Help A Disney Newbie - Dining or Deluxe Dining?

[wmsinks]

Which dining plan do I need. I do want to do a some of the character dinners, but I haven't a clue how any of this works. The dining plan doesn't seem like a lot and the deluxe sounds like way too much. Any advice?

 

[mickeysgirl17]

Welcome to the Dis!

If this is your first trip, I'd go with the regular dining plan. The reason for this is that the deluxe plan will take up too much of your time away from the parks. How long are you staying? Are you going in 2008 because the deluxe plan doesn't take effect until Jan. 2008.

Although it doesn't seem like a lot compared to the deluxe plan, most people usually complain that the regular dining plan offers too much food let alone the deluxe plan.

With the regular dining plan, each person gets 1 counter service meal which consists of a entree, dessert and non alcoholic drink per night, 1 snack per night and 1 table service meal per night which consists of 1 entree, 1 dessert and 1 non alcohoclic drink. This includes buffets and character meals.
For example, if you stay for 5 nights, 6 days, each person in your room will get 5 counter service (fast food) meals, 5 snacks and 5 sit down meals/buffets/character meals.

You can order whatever you want from the menu. Very few restaurants have small restrictions.

The deluxe plan is basically the same except that it offers 3 meals per night and they can be either counter or table service meals, plus 2 snacks per night per person. You also get a free refillable mug which I think is wonderful especially if you drink a lot of soda or coffee and the deluxe also offers appetizers where the regular DP doesn't.

Either way, you would only get the best value if you did your research in advance and found out which restaurants would be best for your group by looking at menus and ordering the more expensive stuff.You would have to make reservations in advance too and not all disney restaurants are on the plan. If you have picky eaters in your group or you don't eat much, I'd defenetely go with the regular DP. The deluxe would take away a lot of time from touring the parks.

One last thing to note...you can exchange 2 regular table service meals for a signature meal (aka very expensive fancy restaurants), or a dinner show if your interested in that.

Here is a link that might also help with more info and the participating locations that accept the plans:
http://allearsnet.com/pl/packages07a.htm

 

[wmsinks]

Thank you so much for replying to my questions. Sounds like the regular dining plan should be fine.

Can I just clarify this though. I can exchange one table service meal for a character meal?

Also, is there a list of places that qualify for the different meals (table service and the counter service)?

 

[haley123]

A character meal is considered a TS meal so you would use TS credits for them.

 

[LauraVV]

Which dining plan do I need. The dining plan doesn't seem like a lot and the deluxe sounds like way too much. Any advice?

We are going in late January. We were able to purchase the Deluxe Plan for almost the same price as the regular plan. I thought that we'd probably want to have two meals a day so wanted to compare the price of the two plans. I'd encourage you to price the two plans for your visit.

I figure that I'd rather be able to have more than one table service meal a day and waste some (or be able to go to some places that use 2 credits) than to be short on some meals.

 

[septbaby]

We are going in late January. We were able to purchase the Deluxe Plan for almost the same price as the regular plan.

Not quite sure what you mean here, seems misleading at the DP is $37.99 per night for an adult while the Deluxe plan is $69.99, not nearly the same in my book. If you have a package price that is virtually the same your room, tickets or length of stay must have changed.

Now to the original question. I too suggest the standard DP. If you are staying 5 nights you can eat as many as 5 Table service meals and you can make them all character meals if you choose.

We mixed up the use of our credits: one character meal, one 2TS Signature Dining meal, one ambience meal at Coral Reef, and one unique food meal at Boma we also used a TS credit for a Fantasmic dinner package at Hollywood and Vine. I think Disney offers so much beyond character meals we wanted to try the range. We were not disappointed. Our 5yo mentioned characters as his #1 favorite thing at Disney so clearly even beyond the meals we found plenty of character sitings and interactions for him. We've been back for over 3 months and just the other night he wanted to talk about Disney and the fun and characters we saw there. He doesn't know we booked bounce back so he has another shot at them in 2008!

 

[sartello]

We had the DP in September and wished we'd had one more TS a day. We'll probably go with the deluxe in March and Sept next year. We aren't big counter service people, we like to sit down and relax to eat. In Sept, we didn't use all of our counter service meal and paid cash for a couple meals because we just wanted to sit down and eat.

Shelly

 

[Colleen27]

We're super-excited about the deluxe plan, but I'll join the previous posters in suggesting the regular dining plan for a first trip. The deluxe dining plan does mean spending quite a bit of time dining, and it takes a quite a bit of planning to make all those dining reservations without racking up huge amounts of travel time in addition to the actual time spent in the restaurants.

We really enjoyed the regular dining plan when we've used it. On our first trip, it was a perfect balance - we got to try some nice restaurants and character meals, but spent the days enjoying the parks and had quick lunches. You'd be surprised how far those two meals per day goes, and Disney has some really great counter service options to choose from. Also, take a look at the "confirmed snack credits" sticky at the top of this board to get an idea of how flexible those are. It goes far beyond the examples listed in the brochure and some of the snacks are enough to fill in for the missing meal.

 

[mickeysgirl17]

Thank you so much for replying to my questions. Sounds like the regular dining plan should be fine.

Can I just clarify this though. I can exchange one table service meal for a character meal?

Also, is there a list of places that qualify for the different meals (table service and the counter service)?

Your welcome. I hope I was helpful. You can exchange 1 TS meal for a character meal like the previous poster said. If you follow that link I gave you, you'll be able to see which places take a TS meal and which are CS.