Dining Plan query?

[Summer-Caitlin]

I have 14 nights of free DDP next year, and the way I intended to use them was this. CS for breakfast, snack at lunch and TS for dinner. My fiance reckons there is no way we can expect to be in the theme parks the whole day and not get hungry by midday. I told him we could have a snack in the morning then and use our CS for lunch, but again he says how can we be expected to survive until midday with just a snack. Is he right? I don't know the best way to organise my credits, I don't want to pay OOP but I don't want to walk around the park really hungry either.

What does everyone else do? Is there anyway I could buy cereal or something from the corner store and keep it in my room to use for breakfast?

Thanks

 

[Mom of 3]

We're not big breakfast eaters so we plan to make coffee in our room eat a breakfast bar that we bought from home. Eat CS for an an lunch, have a midafternoon snack and then TS for dinner.

 

[Mackey Mouse]

I have not done the dining plan, but this is how I would do it as far as food is concerned...

I would either have my big meal at night or at lunch time....depending on how you eat now.

So, CS for breakfast, as you will be walking and riding and running around WDW and will need some fuel for that, then maybe a snack for lunch, and then TS for dinner.....or if you prefer your big meal at lunch, move it to the later afternoon and have it then and then a snack before bed....

When we do WDW, we have a decent breakfast, a late lunch, usually make that the big meal, and then something light before bed...I hate going to bed on a full stomach....or even better partying on a full stomach..

 

[jonkatony]

Were just back from using the plan for two weeks. Trust me you will not go hungry. We were 'full up' most of the time. We are going again next summer ( getting dining free like you). My tip to you, do not worry about c.s or snacks
eat when you are hungry, but make adr's for your t.s. There are some great places to try

 

[bicker]

I've had this discussion with my wife. Personally, I think adults, knowing that there's a lot of food coming for lunch and especially dinner, can go a little "lean" in the beginning of the day. We typically have breakfast in our villa anyway, so I'm going to aim to bring or use snack credits for cereal and use snack credits for milk, and that'll be it.

 

[Tam1067]

You'll get more food if you do a snack for breakfast and then CS for lunch. At lunch, your DDP CS meal will include a dessert, but at breakfast, it will not. Breakfast is a terrible use of CS credits. Since you're trying to conserve credits, you could have a nice lunch and dessert and then have dinner later.

You can use a CS to get breakfast items like muffins (they're huge), breakfast pastries (huge again), fresh bowls of fruit (I had pineapple at my resort), and if you have the refillable mug from your resort, you can get your coffee or tea or juice for free with the "snack" breakfast. I think trying to do the snack for lunch will be really hard and you'll end up hungry by midafternoon.

 

[Frantasmic]

If you had a character breakfast buffet, you weren't hungry until evening.

If I ate a later TS, I generally wasn't hungry the next day.

It depends on how much you eat in a sitting. If you eat a salad, then you may get hungry.

My family and I generally ate cereal, oatmeal, or pop tarts in the room (early since we were at places as soon as they opened) and then an 11-12 CS followed by a later 7 or later TS.

We were full all the time.

 

[lynninpa]

I have 14 nights of free DDP next year...

You have free dining for next year?

 

[ktpool]

You have free dining for next year?

That is what I was wondering. How?

 

[DiszyDeanette]

They have offered free dining next year to people in the UK.

I would keep the CS for lunch, and if you need something more than a muffin or fruit for breakfast, just pay OOP for a Micky Waffle or whatever you need. But the breakfasts are a waste of a CS credit.

 

[smartestnumber5]

I guess it depends on how usual it is for you to to eat breakfast (and what size breakfast you have) and how early you can have lunch in the parks. For instance, if you eat breakfast at 8:30 on the way to the park and lunch at 11 am in the park, then it's not that long between the two. What I did on early days was just eat pop tarts or granola bars in the room and then eat an early lunch (or snack).

If there are days when it will be a long time between breakfast and lunch, you might think about using 1 CS for breakfast and 1 CS for lunch and the two of you sharing them (that is, if you're not really big eaters and you can agree on what to order). My GF and I are pretty big eaters and I think we could have made this system work (except GF doesn't eat breakfast) if we picked the right things. For instance, one day I had pancakes for breakfast--there were at least 4 of them plus some bacon and sausage, plus a drink (and I think technically I should have gotten juice with the meal as well). Then try to get a substantial entree for lunch--for instance, Tusker House has a 1/2 rotisserie chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables, plus a large drink, plus a dessert. I think sharing these things within a few hours of each other (and maybe having a snack in the afternoon if needed) would be plenty. When we went, my GF and I generally had little (coffee & pop tarts) or nothing for breakfast, ate 1 CS each for lunch between 11 and 1:30 and didn't have dinner until after 8 and we were fine--sometimes had a snack in between. You can always bring some granola bars or something like that into the park with you in case someone needs a snack.

 

[jjohnson]

What we did at the resort was instead of having a CS dessert, we would order a fruit bowl, muffin, croissant, etc and save them for breakfast.

 

[newchic99]

We used a snack credit for breakfast. Usually a fruit bowl or bagel. DH and I would split each. One day we did get the box of donuts . Had them for a few days. Actually a few of the lunches we decided that we should have split . Of course we decided that after we had trouble finishing them.
Next trip (which won't be till Jan 2008) we are not going to do the dining plan. Too many big sit down meals this trip.