfasts in the room... pop-tarts, protein bars, etc... We also got a few breakfast platters and split them one day to conserve credits. I was afraid we would run out, but in the end... with desserts after every lunch and supper-- we have a lot of snack credits left. I think I would get cinnamon rolls, muffins, etc... with snack credits when we go back.

 

[Nancyg56]

WE generally plan more TS meals at dinner than for dinner. We will hit the QS restaurant in our resort in the morning and either share some entrees or pay OOP for this one.

Lunch in the parks or at our resort QS. Again, we don't like to leave teh table overfull, so we tend to share this meal as well, or supplement with a snack.

We do have a little OOP spending, but unless my DH is with us, (he wants three "real" meals) we never feel like we don't have enough. I do think that using credits for breakfast or lunch reduces the value of the plan, becasue it you are going to spend OOP, these are the least expensive times to eat.

 

[OurLaughingPlace]

We do as PP's mentioned - cereal, bagels, oatmeal, granola bars in room. We pack this stuff in our suitcases. The toaster in the food court is something that we use often.
The regular DDP is SO much food that we could not eat a third meal (and we always eat 3 meals a day at home). Often, lunch is a Dole Whip or giant cupcake / funnel cake / Mickey pretzel. In fact, we like to plan out what snacks we're going to try in each park. DD's like that they can have ice cream or a funnel cake for a meal, they think it's fun - plus we are not tied down to scheduling more than 1 ADR a day. It's nice to be able to 'grab a snack' when you are hungry just to get you to the next meal. I don't like to feel so full (as I often to after a Disney meal) and have to walk around a park for hours.
Hope you have a great trip.

 

[goofy friend]

I normally just charge additional food to my room. If I am eating three meals a day, I will pay out of pocket(chg to room), breakfast and then use my quick service meal at lunch since lunch is normally a more expensive meal than breakfast.

 

[GillianP1301]

If you know you want 3 meals a day, then deluxe plan may be a good option for you.

If you want to stick with the regular plan and still have 3 meals a day, then you can pay OOP for the cheapest meals. You can stock your room with breakfast foods. One year we had cereal, fruit, yogurt in our room and that worked well for us. We had a car so it was easy to get supplies, but there are also grocery delivery services you can take advantage of. You can also do some splitting of meals to spread your credits out a bit.

 

[Eandbmom]

We pay out of pocket for additional meals. Usually only 2-3 (which would be when we do a character breakfast, we still want a sit down dinner). We use snacks as meals (pretzel, ice cream, cinnamon roll etc).

 

[castoral]

To spread our dining credits over our 7 days, there are two TS meals my husband and I are going to split (Rainforest Cafe and 50s prime time). Hubby is a pretty big guy (as in packs 3 turkey sandwiches everyday for lunch) but is more than happy to split meals at WDW. IF we're starving for some reason (doubtful) we'll order an appetizer and charge to our Magic Band.

For QS, there is also a few we plan on splitting like pulled pork sandwich at Cosmic Rays or Ribs and Chicken combo at Flame Tree. With 35 snack credits in 7 days, we can easily get a snack or two an hour later.

Also, snacks can make up a meal. One morning for breakfast we always hit up Gastons Tavern. We get two giant cinnamon rolls for the 6 of us and 2 OJs to split. 4 snack credits and we're good till BOG at 11:15! Les Halle's in Epcot is another one we plan to use snack credits for a meal at. We're going to try two different "hearty" items, two desserts and a cup of lobster bisque. We also plan to get sushi once we hit Japan too.

If you are interested in seeing an example, I'd be happy to share my "plan." Just message me.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We usually pay OOP for breakfasts and use our QS credit for lunch and our TS credit for dinner. If we need things other than that, we just pay OOP (we just charge everything back to the room).

 

[LJSquishy]

It really depends on your style of eating and the types of foods you enjoy at each meal.

We used a snack credit each morning for a yogurt parfait (plain yogurt, fruit, granola) at our resort which was filling enough to get us through to lunchtime where we'd do either a CS or TS lunch and then use whichever credit we had leftover that day for dinner. We only paid out of pocket for a couple of snacks during an entire week long trip. It was more than enough food -- in fact, we turned down most TS desserts.

 

[honeybunches]

We usually pay OOP for breakfasts and use our QS credit for lunch and our TS credit for dinner. If we need things other than that, we just pay OOP (we just charge everything back to the room).

This is what we do, too. One of our OOP meals is Yak & Yeti, which I've earned gift cards to pay for that. The rest are OOP breakfast.
When I went with my sister, she often got a bagel or fruit for her side with her QS credit. She saved it for breakfast the next day.

 

[sarmat1]

Like others, we do breakfast in the room with inexpensive food from Target/Walmart. QS is used for lunch and TS is used for dinner. Since you each have snack credits as well, they could easily fill in if you still need food. I'm not a small person and I've never gone hungry on a Disney meal plan (and we've never paid OOP for extra meals either). There's plenty of food if you plan it out in advance.