How much time between meals?

[iluvpluto27]

We did the deluxe plan, and loved it but it was a lot of food. We used snacks for breakfast so had lunch at the first available seating (usually between 11:30 and 12:00). We never found lunches took very long (never more than 1 hour), service was quick as the restaurants were pretty quiet and we usually only had 2 courses.

Our dinners were planned for later than yours (around 7:30-8:00) and I still wasn't very hungry by the time they rolled around. We did enjoy the plan but if I was you I would have gone with some later dinner times, to give you more time to digest your lunch. On our next trip we're doing the dxddp again, but this time I'm going to plan for even later dinners to give us a bit more time in between meals.

By the way, even with all the meals we had we still had plenty of time to do every attraction we wanted. Have fun!

 

[Matt71]

Hey, I thought of something else. You don't really want counter service, right? But since you'll (probably) have unused credits, rather than let them go to waste entirely you could use them for sandwiches/salads from the food court, which you can take home with you.

We don't want counter service primarily because it's not cost effective. A meal has to be worth $23 to be a value using the DxDDP. We do like Pecos Bills and want to try Columbia Harbor House, so we might do one of those instead of Liberty Tree Tavern if time starts getting tight on Thursday.

We are planning to do the sandwich thing on our last day and bring the sandwiches to the airport. Will probably pick up some sandwiches from Cafe Rix.

I do have a concern about that though... I know you can uses your remaining snack credits all at once, but can you use 4 or 5 TS credits all at once? Wouldn't people be able to supply food for people not on the DDP that way?

 

[kaytieeldr]

Well, you know, that's an interesting question.

 

[Suellen]

Matt interesting you say that... but I doubt that they can really "do" or "say" anything about using more than one CS per person at a time. I mean.. you could just go back through the line.

And we have had them use an adult CS for a kid's meal who WASN'T on the dining plan... so there is no restriction on that computer wise (and no we didn't ask and as a matter of fact specifically asked NOT to use a credit for us ~ it was a huge mess to fix).

 

[cmesq61]

Matt71: I don't know what Disney's rule book says, but here is what we found in practice:
Our family of two adults and two kids were on 2 separate DxDPlans (idiot TA--long story that I'll refrain form venting about here), so half the meals on my KTTW card and half on his. Some CMs were very strict about tallying the meals on each card and so we used both cards at the meal 9which doubled the bill paying time!), some were not so strict and so we would use one card and subtract all 4 TS meals from the one card, no problem.

A few meals we wanted to order an "extra" 5th meal because we knew we were going to have a few TS credits left at the end that we didn't want to waste. So, for example, we wanted to order the fruit plate one morning at breakfast for the family to share in addition to the 4 breakfasts we ordered. The CM gave us a bit of a hard time--he was pleasant but essentially said no matter how you slice it there are only 4 adults on the meal plan so you can only use 4 meals at a time. I asked to speak with the manager, explained that yes, only 4 of us on the plan, here we all are, you can verify that we are the 4 guest that I paid for (since we all had KTTW cards) so we aren't "giving" the food to any "non-paying" people, and we own 84 TS credits to be used however we want. Once the manager understood that it was just "us" and we were going to be the ones eating what I had paid for there was no problem.

Re-reading my post it seems complicated--man, I'm wordy!, but hopefully you understand my point. You may need to explain and verify but they're your credits to do with as you wish.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Funny - it doesn't actually seem all that complicated; you're not as wordy as you think (I think you needed all the words to explain your specific experience ); and it might work for Matt and his DW as well! They can only try!
One of the things I like about cruising (really, this IS related) is if you can't decide which entree, or which dessert, you want - your server will be happy to bring both! With the extra dining credits it appears they will have, it can't hurt to ASK to order another entree, or even an entire meal.

 

[Matt71]

Hopefully we will be ok, because it seems like this is easier to do with counter service. I don't think we'd ever try with TS - it sounds like too much of a hassle and would probably be too much food to take back to the room.

 

[pigby]

We had the regular dining plan in August - we also usually eat dinner pretty early but we found that when we had a lunch around 11.30am we were still not ready to eat at the time I had picked my ADR's for - between 5pm and 6pm.

We are doing the DDP again this year and one thing I am going to do differently is to book my ADR's no earlier than 7pm (except when we want to get to Fantasmic for example) - I think, for us we'll enjoy it a lot more

 

[bangzoom6877]

One day of our trip, we had the breakfast buffet at the character breakfast at Hollywood& Vine at DHS at 8:05AM. We still stopped for lunch at around 11:30AM at the Toy Story Pizza Planet...the kids were hungry. It also depends on what you get...we did not totally stuff our faces at the breakfast...we ate more than a normal breakfast at home, but nothing making us feel overly full or uncomfortable. We were there more for the characters for our children. DH ate the veggie pizza at Pizza Planet. I had a salad with chicken in it, nice and light, and we got apple slices for our dessert. The kids shared a pizza with no problem. But they ate the normal breakfast amount they eat at home...so they were hungry for lunch at their regular time. When we returned to the room in the afternoon (around 2:30 we got there), I treated myself to a Mickey ice cream bar from the food court at Pop Century. We had dinner at 6PM at 1900 Park Fare and all of us ate.

And we are active, fit people, pretty thin. We are not heavy eaters. But our bodies are used to eating on a certain schedule, and I will of course always go by my children's needs and schedules. This also keeps the kids happy and prevents meltdowns. Proud to say...not a single meltdown in all 5 days!

So you do whatever you feel is best for you...remember you also do not have to eat until you feel completely stuffed and sick at each meal...you could always order something on the lighter side too!

For the record, the day we were in Epcot, we had gone to the Biergarten German buffet for dinner at 5PM. Afterward, we walked around the WS and snacked in different countries. Among them were chocolate mousse in France and a churro in Mexico. And earlier that day we had a nice big lunch in Morocco at the CS place there, and brought schoolbread back to the room from Norway which DH and I shared but is HUGE!!! And like I said we are normally not big eaters, but throw in all that walking and we get hungry!!!

 

[tndisneyfan]

We did the basic DDP two years in a row, back when it included appetizers. We would normally eat PopTarts or something for breakfast then eat our CS meal around 11:30 to 12:00. Our first trip with the DDP we made most all our TS ADR's for around 5:30. We found that a lot of times we just weren't hungry yet. Now we are big eaters and we like to eat, so it wasn't an issue of being light eaters. The next year we scheduled most of our ADR's around 6:30 to 7:00. Just an hour or so difference made a huge difference in how hungry we were.

Personally the DxDP would never work for me. At WDW it would be just too hard for me to eat three full meals a day.

Good Luck with your planning.

 

[DisneySweetheart]

Hi Matt...

It isn't the spacing of the meals that would do me in, it's the shear quantity. But we're a one "big meal" per day sorta family. If we over do it, we just don't feel well.

You've got lots of big meals, but Hey, if that's what you enjoy, I say go for it!

We are a get up and have an instant breakfast or a nutragrain bar family. Then we get a small snack at the park. Eat a counter service around 11:15-11:30 (maybe another small snack) and then our table service meal around 5:30 - 6:00pm.

Do what works for you!

 

[darkcrystal]

In My Humble Opinion, your meals are spaced too closely together, and you're trying to do too many TSes.

We're on the DxDP, and our basic plan is to have one CS and two TSes a day. Breakfast in the food court, a lunch TS around noon, and a LATE dinner TS. Like, between 7 and 8PM late. Our first day we have an early breakfast, CS for lunch, and a TS at 5PM. To me, this seems like a much more sane option.

Remember two things... one, you're gonna have a bejillion snack credits. If you're feeling peckish and still have an hour or two until dinner, grab a snack! Two, don't divide the cost of the DxDP by total meals when figuring cost savings. Your TSes will be at least twice what a CS meal would be, so if you do two TSs a day and grab a CS at times you want to be "on the go" more, I think you'll still end up ahead.

Good luck!

 

[cmesq61]

matt71: You go guy!

P.S. Have you looked at character breakfast buffets? I seem to recall they were all 23.99 or up per adult? I love CP--the puffed french toast on the kids buffet tastes just like the homemade donuts my dad used to make. Yum!

 

[househunter]

That would never work for us, we would be sick! We are doing the deluxe in April but are only having a late breakfast/ early lunch at around 11-12 and then dinner between 7-8. We will not have the dessert at lunch and will usually have fruit or sorbet with dinner. We also would never be able to do the heavy appitizers like fried items or heavy cream soups. We are excited to be eating a signiture meals almost every evening, mostly places we haven't tried before.

At home, I eat a bowl of cereal or a bagel for breakfast, soup or sandwich but never both for lunch and hardly ever have dessert after dinner. Eating 3- 3 course meals a day in that short of a span would be way too much.

You can always try it and see how it goes and adjust or skip a few meals if you need to.

 

[Matt71]

matt71: You go guy!

P.S. Have you looked at character breakfast buffets? I seem to recall they were all 23.99 or up per adult? I love CP--the puffed french toast on the kids buffet tastes just like the homemade donuts my dad used to make. Yum!

Unless they have raised prices, Chef Mickey tops the list at $22.99. Everything else that I've seen is under $20. CRT is the obvious exception, but costs 2 credits

 

[hannah_03]

I'm plan on spacing ours 5 hours apart from end time. We can always grab a small snack in-between. That is based on past experience and how we eat.