Feeling Stressed

[goodferry]

Would you all check out my table service plans for December and let me know what you would get rid of/add and why? Thanks for your help, I am starting to get stressed that I have picked the wrong places! We will be on the dining plan, staying at the Polynesian from December 14-23rd, there are six of us, DH and I, DS (14), DS (10), DD(6, turning 7), and DD (2)

Breakfasts:
Cinderella's Royal Table (for DD's birthday)

Lunch:
Sci Fi Dine In

Dinner:
Fantasmic Dining Plan-Mama Melrose
Candlelight Processional- Alfredo's
Flying Fish Cafe
Kona Cafe
Whispering Canyon Cafe
Crystal Palace
Liberty Tree Tavern
Planet Hollywood

'Ohana is missing from our itinerary, we ate there on our last two trips, and although we liked it, the kids said they would rather do WCC again instead, and we have never eaten at Kona Cafe. I am torn because I LOVE THOSE WINGS! I am also wondering if I should substitute/add Chef Mickey's in there somewhere, not for the food so much as the atmosphere, I am mental, please help!

 

[pennyplanner]

Goodferry,

Just relax! It sounds as if you have made some good choices. They seem to be a nice mix of upscale and kid-pleasing choices. Choosing restaurants is definitely a very personal choice. What is good for your family might be disastrous for mine!

--penny

 

[moopdog]

Your choices look good to me but I really am no expert. I just wanted to mention since I just got back on Friday, that one thing I learned on our trip is this: try think a LOT about what it will take for you to get to where your eating and back. We got sick of being at a park... heading to resort... heading to a different park just to catch the transportation to a different resort to eat, etc. If you have your own car - it's a whole different story I guess. But the bus gets really old after the first couple of days! Other than the coming and going - the food and the parks were great!

 

[Cinderella]

Your choices all sound good to me - i always do Chef Mickeys' but that is personal choice. The only thing in their with parties of your ages that i am wondering if you could swap for chef mickey's is Kona Cafe. Don't get me wrong - i love the banana stuffed toast there - but the atmosphere is v ordinary - it is a cafe. Maybe u could get breakfast there and do your dinner at chef mickey's.

 

[goodferry]

I have been questioning Kona, wondering if we should stick either the Concourse Steakhouse or Chef Mickey's in there instead, or maybe the Castle for dinner, decisions, decisions!

 

[jann1033]

all the places look good the only ? most of your choices are in the mk area which is fine if are just returning to your room after dinner. you might want some more in the epcot area since it's open latest. ie if you are going to go to ak, then Kona then epcot that is an extra trip to/from your resort . we try to go for dinner where we will be planning on spending the evening. mk usually closes at 6-7 in Dec, ak at 5 ish, mgm around 7 and epcot around 9( if my brain is working right)

 

[Frantasmic]

I have at least four of those places on my upcoming trip list and I know I'm not crazy for picking them.

 

[DoxaWeKnee]

Your choices are all great, I just question the wisedom of such extensive planning. On our first to trips we realized we were slaves to a PS schedule.

Now we simply book a couple places we REALLY want to do/try and just wing it for the rest. You'd be surprised how many locations will take walk-ups even after being told at guest services that no PS' are availible for the location.

 

[goodferry]

With a family of six walkups are rare, so I try to book at least one sit down per night over the course of the trip, and if we decide to cancel and get in somewhere else, we do, but at least we have that one choice if everything else is full. It may seem like a lot of our meals are near our resort, mostly because DD (6) has a seizure disorder and early bedtimes are a must for her, so we will probably be out late on only three or four nights of the nine night trip, we do most of our heavy touring in the morning, and then relax in the evening.

 

[jann1033]

With a family of six walkups are rare, so I try to book at least one sit down per night over the course of the trip, and if we decide to cancel and get in somewhere else, we do, but at least we have that one choice if everything else is full. It may seem like a lot of our meals are near our resort, mostly because DD (6) has a seizure disorder and early bedtimes are a must for her, so we will probably be out late on only three or four nights of the nine night trip, we do most of our heavy touring in the morning, and then relax in the evening.

understandable...btw spent my earlyyrs in monroville,pa and think we used to go to apark in ligonier? ( kenny wood , idelwild or story book forest don't know which)

 

[goodferry]

Idlewild/Storybook Forest, same thing, it's just around the corner! It's a beautiful park, we spend a lot of time there in the summer. You actually have me wondering now if we should replace Kona with something in the Epcot area like Cape May Buffet or something similar...

 

[Brygida]

Would you all check out my table service plans for December and let me know what you would get rid of/add and why? Thanks for your help, I am starting to get stressed that I have picked the wrong places! We will be on the dining plan, staying at the Polynesian from December 14-23rd, there are six of us, DH and I, DS (14), DS (10), DD(6, turning 7), and DD (2)

Breakfasts:
Cinderella's Royal Table (for DD's birthday)

Lunch:
Sci Fi Dine In

Dinner:
Fantasmic Dining Plan-Mama Melrose
Candlelight Processional- Alfredo's
Flying Fish Cafe
Kona Cafe
Whispering Canyon Cafe
Crystal Palace
Liberty Tree Tavern
Planet Hollywood

The biggest thing I see is you need 11 table service credits for this plan, but you only have 9. Did you know? or were you planning on doing the stretching credits/using kid credits/etc thing?

The second thing I noticed is you have several what I would call "lesser-priced, lesser food quality" places. Why not a few better food quality places (like my toddler's favorite Mitsukoshi Teppanyaki) to take advantage of having the plan in the first place (Mitsukoshi is very pricey... almost as much as a signature restaurant, but only 1 credit). I would certainly consider changing out Crystal Palace for that reason.

Third, you must like Italian food. Can't say I agree there. But... okay.

Last, Liberty Tree Tavern (just there on 9/1) is just awful.... don't go there. It is just a frozen dinner reheated.

Brygida

 

[NMW]

I think your choices sound great, except for LTT. We just aren't into the food there (too processed, like frozen food). We are trying Kona Cafe for the first time for dinner this Dec. I'm excited about it!

 

[Brygida]

It may seem like a lot of our meals are near our resort, mostly because DD (6) has a seizure disorder and early bedtimes are a must for her, so we will probably be out late on only three or four nights of the nine night trip, we do most of our heavy touring in the morning, and then relax in the evening.

If that's the case, why are you not having your MAIN meal at lunchtime? I saw mostly dinners for table-service on your plan... it seems like that is a bad call.

I prefer main meal at lunch with my toddler (who has health issues too).

Brygida

 

[goodferry]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I have been considering switching to some of the Epcot restaurants, it seems, though, like we always spend most of our time in MK. We have never tried LTT or CP, I put them in for the kids, figuring they would enjoy the character meals. I am thinking of switching out LTT for Chefs de France because I have it scheduled on her birthday (she will turn 7 while we are there) and she just started learning French, I thought she might enjoy that. Now you have me thinking, though, two italian restaurants. Mama Melrose we enjoyed last trip, and I definitely like the ease of the Fantasmic Dining Plan, and we have never tried Alfredo's, but we have always wanted to, but both in one trip? I might reconsider.
We will be sharing some of the sit down meals, in particular Sci-Fi, Kona and Planet Hollywood. Only one of my kids is a kid, so we won't have many child credits to share.
Because we are staying at the Poly concierge, we found last trip it worked best to have a light breakfast in the lounge, be at the parks at opening, have an early lunch, tour until about 2, have a snack in the lounge, rest and swim, have dinner around 6, head back to the resort, and clean up and watch Wishes with the kids from the lounge while we enjoyed a glass of wine.