3 Table Service per day or 2 TS/1 CS?

[stairstepmom]

We are 13 days out (yay!!!!) and am having last minute second thoughts on planning!

We are on the DxDP so I've felt like we need to make sure we're fully utilizing it to get our money's worth, so many days we've made ADRs for 3 meals.

I don't really care so much about it being too much food - we plan on using our appetizers and plate sharing with our two under-3s and well, we'll eat what we eat!

But I am very concerned about being tied to so many ADRs. If service is quick I think TS might be comparable in time to CS for us because at CS we're ordering for a bunch of people with different tastes, so having to go to several windows, wait in line at each, etc. But obviously the advantage with CS is the flexibility of where/when. I don't want to end up feeling like we spent 75% of our day getting to restaurants.

So would love some opinions - should I basically cancel most lunch ADRs and plan on CS for that meal, or do you think 3 TS a day is manageable?

Here's our plan. What would you change? I realize our HS times stink but we wanted the Fantasmic package and there were no dinner times available and that 1:05 was the earliest lunch. I would like to just do CS for dinner so we have more time for rides in the afternoon but our kids REALLY want to try Sci-Fi and again, that was the only ADR time available.

Monday - Epcot
**B - Akershus 8:05
**L - San Angel 12:30
**D - Rose & Crown 5:15

Tuesday - HS
**B - Hollywood & Vine 8am
**L - Brown Derby 1:05
**D - Sci Fi 4:15

Wednesday - AK/Boardwalk
**B - Tusker House 8:20
**L - CS
**D - Cape May Cafe 5:40

Thursday - MK
**B - Ohana 8:10
**L - Tony's Town Square 12:00
**D - Crystal Palace 4:45
**
Friday - MK
**B - Crystal Palace 8:30
**L - Liberty Tree Tavern 12:30
**D - CS light snacks at 5
** *7pm Wishes Dessert Party

Saturday - fave park in AM, Downtown Dis in afternoon, flight at 7:30pm
**B - CS
**L - T-Rex 2pm

 

[laughinplace199]

I think you should cancel some lunches and get CS instead. That's a lot of sit-down dining for little ones to handle. I don't know about your kids, but mine would rather spend time on the rides than eating TS meals for every meal.

I've never done any dining plan, so I'm not sure how it works, but could you switch to the regular dining plan instead of the deluxe? It just looks like you're going to be spending a lot of your park time in restaurants.

I hope you have a fun (and delicious) trip!

 

[mamato3girls]

It looks like you have a couple younger kids. Yours may be different than mine but my kids would completely rebel after the 1st day if we did that many sit down restaurants. But your kids may be better about it. For us though I would probably not do table service lunch and do cs if your kids want it or maybe just grab snacks when they start saying they are hungry.

 

[stairstepmom]

My kiddos are pretty well-behaved in restaurants, we go out pretty regularly now, as long as they don't have to wait more than 30 min for the food, but still a bit stressful for me and DH as we are on alert looking for signs of breakdowns on the horizon and avoiding them, helping everyone with their food, etc, though CS won't help with that and will just have a more hectic atmosphere LOL

The regular dining plan is only 2 meals (1 TS/1 CS) so the Deluxe still saves us money with 2 TS/1 CS per day, just not as much money as if we milked it for 3 TS a day LOL!!

But yeah, definitely don't want to lose too much park time to restaurants...

 

[ScarletFire]

I don't know how much money you'll actually save when you factor in the tips for three table services per day. But WOW; that's a lot of eating. Very rarely do you get in and out of a table service in less than one hour; 3+ hours per day in a dining room? My teenagers would rebel; not to mention my digestive system.

You should definitely reconsider.

 

[havoc315]

You will be spending 5-6+ hours per day in restaurants. Many ts meals go well over 90 minutes. Seating often runs behind, which could put a meal at well over 2 hours.

On your DHS day -- realistically, you may have to head straight to dinner, right after you finish lunch. Brown Derby 1:05 ADR, actually get seated by 1:20. Finish the meal around 3ish... Then have dinner just an hour later?

I generally recommend against 3 ts meals per day on the dxdp. I usually recommend a signature dinner paired with breakfast or lunch. Filling any big gaps with snacks and some shared cs.
If you are doing 3 full meals per day, they need to be very well spread out -- 8 am breakfast, 1 pm lunch, 7:30 pm dinner. Otherwise, you are literally going straight from 1 meal to another.

 

[nooneshome]

Monty Python did a skit about a man that ate too much and exploded. Be prepared for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8

WDW can be done a million ways by a million people so what is good for me might not be good for you. But you asked for opinions. The deluxe plan is a lot of food that will take up a lot of time. But if you want a food trip then go for it. If you want to enjoy the rides and attractions good luck. I once convinced a co-worker to not get the deluxe plan but to get the regular plan then pay OOP. They came back and thanked me as they had problems using all the credits on the regular plan.

 

[stairstepmom]

Thanks all for the advice!

We haven't been since 2001 but wow I don't remember spending over 2 hours in any restaurant - and that was without reservations, with waiting for 15-20 min to be seated. We are super efficient with this many little kids, usually order our food immediately with the drinks (nice thing about so many people in a party - people can still be looking at the menu while others are ordering LOL), appetizers with the meal, dessert when the server makes the first check on how things are going with the entrees. Our kids eat fast so we do too (our average dinner at home is 20 minutes unless we have dessert!) So even with a nice big meal at a restaurant like Red Lobster (complete with appetizers and crab legs and dessert) we are in and out in 1 1/2 hours. And with a buffet, no more than 30-45 min. (which is why we booked so many, we figured they'd be faster!)

So... I've already calculated it all out and it's still cheaper (or at least comparable) for us to do the DxDP, no matter what. My kids will absolutely use 2 snacks per day on top of our meals, especially our 4 year old with DS who despite his small size, packs a ton of calories each day LOL and will get pretty grumpy without a snack every couple hours.

Our breakfasts are all before park opening, so hopefully those don't cut into our days TOO much, and I can't imagine eating fast food at CS places twice a day too much, so we want to stick with mostly sit-down dinners.

But, I think we will drop our lunch ADRs (except for our 2nd MK day, because we aren't eating a regular dinner since we're doing the Dessert Party) and, much to my kiddos' horror (and mine - the CS choices at HS look pretty lacking!) will cancel our Sci-Fi ADR.

So, here's the revised plan!

Monday - Epcot
**B - Akershus 8:05
**L - CS
**D - Rose & Crown 5:15

Tuesday - HS
**B - Hollywood & Vine 8am
**L - Brown Derby 1:05
**D - CS

Wednesday - AK/Boardwalk
**B - Tusker House 8:20
**L - CS
**D - Cape May Cafe 5:40

Thursday - MK
**B - Ohana 8:10
**L - CS
**D - Crystal Palace 4:45
**
Friday - MK
**B - CS/light CS at resort
**L - Liberty Tree Tavern 12:30
**D - CS light snacks at 5
** *7pm Wishes Dessert Party

Saturday - fave park in AM, Downtown Dis in afternoon, flight at 7:30pm
**B - light CS at resort
**L - T-Rex 2pm

 

[havoc315]

A typical deluxe meal can look like this:
0:00 check in
0:20 get seated with menus. Order drinks.
0:30 orders taken.
0:45 appetizers arrive
1:00 entrees arrive
1:20 dessert order taken
1:35 desserts arrive
1:50 check arrives
2:00 receipt, exit.

At buffets, you can control your pace a little bit more. But seating can fall way behind at a buffet -- not unusual to wait 30+ minutes at Crystal Palace for your table to be ready. And while you can eat fast, if it's a character meal, you could be waiting around for the characters to get to your table.

As to the kids snacking every couple hours --- remember, you're essentially eating regular meals every couple hours. And massive meals at that.
Even doing only 2 meals per day, with kids who love to snack, we have 41 out of 48 snack credits left over at the end of the trip.
In your case -- you will be finishing breakfast around 9:30. Having lunch a mere 2.5 hours later, which will include a dessert-snack. Then eating a 3 course dinner just 3-4 hours after that. We found when we did have a big gap between meals, 1 snack credit could easily be shared by the 4 of us. (for example, 1 credit got us a cinnamon roll that easily filled up all 4 of us for a couple hours).

Not trying to discourage you from the dxdp. It likely is still a good value for you. I'd just try to reduce the total number of meals, maybe add some 2-credit meals.

 

[stairstepmom]

Wow I can't believe service is that slow. My kids' patience aside, *I* would NOT be happy waiting that long for the next step LOL!! My DH spent some of our college days as a server at a well known upscale DC restaurant and when I showed him that sample time breakdown he couldn't believe it.*

I sincerely hope we have a better experience than that at least most of the time - most servers see what a juggling act it is to dine out with little ones and are fabulous with condensing things - I'd say 75% of the time servers ask us if we want the kids meals out with the apps or the apps out with the entrees. So I guess I sort of expect that same thoughtful service from a place whose customer base is made up of mostly children lol!

Here's what I would expect with our dining style and with having a reservation and arriving 5 minutes prior to that ressie - I do have to say though that though we expect some waiting, anything more than 10 to 15 minutes for a table with a reservation during a non-Peak season is just...well, I hate to start a debate but outside the cage of the World that would not fly as a business model - either do away with reservations or build more restaurants (or both.)

-0:05 check in
0:00*ressie time
0:10 get seated with menus
0:15 order drinks, appetizers and entrees and ask for apps/entrees to be served together not separately
0:35 apps/entrees arrive
0:45 server comes back for initial quality check - order desserts
1:00 desserts arrive, ask for check
1:10 check arrives
1:15 server comes back for check (unless he/she observes cues that we are not ready)
1:20 - leave restaurant

If a 2 hour meal is the rule and not the exception, I might have to rethink doing more than a handful of TS meals ... which is so disappointing. I remember the efficiency and service being exceptional in 2001, I'm sad to hear if things have changed that much.

 

[havoc315]

I'm not saying every meal will be 2 hours. I'd say the "norm" would be closer to 80-100 minutes. Just saying that 2 hours is not unusual, so don't be shocked. The long wait to be seated is pretty frequent.
Thinking back to last year -- we waited 5-25 minutes to be seated. From arrival to departure, meals ranged from 75-120 minutes.

 

[stairstepmom]

Is there typically a long wait even with early breakfast ADRs? I mean, if they open at 8 and we have an ADR at 8, I would expect to wait a bit for them to get our table ready (especially since we're a large party lol!) but no more than 5 minutes unless they seriously overbook. I am not sure we want to do as many breakfast buffets before park opening if we will end up not getting out of the restaurant until 30-60 min after park opening. I think I'd rather sleep longer and grab muffins!

 

[mamato3girls]

Someone else brought up a great point about the character meals and waiting for the characters to get to you. I'm just remembering crystal palace last year which was actually our most "efficient" meal. We had 3:40 reservations, got there at 3:30, were seated at about 3:50 and got drinks right away. We were pretty much done eating by 4:30 but of course our kids wouldn't let us leave until all the characters had made their rounds. It was right at 5:30 pm when we left the restaurant.

Also you may be surprised with how little you eat. I was really concerned before we went that we wouldn't have enough food. It was myself, dh, our then 4 year old and our then 2 year old so 2 year old was not on the dining plan. I really thought we would run out of meals before the end of our trip. We did just the regular dining plan and we actually rushed around the night before we left because we still had 2 cs and 5 snack credits left. Our kids just really weren't all that interested in eating with the heat, the fun stuff etc. And my kids are usually eaters, it is 12 noon and they have already had 3 meals today .

 

[mamato3girls]

Is there typically a long wait even with early breakfast ADRs? I mean, if they open at 8 and we have an ADR at 8, I would expect to wait a bit for them to get our table ready (especially since we're a large party lol!) but no more than 5 minutes unless they seriously overbook. I am not sure we want to do as many breakfast buffets before park opening if we will end up not getting out of the restaurant until 30-60 min after park opening. I think I'd rather sleep longer and grab muffins!

Our longest wait of anything last year was actually tusker house breakfast. Now we very well may have gotten there on a bad day but our reservation was the same time as park opening. We got there a couple of minutes early and waited 40 minutes for a table. I was really shocked and it really just kind of ruined the experience for us there. I don't know if that is common or not, it seemed like the CMs were particularly stressed out that day so maybe we just really were experiencing something out of the ordinary.

 

[havoc315]

I'd go with an expectation of a 15 minute wait for a table. It will sometimes be faster or slower. But that's the expectation I would set.

Even if you arrive right at restaurant opening -- 20 other families show up at that time too, and it takes a couple minutes to seat each family.

 

[stairstepmom]

Geez, an hour AFTER eating waiting for characters??? Hubby and I had breakfast at CP and I don't remember being there long at all - we must've had luck on our side!

Well, you have all given me much to think about. We loved Disney food and really want to enjoy the restaurants, but as this is our first trip with our kiddos the attractions are more important to me. Thanks so much for the advice, it has been very helpful in adjusting my expectations! I do think we will cut a couple more ADRs, but will probably stick with the DxDP since it's already paid for and I'd rather not spend more time figuring stuff out. I think we'll at least break even, as long as we're not losing money that's most important!

 

[DisGirl1971]

Wow I can't believe service is that slow. My kids' patience aside, *I* would NOT be happy waiting that long for the next step LOL!! My DH spent some of our college days as a server at a well known upscale DC restaurant and when I showed him that sample time breakdown he couldn't believe it.*

I sincerely hope we have a better experience than that at least most of the time - most servers see what a juggling act it is to dine out with little ones and are fabulous with condensing things - I'd say 75% of the time servers ask us if we want the kids meals out with the apps or the apps out with the entrees. So I guess I sort of expect that same thoughtful service from a place whose customer base is made up of mostly children lol!

Here's what I would expect with our dining style and with having a reservation and arriving 5 minutes prior to that ressie - I do have to say though that though we expect some waiting, anything more than 10 to 15 minutes for a table with a reservation during a non-Peak season is just...well, I hate to start a debate but outside the cage of the World that would not fly as a business model - either do away with reservations or build more restaurants (or both.)

-0:05 check in
0:00*ressie time
0:10 get seated with menus
0:15 order drinks, appetizers and entrees and ask for apps/entrees to be served together not separately
0:35 apps/entrees arrive
0:45 server comes back for initial quality check - order desserts
1:00 desserts arrive, ask for check
1:10 check arrives
1:15 server comes back for check (unless he/she observes cues that we are not ready)
1:20 - leave restaurant

If a 2 hour meal is the rule and not the exception, I might have to rethink doing more than a handful of TS meals ... which is so disappointing. I remember the efficiency and service being exceptional in 2001, I'm sad to hear if things have changed that much.

We have 5 children, we have been traveling to Disney with them since they were babies and have used the DDP at least 10 times. The Deluxe Dining Plan takes up a lot of time - it just does. We love regular Disney Dining Plan and find that it serves our needs best. We did the Deluxe Plan one time and we, personally, did not enjoy it as much as the regular DDP, mostly because of the time it takes out of your park day. My husband and kids told me to never sign us up for the Deluxe plan again. If you won't budge from the Deluxe DDP then I would definitely book at least one 2 TS credit meal per day and 1TS credit meal per day, because if you don't, you will most certainly be losing money.

 

[rosiep]

I agree with most posters here that you may have planned too many sit down meals. But, why not keep them; try it for a day or two then if you feel it isn't a good fit for your family cancel one of the sit down meals per day.

I travel with my adult daughter and she adores the deluxe dining plan. I think it is far too much food. Still, we use up a lot of credits with signature dining and room service as opposed to multireservations. This may not be the best value for the plan, ( in fact it isn't), but it works very well with our style.

Whatever you decide: ENJOY!!!

and please come back and let us know how it went.

 

[cwt580]

thats alot of sit-downs.......lots of time as others have said. its takes awhile for service. Disney is busy all the time. people wait just like you...


Honestly we go deluxe because we do Signatures everynight. thats 2 credits everytime. We then do qs(OP) bk/ts lunch or vise versa. 3 sitdowns is too much and we love the foods around the world. Personally i like sitdown breakfast with everyone. Go our ways. skip lunch. Meet for awesome dinners. each his own after dinner..



You be constantly moving,waiting,eating,...resting. Doesnt leave alot of time for parks.

PS...best scenario is Free dining and pay for the upgrade to Deluxe....If we get a big room discount than that helps pay for the deluxe plan.


the snack credits and refillable mug are money savers and hunger busters.

 

[havoc315]

Geez, an hour AFTER eating waiting for characters??? Hubby and I had breakfast at CP and I don't remember being there long at all - we must've had luck on our side!

Well, you have all given me much to think about. We loved Disney food and really want to enjoy the restaurants, but as this is our first trip with our kiddos the attractions are more important to me. Thanks so much for the advice, it has been very helpful in adjusting my expectations! I do think we will cut a couple more ADRs, but will probably stick with the DxDP since it's already paid for and I'd rather not spend more time figuring stuff out. I think we'll at least break even, as long as we're not losing money that's most important!

You probably won't lose money. But I'd encourage you to book some 2-credit meals. Whether dinner shows or signature restaurants.

While they are not a good value on the regular dining plan --- The best value for a credit is usually a 1-credit dinner --- They are a very good value on the DxDP. That's because you can't eat 2 dinners per day!
Thus, under the DxDP -- a 1-credit dinner will usually run about $35-45.
A 1-credit breakfast will run $15-25.
A signature meal will run $60-90.
So as you can see --- A signature meal is a better use of 2 credits, than a breakfast and a dinner.