Help me weed out my reservations

[riddlemethis]

Hi everyone.

Family and I are going on our first trip to WDW in April.

I have gone overboard with Dining Reservations. I went through menus to see how much money we should budget for and realized that $2k for food is just too much. I need to weed out some of my options. My brother lives in the area and is also bringing us groceries, so we don't necessarily *need* to eat at any of these places. Hubby and I love good food and restaurants. The kids (6 and 8) are always down to go out.

We are arriving on a Wednesday around 4pm, hanging by the pool and staying at Beach Club. Dinner 8:00 pm @ Cape May Cafe. $160

Thursday morning 7:30 am Cape May Cafe breakfast then heading to Magic Kingdom. $115

Friday We are headed to Hollywood studios and have a 5:40 Prime Time Cafe' dinner reservation. This one I could drop and we could snack all day. $90

Saturday is Earth day at Animal Kingdom! We have a lunch ressie at Sanaa at 12:05 ($95) and a 5:50 Tusker House Rivers of Light dining package. ($168)

Sunday is our free day to do whatever. I grabbed a perfect 8:50 Bon Voyage Breakfast ($108) that we can walk to in no time. On this day I also have Kona Cafe' booked for lunch at 1:20 ($110). Kids will be in the Sandcastle Club this night so hubby and I can drink around the world and nibble.

Monday is Epcot day. No reservations this day as we plan to nibble on everything throughout the day.

Tuesday is back to Magic Kingdom with a dinner reservation at Whispering Canyon at 7:05. $113

This is the toned down version. lol

I'm thinking I could drop 50's Prime Time Cafe' as I don't absolutely need to go.

I feel like Saturday I over booked as it doesn't leave a lot of time to really dive in to Animal Kingdom with travel time to and from the parks.
Maybe I could move Sanaa to Sunday-> Would you all recommend Sanaa over Kona Cafe? I LOVE ethnic foods so I am having trouble here. Also, I have yet to check out the Poly.


I am thinking about releasing our Bon Voyage breakfast- that was more for me anyways. The boys don't care too much about the princesses.


I would be gracious for your thoughts. The only thing I am really OK with giving up is 50's Prime, but hubby and I feel as if we need to spend more time in parks or at the resort during lunchtime. Our budget is $1500 for food and souvenirs, the above listed will cost approximately $1000, not including our nibbling, snacks, etc.

 

[FelisLachesis]

I'd say drop Kona, or at least move it. If you're planning on a breakfast and snack around the world that day, you may be better off finding a fairly light lunch before shooing the kids to the Sandcastle Club.

50's seems fun, and is on my short list for my upcoming trip. I've heard that the servers can have an attitude problem, but it's part of the schitck. If you don't want the attitude, just ask. "c'mon Riddle, whatdda ya mean you didn't finish your vegetables? No dessert for you until you eat your green beans!"

Saturday sounds like your AK day, so moving anything around might cause more travel hassles. I've heard better things about Sanaa than Kona, though I've never been to either.

 

[TheInvernessie]

I would drop that Sanaa. You could easily eat something at a QS place for a lot less, and easier for the family.

 

[themommy]

If you want to save money on food I would start with getting rid of Cape May breakfast and Bon Voyage Breakfast first off. Breakfast in your room is the easiest and cheapest way to cut your food budget. If you booked Cape May breakfast for the characters, remember that you will get characters at Tusker House as well. You definitely overbooked for Saturday. Tusker House is a buffet and you will get loads of food at 5:50. No way do you want to eat at Sanaa after noon because you won't have room for Tusker House. You would be wasting your money. I noticed that you did not add any money in for your "nibbling". Keep in mind, there are 4 of you and nibbling adds up really quickly. You might want to look around at the prices for things you might want to nibble on so you can wrap your mind around it now. Also, just a tip when trying to save money on eating at a sit down or quick service, ice water is free! I know that might sound ridiculous but, man do drinks add up. Drinks are around $3 a piece. If the four of you have just one single drink apiece every day of your stay that adds up like this: $3 x 4 people=$12 for one drink. $12 x 7 days=$84. I don't know anyone who only drinks one drink a day. lol I would think more like 3 a day. 3 x $84=$252 just for drinks and you still need to pay for the food. These are just my suggestions. I hope it all works out for you and you get to do most everything you want!!

 

[Owl X]

I recommend Flame Tree BBQ for Lunch at Animal Kingdom.
The Ribs, Chicken and Pulled Pork Combo is large enough to share between 2 people.

There will be multiple Food booths around the World Showcase in Epcot since your trip is during the Flower and Garden Festival.

 

[uccats97]

I would drop dinner at Cape May on your first night. If you aren't arriving until 4 and plan to swim, that doesn't give you much time before you'd need to get cleaned up and head to dinner. Why not just order pizza from a chain and have it delivered? You can still hang out by the pool and catch the Movie Under the Stars.

 

[Pirate6518]

I'd remove Sanaa and the Cape May breakfast. Eat at Flametree or Yak & Yeti in AK to save some cash. Eat in room or cheaper breakfast than Cape May unless your doing it for character meal.

 

[dclpluto]

Get rid of the breakfasts.

 

[CynBeth]

I would keep Cape May breakfast it is one of the best but get rid of the dinner on your arrival day and do something light. On your AK day I would do Flame Tree or Rainforest Cafe for lunch.

 

[BuzzyBelle]

If you want to save money on food I would start with getting rid of Cape May breakfast and Bon Voyage Breakfast first off. Breakfast in your room is the easiest and cheapest way to cut your food budget. If you booked Cape May breakfast for the characters, remember that you will get characters at Tusker House as well. You definitely overbooked for Saturday. Tusker House is a buffet and you will get loads of food at 5:50. No way do you want to eat at Sanaa after noon because you won't have room for Tusker House. You would be wasting your money. I noticed that you did not add any money in for your "nibbling". Keep in mind, there are 4 of you and nibbling adds up really quickly. You might want to look around at the prices for things you might want to nibble on so you can wrap your mind around it now. Also, just a tip when trying to save money on eating at a sit down or quick service, ice water is free! I know that might sound ridiculous but, man do drinks add up. Drinks are around $3 a piece. If the four of you have just one single drink apiece every day of your stay that adds up like this: $3 x 4 people=$12 for one drink. $12 x 7 days=$84. I don't know anyone who only drinks one drink a day. lol I would think more like 3 a day. 3 x $84=$252 just for drinks and you still need to pay for the food. These are just my suggestions. I hope it all works out for you and you get to do most everything you want!!

Agree with all of this Character breakfasts are costly for breakfast food. Even if you don't want to eat in the room every morning you could grab a hot breakfast at the Marketplace for 1/3 the price of a character meal and still have Mickey waffles Also, like this says, the snacking can add up quickly. A Mickey ice cream bar is $5 now and those Epcot food booths can get expensive fast.

 

[Harambe]

One character meal per trip is plenty, and you have the ROL package attached to Tusker house, so keep that one and get rid of the other two character breakfasts.

I'd also get rid of the Cape May dinner buffet, and instead just grab something at the Beach Club. Then early to bed after your travel day!

Drop 50s Prime Time on your HS day and take the kids to the Muppet restaurant, PizzeRizzo. They would get a kick out of that!

We aren't fans of leaving a park for lunch and then going back to that park. Seems like a pain to me - although I kwon others do it - so I would not leave AK to do Sanaa.

So I got rid of 5 for you - is that enough??? LOL!

 

[uccats97]

I would also suggest dropping Sanaa. Harambe Market, Flame Tree BBQ, and Restaurantasaurus are all good choices for a quick and less expensive lunch and are all inside Animal Kingdom.

I love Whispering Canyon Cafe! But make sure you realize how much time it will takeout of your MK day to go over there. You will need about 2.5 hours to get there eat and get back.

 

[jimmytammy]

Hi everyone.

Family and I are going on our first trip to WDW in April.

I have gone overboard with Dining Reservations. I went through menus to see how much money we should budget for and realized that $2k for food is just too much. I need to weed out some of my options. My brother lives in the area and is also bringing us groceries, so we don't necessarily *need* to eat at any of these places. Hubby and I love good food and restaurants. The kids (6 and 8) are always down to go out.

We are arriving on a Wednesday around 4pm, hanging by the pool and staying at Beach Club. Dinner 8:00 pm @ Cape May Cafe. $160 Nice way to start a trip to WDW, keep it

Thursday morning 7:30 am Cape May Cafe breakfast then heading to Magic Kingdom. $115 I would consider dropping this and going for something lighter, since you would have had a big meal night before. Maybe go for lunch or dinner at MK or around the monorail resorts. If breakfast is tripping your trigger, The Wave has a great buffet

Friday We are headed to Hollywood studios and have a 5:40 Prime Time Cafe' dinner reservation. This one I could drop and we could snack all day. $90 Keep 50s, its so much fun and the food is really good. It screams Disney!

Saturday is Earth day at Animal Kingdom! We have a lunch ressie at Sanaa at 12:05 ($95) and a 5:50 Tusker House Rivers of Light dining package. ($168)Wow thats 2 big meals! Keep TH just because you have the ROL package, maybe snack at AK

Sunday is our free day to do whatever. I grabbed a perfect 8:50 Bon Voyage Breakfast ($108) that we can walk to in no time. On this day I also have Kona Cafe' booked for lunch at 1:20 ($110). Keep Kona, but BVB I would skipKids will be in the Sandcastle Club this night so hubby and I can drink around the world and nibble.

Monday is Epcot day. No reservations this day as we plan to nibble on everything throughout the day.

Tuesday is back to Magic Kingdom with a dinner reservation at Whispering Canyon at 7:05. $113I can't speak highly of the food, but the experience is a lot of fun

This is the toned down version. lol

I'm thinking I could drop 50's Prime Time Cafe' as I don't absolutely need to go.

I feel like Saturday I over booked as it doesn't leave a lot of time to really dive in to Animal Kingdom with travel time to and from the parks.
Maybe I could move Sanaa to Sunday-> Would you all recommend Sanaa over Kona Cafe? I LOVE ethnic foods so I am having trouble here. Also, I have yet to check out the Poly.


I am thinking about releasing our Bon Voyage breakfast- that was more for me anyways. The boys don't care too much about the princesses.


I would be gracious for your thoughts. The only thing I am really OK with giving up is 50's Prime, but hubby and I feel as if we need to spend more time in parks or at the resort during lunchtime. Our budget is $1500 for food and souvenirs, the above listed will cost approximately $1000, not including our nibbling, snacks, etc.

 

[Nancyg56]

I would cancel Cape May dinner on arrival day, and Sanaa on AK day. I wouldn't cancel PTC on DHS day, nibbling all day in place of meals is more pricey IMO.

I would keep CMC for breakfast, it is a nice character meal, is less expensive than many other character meals, and should carry your family a long time once you get to the park.

I would cancel the Bon Voyage breakfast and eat in the room. If you want to keep Kona, you can use it for your big meal of the day.

Personally, I would plan more CS meals, and less nibbling if you really want to save money. I think that the snacks add up very quickly, do not hold kids over, and you end up still needing a meal. I think the easiest place to cut back is breakfast, because you can have decent food in the room. Lunch and dinner is not that easy, so I wonder if the plan you have in place will backfire and cost you more in the long run. WE tend to make sure we have balanced meals while we vacation, especially for the children. The Buffet and AYCTE meals are not always the best money savers though, because you have no control over the spending. It is what it is. TS and CS meals that are ala carte allow for more careful budgeting. Supplementing meals by using snacks at Disney prices never works for us. WE end up Hangry, get the meal anyway.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Hi everyone.

Family and I are going on our first trip to WDW in April.

I have gone overboard with Dining Reservations. I went through menus to see how much money we should budget for and realized that $2k for food is just too much. I need to weed out some of my options. My brother lives in the area and is also bringing us groceries, so we don't necessarily *need* to eat at any of these places. Hubby and I love good food and restaurants. The kids (6 and 8) are always down to go out.

We are arriving on a Wednesday around 4pm, hanging by the pool and staying at Beach Club. Dinner 8:00 pm @ Cape May Cafe. $160

Thursday morning 7:30 am Cape May Cafe breakfast then heading to Magic Kingdom. $115

Friday We are headed to Hollywood studios and have a 5:40 Prime Time Cafe' dinner reservation. This one I could drop and we could snack all day. $90

Saturday is Earth day at Animal Kingdom! We have a lunch ressie at Sanaa at 12:05 ($95) and a 5:50 Tusker House Rivers of Light dining package. ($168)

Sunday is our free day to do whatever. I grabbed a perfect 8:50 Bon Voyage Breakfast ($108) that we can walk to in no time. On this day I also have Kona Cafe' booked for lunch at 1:20 ($110). Kids will be in the Sandcastle Club this night so hubby and I can drink around the world and nibble.

Monday is Epcot day. No reservations this day as we plan to nibble on everything throughout the day.

Tuesday is back to Magic Kingdom with a dinner reservation at Whispering Canyon at 7:05. $113

This is the toned down version. lol

I'm thinking I could drop 50's Prime Time Cafe' as I don't absolutely need to go.

I feel like Saturday I over booked as it doesn't leave a lot of time to really dive in to Animal Kingdom with travel time to and from the parks.
Maybe I could move Sanaa to Sunday-> Would you all recommend Sanaa over Kona Cafe? I LOVE ethnic foods so I am having trouble here. Also, I have yet to check out the Poly.


I am thinking about releasing our Bon Voyage breakfast- that was more for me anyways. The boys don't care too much about the princesses.


I would be gracious for your thoughts. The only thing I am really OK with giving up is 50's Prime, but hubby and I feel as if we need to spend more time in parks or at the resort during lunchtime. Our budget is $1500 for food and souvenirs, the above listed will cost approximately $1000, not including our nibbling, snacks, etc.

We didn't like Cape May dinner and won't eat there again, so I'd cancel that and perhaps try to get a reservation at Beaches & Cream, which would be significantly less expensive (but may not be available at this point).

I'd also cancel Sanaa -- I'm not a fan of two table service meals a day -- you can have a long wait for your reservation and two table service meals can take a lot of time out of the day. I'd probably cancel Kona as well -- your breakfast won't be over till close to 10 and I'd just grab a quick service meal somewhere (although Kona lunch isn't particularly expensive, depending on what you get).

Keep in mind that to get to Whispering Canyon you'll have to take the boat from MK over to Wilderness Lodge -- never done it but I imagine that takes a fair bit of time. Then you'll either have to take the boat back to MK or grab a cab/Uber to Beach Club.

One final thing -- we always like to get to the parks for rope drop, take a midday break when the parks get busy, then head back over. Not sure if you have a break planned but spending 12+ hours in the parks each day isn't fun for us anymore.

 

[littledebbie335]

I would move Sanaa to Sunday, and drop Kona. That was our favorite meal of our last trip, and if you really like ethnic food, I would definitely make sure to eat there. We ate at Harambe Market on our AK day, and my husband still speaks longly of their version of a corn dog! Earth Day at AK sounds amazing...have a great trip!

 

[Crystal824]

I would only dine once at Cape May either the dinner or the breakfast. Cape May is fun, but no need to eat their twice. I would get rid of Sanaa. You don't need both Sanaa and Tusker House in one day. Logistically, it will be easier for your day to get rid of Sanaa. I would also get rid of either Bon Voyage or Kona. That is too much food too close together in one day.

 

[heidijanesmith]

I love Cape May dinner buffet, it's a must for us. I would cancel the Cape May breakfast, eating once there is good.
Drop Saana for lunch at AK. Keep the ROL package dinner.

 

[riddlemethis]

If you want to save money on food I would start with getting rid of Cape May breakfast and Bon Voyage Breakfast first off. Breakfast in your room is the easiest and cheapest way to cut your food budget. If you booked Cape May breakfast for the characters, remember that you will get characters at Tusker House as well. You definitely overbooked for Saturday. Tusker House is a buffet and you will get loads of food at 5:50. No way do you want to eat at Sanaa after noon because you won't have room for Tusker House. You would be wasting your money. I noticed that you did not add any money in for your "nibbling". Keep in mind, there are 4 of you and nibbling adds up really quickly. You might want to look around at the prices for things you might want to nibble on so you can wrap your mind around it now. Also, just a tip when trying to save money on eating at a sit down or quick service, ice water is free! I know that might sound ridiculous but, man do drinks add up. Drinks are around $3 a piece. If the four of you have just one single drink apiece every day of your stay that adds up like this: $3 x 4 people=$12 for one drink. $12 x 7 days=$84. I don't know anyone who only drinks one drink a day. lol I would think more like 3 a day. 3 x $84=$252 just for drinks and you still need to pay for the food. These are just my suggestions. I hope it all works out for you and you get to do most everything you want!!

Thank you for your suggestions! I originally booked Cape May for breakfast as it was going to be our only character meal. I can definitely get rid of that one with Tusker House! And we are water drinkers through and through so drinks won't be too much of a problem.

 

[riddlemethis]

I would cancel Cape May dinner on arrival day, and Sanaa on AK day. I wouldn't cancel PTC on DHS day, nibbling all day in place of meals is more pricey IMO.

Personally, I would plan more CS meals, and less nibbling if you really want to save money. I think that the snacks add up very quickly, do not hold kids over, and you end up still needing a meal. I think the easiest place to cut back is breakfast, because you can have decent food in the room. Lunch and dinner is not that easy, so I wonder if the plan you have in place will backfire and cost you more in the long run. WE tend to make sure we have balanced meals while we vacation, especially for the children. The Buffet and AYCTE meals are not always the best money savers though, because you have no control over the spending. It is what it is. TS and CS meals that are ala carte allow for more careful budgeting. Supplementing meals by using snacks at Disney prices never works for us. WE end up Hangry, get the meal anyway.

I think you're completely right about CS over nibbling. Looking at some of the pricing now and I didn't expect $30 for my family to get a taste of something. Great points.