Do you dine often at your hotel? Why?

[Aimeedyan]

For some reason, it always surprises me when a dining trip review is full of reviews from the food court at the hotel. We never give the hotel dining options a thought when choosing a hotel because we rarely use them - we would much rather be in a park or out doing something. Even on our "relaxing" trip at WL, we still traveled to restaurants that appealed to us instead of dining at WCC or Roaring Forks (though AP would have been great!). We usually have breakfast either in the room or at the park, just a quick bite (donut and coffee) instead of taking time to trek to the hotel spot.

We have dined at the hotel twice - once at Pop after checking in, we grabbed a light snack (we had driven 18 hours straight in and just wanted a bed!) and at POR we ate in the food court because of the hurricane, we had no choice.

Do you dine at your hotel often? When do you find yourself dining there the most (park days, rest days, etc) Are dining options considered before you choose a hotel?

(we don't have children - I'm sure that will add to the explanations of things!)

 

[Mackey Mouse]

We usually stay on the Epcot side and do dine at the resorts there. Mainly for convenience, quick breakfast or a leisurely breakfast, Spoodles or the Galley, and sometimes late night dinner at the Galley or head over to the Dolphin and go to Picabu....it works rather than trying to hustle to the parks on an empty stomach.

 

[Alice28]

The last two times we stayed at POFQ. The first trip I think we ate at the food court two or three times. Mainly because of convenience. Arrival night we got there around 6 or 7, we were tired, been on the place cross country, yes with 3 kids, and just wanted something in our stomachs so we could go to bed and be rested for the next day at the parks. I got up early another morning and brought breakfast back to the room for everyone. And then the other time we ate there, my mom, DD and I actually got sandwiches at Earl of Sand during our shopping morning. My dad and the boys grabbed lunch there after a morning of swimming, because it was convenient and besides- they had pizza and chicken strips! Two of my boy's favorite food groups!

When I go without the children, rarely do we eat in the foodcourt unless it's just to grab a quick snack. Then it's not such a big deal to go to a park or another resort for dinner- I can handle being hungry and waiting; it's a whole other ballgame when it's 3 kids who are hungry and have to wait an addt'l hour or so to eat. My last trip was just my mom and I, and I think we only grabbed breakfast once at the food court.

When we stayed at the CR and the WL, we definitely dined at the resort, because we wanted to go to those restaurants anyway! (Chef Mickey's, Whispering Canyon and Artist's Point).

 

[Merriwind]

Actually, we don't. I hadn't really thought about it until you asked this question. We did eat at WCC twice when we stayed at WL last trip--once before MNSSHP and once when Wilma had us stuck. Otherwise, not really. We tend to eat at the parks or other resorts. How funny is that?!

 

[vatmark]

We stayed at WL on our last trip and never ate at Roaring Forks. We did eat at Artist Point and it was wonderful. When we go in Dec. we are staying at WL again. We are having a nice dinner at Artist Point on arrival day but then all our other meals will be elsewhere. We always do breakfast in the room. This Dec. we have one breakfast planned at Kona.

Annie

 

[Micca]

We usually stay at CSR, we don't eat breakfast or snacks, so we only do the PM if we are just too beat to go anywhere else.

 

[bluejasmine]

We normally do have breakfast at our resort unless we have a ADR somewhere else. Now everyonce in awhile if we come back to the resort early for one reason or another we may grab lunch or dinner or a snack but not very often. We are staying at POP this time and I have heard good things about the food so I hope we do get a chance to try something besides breakfast ( and the tye die cheesecake is gonna be a must for me)

 

[Laurajean1014]

Yes, that's the beauty of staying at an onsite resort with good restaurants. If the restaurants were bad, we may stay some where else.

 

[CamColt]

We usually only do 1 or 2 sit down meals during a trip so for the other ones, we grab a quick bite at the food court for breakfast before we get to the parks before opening. We would rather eat before than parks open than to waste time eating once we get in them.

Again for lunch, on days that we do a midday break, part of that is lunch at the food court. Its sort of our down time. I don't usually eat much at lunch as we usually hav ea big dinner planned and I save my appetite for that. A few drinks by the pool tides me over nicely.

Then dinner we either dine at a resort(any resort), DTD if we will be there, or a park. Usually the only in park sit down meal we do is Mama Melrose as I have found most our favorites meals are in the resorts.

 

[LISAMWDW]

We really don't eat at our resort much either. Perhaps 1 meal. We are so much on the go. We typically on a park day, eat breakfast in our room/bus stop so we can get to the park!

 

[Texas Trio]

Sometimes just a quick lunch or dinner on arrival day depending on when we get in and maybe a good breakfast on our departure day.

 

[JoiseyMom]

We stayed at CSR last year and ate at Maya Grill once (awesome food), and at the Pepper Market around 10 times. It was convenient, and the food was great, and a bargain on the DDP. We don't do the parks everyday of our 10 day trip, so it is convenient for us. I picked CSR purposely this year because we liked the Pepper Market so much. A great place for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

 

[mtemm]

when dh and I used to go pre-kids, I would say we rarely used the dining options from our hotel (except for our honeymoon, when we pretty much had room service breakfast every morning).

we are going in october for our first trip with kids, and definitely plan to eat at the resort more often. we'll be taking breaks around lunchtime (they are young, they really will need the break) and figure we can do lunches there.

 

[patsal]

Not often but sometimes yes! If that makes any sense! On a normal vacation for us we do not eat at the resort restarurants very often. If we were at OKW the vacation might include one meal from Olivias, at WLV it might include one meal at Artist Point. We are also DVC so we do not need to feed the kids breakfast out of the room. When we go on a quick 5 day vacation and stay on cash at like Pop or one of the AS we will use the food court to feed the kids a quick breakfast, but most meals are then at other resorts or at the parks. With a teenaged son a late night snack or two fromt he foodcourt would be inevitable as well. When it was just DH and I a quick refill fo the mug with coffee and a cereal bar would take us until lunch but with kids it is different.

 

[MickeyNicki]

We normally do breakfast at our resort....usually food court (we mostly stay at moderate resorts)...because it is easier for us....this past Oct we were extending our stay at POR because of a hurricane evacuating us so we had breakfast and dinner at the resort food court and it was very good, large portions too.

This Dec we are having breakfast at Kona, Whispering Canyon and 1900 Park Fare and Boma and dinner at 1900 Park Fare, Le Cellier and Mama Melrose....these are all new places for us to try.....staying at WL makes it easy to hop over to the other resorts to try the fantastic breakfasts.

 

[DaisyD]

We stay at the Poly and frequent Kona's and 'Ohana at least once each trip. WE go the food area Captain Cooks for a quick breakfast a few times each trip. We hang at the pool every day and usually grab lunch at Captain Cooks to bring to the pool. It is kind of hard to travel to eat lunch when we are in our bathing suits! We also love room service and have that a few times too. We go for 14 days at a time so have plenty of opportunities to eat around the world!

 

[lustergirl]

we usually head back to our resort in the afternoon for a nap or quick swim so yes we do sometimes eat there. Or late at night my over grown 13 year old grabs a quick snack from the food court. I really love their chicken quesadillas anyways. I was just thinking about my upcoming trip and the ressies that I have planned, most of them are at other resorts for dinner or breakfast like:
Chef Mickey's for Breakfast (Contemporary)
The Luah Show (Poly)
WCC Cafe (Wilderness Lodge)
ESPN Club (Boardwalk)

 

[shelleybell]

The past 2 trips, we have eaten a lot at the food court. We have decided to not go commando anymore. Our trips are anywhere from 12 to 18 days each, and we know that we will be back, so we slowed down! This last trip, we never spent more than 5 hours in a park a day, except maybe going back at night for the fireworks. We enjoyed being at the hotel, swimming, relaxing, yes, and watching TV. It was nice to just run down and have a good meal. They are still good trips, as I am not at work, and DS is not at school!

shelleybell

 

[Tink_Or_Belle]

We ate at the Pop Food Court on a Feb. trip. The Park closed earlier than the rest of the year that month(maybe it does every year in Feb.?) so we would stay in the park til Close (I think it was between 5 and 9 depending on the park) then go to the Pop Food court. I refuse to waste any Park time I'm weird that way.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

We usually eat at our resort once or twice during our trip, otherwise we eat elsewhere, usually at our tried and true favorite places, sometimes somewhere new. Breakfast is almost always in our room, an early lunch on the go, then a late afternoon dinner works pretty well for our family.

Thx, now I'm itching to be there, LOL...