If you *don't* get the DDP, what do you do for food?

[Fintastic]

I'm on the fence about the DDP right now. We could definitely feed our little family of three for less than $100 a day (which is what the DDP would cost). I need some idea on *what* to feed us, though. I already plan to bring some breakfast bars or muffins or something for mornings. Are you allowed to bring outside food into the park? What about coolers? (I’m thinking of a cooler or insulated bag that will fit under the stroller, nothing huge.) I don’t mind eating a daily counter service for dinner, but I’d prefer to eat a lighter lunch.

The DDP is just too much food. DD will only be turning 4 and she eats like a bird, and I’ve lost 20 pounds on Weight Watchers this year and would prefer not to have all that food available to tempt me. DD and I will most likely split our meals.

 

[Minnie824]

Honestly, we're not fond of the DDP. But we also don't budget our food costs. On the other hand, I think with 3 people you could easily do less than $100 a day w/a sit down meal even. I mean, if you bring snacks for breakfast as you said, plan on an average $25 for the 3 of you counter service for lunch, burgers, etc. Then even if you had a character buffet of $25/person, thats still only $100/day and child meals would be cheaper. We're not big breakfast people, so we do snacks for breakfast as well. Then counter service lunch, sit down dinner. Plus if you do 2 counter service if you'd like, you'd have extra as well. Just my opinion.

 

[SnowWhite12]

You can bring in a soft-sided cooler. We always bring snacks in, in our bags. Things like vienna sausages, beanie weanies, cheese crackers. If you are staying on property, you could go back to your room for lunch. We do that often, too. We go eat sandwiches (cold cuts if you have a fridge, or PB if not) or popcorn. We new we wouldn't ever spend as much as the DDP costs on a normal day.

 

[Barb D]

We do cereal, bagels, etc. in the room for breakfast, a sit-down meal for lunch (gives us an air-conditioned break), and either counter service in the park or pizza at the food court at the resort for dinner. We do bring snacks into the parks, and buy at least one snack (Mickey bar, etc.) each day.

 

[pl'smama]

Our DD was roughly the same age as your DD is when we went and there was just the three of us. We did not use the DDP and I do not think it would have bee worth the money. I brought some of the small boxed cereals from home and we purchased a container of milk from the resort store. I also brought some juice boxes along with canned fruit and that was breakfast most days, in our room. The snacks I took to the parks included granola bars, rice krispie squares and those little Ritz chesse and crackers. We found that we did not eat a lot of snacks, but I did bring two refillable water bottles and we drank a lot of water. Oh, raisins are good too. Many days we had a late lunch so dinner was back at the resort from counter service. Even at that we shared stuff with our DD because she is a very light eater. The biggest cost, food wise, was our Character Meals. You can use two or three of your Table Service meals on the DDP to "pay" for certain Character Meals, but if you only do one or two then I don't think it is worth the extra money you are paying for the rest of DDP.

I think you will find yourselves not eating as much, and possibly even eating quick breakfasts in your room. This saved us a bunch of money and time and we put the dough saved towards other things.

Have fun!!

Suz

 

[hollyb]

We are not getting the plan either. DS takes medincine that makes him not hungry until at least 7 or 8pm, DD is tiny and eats weird. Anywho we have budgeted (sp) $200 a day for food and extra's. Breakfast is a must for DS, thats his big meal a day, we will eat at our hotel. POP food looks pretty decent. After that its up in the air on we what we eat. We live in NJ and are less then an hour from NYC so great restaurants are available to us 24/7. So don't feel in anyway that we are missing out on Disney food.

Congrats on losing 20 pounds! You ROCK!!

 

[tjmw2727]

The DDP dosen't work for us either. We either take a town car from the airport with the grocery stop or use ME and have an order shipped. We use wegoshop.com but I have read great reports about a few different options.

We have breakfast in the room most mornings with the exception of maybe a character breakfast. Usually cold cereal with milk, bagel or muffins and fruit. Its quicker this way as I can get the kids eating while I shower it's cheaper and I know the kids will eat it and start the day out fairly healthy.

Our "big meal" or table service meal each is usually a late lunch. We can relax, be waited on and enjoy great food at a bit less $ than dinner and we usually need a break by 1:30 or so. Then its counter service dinner and since we often end our days at Epcot we have great CS choices here. Often we split a meal between 3-4 of us in one country and then enjoy something else in another. So we may get some enchalidas to share in Mexico and then by the time we get to UK wew can split some fish & Chips.

On days when we take a pool break I will make sandwiches for lunch but I don't take a cooler into the parks.

TJ

 

[Fintastic]

Congrats on losing 20 pounds! You ROCK!!

Thanks! It's been tough with DH bringing home Taco Bell whenever he wants, but I'm really trying to stick with it!

 

[hollyb]

Thanks! It's been tough with DH bringing home Taco Bell whenever he wants, but I'm really trying to stick with it!

Tacos come and go but 20 pounds are gone FOREVER!!!!! Don't let nasty Taco Bell get her off track. You know you can make yummier ones at one and they are much heathier.

 

[blessedby3]

We dont do the dining package either. We would be spending $170 for 2 adults, 1 teen, 1 pre teen and 1 child. We always spend way less than that for us to eat for a day. We split a lot of meals. They give you huge portions at Disney, so I split with one kid and my other 2 kids split a meal. Sometimes we get the double cheeseburger with an extra bun and we each have a whole burger- which they dont finish either- but its cheap. We also order pizza a couple of times during our stay. We get Papa Johns or Pizza Hut. They deliver to the resorts.

 

[hollyb]

We dont do the dining package either. We would be spending $170 for 2 adults, 1 teen, 1 pre teen and 1 child. We always spend way less than that for us to eat for a day. We split a lot of meals. They give you huge portions at Disney, so I split with one kid and my other 2 kids split a meal. Sometimes we get the double cheeseburger with an extra bun and we each have a whole burger- which they dont finish either- but its cheap. We also order pizza a couple of times during our stay. We get Papa Johns or Pizza Hut. They deliver to the resorts.

Pizza Hut delivers that is great news. I wonder if they deliver to POP. My family would be so happy!

 

[mom2aredhead]

Staying at AKL, so have a fridge too.
We plan to make a grocery run for:

loaf of bread
jar of peanut butter
yogurt
bananas
case of water
juice boxes
milk

We'll have breakfast in the room while we're getting ready (see above list) something little and quick. We also had the refillable mugs for drinks last trip which was great and we plan to do that again...although according to my husband the tea was gross and I am to pack him teabags from home
We brought a soft-side cooler with a PB sandwich for my son, juice boxes and bottles of water. Lunch was C/S - usually 2 things split between the 3 of us, (or my son would have PB sandwich) w/bottles of water we bring in. Since we ate small for breakfast we were ready for lunch earlier - bonus was that it wasn't very crowded yet.
Dinner - Sometimes we'll have TS, sometimes CS, sometimes we'll be off property and eat somewhere else. Kind of depends where we are and what we're doing. We have a few ADR's for a few character things, but the beauty of NOT being on DDP is that if we decide to blow it off, we call and cancel and not have to worry about replacing our already paid for TS meal.

DDP is too much of a commitment for me. It's not about the money - we eat wherever/whatever we want to regardless if we were on DDP or not. Sometimes appetizers, sometimes dessert, sometimes neither. We'll probably break even or maybe spend a little more by the end of the week but OOP works for us.
And I agree w/hollyb - we live in NYC, so fabulous restaurants with and diverse ethnic selections are here for us to take advantage of all the time (and believe me we do!) My Disney time = park time. For that matter, I'll have filet mignon at w/a bottle of merlot, even throw in a lobster tail, tell hubby to bring home Junior's cheesecake (google it if you're not familiar), and it'll be less than the price of DDP, and I don't have to give up park time to do it.

 

[Honeymooner04]

We don't do the dining plan because we like to be more flexible since our daughter is so young (she'll be 14 months on this trip). I would hate to waste the credits because she's not in the mood to sit at a table service restaurant that evening or whatever. What worked for us on our Dec. 06 trip and what we're going to do in a few days is we use a towncar service and do a grocery stop. We get bottled water, soda, muffins and bananas for breakfast, microwave popcorn and snacks like that for the munchies. Then we plan on having a table service meal for lunch since it's cheaper than dinner and do counter service at night. We also got the Disney Dining Experience card last December since we knew we were going to take 3 trips in this calender year and it has paid for itself. We probably will do the dining plan when my daughter is older and is a little more predictable and I can justify the extra food.

 

[earthfaries]

The DDP takes up a lot of your time and it is really hard to eat all that food. We take food into the parks. Almond butter and jelly sandwiches, canned peas and mandarin oranges w/a can opener, fruit leathers, granola bars (cereal bars get crushed up) crackers and cheese spray, etc. It works great. They just hop in the stroller and eat while we push them across the park. (We put the huge backpack on top of the double stroller we rent!) and also plastic spoons and wipes. We bring 1.5 liter bottles of water for us, and the kids water bottles. Luckily you can bring in food. At Dollywood, which we have a season pass with they don't let you bring in ANY food at all ever! Such a stupid policy! The only exception is if you have a food allery then you can bring in food and leave it at the Safety Office until you want to eat it, then sit outside at their picnic tables and eat it

 

[NEVERENOUGHWDW]

Not to get of the original point but I am a little shocked at some of these snacks......cans of peas & vienna sausages in a can? When wanting a snack canned peas have never even been a consideration..

Never use a dining plan.
Room service or a trip to the snack shop in the a.m. for breakfast to eat while getting ready.....
Lunch we like Kona's, Grand Floridian Cafe, Brown Derby, Chefs de Pars or a sandwich at the pool.
Dinner some favorites are Blue Zoo, Ca. Grill, Artist Point, Bistro de France & Narcossee's.

Late night snack, Mickey rice krispie treat....

 

[TMB1203]

We used the DDP for the first time this past Feb.
I was concerned that the DDP wouldn't be enough food (silly first timer) so I packed a suitcase of snacks like I normally do w/o the dining plan. We came home with everything except a couple bags of popcorn and some cheese crackers! Overall, we didn't eat anywhere differently (other than Coral Reef).
We generally eat 1 CS and 1 TS per day.

Part of the vacation for us is eating out and the character dinings.

 

[winniethepoohsmom]

When our children were younger we did breakfast in our room cereal, fruit and OJ and counter service at the parks and food courts and most dinners outside the parks (we rent a car) often at the crossroads across from the entrance by downtown disney. Sometimes the kids would order pancakes or waffles at Perkins for dinner, or pizza I think it was Pizza Hut it was less expensive and served quickly. Epcot WS is great for trying different things at different countries. My DS's are teenagers now and eat more than DH so the ddp worked out nice on our last trip, they just ordered what they wanted cleaned their plates and I was'nt concerned about the bill.

 

[earthfaries]

Not to get of the original point but I am a little shocked at some of these snacks......cans of peas & vienna sausages in a can? When wanting a snack canned peas have never even been a consideration..

Never use a dining plan.
Room service or a trip to the snack shop in the a.m. for breakfast to eat while getting ready.....
Lunch we like Kona's, Grand Floridian Cafe, Brown Derby, Chefs de Pars or a sandwich at the pool.
Dinner some favorites are Blue Zoo, Ca. Grill, Artist Point, Bistro de France & Narcossee's.

Late night snack, Mickey rice krispie treat....

Actually the canned peas is a great snack for a four year old if they like them. You may not want them, but since the origianl question concerned a 4 year old child, I wasn't gearing the answer towards adults. The foods I listed above were actually for the children, we eat at the park, they don't like to. I would rather have rice krispie treats for a snack also, but that would be a dessert for a child, after they have had something nutritious like peas!

 

[tweetie1]

We ate breakfast at our condo. Got to the park early, left after a few hours to eat lunch. We found a small buffet style restaurant just off site that was reasonable and ate lunch there every day. It saved us money plus it gave the kids time to wind down a little and got us out of the park during the hottest and most crowded time of the day. Then we would to back to the park for a few more hours and eat a light snack in the evening. We would fix sandwiches, hotdogs, etc or order a pizza when we got back to the condo at night. We spent way less than $100 a day on food.

 

[sindertinker]

I can't see using the DDP for myself. We never eat 3 meals out, usually granola bars in the room in the morning and then brunch later. We do mostly counter service too. If eating in very nice places is a priority, then I think the plan is beneficial.