Deals, Dining, the Good Son, and the Caveman

[aaronm97]

Hey there everyone!

My wife and I are going to take our two boys, ages 3 & 6, to Disney world for the first time in July (19 – 25). We are currently booked at the Contemporary, but we’re thinking about changing the reservation to the Polynesian. Do any of you have any thoughts on this? It looks like the Polynesian would probably be a more “exciting” place for our boys, (and my wife and I would love to go to Hawaii, so this would be the next best thing).

My wife is on the Disney email list and we received a special offer with a PIN number. The promotion that we booked is the deal “Children ages 3 through 9 stay, play, and dine for free”. Is this the best deal going right now, is there a better deal, or is there a code that can used with this deal? We booked this deal this past Saturday, but we have until tomorrow to cancel or make changes without incurring any charges.

The deal we booked includes the Standard Dining Plan. My wife and I love to eat (it’s rather unfair since I’m fat and she’s skinny, yet she eats the same stuff I do, and often more of it). Would it be worth upgrading to the Deluxe Dining Plan? Also, we already have several reservations for dining booked; are there any restaurants that are an “absolute must”?

We have heard a bunch of great stuff about the California Grill and my wife would love to eat there, but we weren’t sure about whether we should go or not since we’ll have our boys with us… we have always been able to take our 6-year-old anywhere and he has perfect manors for even the nicest restaurants… my 3-year-old is a caveman.

I know this is a long post with a bunch of different questions, so we really appreciate you taking the time to read this… thank you in advance for the responses!

-Aaron

 

[Karenj2]

To answer some of your questions:
- I loved the Poly, and we were actually thinking of staying there this year - I can't really comment on the Contemporary because I've never been. (The decor is not my style in general, but it looks neat, and it's next to the MK, so that's a major plus!)

- RE: standard dining vs deluxe dining. If you think you'll get your $$ worth out of Deluxe, go for it. With that you get 3 TS meals PLUS 2 snacks. That's a lot of sit down meals! (Potentially that could be a lot of food wasted if your kids are picky eaters.) DH and I have done the standard plan and worked it great - used our snacks for breakfast (he got donuts, I got oj), CS for lunch, and TS for dinner. When we've traveled with my sister & her family, we ended up paying OOP a few times because we got sick of eating so badly for breakfast. (Well, Dsis and I did, DH didn't.) This year we're doing the Deluxe since we're staying at the Beach Club - we figured we'd get healthier sit-down breakfasts, and we'd mix up the lunches (skip some or pay OOP if necessary) if so we could use some of our credits on 2 TS meals (i.e., character bkfast, hoop de doo, etc.)

- If you want to do an "adult night out" and you're staying at a deluxe hotel, you could put your kids into their babysitting program. (we're doing that one night when we eat at the Grand Floridian). The cost is ~12/hr/kid, but the reviews on www.allearsnet.com are pretty good.

Also, there are lots of other great sites out there - one I like is www.tourguidemike.com, the other is allearsnet, others will mention other sites that work for them. Doing a lot of research will make your trip more enjoyable!!

 

[aaronm97]

Thank you for your reply!

I just talked to my wife, and she went ahead and switched us to the Polynesian and upgraded us to the Deluxe Meal Plan (DMP)... she found out that we get mugs with the DMP that are free to refill anywhere in any park as well as a few other "bonuses"... the mugs are a pretty nice plus since it seems my boys are always wanting to stop for a drink everywhere we go, and at WDW that could add up very quickly. :

She's already going through all the menus for each restaurant and planning out exactly where we will be going for each meal and what we will be ordering. She's also planning out our routes in each park for the rides/attractions we will want to visit as well as when we will be going to eat and how to get from where we plan on being to where we are going to eat... she's probably already made lists of what we're going to pack... she's a school teacher, so organization, over-planning, and being a bit OCD is natural for her... I just show up where/when I supposed to and praise her for her hard work...

Thank you once again for your response... take care and have a great evening!

 

[krismom2000]

Unfortuatley, the cups are only good at your resort, not for refills within the parks. Since you'll be at the Poly- you can refill your mugs at Captain Cooks right by the Volcano pool. You are in a great place to gather information- The DIs is a very helpful bunch
Happy Planning

 

[sohappy]

I was going to recommend upgrading to deluxe as well. While it is a lot of food (no one makes you clean your plate or order that dessert. . .), we find that the kids do well with a table service lunch where we sit down in the AC and rest. My kids don't sleep.ever. so a rest around mid-day is good. They are also very much into character breakfasts, so we do all of those too. I would never pay for that OOP.

The only negative thing that I have heard about the Poly is that the buildings are kind of spread out. I have only eaten there a couple of times, but haven't wandered around. It sure is beautiful though.

 

[aaronm97]

Thank you for all the replies... my wife is now even busier trying to decide which restaurants we are going to visit now that we have upgraded to the Deluxe... This is both a good thing and a very bad thing... she is about to wear me out with options and requests for my opinions... my opinion is that probably just about anything served in a Disney restaurant is likely to be wonderful... she doesn't like this opinion...

Do any of you have any opinions regarding restaurants to avoid or ones we definitely should visit?

well, it is now obscenely late and I have work tomorrow ... I'll check on here again tomorrow... thanks again and good night!

 

[sohappy]

Your boys are close in age to my boys. I will tell you what my kids liked on our last trip (with deluxe)

Whispering Canyon- my youngest fell asleep even in the noisy restaurant. The oldest laughed his head off! He had a BLAST here. I didn't let my parents in on the jokes, so he loved to see them getting a prank pulled on them- my mom asked for the largest coke you have and got a giant mason jar!

Crystal Palace- I thought my kids were "too cool" for pooh and friends, but they LOVED it. It was our first real day and we had one of the first ADR times too (8:05- the same for alllll of our breakfasts, get them out of the way while the parks are closed! hey, the kids would have been up anyway).

Tusker House- character breakfast- loved it. My son loves Donald (who knew?) so this was a big hit for him.

Yak and Yeti- the kids ate OK here. I liked that it was a bit different than the few options they offer on the kids menu everywhere else. I absolutely LOVED it.

Earl of Sandwich- loved. The kids ate their sandwiches well and liked getting chips (something we don't have much/ever at home). I got a caprese sandwich and my mom got a caesar wrap. Both were AWESOME. Sad I am missing this on my next trip.

Chef Mickeys- where else can you get gummy bears on a breakfast buffet? The kids thought that was the coolest.

Teppan Edo- meh, I like Bennihana, crazy habachi, etc better. It wasn't worth it to me.

Le Cellier- make this ADR right at 90 days. soooooo yummy and I don't even like steak. My kids were fighting over food here it was that good.

Play and Dine at Hollywood and Vine- again, thought the older one would not like it here, but he did. They loved the characters even though going in they had no clue who jo jo and go-lion (as my little one called him) were. I thought the food was just ok here. I might have been breakfast buffet-ed out at this point though.

Brown Derby- not sure if it was the 2 credit thing or if it was the amazing steak the night before, but I was sorely disappointed here- all the way around. Nothing great at all. Wouldn't ever go again. Others on here love it so don't let my single opinion influence you either way. Oh and we did the fantasmic package which was a waste and not worth it- won't do that again.

Ohana breakfast- my kids love lilo and stitch, like a lot. They loved the characters and the interaction here. The food was pretty good. The juice here and Tusker house is AMAZING.

Cinderellas- meh, lunch was overpriced. I got a sandwich for 2 credits. It was OK, but not a must do for us. I am trying breakfast on the next trip.

On a more recent kid free trip, I tried Kona and loved it. We are trying it with the kids on our next trip in Sept. We also ate at ESPN zone at the boardwalk and that was fun too.

I can honestly say that I haven't had a bad meal at Disney. Some were just OK, but nothing bad ever.

ohhh, I just looked at your dates. You need to call and make reservations ASAP- like yesterday.

 

[aaronm97]

Sohappy, thank you for the detailed response... I finally got a little sleep last night, but not nearly enough. My wife is a school teacher, so she and the boys are out for summer, which means they all sleep late and are just getting in their stride by the time I get home and am ready to go to bed... she had me up till nearly 2am going over Disney stuff... past midnight I have few opinions and the ones I do have don't count for much.

She already has reservations booked for every dinner, several lunches, and a few breakfasts... now she is going back over everything and double-checking not only the logistics, but also whether or not the reservations are for somewhere we really want to eat... I honestly don't remember where all she has gotten reservations, but I'll call her and get her to get on here and post where all she has us already booked.

She found a thread on here last night about snacks (I forget which thread it was, but it had a bunch of photos of all the different snacks people have gotten). So now, beyond just planning out which parks, attractions, shows, and sit-down meals we will be enjoying, she is also building a schedule of which snacks we will be getting and where the snacks are located... I swear she is an attractively slim woman, but a total "foody".

She has also been researching speed passes and magic hours... I don't really have much clue what those are, but she seems to be excited.

I'm kind of getting worried that there will be so much stuff scheduled that our vacation will be more exhausting than enjoyable... but as long as the wife and kids are happy, I'll be happy (that's the whole point of this trip anyway).

Thank you once again to everyone for the responses!

-Aaron

 

[Stellapedia]

You're gonna have a blast, but she needs to book first, plan later! At less than two months from check-in, most of the most popular restaurants are booked. You can certainly still get into many great restaurants, but for the top top ones (LeCellier, Chef Mickey's, California Grill) they're probably already gone. So don't have her hang her hopes on them. If she relly wants one, have her call NOW and get the best time she can, and then fill in around them.
And I think you'll like Poly better than Contemporary. Nicer hotel (IMO), with better theming and much better swimming! The only thing Contemporary has going for it, IMO of course, is that it's the first stop on the monorail from MK. Poly is the second stop. You're talking a 5 minute difference... I think I can handle being second!