How much is dining a part of your Disney vacation?

[Masonmj84]

I grew up in a family that brown bagged their meals at theme parks because my parents simply could not afford even counter service food.

As an adult, I'm fortunate to be able to afford table service dining when visiting WDW. It's a huge part of our vacation experience.

A lot of people, including many of my relatives, think we're nuts. To them, visiting theme parks is all about attractions. From their perspective, when visiting theme parks, hunger is an annoying biological urge that is to be satisfied as quickly and cheaply as possible.

In contrast, we view WDW as a resort experience that happens to include theme parks. And while it can be argued that WDW dining is grossly overpriced and/or has gone downhill and/or has been "dumbed down" by the DDP, we simply love the variety of dining experiences at WDW. Along those lines, while there are several dining venues to be avoided, there are also a number of very good (albeit often expensive) options.

It's one of the reasons that the kitchen feature of DVC has never been a selling point to me. On a Disney trip, I don't want to cook or wash dishes, even if the groceries are delivered (and I shudder at the thought of making a Costco run).

FWIW, I'm not trying to bag on others' vacation styles. But, for us, it wouldn't be worth it to go to WDW without table service dining (we're not fans of counter service, mainly because it's too stressful - I hate having to wait in a line to get food, then wait in another line at the register, only to then have to fight for a table and find condiments, all while trying to keep track of kids and balance trays).

The way I see it, Disney tends to be a relatively stressful vacation destination if there isn't some pampering built in. Table service dining is one of the main areas that we choose to be pampered.

 

[sara1215]

I'm planning my first big trip and dining is going to be huge for me. First of all, because I don't have to cook or plan it! I'm kind of a foodie so I'm looking forward to trying different things. Also I'm looking forward to character dining. Traveling with young kids, seeing the characters is going to be a big priority for them. I'd rather eat than wait in line.

 

[ondori]

It's not a big deal to me. I've had exactly one sit down dinner, and that was in Mexico at Epcot. It was really good, and I'm sure I will eventually do it again, but I don't consider it a priority. I'm happy with a hot dog from Casey's Corner.

 

[anniemae]

Dining is a big part of our trip to Disney. We are very excited to try the new DD restaurant, I think it's the Boat House. We enjoy a mix of sit down and CS. For CS, we like Flame Tree, CHH, Pecos Bills, ABC Commissary.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I think my family falls somewhere in the middle on dining. We don't consider a relaxing meal a waste of ride time, but we don't plan our vacation around what we're going to eat either. We generally book one TS a day, and eat CS (or sometimes a granola bar for breakfast) the rest of the time.

 

[Meriweather]

Big part for us, but we are two adults and enjoy a good meal with sitting down and relaxing.
We usually do TS for lunch, but do dinner if somewhere we like doesn't do a lunch TS and we eat breakfast in our room

 

[nat8199]

It is a large part of our trips. My in-laws love fine dining, my DH prefers TS to CS, and my kids are hobbits who need constant food or they turn into the beast (yet are tiny).

 

[Bellamouse]

It's the main reason we go to Disney. We are just two adults with no kids, so we don't have to worry about pleasing the kids. We love the parks and attractions, but the variety of dining experiences is what gets us most excited when we're there. The dreaming and planning for half a year is 2/3 of the fun!

Oh, and we always go during F&W festival, so that's the biggest draw.

 

[jjsdad]

it is a huge part for us as well. We generally bring breakfast stuff with us on our trip so we don't have to worry about that, get up early and eat lunch at a CS whenever we want. Every night has a restaurant booked. We hit the parks hard at RD, go back to the hotel mid day then head out to eat and walk around the parks at night after. We pretty much always stay at an epcot resort because of this. We love the fact that the kids enjoy the restaurants as much as we do such as Ohana, Coral Reef and Mama Melrose. We always try something new every trip but those 3 always get visited. I can tell you I also enjoy having a couple drinks at dinner as much as I enjoy the food, it's just a great way to wind down from a fun day of sensory overload.

 

[cjnix29]

I'll probably get skewered.... but it's only a small part. We have to eat. And we do make reservations for sit down restaurants. But never once in all my trips, have I ever said "that was an awesome meal." You pay a heck of a lot for mediocre food, and even the ones every one raves about. Just not a huge deal for us. We like to cook, like to go out to eat. But at Disney, most things are just average. That being said, we are looking forward to the Food and Wine fest during our upcoming trip.

 

[starsweeper]

Dining is not a huge deal to us, but we have 4 young kids (8,8,4,3) that are impatient to ride and have other experiences. I usually schedule one TS a day either for character dining or to have a mid-day break. Perhaps when our kids are older, we'll slow down and try more restaurants.

 

[Lisaloo]

I would love to nosh my way through WDW. I could do a week long trip and eat only snacks and CS. My family however...TS is a must. DH and 4 kids all have their favorites and we have a TS dinner every night. I don't complain because I'm not cooking/cleaning, but I only make ADRs because I am outvoted.

 

[Buffalo2Disney]

I would say it is the biggest part of our trip for us. We love going to WDW for the dining experience and being able to eat food we might not usually be able to eat around where we live. We always have a sit down dinner every night of our trips. Sometimes we squeeze in a sit down lunch as well. We have ate at every signature restaurant except for Citrico's and Victoria & Albert's.

 

[wishinon3stars]

Dining is an important part of our Disney vacation also. Each time we go, We like to try new restaurants along with a couple of
favorites. One time we upgraded to the deluxe dining plan and did a number of signature restaurants. It was a lot of food but
we enjoyed trying the signatures. Now we just pick one or two signatures per trip to mix in with our ts and cs meals.

 

[Jeannie in NJ]

our last trip we stayed club level and it was great. We were there 8 or 9 days and spend most of our time at MK or Epcot so taking the monorail whenever we wanted was easy. We had breakfast at the club level, ate counter service in the parks and since it was Jan. we were usually back to our resort to enjoy evening offerings at the club level. The only ts we did was Citricos, Coral Reef and 50's Prime time and one breakfast at GF Cafe and one at Kona Cafe. The previous year we had gone in Dec and had free dining, never again will we do that, it was too much, too much food, too much time spent at table services and way too much planning for me.

 

[USCAnna]

I grew up in a family that brown bagged their meals at theme parks because my parents simply could not afford even counter service food.

As an adult, I'm fortunate to be able to afford table service dining when visiting WDW. It's a huge part of our vacation experience.

I really relate to your post. My husband and I both fondly remember eating bologna sandwiches out the back of our parents' station wagons. As adults, we feel fortunate to be able to give our kids the experience of table service dining, especially since we have some of our best memories during these times. We typically have 12-15 table services per trip. However, I realize that for many people this is too much time away from the activity of the parks....which I certainly can understand. I think as long as you are doing what works best for you and your family you will have an awesome trip.

 

[loves to dive]

Food is one of the things we look forward to when going to WDW. We usually have a TS every day, but there are a number of the CS locations we enjoy too. We rarely do the snack, but we have been known to do snacks from every country instead of a meal. We are three adults, DS, DIL and myself but even when DS was young and it was just he and I we still ate at TS and enjoyed the food. I always gain weight, even though I get up every morning and work out and we walk to and from HS and don't even plan our rides out well so we end up crossing the parks over and over again. Don't even get me started on the beer and wine, F&W is my favorite time of year.

 

[1234lucky]

I'll probably get skewered.... but it's only a small part. We have to eat. And we do make reservations for sit down restaurants. But never once in all my trips, have I ever said "that was an awesome meal." You pay a heck of a lot for mediocre food, and even the ones every one raves about. Just not a huge deal for us. We like to cook, like to go out to eat. But at Disney, most things are just average. That being said, we are looking forward to the Food and Wine fest during our upcoming trip.

This.

 

[sleepymouse]

I'll probably get skewered.... but it's only a small part. We have to eat. And we do make reservations for sit down restaurants. But never once in all my trips, have I ever said "that was an awesome meal." You pay a heck of a lot for mediocre food, and even the ones every one raves about. Just not a huge deal for us. We like to cook, like to go out to eat. But at Disney, most things are just average.

We are going to WDW for the first time next month, and I have a feeling that I will leave with the same opinion. I have made some reservations based on either great theme or good reviews of food we are interested in ... we've gotta eat somewhere. We are vegetarian/vegan family and don't eat a bunch of processed food at home. We are definitely not a Disney's target audience. Hopefully some of the TS will be decent quality. I would love to be pleasantly surprised.

 

[ottawamom]

For us its all about the parks. We eat just to refuel. In the 5 times we've been to Disney we have yet to eat a TS meal. Looks like we are definitely in the minority on this one.