Dining plan question

[disneydebi]

I like the idea of having meals "pre-paid", but am concerned about the fact that the Dining Plan really only gives you 2 meals per day. Do those of you who use the plan, find that you are still buying a meal out of pocket, or are you simply skipping a meal (for example - breakfast?).... I wouldn't want to necessarily waste a CS point on breakfast when you could probably get more bang for your buck for lunch? Also - is it hard to fit in a Table service meal each day?

 

[pikaboo27]

When Dh and I did the dining plan, I don't think we bought much out of pocket. You can either eat a big breakfast, get a snack around lunchtime, and get an early dinner, or you can eat a counter service breakfast, a big lunch and a snack for an evening snack. Just keep in mind how much food you get at your table service meal. We ate at the Yahtsman Steakhouse, and we got two appetizers(shrimp cocktail and caprese salad) two entrees (28 oz porterhouse for him, filet mignon for me and these both came with potatoes and veggies) and two desserts (chocolate cake for him, truffles slipper for me). It's a ton of food, and we felt like we were waddling out a lot of the time. So figure that you will probably skip a meal, or supplement with a snack.

 

[twinspluscade]

We're not big breakfast eaters, so even before we bought the dining plan I had planned on bringing with granola bars, cereal bars, etc. to eat in the room while we got ready. Saves time and money. I have read of many people on Dis who use the "snack" credit to purchase something for breakfast. I'm not sure what you can all get on a snack credit, but I've heard donuts mentioned, and dh claims he saw packages of fruit marked as snack (everything is clearly marked at the resort food courts, or at least it was at POP).
As for table service--I would strongly advice making ADR's before you go--months before you go, in fact--if you want to get into your first choice restarants. Allearsnet.com has all the table service restaurants listed that are on the DDP, plus menus! It's very handy for picking ahead of time where and when you want to eat.

 

[want2bamommy]

I like the idea of having meals "pre-paid", but am concerned about the fact that the Dining Plan really only gives you 2 meals per day. Do those of you who use the plan, find that you are still buying a meal out of pocket, or are you simply skipping a meal (for example - breakfast?).... I wouldn't want to necessarily waste a CS point on breakfast when you could probably get more bang for your buck for lunch? Also - is it hard to fit in a Table service meal each day?

DH and I are going for 10 nights and have purchased the dining plan. I am not a hot breakfast eater but DH is. We have decided to schedule 3 TS breakfast's where we will pay out of pocket. We are staying at the CBR and will have a refrigerator in our room so we intend to bring cereal and cereal bars for breakfast the other mornings. Also, for our days scheduled at MK DH will go to the Main Street Bakery and pick up something more substantial.

We will use our CS for lunch and our TS for dinner (with ADR's made for each evening).

This past year I went with 7 of my in-laws (during the free dining plan) and my MIL/FIL paid for our breakfast's out of pocket each morning. We did a late breakfast (around 9/10am, CS lunch around 2pm and our TS dinners around 8pm.

Missie

 

[scrapperjill]

I think you'll be very suprised at the amount of food that you do get on the plan. Myself I couldn't imagin eating more. Keep in mind like another poster mentioned you BOTH get an appitizer an entree, dessert and beverage...at EACH TS meal. I don't know about you but when we normally go out most of the time we don't even order an appitizer or dessert...but if we did we've NEVER both ordered one (except at Disney on the plan ). It's a TON of food.

Timeing of your meals could also help relieve some of the concern. By booking a mid morning breakfast or early lunch...you could get more of a Brunch meal...making it feel like you wouldn't need to eat both breakfast and lunch. Or do an early breakfast along with an early dinner.

I've heard many times that you can get things like bagles and fruit with snack credits as well as a BOX of 8 donuts for ONE snack credit. They've really changed the plan since I last used it...and now the variety of snack options is HUGE.

Another idea is to think about sharing meals....if you and your DH were to go to a TS place for breakfast (non buffet or pre plated) and shaired a meal....you'd still have a credit to use/split later for dinner. Just think about it...if you split dinner...you'd still get to order one appitizer, one entree, one dessert and a beverage. Which for the most part is probably enough food for both of you to feel plenty full

 

[bookgirl2632]

Believe me, two meals is more than enough! This past time we went, we ate an early CS lunch and a later TS dinner. Next time, we will be eating a CS breakfast instead on some days just to mix it up.

Keep in mind that you can use your snack credit for something in between breakfast and dinner. Or you can use it to grab a muffin or bagel or something breakfasty in the morning.

 

[thunderbird1]

There were 4 of us on the plan last summer, and we had plenty of food--never had to buy anything OOP except the one day we went off site. The 2 kids and I usually had breakfast bars from our grocery delivery order while dh usually used a CS credit. Most days we'd use the remaining 2 or 3 CS credits for lunch, and all 4 TS for dinner, but a couple of times we reversed it, and used the 4 TS for lunch and the 2 or 3 CS for dinner. If we were lucky, we were able to use a snack credit here and there, but it wasn't easy, especially since we had lots of leftover beverages, fruit and desserts from meals at our resort food court in our fridge.

Some things others have reported doing for breakfast on the DDP:

*grocery delivery of cereal and milk, pop tarts, muffins, etc.
*snack credits (best buy: box of 8 donuts for 1 credit at resort shop)
*leftover desserts they were unable to finish at their TS the night before
*simply paying OOP for CS, TS or buffets

 

[kaybird]

Can't imagine anyone going hungry! The snack credit really takes care of that extra, and as the above posters said, there are so many different ways to take care of this, we changed back and forth from breakfast and lunch, and many times just split a CS, and still wound up with extras.

 

[bigbabyblues]

We tend to pay oop for counter service breakfasts if we aren't doing a character breakfast. We've also gotten an adult c/s breakfast for DH and I to share, and a kids c/s breakfast for the boys to share and had plenty of food. Sometimes we do the same thing with a c/s lunch, sometimes we don't. If we're going to pay oop for a c/s meal, it's usually breakfast, it's a little cheaper.

 

[TxRabbit]

We went 3/13 to 3/18 with the DDP. Fitting in a TS meal each day is no problem at all, if you have called ahead and made ADRs. You will find yourself looking forward to being able to sit down for a little while and relax.

For instance, we scheduled first available lunch seating on days we attended an am EMH. Nice. We had some breakfast bars we brought from home to tide us over until lunch. We did this for convenience, to be able to get going early and quickly on the days that we wanted to. We easily could have gotten cereal, muffin, cinnamon roll (which are definitely big enough to share), oatmeal, etc for a snack credit. One morning, we did get the box of Entemanns donuts the night before from the gift shop to have the following am. TS for lunch was more like brunch and lasted us fine until a regular dinner time. One day, we schedule dinner at 4:10. Use your ADRs as your guide and be prepared to flow with the day around your ADRs.

I, too worried about only having two meals a day. Everyone says it because it is true, you get a lot of food on the DDP. Our joke is like this...I went to WDW, walked 12 miles a day, swam, ran to catch the bus, sweat off tons of water weight and gained 10 pounds! Some have mentioned sharing food at the TS, but I would recommend sharing food for the CS instead. There are so many CS that have share worthy meals. I think there have been threads dedicated to the topic. Your TS meal will be a ton of food, and then you could have two lighter CS meals, because you shared them, and supplement with your snacks when you need to. And btw, a lot of snacks can be shared too, depending on what you like. We love funnel cakes, and so we shared a funnel cake in MK.

And keep in mind that some snacks sound pretty significant. For instance, a cup of chili at Casey's in MK is a snack. Plan a TS breakfast, chili for later lunch, and a big CS dinner. Check out the menus on allearsnet dot com to help you plan what would be best for your family.

 

[jrsmom]

I found that the best use of the ddp was to pay out of pocket for breakfast since it is usually the cheapest meal of the day! We did pay out of pocket for a character breakfast that we did one day because it was above and beyond the ddp credits. I just had to go to crystal palace for breakfast and didn't want to give up any of our other plans!!

With the dining plan there is so much food that we usally had a very small breakfast.

Vickey

 

[daisyduck123]

We skip breakfast & have an early lunch, about 11:00am.

This works great for 2 reasons:

1) we don't have to pay extra for a breakfast

2) We beat ALL the long lunch lines because we eat before the rush
(shhhhhhh...don't let word about this get out )


This is the best way to do it, IMO (unless someone in your group is a breakfast lover)

***BTW, we always do the Dining Plan, we've never had to pay for a meal oop, & none of us has ever gone hungry.

 

[TheDizDad]

We shipped what we are going to eat for breakfast to the resort ahead of time. It will be there when we arrive. (don't have to carry it on the plane) So we have breakfast in the room and then use the DDP for lunch and dinner. Having a huge breakfast kind of slows us down in the morning.

 

[TMB1203]

We paid for two TS breakfast OOP, but we just decided to add them last minute. We also did the CRT for breakfast and that was 2 TS.

There is so much food on the DP that you won't go hungry. I was also concerned about that and packed a suitcase full of snacks. I ordered water from Staples and packed juice boxes for the kids. While we did eat some of the snacks 95% of the suitcase came back home with us.

We would eat a big breakfast (generally TS) and an early dinner/late lunch (CS) and still had the snack credit.

There were a couple times that I got dessert to go and ate it later in the room, just because there was no way I could finish it while we were still at the restaurant.

The last day we were trying desperatly to use all of our snack credits and went home with 1 CS credit.

This was the first time we did the DDP and was very happy with it.

 

[gismo1554]

I found that I was just having a snack for breakfast. You can use your snacks for things like fruit salads or bagels and if you then buy one of the refill mugs which I always get/take back with me you then have unlimited drink refills in the hotel anyway. This way you still get breakfast and then lunch and dinner. I tended to take a bottle of water with me that I then refilled from the drink fountains. It was easier this way and I wasn't paying out for extra stuff.

 

[Tinkerbell_Girl]

Me and DBF shared a breakfast platter and then had a early lunch. It worker well for us. After all that food each day we were stuffed!

 

[MaeDaisy]

We brought breakfast bars and ate those in the morning. Also, since we didn't make our ADRs until a month or so out (it was kind of a last minute trip) (Christmas week!), we got stuck with some late dinners, so we brought desserts back to our room a couple times. Apple crisp makes a great breakfast!