As a Canadian, what do you do to save money on Park dining?

[SCCNJ]

I'm working out a budget for our March 3-day Disney trip and holy hannah, I'm swooning at the prices with the CAD to USD conversion. So much for a budget! We are a family of five (3 teen boys) and I so far have a breakfast(Crystal Palace) and two TS dinners reserved(Sebastian's and Boma). I'm looking at $300-$450 a meal. We are staying offsite so I'm sure we will bring in food sometimes but with 3 teen boys, we will be buying additional food beyond these reservations too. Does anyone have any tips on how they save money on food? Perhaps my oldest can wash dishes. lol

 

[_19disnA]

Not a Canadian, but if you are staying off-site I assume you will have a car so that gives you more options to eat places besides the overpriced Disney restaurants. Disney Springs has a lot of choices which are also reasonably priced. There are also a number of good restaurants in the area since between Universal & Disney it is a big draw for tourists.

Eating breakfast in your room can also be a way to save money. Depends on how big of breakfast eaters you are and can buy things you like at a local grocery store. If planning to be at a park all day, there are a number of QS places where food is reasonably priced. Avoid all of the places with pricey fixed menus since lunch can be VERY expensive at those places.

 

[ilovetotravel1977]

We were just there in early December.

We brought our own cereal from home and bought milk at the resort food court.
We bought the pre-made sandwiches from the food court each night, a fruit cup and a couple of bananas.
We would eat dinner at the park, but we didn't do any TS just QS.

By bringing our own lunch, we didn't have to wait in any crazy lines and find seats. We just sat on a curb or a bench and ate our lunch at our own leisure.

 

[Tenkawa]

my only advice is.... try to relax and it will hurt less and I feel you.

 

[alohamom]

I follow a few Disney food accounts on Instagram and I recently saw a post with the best "value" items in the parks.
One that really stood out to me was the Columbia Harbour House platters in Magic Kingdom
For 13.99 USD you get a platter of breaded shrimp/fish/chicken plus hushpuppies and choice of fries or veggies.
This seems like it is an excellent value compared to some of the other park offerings

I feel like the above platter is a pretty hearty meal for one person and could be an excellent plate to split for two people if you added an extra order of fries. obviously this is if you like fish/shrimp/chicken

But is really got me thinking about what other platters and combos look like at QS around the different parks and how they could take the place of TS because just like you, my family of 4 adults costs almost as much as airfare for a nice sit down meal once you consider the exchange of CND to USD!

Also, I usually comb through the menus on allearsnet.com and then google images of the food if something sounds good.

 

[SCCNJ]

my only advice is.... try to relax and it will hurt less and I feel you.

This made me laugh as when I shared my newfound Disney math with my husband, his response was let's just not talk about it and hopefully, it will go away. LMAO

 

[SCCNJ]

I follow a few Disney food accounts on Instagram and I recently saw a post with the best "value" items in the parks.
One that really stood out to me was the Columbia Harbour House platters in Magic Kingdom
For 13.99 USD you get a platter of breaded shrimp/fish/chicken plus hushpuppies and choice of fries or veggies.
This seems like it is an excellent value compared to some of the other park offerings

I feel like the above platter is a pretty hearty meal for one person and could be an excellent plate to split for two people if you added an extra order of fries. obviously this is if you like fish/shrimp/chicken

But is really got me thinking about what other platters and combos look like at QS around the different parks and how they could take the place of TS because just like you, my family of 4 adults costs almost as much as airfare for a nice sit down meal once you consider the exchange of CND to USD!

Also, I usually comb through the menus on allearsnet.com and then google images of the food if something sounds good

Those prices do look reasonable, in particular the platter meal. That's the thing too, with 3 teen boys they eat quite a bit. I will also check out allearsnet website and look for some good value quick service meals.

 

[_19disnA]

There is also a QS food court at the Land in Epcot that lets everyone choose what they want and find a place to eat. We thought it was one of the better places for lunch with a lot of variety and reasonably priced.

 

[Hopeful8]

It's just ridiculous, I agree. We are staying off site too and we bring our own lunches and go back to our rental for homemade supper. Not as fun, true but otherwise, we would be priced right out of a vacation. We've always done that for vacations as we have food allergies to contend with too.
I do budget for snacks to be purchased but our main meals are packed lunches and supper at "home". Maybe, if you want, you could do the reverse, if you really want suppers/lunches out? Eat meals out but bring snacks? I'm following this thread too!

 

[hdrolfe]

We don't do table service meals any more (since kiddo became an adult) at least until he's not so picky and will eat the food. I also buy disney giftcards in CAD, it saves the extra fees in exchange rate that come with using a credit card, doesn't make a huge difference but even 2.5% on $300-$450 adds up. Sometimes we will order one adult and one kid meal for the two of us and share the food, especially at places like Columbia Harbour House that has a platter with a lot of food. Or places where the pizza comes with a salad for the adult meal, and fries for the kids meal (with a smaller pizza). Kiddo doesn't like salad but I don't need as much pizza, so we mix it up

I also take something to have in the room, whether it's cereal and buy milk there or granola bars, anything for breakfast. And I will buy water or gatorade to be delivered to the room. PowerAde is $5 a bottle there, but you can get 8 bottles for about $7 at Walmart or InstaCart, etc. Even with delivery fees that's a great deal, similar with water.

 

[SCCNJ]

I'm still working it out but this morning I'm leaning towards keeping the 3 reservations I already have and then giving each kid a gift card with an amount I feel comfortable with to use for the rest of their food. They can be responsible for their lunch and snacks. If they use it all before the trip is over then that is on them. They are all old enough that they can budget. I will also bring lunch food and snacks to the parks to pad their meals if they want or need it. If I buy a gift card a week before our trip it won't feel so painful. haha! I think I'm also going to buy as many non-perishables here in Canada as I can. We are driving and have a rental house so that should be an easy thing to do.

 

[Eeyore's the Best]

I don't convert when I'm there looking at prices, it takes up too much head space. IMO Disney is not the place to try to save money, if you stress about it too much it weighs on your vacation. That being said, share as much as you can, breakfast in the room, choose your table service wisely.

 

[ilovetotravel1977]

In Epcot, Regal Eagle Smokehouse was our best meal of our trip. Big portions, but sooo good.

 

[SleeplessInTO]

Any possibility of dropping one or two of the TS? Unfortunately TS is expensive. You have 3 days at Disney and 3 TS meals. I personally love Boma. Sana’a may also be a good alternative, if your family likes the menu. I find Sana’a to be one of the more reasonably priced TS restaurants.

If you do more QS, you may also end up with more time in the park to do rides and explore. Win win?

My fav QS places are Columbia Harbour House, the ronto wrap at Hollywood Studios, Regal Eagle in Epcot (Connections and Sunshine are good too, plus there’s tons of festival booths but not sure how much teen boys eat), and Primo Piatto at the Riviera. My family seems to like Satu’li at AK.

 

[tinkerone]

We enjoy Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Café – Tex-Mex, as a quick service. The fixins bar is amazing and you could make a meal just with that. DH and I will order the fajita Platter and a side of tortillas and share. More than enough.
I don't know if they actually have the fixins bar open post covid, but if they do, it's a good bang for your buck.

​

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

The last 3 trips I've done, I have drastically reduced Sit-down meals. If I've been there 7+ nts, I've allowed 3 ADR's. My last 5 nt trip for my adult daughters B day in 2020, we did ONE ADR for her B-day.

 

[Minniemoo15]

I don’t like cooking on vacation but we make a light breakfast in our DVC studio. We avoid all-you-care-to-eat and character meals as much as possible. We used to do lots of these type of meals when we were able to get the dining plan. But now we let each kid pick one character/buffer they want to do and then we stick to regular menu restaurants for the rest of the meals.

Also, we don’t eat in park as often. We find the resorts have great table services at reasonable prices. We often leave the park to go to a nearby resort for dinner.

Some of our fav resort restaurants:

Geyser Point (Wilderness Lodge)
Sanaa (AKL)
Ale & Compass (Yacht Club)
Grand Floridian Cafe
Steakhouse 71 (contemporary)
Riviera quick service

Disney Springs also has a ton of great quick services that I find have good value (Polite Pig, Chicken Guy, D-Luxe, Blaze)

 

[wdwmom3]

Honestly for a 3 day trip I wouldn’t bother with any TS meals. Not only does it cost a lot but it uses a lot of your time. Our last week long trip we only did 2 TS meals.

There are a lot of good quick service locations. You will probably find if you get rid of the TS you can cut your budget and not have to worry about bringing lunch food in.

 

[explorer1977]

We always have breakfast in the room and usually do a grocery order. This upcoming trip we are changing up our regular dinning a bit. We are going for10 days and have 4 TS booked (none being buffet or price fix since the kids are adults now) and 1 other that we are being taken out by family we are meeting at Disney Springs. The rest is all counter service our food booths at EPCOT which is still a lot of money. Besides tickets, food is our largest cost (we are DVC members for the hotel costs) and it is so much even with the reduction in TS meals that I have budgeted it down to the dollar with a contingency. How we did it is that each person got to choose 1 TS so each get there favorite of something they want to try. Right now it is WB George, SH71, Teppan Edo (wanted to ditch but we have been there on every trip and I was vetoed) and Beaches and Creme. We have been buying Disney gift cards pretty much weekly to cover the food budget and some other items so that at least made the hurt spread out a bit over the last 6 months.

 

[Silvermist999]

We brought cereal from home and always ate breakfast in our room, we‘d get coffee, milk and juice from the resort QS. We had originally booked four dinner ADRs for our 8 day trip. We ended up cancelling 2 of them to have more pool/park time. We did quick service at our resort and at the parks, and even then it was not cheap with that darn exchange rate. We found portions to be rather large at quick service and we often couldn’t finish everything or if we did, we felt too full afterwards. So one option to save some money is for light eaters to share a meal, and supplement with snacks you can bring along.