I'm Torn - Quick Service DP vs. DP

[Dandy8]

I'm torn on if I should go with the quick service meal plan or the regular dining plan. I'll be traveling with my DH, DD9 & DS7. I like the idea of eating on the fly but I also like to mellow out and have a sit down dinner. My only concern with that is that I will need to make reservations and we'll be tied down to being at certain restaurants and places on certain nights. Although, I do want to do 1 character meal. I might be better off getting the quick service meal plan and paying for the character meal outright. Any feedback would be helpful!

Also how are the counter service meals? Do they have salads and decent sandwiches or am I stuck with chicken fingers, hamburgers, hot dogs & french fries?

 

[Momto3Girls&Max]

There are some really great CS places -- Cosmic Ray's at MK, Sunshine Seasons and Tangierine Cafe at Epcot, Pepper Market at Coronado Springs, Captain Cooks at the Poly -- that have more than just chicken fingers and burgers, but personally I think I would tire of CS all the time.

I was worried about being tied to TS reservations when we first did the dining plan in 2006. And it was a bit of a drag a few times, but we got to experience some amazing places that we're looking forward to returning to this year.

 

[tink20]

I feel the same as you, I keep thinking.....well for $10 I could get a nice sit down dinner, even character meal,, half the fun for me is planning my ADRs, but it would be so nice to not worry about being somewhere by a certain time. Well I have until Dec. to decide, that is when my 180 days out begins.

 

[Tink3Bell]

I would see how much extra the next plan up is you may want to take that extra money and just do the places you like for TS and save the rest and just mellow out a few times. I like the quick service idea and a few TS. Especially with kids.

 

[WDWorBUST]

DH and I are actually excited about the new quick service plan. I will say we have LOVED free dining and eating places we might have never tried otherwise. But it really cramps our style having to be at certain places at certain times just to eat. We will most likely do it going forward and just plan on a couple of meals OOP. My thoughts are if I do the basic plan but don't use all the TS meals I'm wasting money....but I can be confident that I'll get my money's worth out of the quick service plan.

 

[septbaby]

Do the regular DP. This is the last your DD9 will be $10.99 after that she'll be a $39.99 Adult.

Chef Mickey's OOP: Bfast for the family $77 (more if you choose dinner).

Reg DP will cost $24 more per night, so if its a 5 night trip $120-$77. You could have had 4 more TS meals for just $43 more. Make some of those breakfast and start you day TS and not worry about needing to stop.

We did Lunch at Coral Reef on our early MK day, great break and meal.
We started our day with a late breakfast at Chef Mickey's.
We did Boma right after AK closed on our AK day.
Narcoosee's was our arrival night meal. oh la la
H&V Fantasmic got a bit hairy because we had to go from MK to MGM. We were late and they took care of us anyway as they were turning away walk ups.

 

[Dandy8]

Thanks for all of your replies... ahh decisions, decisions!!!

 

[pooh2001]

Depends on your needs. There are many CS places, already listed in the above posts, you can eat at.

For our family, and DH's requests - he want one sit down a day- so our kids drink milk (not soda) - everyone eats a salad (get those greens in you)- and we sit in A/C for a meal. We tend to do dinner as our TS.

If you are not picky on where to eat- and you do DDP - after you plan which park you will be in each evening - then find a TS to eat in, try around the 7 PM time frame for your ADR.

In DHS, try MM, H&V, 50 PT
In Epcot, try GG, Coral Reef, GG
Or from DHS or EPCOT boat to YC/BC or BW and eat at one of their restaurants.

In MK, try CP, Tony's, or in one of the restuarants in the resorts on the MK monorail line (CR, Poly, GF) - or boat to WL for WC.

In AK - limited to Y&Y or Tusker House, but you could bus to AK for Boma's or CSR for Maya Grill

I am sure you will still be able to secure an ADR TS even 60 days before you arrive - especially if you try a resort restaurant and not a park restauarant.

 

[englishrose47]

Have they announced prices of the 2009 plan and details I've been absent for a while and am anxious to know ????

 

[annnewjerz]

$29.99 for an adult for the Quick-Service DP
$39.99 for an adult for the Basic DP
$72.99 for an adult for the Deluxe DP

Not sure about kids pricing, sorry!

 

[septbaby]

$29.99 for an adult for the Quick-Service DP
$39.99 for an adult for the Basic DP
$72.99 for an adult for the Deluxe DP

Not sure about kids pricing, sorry!

I think I've read Child pricing as follows: $8.99, $10.99 and not sure if Deluxe increased from $19.99 to $20.99, sorry

Why does Disney make this info so hard to uncover?

 

[MO Nurse]

As of right now we have the quick service plan booked. We are planning to do 4 or 5 TS meals and pay OOP. The main reason we are doing this plan is convenience of having it paid for before our trip. Who knows the closer it gets to our trip we may change our mind and do the regular DP. We love the idea of trying new places to eat and taking that time to relax and talk about how the trip is going and what we can't wait to do.

If I had a child under 10 though I agree with the OP I would go with the dining plan.

 

[septbaby]

As of right now we have the quick service plan booked. We are planning to do 4 or 5 TS meals and pay OOP. The main reason we are doing this plan is convenience of having it paid for before our trip. Who knows the closer it gets to our trip we may change our mind and do the regular DP. We love the idea of trying new places to eat and taking that time to relax and talk about how the trip is going and what we can't wait to do.

If I had a child under 10 though I agree with the OP I would go with the dining plan.

How many nights are you staying? Be sure to factor in taxes when comparing OOP vs the DP. It will cost you $10 per night to trade in one a CS meal and snack for a TS meal each night. Even if you select an inexpensive TS like Boma bfast ($18 w/taxes) for that $18 you could have essentially eaten there twice had you selected the TS DP.

 

[septbaby]

I think the QS DP option will work really well if eating CS is fine for your group, you are really on a budget or are paying for a "lot" of people or nights. $10 a night times 5 nights for family of 4 is real money. Heck that's airfare or an extra night for that money. So it give families a wonderful and sometimes difficult decision tree!

Personally, I really loved the DP and am looking forward to visiting some TS places on my next WDW trip. Perhaps if I hadn't already been spoiled I could get excited by the new plan. One of my professors would say I'm "burdened with knowledge".

 

[Reese]

We're opting for the QS in Jan. With a trip in Sept and Dec I'm looking forward to not having to plan ahead for this one. We do plan on two character breakfasts and our anniversary dinner at Tony's but even than it's cheaper for us to pay OOP than it is to upgrade to the DP. Also this way we will be able to use the extra CS credits for our DD to get meals when we go since she's two and eats more than her older brother .

Also don't forget to add in tips on top of the cost difference for the DP.

 

[Mandychelle79]

we plan on using the quick service and get 3 meals oop at the character meals we HAVE to do. We did the dp in 2007 and liked it but we felt tied down too much because we did not have park hoppers. our family is fine with cs most of the time.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

But the QS DP isn't that much of a deal. At most places the value of each meal is around $10-13. So you get about $10.8 for breakfast and about $13 for dinner or lunch = about $23 in meals, plus another $1.50 to $3.99 for the snack portion - and the refillable mug. I calculate about a max vaule around @8, plus a fraction of the cost of the refillable mug. Over a six day stay, it works out to just about even over paying oop. If you use you DDP credits for breakfast every day, chances are , you won't break even over just paying oop for everything. (unless you have a very short stay)

AND there's almost no place you can dine in DTD
AND the only places in WS you can dine are the fish n'chips and the American burger/hot dog place. Overall, the choices in Epcot are very limited.
AND the QS at CSR is out, too.

I fear that if we did use it, we'd actually end up just paying oop to eat at the places we like. Then we'd end up with unused credits.

But then....I'm thinking hard about the regular DDP next year for some of the same reasons.

 

[ReneeA]

AND there's almost no place you can dine in DTD
AND the only places in WS you can dine are the fish n'chips and the American burger/hot dog place. Overall, the choices in Epcot are very limited.
AND the QS at CSR is out, too.

.

Actually, the majority of CS (and TS for that matter) in Epcot and DTD are not Disney owned and have not signed the contract for 2009 yet. It happens every year that the list of participating restaurants is very, very limited (to WDW owned places mostly) until about Nov. Then the non-WDW owned places sign the contract and will take the DDP.

I assume it will be like the past 4 years and the same restaurants will participate like always.

 

[squirrel]

If you want to do character meals and nice sit down restaurants this is the year for you to do it. Once your child is 10 it will cost much more.

If it were me I would get the DDP with one TS per night. Then you can have a nice quiet meal to recharge and then hit the parks again.

 

[Evan&Kimberly]

Make it E-Z for you, I mean I hear many say they dont like to have to be to eat at a certain time,which I am sure is understandable, It will be my first trip to WDW,and I have taken all of this info that I have found on this site to heart, and I know it is going to pay off, I will have the basic dinning plan and have been considering upgrading but I dont think that will be E-Z to do,I would feel I had to do all 3 TS a day or at least 2 of them and that would realy eat into our time in the parks, But with many hours of planning I made sure where we were at that day we were near that ressie, like on this evening we will be at epcot from 5:00 pm till close we will do Epcot from 5 till closing everything is in that area no leaving to go eat at another location Dinner 5:15 Le Celliar
Soarin
The Seas with Nemo & Friends
Illuminations
Maybe
Test Track
Mission Space
Or when we are not going to eat in the park then we have to eat close to it like the night that Magic Kingdom stay's open really late, we wont visit this park that day but will that night so our evening looks like this
Dinner 6:50 Ohana
Magic Kingdom 9:00-11:30
The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
Mickey's PhilharMagic
Dumbo the Flying Elephant,
Wishes

Whatever works for you just make it as E-Z as possible, because who wants to be at Magic Kingdom and have to leave to go to Boma,make your ressies where you are going to be at that time or as close to where you are going to be,you will loose a whole less amount of time. Hope a Disney Vet can agree with me Oh last example this day Animal Kingdom Opens early morning looks like this Animal Kingdom 8:00-11:00
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Wildlife Express Train
Breakfast at 9:30 Tusker House Breakfast
well than you can make your way down to
32 Discovery Island Trail
Its Tough 2 Be A bug
Tree of Life
The Oasis Exhibits
if you get hungry you can eat at the Flame Tree or back at our resort,before our mid afternoon and yes I will be taking one along with my 2 yr old adults get cranky to.
Then were back for a Nap 1 TS,1 CS ,& 1 Snack is the best!