Food, give me food!

[Supercod]

Ok it’s getting closer, less than 2 weeks and I am excited to say the least, you would think I would have grown up by now LOL ;-) Any how I have the dinning plan for everyone but the infant in our party, I was wondering how it’s been for people that have used it and I understand the tip comes from the plan also so the people help you spend loads as it increase the tip they get or some such thing.

Has it been plan sailing or is stuff I need to look out for? Also I been during spring break before and apart from that Fantasy Restaurant I never book a restaurant in advance ever, should I and how do the feel about you changing your mind last minute?

 

[arieliwish]

Hiya, we had the dining plan in sept and it was great! Yes, it's expensive but you get to eat in some great disney restaurants that would have been out of our price league if we hadn't had the plan.

We had DH, me, DD aged 10, DS aged 7 on the plan so it worked out at 3 adults and 1 child. We were a bit confused with it all at first - as we found out everyone is!! LOL! However, most of the servers were great, explaining exactly what we did and didn't get included. The only one's I found a bit lacking were the counter staff in Disney Quest.

Notably good service came from Crystal Palace, Ohana, Chef Mickeys - all character breakfasts; Le Cellier - most expensive meal we had - $195 - server recommended the special as it was included in the plan - Lobster and Steak!!!, Boma - really good food, great choice buffet for everyone; Cali Grill - Great setting, food good, and server (Hi Gary - ex Marine served with the Para's) - helped us get good value out of our plan. DD didn't always want a starter, and most servers queried this as we were missing out on free food - we just explained it wasn't a problem and we knew it was included but it didn't matter. I'd never thought of it all affecting their tip!! When the service was really good we left a tip on top too.

Counter services were adequate, some better than others. The food court at CBR was good, and the staff there were helping everyone on the plan so they didn't miss out on things.

Only hiccup we encountered was in AK Pizzafari, DS didn't like the 2 kids choices, so we opted to get him a pizza from the adult menu, but this wouldn't go through as 4 adult meals on the till. I asked the server if I could charge 3 meals, then charge the other one seperately, and this was fine.

The other thing to watch for is some counter services don't have desserts included but this isn't indicated on the menu, Earl of Sandwich was one - a very confusing counter system, but good food! Also watch for the sizes of drinks included - usually the bottled ones, you should get large ones most of the time.

The plan certainly helped us have a greater experience in WDW, and it was well worth it. So don't worry about it at all, if you need to just ask, they're so helpful over there. And if there are any discrepancies query it with them, the americans do!!

And we left with about 12 snacks remaining - we couldn't use them up as we were getting fruit, cookies, yoghurts as desserts with our B/F from CBR and keeping them in our room fridge!!

 

[Supercod]

Sounds like everyone going to be a help as really I am a little nervous about it as I am not sure if this is seen as a you’re a Disney Guest so we look after you or this is you with a dinner ticket like you get at school ;-) Joking aside it’s going to be a total shock to my wife parents as I never bothered to tell them I got this for everyone, they still think they need to budget £60 per day for them and my wife’s 3 other sisters that are going.. wait until they find out they saved up for no reason and suddenly have a whole bunch of extra spending money they didn’t count on.

 

[Miffy2003]

Clarke, what a wonderful thing to do

I think one of the great things about the Dining Plan (though I've not done it myself) is the freedom it gives you.

I have heard that if you have spare "credits" the Mickey Mouse shaped rice crispie bars are a good thing to use them up on to bring home

 

[Supercod]

It’s the big once in a lifetime holiday (well actually my wife and I have been 3 times and we taken 2 of her sisters once before and we will go again, so not really once LOL) however for my wife’s parents and 1 of her sisters (the 9 year old) this is the first time for them. I am paying for it so I get to keep things a secret, only my wife knows about them (I am not that good at keeping secrets LOL) anyways what my wife’s parents and the 3 girls don’t know is.

1. I booked deluxe rooms with savannah view at Animal Kingdom, told them we would just go for a standard car park view to save money. Kids are not going to care less about this one, more the parents type of thing.

2. We are going on the Wishes Cruise, everyone should like that. Never been my self so looking forward to that one. They asked us to pick a Hotel to set sail from, so I picked the Contemporary Resort as Animal Kingdom is land locked.

3. We are going to Mickey’s Merry Christmas Party thing, that I not booked yet and need to remind myself to do that this week. Everyone should like that but I am sure the kids will like that the most.

4. And we have the dining plan, I doubt the kids will careless about that one, however I know the parents will be over the moon, as that’s all dinners and lunch taken care off. Mind you we might use a few of the double point ones so we have to dig some money out to eat at another place, but I am sure we can manage.

Over all very excited and glad I can put a bit more thought in to it all, not like last time wasn’t amazing. It was myself, wife and her 2 sisters 9 and 10 at the time. We stayed at Wilderness Lodge, the view was bog standard but it didn’t matter in the slightest as the pool was brilliant, they room was excellent and the time had by all was great. However I am not making the mistake this time that I done last time, when we arrived the wife was tired (it was after all, after midnight in the UK) and wanted to go to bed but the girls wanted to explore.. me being daft as a brush say’s I take them to Downtown Disney and we went to Disney Quest, that was great laugh and even funnier when the 9 year old said Disney is amazing can we come every day.. turns out she thought Disney Quest was IT oh how I laughed, anyway the mistake was we went on the bus back to the hotel (it was now 4am UK time) and 1 of the girls fell a sleep.. I had to carry her all the way to the hotel room, while dragging the other.. least we where all so tired that we had adjusted to local time and didn’t have that waking up 5am local time to deal with.

 

[natalielongstaff]

we used the d.plan in september- it was fantastic we ate some lovely food that we may not have ordered otherwise and ate in loads more places than we would have
we also had left over snack credits( even after bringing mickey snacks home )
best places to eat were concourse steakhouse, le cellier, boma and wolfgang pucks at dtd
have a great time

 

[Miffy2003]

Clarke that sounds like you have an amazing holiday ahead of you

We stayed at AKL in August and absolutely loved it.