Deluxe dining?

[RN2B12]

Sorry for bombarding you guys with questions the past couple of days, but here's another We will be staying for 4 full days and half days for our arrival and departure days. We have the deluxe dining; we are doing 13 meals (doing Spirit of Aloha and CRT that takes two credits). Is eating at a table service restaurant 3 times a day going to take too much time out of our trip? I think that it will be nice to sit and eat and that it will give the kids (5 and 1) a chance to rest and recharge, but DH thinks that it will take too much time away from doing park stuff.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Welcome to the dis, RN.

Yes, too much time and way too much food.

 

[shawnh199]

We did 3 TS meals a day - beginning with a pre-park opening ADR at the Park or nearby resort we were going to that day. We did lunch around 1ish and dinner around 7ish.

This was our second trip to do this and we absolutely love it. It's a lot of food, but nobody says you have to eat everything on your plate. There were several meals where we didn't. Yes, we were full after our meals, but other than dinner, we walked much of that off later on in the parks and were usually ready for another meal. (Other than our meal at Liberty Tree Tavern where we ate so much of our burgers and fries because they were so darn good we were too full to eat much at Tony's that night.)

We love the breaks in the TS restaurants. It's so much more relaxing than trying to eat at a CS place. You don't have to worry about waiting in long lines and then trying to find a table. And when it's hot (like it was on our last trip 5-29/6-3) you will appreciate being able to sit and relax in a nice Air Conditioned restaurant. My girls usually fall asleep during the lunch break and get that quick nap in before the food comes.

Most of our meals don't take longer than an hour, and since we eat in the park that we are going to that day, we don't feel we lose out on any time at all. The only meals that took longer were Ohana (we were done for the day anyway) and Le Cellier - which as long as the steak is good, I don't care how long it takes there. Counter Service meals, depending upon how crowded it is, can take almost as long and the food is much better at a TS restaurant.

I am much too picky of an eater for the signature restaurants, and from my in-laws past experience, they took way more time in those restaurants to finish than we did in our 1 TS credit places.

So, if you plan right and are not jumping from one place to another and having to use transportation to get you there and back (because the bus ads about an hour to just about anything), 3 TS meals is very doable. You aren't out any more park time than those doing 2 meals a day using signature restaurants if your breakfast is before the park opens.

We love it and as long as we can afford it, we will continue to do 3TS meals a day with the deluxe plan.

 

[POOHsie]

Most opinions of Deluxe Dining are it takes too much time out of a day, and it is too much food for the Florida environment. If you have only 4 full days to visit WDW with two very young kids, I would skip the intense sit-down dining, and just eat quickly at counter-service places, so as to maximize your park time. You can have a seat and table at counter-service and get a break. A breakfast at Chef Mickey's or CP would be a great idea your 5-yo would love. One or two sit-down lunches or dinners would be nice, too. But that would be my limit on a 4-day trip.

 

[walkdmc]

It does take a lot of time but the CS places are an absolute zoo during busy times. No thanks, I'd rather do TS any day. However, after doing DxDP 2x, I would prefer 1-2 TS/day, not 3. Or, I'd just book a bunch of 2-credit meals.

 

[maj42169]

I would downgrade to just the regular dining plan. Enjoy one sit down meal a day. Personally, I did not find the Spirit of Aloha worth the 2 credits! You will really kill a lot of time with a dinner show on a short trip. You will find that each sit down will take close to 2 hours of time each, buffets a little less.

 

[Colleen27]

Three sitdown meals per day was too much for us. We still use the deluxe dining plan, but we plan two table service meals a day, mostly signature restaurants for dinner, and use up the few leftover credits on sharing counter service here and there between meals.

 

[Kelli Pooh]

WE love DXDP Yes it does take time but the food is worth it. We have a pretty good system. We usually do quick breakfast at our resort food court (using snack credits for most of it & a little out of pocket for hubby) then schedule a sit down 1 credit lunch and a nice 2 credit signature dinner. Lunch around 1 and dinner at around 7. Another option is a character breakfast then snack at mid day and then a 1 credit sit down dinner. Don't forget to factor in transportation time for getting to your ADR's. Make sure lunch will be in whichever park you choose for the majority of that day. Hope you have a wonderful trip!!!

 

[3pletprincesses]

We love the deluxe plan but plan at least 90 minutes per TS and I'm not kidding plus you might be over stuffed with 3 meals. We usually do early breakfast and early dinner and use our snack during the day and we don't go hungry. As a matter of fact, we always have left over snacks at the end of our trip which we use for take home stuff.

 

[PrincessTiffany]

We have done the DDP at least 9 times and we decided a couple of years ago to upgrade to the Deluxe dining. Big mistake for us. We found it to be huge waste of time and money. My husband and kids were revolting by the second day - it took up way too much park time eating that much and that often. We MUCH prefer the basic plan, 1 TS, 1CS and 1 Snack per person per day.

 

[smalltowngirl504]

I just got done dining deluxe for 7 days and while it was nice to do once, its not something I would ever do again... It did take a great amount of time, but it wasn't that, it really was just tooo much food , When its that hot you don't want to be eating to begin with, and the 3 , 3 course meals were a lot... it was nice to experience all the different foods once though and man was some of it good!!!

 

[RN2B12]

Thank y'all so much for all of your opinions. I have a pretty good schedule worked out, so there will be minimal travel to/from restaurants. This is what I have: Magic Kingdom: B@1900, L@Crystal Palace, D@CRT Epcot: B@'Ohana, L@Akershaus, D@Garden Grill Animal Kingdom:B@Tusker House, L@Yak&Yeti, D@Spirit of Aloha HS:B@Cape May Cafe, L@ Hollywood&Vine, D@50's We are doing dinner @ Chef Mickey's on the night that we arrive. I think it's a pretty good plan (please feel free to let me know if you think something would work better). I'm starting to rethink Spirit of Aloha, this is the second time that I've heard that it's not really worth the 2 credits. What about Mickey's Backyard BBQ? As you can tell, I'm trying to get in as many character meals as I can. My reasoning is that instead of standing in line to meet characters we will eat with them...Thanks guys

 

[RN2B12]

I wish there was something b/w the deluxe and regular, like 1 table service w/ app, and two quick; that would be perfect

 

[PrincessTiffany]

Thank y'all so much for all of your opinions. I have a pretty good schedule worked out, so there will be minimal travel to/from restaurants. This is what I have: Magic Kingdom: B@1900, L@Crystal Palace, D@CRT Epcot: B@'Ohana, L@Akershaus, D@Garden Grill Animal Kingdom:B@Tusker House, L@Yak&Yeti, D@Spirit of Aloha HS:B@Cape May Cafe, L@ Hollywood&Vine, D@50's We are doing dinner @ Chef Mickey's on the night that we arrive. I think it's a pretty good plan (please feel free to let me know if you think something would work better). I'm starting to rethink Spirit of Aloha, this is the second time that I've heard that it's not really worth the 2 credits. What about Mickey's Backyard BBQ? As you can tell, I'm trying to get in as many character meals as I can. My reasoning is that instead of standing in line to meet characters we will eat with them...Thanks guys

Really, those are all great restaurants and super fun, but 3 sit down meals per day is a HUGE amount of food and you're looking at at least 5 hours per day just in the restaurants - no travel time at all and if you are seated immediately, which hardly ever happens. I mean you have 3 meals with the princesses and 3 meals with Mickey and Friends alone. You could cut out 4 of those meals and still not have to wait in line to see the princesses or Mickey.

 

[sissy_ib]

I wish there was something b/w the deluxe and regular, like 1 table service w/ app, and two quick; that would be perfect

I would just pay OOP if that is what you really want. The dining plans do not work for everyone. I would do one TS a day for lunch as a break. 3 TS meals a day will be a lot of time. If you are ok with spending that much time of your vacation in restaurants then you should do it. I only have one experience with a character meal at Crystal Palace. We were seated just after the characters came through our section. We did get to meet Tigger and I would loved to have seen the rest but we had already been there for 45+ min and were ready to go and they were no where near us. Not really a time saver compared to just waiting in line. We meet Pooh in the UK pavilion with about a two minute wait later in the week.

 

[princssdisnygina]

I just had the deluxe dining plan for the first time and loved it! We ate at SEVERAL signature restaurants and took advantage of all the TS credits we had! I think we made great use of the credits and we are doing it again in November! I don't think we would do three meals a day but doing the signatures we never did before is amazing! Awesome food!

 

[Colleen27]

Thank y'all so much for all of your opinions. I have a pretty good schedule worked out, so there will be minimal travel to/from restaurants. This is what I have: Magic Kingdom: B@1900, L@Crystal Palace, D@CRT Epcot: B@'Ohana, L@Akershaus, D@Garden Grill Animal Kingdom:B@Tusker House, L@Yak&Yeti, D@Spirit of Aloha HS:B@Cape May Cafe, L@ Hollywood&Vine, D@50's We are doing dinner @ Chef Mickey's on the night that we arrive. I think it's a pretty good plan (please feel free to let me know if you think something would work better). I'm starting to rethink Spirit of Aloha, this is the second time that I've heard that it's not really worth the 2 credits. What about Mickey's Backyard BBQ? As you can tell, I'm trying to get in as many character meals as I can. My reasoning is that instead of standing in line to meet characters we will eat with them...Thanks guys

I think you'll be disappointed in your overall dining experience with that many character meals and buffets. The food is similar across all of them and by far not the best Disney has to offer. I would scale back, making sure to get in one with each set of must-meet characters, and book dinners based on menus that appeal or other aspects of the dining experience.

You have a good plan as far as minimizing travel, but you have a lot of duplicate character experiences that you could swap out for nicer meals here and there. Cape May is the only one I think could pose a travel issue depending upon where you're staying; unless you're at an Epcot-area resort it is a pain to get to.

As far as an in-between plan, keep in mind that you don't have to use every DxDDP credit for table service for the plan to be cost-effective. The breakeven at current pricing is generally around 2/3, so if you were to cancel Akershus and Tusker House since all the characters you'll see at those are duplicates of other character meals, you could just have counter service in their places.

Personally, if I wanted a character-meal-heavy trip I'd look at something like this:

Arrival: D@Chef Mickey

MK: B@CRT before park opening (empty park pics are fab!), L@counter service, D@Crystal Palace

Epcot: B@Akershus, L@counter service, D@Garden Grill

DHS: B@H&V, L@counter service, D@50s

AK: B@resort food court, L@ Yak & Yeti, D@dinner show (Haven't been to either but Mickey's BBQ and HoopDeeDo both get better reviews than the Luau when it comes to keeping younger children entertained)

And if you have time on your check-out day, I'd use snacks in place of one of the CS meals and book a nice farewell breakfast on your last morning, maybe as a way to fit in Ohana or 1900 Park Fare.

 

[minandmick]

I just wanted to point out that every TS meal costs $$ even with the Dining Plan. Average meal total (for just the two of us) was about 60-80, of course that was free, but we still had to tip. We are pretty good tippers, usually tipping around 20% of the total bill.

My husband said we averaged a $15-25 tip range for each meal. If you were doing three meals a day that's $45-75 a day on food.

Maybe you can eat cheaper than that without the DxDP, maybe not. Maybe the $$ isn't even a factor for you at this time, but it's something to think about.

HTH

 

[sharonabe]

My question is when is your trip and are you planning on taking breaks for naps? If you aren't taking breaks, then 3 meals a day will probably be okay since it gives all of you some time to get off your feet for awhile and it really won't take any more time away from the parks than a nap/swim break would.

 

[jennyf2]

We have always done the DDP & this year I decided to upgrade to the DELUXE... We are doing an early lunch & a late (730 ish) signature dinner. I can't imagine 3 full meals a day esp with the FL heat.......