eating outside of the parks

[jm106]

I am trying to get a sort of plan for our breaks and park days.
How often do you eat outside of the parks?
Do you eat at your resort or local area restaurants?

I love to rope drop, didnt book too many ADRS(cannot get the few I really wanted) and we love the evening shows/fireworks. We do like to take breaks midday but we will see how that works being off site.(I am allowing a lot of flexibility with the plans, it it becomes a pita we can rethink it. ) Normally, on site, we would grab food at the resort pool, swim for a bit and get back to parks before dinner.

Should we try for late lunch someplace outside of WDW/US and then just have dinner in parks? I am worried about restaurant wait times and eating taking up too much time. I would guess that would be our break(no time to return and swim at condo?) How do others do meals?
Our condo does not have restaurant

 

[Gr8t Fan]

We always have breakfast in our condo, hit the parks for 4-6 hours, take a break at the condo, have lunch (usually carryout that we pick up on the way back to the condo, but sometimes food that we bought at the grocery store or a sit down lunch somewhere) and swim and then back to the parks until closing. We have dinner in the parks, mostly CS as we don't want to waste too much time on TS. Our plans are always flexible -- if we don't feel like an afternoon break, we simply have lunch at the parks. Some days we plan to be at the parks early, but don't get there until later in the afternoon. We have APs and go often, so we don't stress if things don't go according to plan.

 

[pigletto]

This will be our first time staying offsite so I am having trouble figuring out the plans myself. We too usually take a break mid day and head back after an early dinner or head back to a park for an ADR for dinner.

There are a few things at play for us. One is that if we are staying offsite we want to take advantage of eating offsite. The savings will be great and we've done 9 onsite trips and we are ready to try new restaurants.

For us the December hours aren't very late into the evening (I think 9:30 is the latest unless we plan to do MVMCP one night) so heading back after dinner wouldn't give us a ton of time.

Anyway, I don't have a lot of answers for you because this will be our first time doing things this way and I suspect keeping the plan very loose will be key. I know we'll want to eat breakfast in the room and then head to rope drop. After that, I have no clue. Keeping costs down is important to us this time, so I will take what is budgeted for the day for restaurant meals and I guess we will decide at the time if we want to do counter service in the parks, or head offsite for a break and a meal and come back.

 

[staceyrhood]

All of the restaurants in Celebration are great! Especially d'antonios and Columbia

 

[jm106]

Thanks for the suggestions- I do not think celebration is on my way from WDW to Condo(by Universal.) I will keep that in mind though(we should be locals in the next 18 months)

I need to scope out the area near where we are staying and see what is on the way, find carry out places that arent fast food. I wasnt thinking carry out, I would guess we could call in orders, if we know places/menus, to save time. From what I understand, I cannot get to go orders from places in the parks right?
I will plan to wake kids earlier to have breakfast before we go (which means we all have to get up so I can make coffee, cook, clean up and they can eat! UGH, what a pain. This isnt really sounding like a nice relaxing morning on vacation )

 

[JimMIA]

There are several differences between eating onsite and offsite:

• The options are MUCH, MUCH more varied -- from fast food to fine dining. There are literally hundreds of choices.
• The food is better -- not the same stuff, cooked in common kitchens with a little garnish to make it look different.
• It is much less expensive than Disney's inflated captive-audience prices.

For years now, even when we stay ONsite, we eat almost all meals offsite. Here's a link to the "Best Offsite Dining" thread: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=498998

 

[JimMIA]

I do not think celebration is on my way from WDW to Condo(by Universal.)

It's not. It's probably 10 minutes out of your way...and WELL worth the drive.

It always cracks me up how we view driving on vacation. We drive an hour each way to work every morning, drive 30 minutes across town to save money on gas at Costco -- but on vacation, everything has to be right in our lap!

 

[jm106]

It's not. It's probably 10 minutes out of your way...and WELL worth the drive.

It always cracks me up how we view driving on vacation. We drive an hour each way to work every morning, drive 30 minutes across town to save money on gas at Costco -- but on vacation, everything has to be right in our lap!

I would like it to be convenient (especially after we will drive almost 20 hours to get to Orlando,) It is a lot of driving back and forth so on the way is something I prefer. I dont find that odd. We plan to be in the parks a lot of the day, so leaving parks to drive 10 min south then back 30 min to Condo for a carry out lunch, when there is plenty along the way, isnt something I want to do. I do respect you may prefer that.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

I would like it to be convenient (especially after we will drive almost 20 hours to get to Orlando,) It is a lot of driving back and forth so on the way is something I prefer. I dont find that odd. We plan to be in the parks a lot of the day, so leaving parks to drive 10 min south then back 30 min to Condo for a carry out lunch, when there is plenty along the way, isnt something I want to do. I do respect you may prefer that.

But Columbia is worth the drive. It is AMAZING!

 

[jm106]

I appreciate the info and if it works with our plans, I'll check it out.

 

[JimMIA]

I would like it to be convenient (especially after we will drive almost 20 hours to get to Orlando,) It is a lot of driving back and forth so on the way is something I prefer. I dont find that odd. We plan to be in the parks a lot of the day, so leaving parks to drive 10 min south then back 30 min to Condo for a carry out lunch, when there is plenty along the way, isnt something I want to do. I do respect you may prefer that.

Sorry, I misread your original post. I thought you were talking about eating dinner.

If you're going back to your condo for a mid-day nap/swim break, I would just hit a fast food place near the condo. The lunch places around the WDW area will all be slammed during the middle of the day.

 

[jm106]

Sorry, I misread your original post. I thought you were talking about eating dinner.

If you're going back to your condo for a mid-day nap/swim break, I would just hit a fast food place near the condo. The lunch places around the WDW area will all be slammed during the middle of the day.

Thank you for clarifying. We love nice meals and are more then willing to travel for fun or great restaurants when on other kinds of vacations but when in Orlando, we are there for WDW and US. Days are pretty full with park activities and some time for kids to swim.
We plan to return to parks in evening each night or one night just stay until we head to AKL for our ADR then back to Condo. We really enjoy the parks at night, shows and cooler temps so meals will be on the way out for lunch or back for dinner.

 

[KodakFigment]

I'll try and help, but I need to know what "near Universal" means. That's a pretty varied area. What route are you planning from your condo to WDW? You will most definitely have a lot of choices.

 

[katyjeka]

We love WDW and have been going for years. The food quality has declined in the last few years and the prices have skyrocketed!!! I can't believe how much people are willing to pay for convenience, but that's another subject. We eat 75% of our meals offsite and will only eat character meals onsite. At least if the food is bad, we are still getting some quality time with the characters. No lines, now that's a convenience we are willing to pay for!! Orlando, and the areas around WDW have some great restaurants at a fraction of the cost of eating on. We have always taken an afternoon break and find eating offsite, if chosen correctly, is easy. Have a great trip.

 

[jm106]

I'll try and help, but I need to know what "near Universal" means. That's a pretty varied area. What route are you planning from your condo to WDW? You will most definitely have a lot of choices.

I'm not certain if the area but it's on Del Verde way. Direction say international dr to to universal way, 435/ I drive to 4.

 

[DreadpiratK]

One of our favorite off site eating 'tricks' is to leave the parks around 3:30 and hit Golden Coral just before 4 pm. If you hit it just then you pay lunch rates and they bring out the better dinner food while your there, so best of both worlds, plus it'a a buffet so you just walk in, eat and leave, no waiting.

Now we're not huge Golden Coral fans, or fans of buffets in general, and really only eat there in Orlando, but either the food at the ones in Orlando is better then elsewhere, or we're just hungrier, but it's usually pretty good. We're generally back in the parks in less than 90 minutes and full up for the rest of the day.

Not fancy dining, but cheap and everyone gets what they want quickly. Same tactic would probably work at other buffet restaurants.

 

[crazelion]

One of our favorite off site eating 'tricks' is to leave the parks around 3:30 and hit Golden Coral just before 4 pm. If you hit it just then you pay lunch rates and they bring out the better dinner food while your there, so best of both worlds, plus it'a a buffet so you just walk in, eat and leave, no waiting.

Now we're not huge Golden Coral fans, or fans of buffets in general, and really only eat there in Orlando, but either the food at the ones in Orlando is better then elsewhere, or we're just hungrier, but it's usually pretty good. We're generally back in the parks in less than 90 minutes and full up for the rest of the day.

Not fancy dining, but cheap and everyone gets what they want quickly. Same tactic would probably work at other buffet restaurants.

That is one of my favorite tricks too. My kids and mom love Golden Corral and cheap. We all did not like Boma at all found over price. We is happy eating offsite for a cheaper price and food we like. I love it because I use my restaurant gift cards that get free and ll our meals would paid for free.

I am still truing to decide which offsite hotel we stay at.

 

[jm106]

That is one of my favorite tricks too. My kids and mom love Golden Corral and cheap. We all did not like Boma at all found over price. We is happy eating offsite for a cheaper price and food we like. I love it because I use my restaurant gift cards that get free and ll our meals would paid for free.

I am still truing to decide which offsite hotel we stay at.

Oh Man, we love Boma. I normally dislike buffets except Boma. I thought ds would eat his weight in hummus and Naan bread and ods tried and loved every soup. DH loves the prime rib carving station.

thanks for the ideas

 

[pigletto]

One of our favorite off site eating 'tricks' is to leave the parks around 3:30 and hit Golden Coral just before 4 pm. If you hit it just then you pay lunch rates and they bring out the better dinner food while your there, so best of both worlds, plus it'a a buffet so you just walk in, eat and leave, no waiting.

Now we're not huge Golden Coral fans, or fans of buffets in general, and really only eat there in Orlando, but either the food at the ones in Orlando is better then elsewhere, or we're just hungrier, but it's usually pretty good. We're generally back in the parks in less than 90 minutes and full up for the rest of the day.

Not fancy dining, but cheap and everyone gets what they want quickly. Same tactic would probably work at other buffet restaurants.

That is actually a great idea and the timing is really good for us! We would likely head back to the room for a few hours around 1:30pm. We could have a break and some snacks, hit the buffet just before 4, be done and out by 5 and back to the parks until close. Of course with the shorter hours in December this will only work on MK and Epcot nights but it still sounds like a great plan!

 

[tobikaye]

I pulled up "Del Verde Way" on Google Maps and then searched for "Food near Del Verde Way". As you zoom out, there are all kinds of options.

Something we have done when travelling, is to have the phone number or website for some of the restaurants handy and then place a pick up order with a restaurant and pick it up on our way.