How do you plan your dining plan??

[SingLikeC]

Hi everyone!

I'm very new to the Dis, but I've run into a vacation planning dilemma. I haven't been to DW in over a decade, so I was wondering how you usually schedule your dining? I have the dining plan, but I'm not sure how I should schedule.

Apart from the crazy task of narrowing down restaurants, do you usually stay in the parks all day and eat all your meals there? Do you leave the parks midday to dine? Do you leave later in the evening for dinner then return afterwards?

I just can't see staying in the parks for 12 hours plus, I guess.
It's a lot to ask, but I'm just not sure how the seasoned vets do it! So please help so I can actually start scheduling.

Thanks

 

[eeyorelove7]

I have found that eating a cereal bar in the morning, early lunch counter service meal and late dinner works well. You can rest in the afternoon/early evening at the hotels then return to the park or hotel of choice for dinner and a few rides or a parade. If you plan your table service meals too early like 5-6 pm then you are not really hungry and it is kind of a waste. 7:30-9pm is best taking into account parade timing of course. As for choice, the unofficial guide to WDW is the best source with very detailed descriptions. Our favorite places are Crystal Palace, 1900 Park Fare, le Cellier, 50's Prime Time cafe, Chef Mickey. We like character dining because it reduces time waiting to see them in the parks. Cinderella royal table is great but a hard ADR to get, Akershus is a great alternative but the food is Norwegian and pretty gourmet, my picky family hated it. Other great reviews are Teppan Edo, yachtsman steakhouse, Victoria &Alberts. There are some great seafood places at Epcot as well but my picky family prevents me from eating there. I would advise you to buy the unofficial guide- it has never in 4 trips led me wrong!

 

[Tanyabeth8]

I usually skip breakfast or grab something quick in hotel food court, head to park, do some attractions, break for lunch in park then head back to hotel mid afternoon, swim or nap then get ready and head to another park or downtown in early evening for dinner and a couple more attractions.

 

[FiggieFan]

Hi,
We use a quick service meal for breakfast and then use a table service for dinner. During the day we will get a snack to carry us through to dinner, usually a smoothie. We typically have our breakfast at the hotel before hitting the parks, then opt for an early dinner around 4:30 or 5 to beat most of the crowds. The places we always have to go are 50's Prime Time Cafe, Biergarten, and Raglan Road (Downtown Disney). Raglan Rd has the best bread pudding - unbelievable! This year we are trying Crystal Palace for breakfast because you can get in the park early - we went there for dinner last year and it was nice, but very crowded. The luau is a great show too and has become a tradition although it is two table service credits. Enjoy!

 

[abdgeek]

I usually do two different things depending on whether I'm doing DDP or DxDP.

For the DDP, I sleep in a little and eat a QS breakfast at my resort. I then head for the park and plan to stay there until dinner. I usually eat early around 4 or 5 pm because thats what i do at home. I then eat dinner in whatever park I'm in and then leave the park afterwards. Once I'm full from dinner, I really don't want to ride anything.

With the DxDP, most of the signature restaurants are at resorts. When I get this plan, I eat
an early character and then head to the park. I usually schedule dinner for 6 or 7 pm because you get more food on the DxDP. I leave the park about an hour before my dinner reservation. Once I finish dinner, I go back to the room.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

When we were on the regular dining plan (now we do QS or pay OOP). We used to schedule our TS meals for breakfast - so we'd eat before the parks open and then not have any more reservations that we needed to make.

Our touring plan in general is to be at the parks for RD, park hop to another park around lunchtime then go back to the resort around 6 to swim and eat dinner....fairly early bedtime then repeat the next day.

 

[gtpoohbear]

We always schedule breakfast for as early as possible, usually as soon as the restaurant opens. We try to eat either in our resort or close-by, if we do eat breakfast in a park, it is always pre-park-opening so as not to waste time.

Lunch I try to schedule right around noon in whatever park we will be in that morning. After lunch, we head back to the resort to rest and swim for a bit.

Then dinner around 7-8pm in whatever park we will spend the evening in. Sometimes we have time to do a few rides either before or after dinner, depending on how long we stayed back at the resort, and what time the park closes. But the vast majority of our park touring is done in those 3-4 hours between breakfast and lunch.

Since we always eat three full meals a day, we do the deluxe plan, and still run a few credits short because we like to eat at a few of the signature (2-credit) restaurants. So I figure out before-hand which meals will be cheapest (usually it is our non-character breakfasts) and we pay OOP for those.

The only time we generally use our snack credits is in the afternoon - we will usually pick up something at the resort CS to take to the pool or back to the room. But we usually have a few of those credits left over despite our best attempts to use them.

We've followed this schedule several times at WDW and it works very well for us. But I think the most important thing is to think about how you would normally structure your meals at home and try to stick as close to that as possible.

 

[SingLikeC]

I have found that eating a cereal bar in the morning, early lunch counter service meal and late dinner works well. You can rest in the afternoon/early evening at the hotels then return to the park or hotel of choice for dinner and a few rides or a parade. If you plan your table service meals too early like 5-6 pm then you are not really hungry and it is kind of a waste. 7:30-9pm is best taking into account parade timing of course. As for choice, the unofficial guide to WDW is the best source with very detailed descriptions. Our favorite places are Crystal Palace, 1900 Park Fare, le Cellier, 50's Prime Time cafe, Chef Mickey. We like character dining because it reduces time waiting to see them in the parks. Cinderella royal table is great but a hard ADR to get, Akershus is a great alternative but the food is Norwegian and pretty gourmet, my picky family hated it. Other great reviews are Teppan Edo, yachtsman steakhouse, Victoria &Alberts. There are some great seafood places at Epcot as well but my picky family prevents me from eating there. I would advise you to buy the unofficial guide- it has never in 4 trips led me wrong!

Omg, thank you so much! This really has helped because I was super lost. Plus, the dining suggestions helped cause I had no clue in that department either lol.

 

[SingLikeC]

Hi,
We use a quick service meal for breakfast and then use a table service for dinner. During the day we will get a snack to carry us through to dinner, usually a smoothie. We typically have our breakfast at the hotel before hitting the parks, then opt for an early dinner around 4:30 or 5 to beat most of the crowds. The places we always have to go are 50's Prime Time Cafe, Biergarten, and Raglan Road (Downtown Disney). Raglan Rd has the best bread pudding - unbelievable! This year we are trying Crystal Palace for breakfast because you can get in the park early - we went there for dinner last year and it was nice, but very crowded. The luau is a great show too and has become a tradition although it is two table service credits. Enjoy!

I was thinking along those same lines, but I thought paying OOP for breakfast would be cheaper than paying OOP for lunch. And I'm really trying to get into the places where you have to use 2 TS credits, but I may not. I think maybe doing things cautiously, like separately using each credit, for my first time around in years is the way to go.

I really appreciate everyone who posted here. There's so many different ways to work around the ADRs. I'm not freaking out now that you all have made it so clear! Thanks a bunch!

 

[hoosierfan1979]

We tend to eat cereal bar or yogurt with granola for bfast in the hotel. For lunch we try and do a cs and rest for a while in the park. Dinner usually consists of a ts around 6:00 or 6:30 with a snack before or during the fireworks or parade. Then get up and do it again.

 

[mwmom]

Sometimes we will use a snack credit to buy a muffin or cinnamon roll as we are leaving the park or at the resort QS to take back to room and eat it the next morning. If we have an 11:00 ADR at some place like Ohana, we just share one in the morning. Then we will eat QS at night. Or, we have been know to have one day where we eat QS twice (will do it this year at Epcot so we can eat around the world using QS and a few snack credits) and then do a mid-morning TS and late night TS. So, it might look like this:

Share muffin for bkfast at 7:00 (we hit rope drop so up early)
11:00 Ohana, Chef Mickey, or Crystal Palace
8:00 CRT

Or

Share muffin
QS at Epcot around 11:00
Snack in afternoon ( use DD's at one kiosk and mine at another to taste different items in different countries)
QS at night

Or

Share cinnamon roll
QS sitting outside at WL while DD swims
TS in evening

We don't stick by the 1 snack, 1 QS and 1 TS each day. We change it up depending on which park and which ADR's we have. I have never bought additional food and we only use the regular plan. Somehow I still end up with snack credits on the last day. The meals are so filling. Forgot to mention that we also will take our dessert to go sometimes ( like a brownie from kid's meal) so we use that as a snack later which leaves some snacks for breakfast.)