Confused about dining plan

[geenafeena]

we just booked our trip for the end of september to get in on the free meal plan. i figured we would do the counter meal for breakfast, the snack for lunch, and the sit down meal for dinner. is that what is typically done. after reading these boards, it seems lots of people do the counter for lunch and the sit down for dinner. just wondering if you ARE doing it that way, what are you doing for breakfast? paying out of pocket?

also, it seems people have credits left over. i guess they don't eat...lol
i prefer to have a big breakfast, but then again that takes up time in the morning. this all seems very involved.

 

[DisneyMom5]

We are alternating when we are using our TS credits. Whenever I am making an ADR for brkfast or lunch, I make them for as close to 11 am as possible. That way, we are sort of having brunch, then we will have supper around 6pm. We will only have a snack in the room first thing in the am, and then maybe our free snack mid afternoon (if we need it.) I am sticking with a lot of buffets for my group.
Have a great time!

 

[Fast Pass]

We are doing all but one TS for dinner. Simply for the fact that having a heavy meal during the day then touring the parks afterwards seem like a recipe for someone to get sick.

We are going to wing it when we have our counter service but it looks like we probably will have our counter at lunch because we are not breakfast eaters and it seems like it would be a waste of a credit to use it for a muffin.

We plan on using the snack credit for the parade times. That way we can have a scheduled break and make sure everyone has something to drink and stay hydrated

 

[jwsqrdplus2]

We usually eat breakfast in our room anyway. So we will use the TS for dinner (unless I am lucky enough to get CRT for my DDs!!) and CS for lunch. We'll stop at the grocery store on the way in and pick up cereal and such for the mornings.

 

[Mady/Sophiemom]

We only used our counter credits for breakfast a couple of times. I don't think the counter breakfasts are as expensive as the lunch, and dinners, so many (incl myself), feel that the biggest bang for the buck, is at later meals.

We don't eat a huge breakfast at home, or on vacation. Some fruit, and cereal bars in the room, or a gogurt for the kids, was all we needed most of the time. When we did get a counter breakfast. The four of us would share 2.

Some mornings, we had character meals in the AM, but always opted for a later time, if that was our only big meal that day. We got an early time at CRT, but had a late PS at Mama Melrose, so it worked out OK, to eat 2 big meals that day.

The only credits we were having trouble using was the snack credits- It seemed like a waste to use them for drinks, when I had purchased some bottled water to have in the room. And the thought of an ice cream, after everyone in our family eating dessert w/ all of our meals- UGG!!

We thought we may have extra counter credits, but then cancelled a PS at Boma on our last day. We were running late to check out, and just decided to use the counter credits instead.

We did pay out of pocket for 2 meals for the kids- That streched the credits out to incl. an extra table service meal.

If you want to read my post on how we used the plan here is the link http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=805081

Hope this helps. Have a wonderful vacation. We booked for the same time, but then decided we REALLY wanted to go for the Christmas party, since we had been to MNSSHP last 2 years.

Welcome to the DIS.

 

[Dopey's Girl]

We're a family of four. We take our counter services and split them up between breakfast and lunch. Two adult breakfast platters will usually feed all four of us to get us going. Then we'll split some meals at lunch too when the portions are large enough, which is pretty often. Snacks will fill in, then we are doing BIG sit down meals every night with our table service options.

 

[BESUNNYSIDEUP]

I have already scheduled all of our TS meals for dinner time around 5 (except for one char. breakfast). Then we will use our CS whenever and whereever we get hungry for lunch. We are not big breakfast eaters and that way we can grab a donut in the room and then get to the parks. Even if we end up paying out of pocket at the end of the trip for a CS or something it is still a good deal. I would rather have to much food than not enough. Quick breakfast, good lunch, quick snack and then a cool relaxing sit down dinner sounds pretty good to me.

 

[janets]

since you can order a combo breakfast platter and then a "dessert" along with a beverage. So we ordered the eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuit platter, got either a muffin or a cinnamon roll and a drink, splitting the eggs and bacon between our boys and splitting the muffin/danish for dh and I (I've been on WW and simply didn't need any more for bkfst). I had purchased OJ boxes for my youngest so we got an extra coffee or so. Then we used 2 CS credits for lunch, splitting between us. We had plenty of food.

 

[amwhitaker]

Remember that a snack is just something to drink or popcorn, ice cream or chips. It's not lunch food.

 

[maxaroni]

We plan on doing the CS's for breakfast. We aren't worried about the 'biggest bang for the buck", so to speak. We had booked with the meal plan prior to it being free and planned it like this at that point. We enjoy breakfast and would much prefer breakfast over lunch. Our plan is to have breakfast and use the snack to tide us over. If we need something else, we'll pay OOP. However, we are then eating dinner by 6:00 so we really don't need the 3 meals, especially in the heat.

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

We sometimes used TS credits for breakfast (for the characters) and sometimes for lunch but mostly dinner.

Remember that a snack is just something to drink or popcorn, ice cream or chips. It's not lunch food.

It's not lunch food but we did find that you can get the best use of the snack credits at the resort. At the food courts (atleast ASMo and GF) you can get anything off a huge list they have there (you can ask to look at it). We used those for nesquik chocolate milk (kids love those), rice crispie mickeys (some with chocolate covering), apple juice, gatorade, fruits (apples, bananas, etc), etc. We only used the snack credits in the park 3 times during our 10 night stay.. on ice cream bars... when the heat was becoming unbearable. But really those were a waste for us- the kids couldn't eat them fast enough because they melted like the minute you got them in your hand!

We maximized the use of the dining plan by paying for our youngest each time- and we ended up with lots of CS and snack credits left for the last day. We used those for meals that day, and snacks/kid box meals for the flight home and actually still had some to take home with us from the airport. LOL

 

[Jaime]

We plan on using snacks for fruit for breakfast most mornings enough to hold us over until we can have an early lunch in the parks. Using TS on CRT breakfast but the rest on early suppers. Glad to here that we can pay for our youngest and use their credits; that will save us some money.

 

[LglBlonde]

I'm sure this all depends on your vacation "style" and whether you have kids, but we do a grocery stop for fruit (apples) and cereal type bars and eat those in the morning, either in the room or carrying them into the park. We aren't huge breakfast people, except for a once in a while thing, so in a week's vacation, we'd probably do a big breakfast only one day, and probably toward the end of the vacation.

We prefer to get up and hit the parks first thing and not to waste valuable time at breakfast, then we have some lunch (some CS and some TS) and head back to the room for a nap/swim/rest, etc.