8 days-no TS

[DisneyMominMTL]

We are planning on staying Club Level at AKL in January.

DS, who will be 18 months at the time of the trip, has very little patience at meal times.

My plan is to have b-fast in the lounge before we head off to the park; have CS lunch at the park; then we will be back at the resort mid-afternoon (most nights) for DS to rest, and for DD14 &11 to enjoy the pool and the resort, so we figured we'd have appetizers in the lounge with some food from the Mara.

Yet, I'm second guessing my choice!

There is such ''excitement'' about food and ADR's, etc. around the DIS, that I am wondering if we are missing out on something?

I figure we will consider TS when DS is old enough to enjoy it. On our last trip we did the dining plan and had pretty much all character meals: Akershus, CM, CP, CRT, 1900PF (and Mama Melrose for Fantasmic and Tusker House). We thought it was too much food.

How important is the ''dining'' part of your Disney experience??

 

[DesertGal]

How important is the ''dining'' part of your Disney experience??

This is such a good question, and one I pondered myself. We have gone to WDW several times in the past, and the dining was always a huge part of it, just because we got to experience a lot of new and delicious foods. We only did the DXDP one time, and my thoughts on that were that I enjoyed it the first few days, but it was really TOO much food. Since we had already paid for it, I had that mentality that I needed to order and eat all of the food because I knew the my Mom had paid out of her own money for us to have the plan. But, it also allowed us to order things we normally wouldn't because of the price (i.e. lobster and seafood dishes), and fancy appetizers and/or salads.

We are going to WDW in two weeks (only difference is this time, we have two kids aged 3 and 18 months) and are doing the Dining plus (1 TS, 1 QS) simply because we want to do a lot of character meals and I also think we can make healthier choices and actually sit down to eat.

Like you, our 18 month old daughter has very little tolerance for long, drawn out meals, which is pretty typical at most of the TS restaurants. I think she will be mildly entertained during the character meals, but expect that our TS meals will most likely be eaten quickly with leftovers to go. Financially, it made more sense to take advantage of the free dining, so we went with that plan. I do think our kids are really going to enjoy the character meals (we will do a total of 3) and our other two TS meals are in fairly low key places so if we need to get up and walk around or make a quick exit, we can.

I love the Disney dining experience and all the special touches they add, but I am slightly worried that mealtime might be more stressful than its worth. I guess we will find out in a few weeks.

Just prior to our trip, we are taking the 5 day cruise, and we scheduled nursery time for our daughter 30-45 minutes into our dinner. That way she can eat her meal while we have our appetizers, and then go play and have fun while we eat our meal at a leisurely pace (something I never, ever, ever get to do at home).