dining plans/food

[sweetdana]

We are not US experts.. Disney yes, but US only our 2nd trip.

we have 2 days Sat and sun (onsite) . the last time we went 1 of the days we got a wrist band and it was an all you can eat thing. it looks like this is gone right?

2) do you reccommend the dining plan? we could totally do a sit down sat night.. sell us where lol!

Thanks for your help!!

*** we will do the pop mug again! that was wonderful!!!!

 

[pigletto]

In fairness I have not done either of the current Universal dining plans. I did do the wristband counter service one years ago. From all of my recent research and reading recent posts here, it is no longer the deal it was, and depending where you eat it really makes more sense to just pay as you go. That's what we plan to do. I didn't anyway to make it a "deal". This is in reference to the counter service plan. I didn't really look into the other plan so it may be better.

 

[RMulieri]

I am/was a huge fan of the Disney dining plan..I am not really all that interested in the Universal one. The Universal one doesn't really include a lot of the restaurants we enjoy( resort restuarants).It includes the park table service ( it charges a table service credit for the Leaky cauldron which is a COUNTER SERVICE venue) and includes some of the citywalk venues.None of resort dining, unless they changed something recently.

 

[johde]

First of all, if you are not on a package, you are limited to the Quick Service plan. It includes a Quick Service Meal & Drink Plus 1 Snack and 1 Additional Drink. If you assume $4 for the snack and $1 a piece for the drinks (since you'll be doing the refillable mugs), the Entree would need to be about $14 for you to break even. If you got Fruit Juice or Milk or something else with your drink credits (or a bottled beverage to take back to your room) you could come out a little bit better.

For the pop mugs, there are now 2 different offers. The first one is the classic refillable mug. Purchase the mug (or use the one from last year) for I think $8.99 or more for the fancy character mugs then refill it for $.99. The other option is the Coke Freestyle Cups. They are $11.99 the first day and can be reactivated for $5.99 a day but include unlimited refills. If you don't already have a cup and like the extra choices of the Coke Freestyle Machines, that could be the better choice.

One note The refillable mugs at Cabana Bay are a completely different system and are prices similarly to Disney's refillable mugs but they have Freestyle Machines there as well.

 

[Seeker615]

We booked a complete package last year and included the dining plan.

Overall we liked it. It was one full service, one quick service and one snack and one extra drink.

We dined at Citywalk for our full service meals and used the counter credits at quick service places in the parks. Being it is so easy to get to Citywalk from the parks it was no problem. We often used our snack credits for breakfast at Cinnabon and the extra drink we got bottles of soda to take back to our hotel room.

Overall we were pretty satisfied with the plan. The biggest issue we had was lack of places to use the counter service credits at Citywalk. Hopefully that has changed.

(I didn't really see where it saved me any money though. Except maybe the dessert with the full service meals. I normally would not get dessert but being it was included we always got it)

 

[spideymike]

Good to know. I'm there this weekend and I'm trying to figure out if I want to go that route or not too.

I did notice that the dining plan isn't accepted at the Character meals, which we might do one of with our kids.