Eating offsite...

[Dallas_Lady]

How do you make eating offsite fit into your touring plans? I am looking at my itinerary and I can't really see how to make it work. We are planning to have breakfast in the condo before we leave, but aside from that it seems that leaving just to eat offsite would take away too much park time, especially for dinner.

Am I missing somerthing? How do you do it?

 

[Luv Bunnies]

If you're taking mid-day breaks and going back to your condo, you can eat at an off-site restaurant or get take-out for lunch. If you're done at a park before dinner one night, you can eat off-site on your way home.

If you don't want to eat at the parks for every meal, you can take the monorail or a bus to a resort and eat there. That makes returning to the parks easier.

 

[mousemom11]

Typically, we eat CS in the parks for lunch and then leave for a mid-day break an hour or so later. Then we either eat dinner at home, stop at an off-site restaurant on the way back to the parks, or eat a CS dinner later after we've returned to the parks. It just depends on when we feel like eating.

My girls are perfectly happy eating chicken nuggets, and DH and I are not into eating TS at every meal, so we're fine with eating mostly CS in the parks. That way, we're up and touring again quicker and at a lower price than a TS meal.

That being said, we have planned a couple of TS meals during our next trip. We'll have a character meal at Garden Grill one night and we're going to Shula's (girls are going to Camp Dolphin) for my birthday/our anniversary.

 

[dougsmom98]

We have done it several ways. When my kids were little, we would eat breakfast off site and then a counter service lunch. We would leave the park around 3-4 and go back to the hotel for a quick swim and dinner and then head back to the parks for the evening if the kids were up to it. The time we went in the hot summer, we ate breakfast at the villa, went to the parks until 12-1 pm and then got a hearty take out meal on the way back to the villa. We would eat, swim, shower, and change and head back for the evening and just get a snack at the park. On the past few trips, we have eaten breakfast at the villa, brought a snack for mid morning, and then ate a later counter service lunch at the parks (2-3 pm). By eating so late, we only need a snack while we are watching the evening parade. If we are hungry after the evening parade, we hit the drive through on the way back to the villa or we eat something left over at the villa. We still eat in the parks a lot even though we stay off site, but on days we do not go to the parks (arrival, departure days, rest day in the middle), we save a ton by eating off site.

 

[Christine]

Well, I don't stay at the parks all day. We get there at rope drop and leave by 5:00 p.m. I'm usually too worn out by that time to do anything else. Plus, I've done everything I could want to at that time. So I head back to my off-site resort at that time, change, and get out to dinner.

 

[clombardi]

We usually arrive at rope drop, leave by 1:00 p.m., then head offsite for a huge lunch. One of our favorites is Sweet Tomatoes at the Crossroads shopping center near DTD.

 

[isla bonita]

We do not do the parks every day.

Winter park hours. When we do do the parks we eat a big breakfast at the house, eat a very late TS at the parks and eat a bit of something on the way home orin the parks.

Summer park hours.
Breakfast in the house. Leave the parks swim, do lunch out of the parks then head back, grab something either in or out of the parks on our way home or just eaty a bit at home. Not such big eaters in the summer we eat a little lighter.

 

[disneysteve]

1. We don't do a park every day, so on non-park days, no meals are eaten in the park. We may still eat onsite on those days at a hotel or DTD, though. We have our favorite places that we like to hit.

2. We don't spend all day in the park. We usually take a break mid-day so we may do lunch in the park before heading out and then do dinner off-site before going back in. Or we may leave and do lunch off-site and go back in for dinner.

 

[Bay Hill]

As for park days...we get to the park around 8:30 am for rope drop. We leave around 1:00 pm for lunch. Lunch is always offsite, Buffalo Wild Rings, Hooters, Longhorn Steak House, Joe's Crab Shack or Giodonaos.(sp). After lunch, resort pool or nap. Since we have hopper passes, we go back to either MK or Epcot around 7:00 pm for rides and fireworks.

 

[dolphingirl47]

I tend to go for rope drop and pick up a bite to eat lunch time at either a counter service or grazing at the snack carts. By about 5 or 6 PM I have had enough and there is still plenty of time then to have dinner offsite.

Corinna

 

[powellrj]

We tend to eat in the room for breakfast, eat counter service in the parks and then head out for dinner.