How important is the food?

[chell]

When you are planning your days how big of a role does the food play? We have a list of must do restaurants and we need to work these in. We love being in WDW but we also love dining there too. Dining at WDW is a huge part of the trip for us and is a huge part of the planning.

Do your dining options dictate any of your park days or anything similar? I hope you understand what I'm trying to ask.

Most of the places we want to eat are in Epcot. That sort of works out for me since Epcot is my favorite park but since this is a family vacation that might not be such a good thing this visit. Since we won't all be together all the time that might not be such a bad thing either.

Right now we know we will have 24 meals in WDW and these are the restaurants we have to eat at:

Garden Grill
Cape May
San Angel
Beaches & Cream - Kitchen Sink
Chef Mickey - Breakfast
Yak & Yeti - twice possibly
Casey's Corner
Toy Story Pizza Planet
Tutto Italia
Cosmic Ray's
Biergarten
Victoria & Albert's - only if we can get the Chef's Table

Whew, that list looks a lot smaller typed up than it does handwritten. I'm feeling a little better now.

I figure someone out here must sympathise with me since this is the restaurant board. Somehow has to plan their days around the restaurants.

 

[arielmomma]

I totally sympathize with you. For my family, food is probably the most important part of our trip. In my opinion, food really makes the vacation. Just this morning my DH and I were fantasizing about trying to take a short trip next year without the kids on the deluxe dining plan just so that we could eat our way around EPCOT. Since we have the kids with us in September, we have to compromise some, but believe me, I feel your pain!

 

[irunnoft]

I usually look to see which park we are going to be at on any given day. That's pretty easy since I go by the EMH for the mornings. Based on that, I try to plan any TS lunches to coincide with the EMH park. Sometimes we will have a Signature dinner and then the park is irrelevant since these are usually outside a theme park.

The only time I break from this is when I can't get a particular ADR for a restaurant based on the touring plans for the park. Then I will go ahead and book the ADR and will adjust our park touring to conform with that. For me, half the fun of the WDW vacation is the dining.

 

[chell]

Thanks Arielmomma. I know I like to obsess over my planning but that is half the fun of getting ready for a trip. I really do enjoy all the great food they have to offer, especially since they don't offer too much great food where we live.

 

[chell]

I usually look to see which park we are going to be at on any given day. That's pretty easy since I go by the EMH for the mornings. Based on that, I try to plan any TS lunches to coincide with the EMH park. Sometimes we will have a Signature dinner and then the park is irrelevant since these are usually outside a theme park.

The only time I break from this is when I can't get a particular ADR for a restaurant based on the touring plans for the park. Then I will go ahead and book the ADR and will adjust our park touring to conform with that. For me, half the fun of the WDW vacation is the dining.

We may have to use EMH this time with the boys. Your plan may have to be the route we take this trip.

Your trip is almost here!

 

[inkedupmomma]

We are on the DXDP, so it plays a huge part for our trip. We feel the same as you. The dining is just as important to us as touring the parks! Touring the parks non-stop without a break is no fun for us. As much as we love Disney, it isn't going anywhere anytime soon lol. I like being able to discover something new to see or something we didn't do for our next trip. Plus the theming of the restaurants are amazing and unlike any other, add in some character meals and fuggetaboutit!

I don't mind stopping to smell the roses and take time away from the parks, it makes the trip all around more enjoyable for all of us!

heres my list for our next trip

1900 pf for breakfast and dinner
Chef Mickey's breakfast
Earl of Sandwich 2x
T-rex(dessert only)
CRT 2x for dinner
Boma breakfast
50's PTC
Tuskerhouse breakfast
Yak and Yeti sit down lunch
Maya Grille dinner
Akeshurs breakfast
Biergarten dinner
Kona breakfast
Coral Reef lunch
Le Cellier dinner
Crystal Palace brekfast
HDDMR
Ohana breakfast

 

[irunnoft]

We may have to use EMH this time with the boys. Your plan may have to be the route we take this trip.

Your trip is almost here!

I KNOW!!! I should be double checking my packing list, but here I am like an addict surfing the Disboards!!!

Here's a sample of what we did for this June trip.

June 15th

Hollywood Studios is the early park, but we have lunch at Le Cellier & dinner at Jiko. Now on that night, AK is the late EMH park, so we're going to try (but not too hard) to maybe get a few things like It's a Bug's Life and other less popular attractions in after dinner that night. I doubt very seriously we'll still get FPs for EE that evening, but we could knock out some of the other things we'd like to do at that park during the EMH at night.

On June 16th, MK is the early EMH, so we took an ADR for lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern. Dinner that night will be at Todd English's Blue Zoo in the Dolphin.

On June 17th, AK is the early EMH and we booked a lunch at Yak & Yeti. Dinner that night will be at Brown Derby and then we're off to Cirque du Soleil that night.

I think you get the idea. For us, it is always easier to tell which park we will be at during the morning hours, so we plan for lunches. In the evenings, we like to be able to "wing it" so we usually book ADRs at resorts or signature dinings. So, I guess we do a half-commando touring strategy. The mornings are very planned and regimented. The evenings are less by the numbers except for having a specific ADR for dinner. Sometimes, I've just planned for Wolfgang Puck's Express for dinner, too.

Looks like you've got some great places picked out to eat!!!

 

[irunnoft]

We are on the DXDP, so it plays a huge part for our trip. We feel the same as you. The dining is just as important to us as touring the parks! Touring the parks non-stop without a break is no fun for us. As much as we love Disney, it isn't going anywhere anytime soon lol. I like being able to discover something new to see or something we didn't do for our next trip. Plus the theming of the restaurants are amazing and unlike any other, add in some character meals and fuggetaboutit!

I don't mind stopping to smell the roses and take time away from the parks, it makes the trip all around more enjoyable for all of us!

heres my list for our next trip

1900 pf for breakfast and dinner
Chef Mickey's breakfast
Earl of Sandwich 2x
T-rex(dessert only)
CRT 2x for dinner
Boma breakfast
50's PTC
Tuskerhouse breakfast
Yak and Yeti sit down lunch
Maya Grille dinner
Akeshurs breakfast
Biergarten dinner
Kona breakfast
Coral Reef lunch
Le Cellier dinner
Crystal Palace brekfast
HDDMR
Ohana breakfast

I'm glad I'm not the only one that gets as excited about the dining as the rides! Seriously! I think our families should bow down before us!! Without us, they'd have Counter Service every single meal!!!

We were going to do the DXDP this trip, but I decided it would actually be cheaper for us to purchase at TiW card since we're DVC members and AP also. What I loved about doing the DXDP, though, was the fact that we'd be able to do a TS lunch AND a Signature dinner EVERY DAY!!! Sure, we'd skip using a TS for breakfast, but that would really be WAAAAAAY too much food! Also the DXDP allows you to get the appy. (Gosh! I really miss the old DDP where you got an app, entree, dessert, drink AND the tip was included!!!)

You've got a great list of places to dine, too!!!!

 

[gingerfeathers]

I totally agree! We aren't big planners except for the food! There are a few days that we have park preferences (i.e. want to be near MK for MNSSHP), but for the most part whatever day I can get reservations for certain restaurants will dictate our schedule for that day (though even then we always get park hoppers just in case we're not in the mood for a certain park we might have ADR's in!).

 

[inkedupmomma]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that gets as excited about the dining as the rides! Seriously! I think our families should bow down before us!! Without us, they'd have Counter Service every single meal!!!
Agreed lol
We were going to do the DXDP this trip, but I decided it would actually be cheaper for us to purchase at TiW card since we're DVC members and AP also. What I loved about doing the DXDP, though, was the fact that we'd be able to do a TS lunch AND a Signature dinner EVERY DAY!!! Sure, we'd skip using a TS for breakfast, but that would really be WAAAAAAY too much food! Also the DXDP allows you to get the appy. (Gosh! I really miss the old DDP where you got an app, entree, dessert, drink AND the tip was included!!!)
I def miss that tip included!! we do a TS breakfast every morning, a couple of lunches and then a TS dinner every night, some being 2TS credits. the left over credits we will use at EoS for the ride home!
You've got a great list of places to dine, too!!!!

Thanks, we are stoked!

I totally agree! We aren't big planners except for the food! There are a few days that we have park preferences (i.e. want to be near MK for MNSSHP), but for the most part whatever day I can get reservations for certain restaurants will dictate our schedule for that day (though even then we always get park hoppers just in case we're not in the mood for a certain park we might have ADR's in!).

I do plan my parks first, then add the restaurants around that. Last year we did a bit too much running around, so this year I tried to keep all adr's in park

 

[chell]

In the past I've tried to do EMH but sometimes I can't get up so early. My body just doesn't like to get going. Sometimes at WDW it does because they put crack in the water or something. But on our Honeymoon we just took it easy and slept in. The nephews won't be letting us sleep in on this trip! It will be like when they spend the night here. By 6 o'clock they'll be asking if it is time to get up yet.

I'm glad you guys understand what I'm saying. The food really is a huge part of the experience for us. I'm saying for us and Larry has only been once so far but he gets it already. I trained him well.

Breakfast isn't a big deal for me though so that does cut down a lot of the meals. Chef Mickey will probably be the only big meal. Otherwise we'll just grab something quick in the parks. I'm allergic to eggs so it makes having a good breakfast difficult. Wait a second, we have to do Ohana again for breakfast. Larry can't give up his Stitch character meal and I wouldn't ask him to. I think we will take the boys to that one and let the mommy's sleep in that morning.

If they add a Phineas and Ferb meal by December we would have to go to it since the boys love them so much. If they only sold fried egg sandwiches we'd still have to go since the boys like them so much.

 

[MickeyNicki]

We are very much like you, dining is a huge part of our vacation, if we do not spend that much park time we are ok with it as long as we get a fantastic meal at the end of the day...we love the signature places and these can take up to 2 hours or more but we are cool with that. Epcot is also our favorite park so we tend to do a lot of dinners there

 

[chell]

Epcot is my favorite as well. I can find too many places to eat in Epcot as well.

It is great that we are not alone and that there are others that the food is just as important.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

The first time we went to Disney we didn't even know about ADR's or restaurants. We ate all CS and we were in Florida for a week and did Disney for about 4 days and Universal once. I did LOVE Disney but I wasn't thrilled with the whole thing. At that time I saw it as a theme park but I did really enjoy it and I did feel the magic.

Then in 2008 I found this board about a month before we left and I got ADR's for Crystal Palace, Tusker House and Garden Grill. DH wasn't thrilled with the prices for these meals. But I hooked him in with Crystal Palace since he was a huge Pooh fan as a kid. That's when I was truly hooked to Disney. For us the experience was so different! Our kids got to meet the characters and we ate and the kids were just thrilled and so were we!

Then in 2009 I made 8 ADR's for our 8 day trip and dining is a huge part of our vacation now. We love LeCellier and Ohana's but they aren't the make it or break it part. The character meals are. We can have fine dining here where we live but dining with the characters is just awesome to us! Getting a princess meal and Chef Mickey's are (for the kids!! and us!) and if we didn't get them it would put a damper on the plans.

 

[CathieArms]

I guess I'd admit to planning our days around the ADRs I made. I made the ADRs first with no real care for where we might be each day. I just knew I wanted to be certain places for ADRs. After that, I planned which parks to go to.

We're doing:

Garden Grill
Cape May
Ohana's
Biergarten
Whispering Canyon Cafe
Crystal Palace
50s Prime Time
Sci Fi
Tutto Italia
Teppan Edo

 

[ROEDISNEY]

I try and pick places to eat based on where or the area I will be at. But If I really want to go some place to eat like back to Epcot again & again lol I will do it.

 

[chell]

Nikki character meals are so much fun. At first I always feel silly since I don't have kids but by the end of the meal I'm having too much fun to care!

Cathie you have some great choices. I see you are like me and have several Epcot choices. I could honestly have 10 meals (lunch and dinner) in Epcot.

ROEDISNEY me to, me too...

 

[ShannonMB]

I love planning our trips in detail, and it has worked out great for us. The very first thing I like to plan is the restaurants we want to try, and I more or less work the entire itinerary for the week around that. Yes, the dining at Disney is VERY important to me!!!! LOVE IT!!!

 

[somethingblue]

I made our ADRs based on not only where we want to eat, but also on EMH. We're the late-to-rise kind of group, so evening EMH are a big thing for us.

I looked at EMH, figured out which parks we would want to spend more time in, and then called to make ressies based on where we wanted to eat and where we'd be spending most of our time, then figured out what places we wanted to try.

 

[PalmettoPrincess]

I agree with a PP in that I also have a general idea of which parks I'd like to visit on a certain day and try to plan my ADRs around that. I don't get park hopper tickets, so I can't jump from park to park (or hotel) to get to a restaurant. But if a certain restaurant isn't available on a certain day, I have no problem reworking my original plans. And since I'll want to visit certain restaurants elsewhere on Disney property, I plan my arrival day and departure day around those. I'm sort of ashamed to admit to people (other than fellow Dis-ers whom I'm sure will understand!) that most of my planning time centers around food!!! I've become a horrible fan of dining reviews and the food porn! HAHAHA!