What a great idea to prepay for the
DDP to end the who gets to pay battle! Now you can battle over who tips!! It sounds like you've already made some changes, which is great. I want to confirm that there are great character meals that are a good value on the dining plan. The make-up of your group (ages and characters intereseted in) will impact what's best for you. For our family we have used and would use DDP again at...
Hollywood & Vine w/ Fantasmic (L/D): we each can find things we like on the buffet (the desserts are lacking for us), classic fab 5 characters and fantasmic seating make this a great value
1900 Park Fare (D): probably our favorite character buffet for the food
Akershus (B): if anyone is interested in princesses, this is a great one
Garden Grill (L/D): while not mind-blowing or anything, it's always been a good meal for us, its nice to have table service, DS loves the rotating restuarant (living with the land right before or after - or both!), and the characters usually come around more than once and dont feel rushed
Tusker House (L/D): we liked this food so much!
Crystal Palace (L/D): the food was pretty good and the pooh caracters brought back a lot of childhood memories
While not a "character" meal 2/3 in our family insist upon O'hana for dinner when we have DDP. We haven't yet tried (but will get to them one day) Chef Mickey's and O'hana for breakfast. There are other character breakfasts, they just aren't a good value on the DDP. Be our Guest is defintely not a good use of DDP buuuuut if you have a big Beauty and the Beast fan in the group it's worth the experience once (even if a smaller group go). Just pay out of pocket for that once. The Enchanted Rose Lounge at the Grand Floridian is a nice spot for an adult B&B fan, children can go as well, just may not enjoy as much.
