In need of dining help/advice

[sigtau]

Me, my wife, and our 4 yr. old daughter arrive in Orlando midday on 14 May 2012 and leave on 18 May 2012 in the evening. We really want to do character dining using the deluxe dining plan. How many should we book without feeling that everything evolves around our dining plans?

 

[mrzrich]

TS for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is a lot for a 4 yo. 3 TS meals do take away from your park time.

Consider doing breakfasts and dinners at TS.

There are some great breakfast character buffets. You can do a character buffet early and then have a CS lunch (we often share a CS lunch to stretch our credits)....Or you can have a later breakfast (Like 10 AM) and have a snack in the afternoon.

Then you can use 2 credits for dinner.

Consider having dinner at the Castle (Cinderella's Royal Table. ) That is 2 dining Credits. Also Consider going to one of the Dinners Shows, also 2 credits.

 

[DJFan88]

The deluxe dining plan is alot of meals, so with only 4 1/2 days, it may be alot to cram into and do all you want to do in the parks. Maybe you'd be better off with the regular dining plan where you could book one character meal a day and then grab a counter service meal wherever you're out. Another option is to use 2 credits towards signature meals, but you can get the character meals with just 1, so that's probably not a good suggestion. My concern here is that your trip is in May, so you need to make your ADR's before your options are too limited for what you want to do.

 

[DJFan88]

Consider having dinner at the Castle (Cinderella's Royal Table. ) That is 2 dining Credits. Also Consider going to one of the Dinners Shows, also 2 credits.

Not sure if OP can get an ADR this close for these. If you want to, you better get on it quick.

 

[mrzrich]

I based my days on WDW easy's best days for your week

May 14th
Settle in at resort head to MK

Have a snack

CRT currently has availability at 4:10 and 815 PM for Dinner -
(2 credits used 10 left each)


May 15
HS day get there for 8:30 opening and get to TSM for fastpasses.

If you need a snack to tide you over, use a snack credit for a pastry. Plan a late breakfast at Hollywood and Vine for the Disney Jr Characters. 1 credit

If you need another snack to get you to dinner use your snack credits

After DHS go to HDDR for Dinner. 2 credits.

(5 credits used each, 7 left)

May 16th

MK day

Crystal Palace for early ADR 1 credit
(Right now 8:35 is available)

Late Lunch (1:30ish) at CS or TS of your choice Liberty Tree Tavern or the plaza are less chaotic lunch venues. 1 credit

Dinner at Chef Mickey's (7:40 PM is available) 1 credit

(8 credits used each, 4 left)

May 17th

Head to Epcot for 8:35 ADR in Norway for Princess Breakfast - 1 credit

Use Snack credits to tide you over until an Early Dinner at the 1 credit TS of your choice.

(10 credits used each, 2 left)

May 18th

Check your luggage and head to AK

8:05 ADR at Tusker House Character Breakfast is currently available - 1 credit

Enjoy the park.

Late Lunch at Yak and Yeti or CS of your choice 1 credit

(12 credits used each, 0 left)


Obviously you can tweek this to suit your tastes and touring style. But this should give you some ideas on how it would work.

 

[mrzrich]

Not sure if OP can get an ADR this close for these. If you want to, you better get on it quick.

Getting CRT isn't what it used to be. I can get an ADr for next week if I want one.

 

[DJFan88]

Wow! This guy actually went on and planned the whole thing for you! Guess you're set.

 

[sigtau]

I know that 3 TS meals a day is quite a bit. That is why we plan on only doing 2 TS meals a day (lunch and dinner). I may grab breakfast here and there since I'm usually the first one awake plus a snack to me is what most would call a meal. Thank heavens eating like that hasn't caught up with me. I'm not worried if we don't use up all of our meal credits. We are mainly going with the deluxe dining plan for convenience. We want to go to character meals because it will be fun for our daughter. This trip is our first family trip together and our daughter is all about Disney as every little child is. Plus, I'm a big eater. I could pretty much eat whenever and whatever and on vacation, please, I'm gonna take that week off from "healthier" eating and just enjoy myself. Thank you for all for the advice! Have a great day!

 

[TDC Nala]

Do you want to book character meals for both lunch and dinner each day? You should take it into consideration that all the character meals are either buffets or all you can eat family style. Unless you do an early lunch and a later dinner, that is a lot of food eaten close together.

With so few days I'd move more toward the regular dining plan and one character meal a day. (That could change if you want to do CRT or dinner shows each night)

If you're going with 6 to 8 character meals for this trip, if you haven't booked them already you should start looking at www.disneyworld.com/restaurants to see if you can get them on the days and times you want.