Is QS Enough?

[CouponDivaDesirae]

I am debating on just going with quick service or upgrading to regular? I know for sure we do not want to do the deluxe because we will be leaving on a cruise after Disney World so we can do all the sit down dinners there.

My husband and son eat me out of the house and are constantly hungry. I am afraid the quick will not be enough for them? Does anyone else have starving kids & husband that you just upgrade and it ends up being perfect?

 

[aaarcher86]

If you don't want to do the TS meals I don't really know what good it would do to upgrade? Are you wondering if you should just do the sit down meals?

I'd just stick with QS if that's what you want and buy a few things out of pocket if you need to.

 

[CouponDivaDesirae]

If you don't want to do the TS meals I don't really know what good it would do to upgrade? Are you wondering if you should just do the sit down meals?

I'd just stick with QS if that's what you want and buy a few things out of pocket if you need to.

I kind of worded that wrong LOL!

My thing is between the two plans do you see a significant amount of food change? Like are quick service meals just as much as sit down meals? Or are they pretty much the same thing?

 

[aaarcher86]

I kind of worded that wrong LOL! My thing is between the two plans do you see a significant amount of food change? Like are quick service meals just as much as sit down meals? Or are they pretty much the same thing?

I wouldn't say they're just as much. I'd compare QS to a medium size McDonalds meal and a TS to a meal at a sit down chain like Max and Ermas or Fridays.

There's also a snack you can use. But if you don't want to take time for sit downs it's easy to just grab a snack or turkey leg or something OOP and keep it moving!

 

[lcoult]

You can find a decent QS in each park but I don't know that I would want to do it for lunch AND dinner. For ex at animal kingdom you could grab chinese food.. at Epcot really anywhere in the world showcase.. but I like to sit down and get waited on at the end of a hot day because we're tired!

 

[DisneyFive]

Is it all about quantity? If so, you can find HUGE QS meals. 1/2 chicken, plus ribs at Cosmic Rays. Similar at Flame Tree BBQ, etc... There are huge QS meal options.

Having said that, we find a DRASTIC difference in food quality from a QS meal versus a TS meal.

Personally, if I were paying for the QS meal plan, I would pony up the extra for the regular plan for sure. It gets you access to very cool themed restaurants, and MUCH better food in our experience.

If we were getting the QS meal plan for free (say, with the free dining offer), I would pay the extra to upgrade. No question. This is what we did our first two trips when we stayed at POP. So glad we upgraded.

Dan

 

[LetsDoDisney!]

We upgraded to the regular DP plan from QS last trip as well, and we are so glad we did. Much nicer restaurants and it's a LOT of food lol! We are going to space it differently this trip as we felt very full a lot of the time last trip because we were learning the DP ropes, it was our first time using it.

 

[cathyny]

I am wondering the same thing as we are stayng at Pop with FD & have not upgraded yet. It would be about $400 to upgrade for our family of 4 & honestly it's been difficult to get my husband to go again to Disney as he thinks it is way to expensive already . I am worried though that we will get a little sick of QS so do we just pay out of pocket to do TS once or twice...anybody who just did QS in the past & they were fine with it?

 

[amomma23]

I am wondering the same thing as we are stayng at Pop with FD & have not upgraded yet. It would be about $400 to upgrade for our family of 4 & honestly it's been difficult to get my husband to go again to Disney as he thinks it is way to expensive already . I am worried though that we will get a little sick of QS so do we just pay out of pocket to do TS once or twice...anybody who just did QS in the past & they were fine with it?

My family has done QS only twice. One trip my mom, SIL, BIL and nephew went with us. We were all totally fine with QS only. Both of these trip we did one character breakfast OOP. It was plenty if food and we all spent the last hour of our trip "spending" our snack credits.
Just check out the menus before you go so you have some places to head to when everyone gets hungry. As mentioned many places have LARGE portions, throw in dessert and a large beverage, I think you'll be fine. Definitely head to DTD for Wolfgang Puck Express. It's totally worth the trip!

 

[aaarcher86]

I am wondering the same thing as we are stayng at Pop with FD & have not upgraded yet. It would be about $400 to upgrade for our family of 4 & honestly it's been difficult to get my husband to go again to Disney as he thinks it is way to expensive already . I am worried though that we will get a little sick of QS so do we just pay out of pocket to do TS once or twice...anybody who just did QS in the past & they were fine with it?

There is a ton of variety in the QS meals. I'd check out the menus to get an idea. We don't do strictly QS but I imagine we could if we wanted to and not feel like all we've had were burgers and fries all trip.

 

[dancin Disney style]

We have had the DDP several times but on our last onsite trip we decided to try the QSDP. I did a lot of research and made a list of all the places that had different options. In 12 days we only had burgers once....because that's what we actually wanted. All our other meals were things like salmon, shrimp, roast chicken, pasta. Often we used a snack credit(this was when you still got 2) for a breakfast item which left us with a full meal for lunch and dinner. There were days that we opted to have a full breakfast and then would have a mid day snack and an early dinner....this works particularly well for us even on the DDP. We did have a few ADRs but ended up cancelling them because we were happy with the meals we were able to get on the QSDP.

In general, we found the QSDP to be a better fit for us. There was more than enough food with variety if you do the homework and we could eat when and where we felt like it.

I think financially, you will come out ahead if you go with the QSDP and then purchase any supplemental items OOP.

 

[OasterP]

I think it will just come down to where you think your family might want to eat. We originally had no plans on doing the dining plan (not even "free") when we first booked b/c we don't eat a ton of food, and I know we can eat cheaper than what the difference in cost is for staying on site vs not.

Then we realized we really wanted to do some of the character meals b/c my son will be four. We decided to look at it and run the numbers of it we ACTUALLY went to those places out of pocket (we wouldn't have done them all).

For us, this year, it made sense to do the upgrade. We are staying at Pop, but obviously couldn't do character meals on quick service, so we upgraded.

In a few years if/when we go again, I'm not sure my son will be into character meals and we might not do the same thing.

If they are big eaters, you can do buffets on Regular and can not on QS.

 

[CouponDivaDesirae]

Thanks so much for y'alls input! I have been researching restaurants on the QS plans and have found some good blogs that go into details ways to take advantage of the QS plan. I am going to stick with QS and if possible just bring snacks if we get hungry.

Since we are doing the cruise I figured there would be no reason to do character meals at Disney since we will be doing them on the ship!

 

[MamaBearJohnson]

We did QS only last time and it was plenty of food! A lot of times we'd only order two meals between the four of us and split it. We'd do things like the 1/2 chicken and ribs. Then we'd use the extra meals to have breakfast one morning.

When we're not on vacation, we're not eating things like chicken and ribs for lunch or dessert with every meal, so it's really way more food than what you'd typically eat.

Plus, it's about $350 for us to upgrade to the regular plan. If you were to take that $350, you could easily buy plenty of extra food if you found that you were still hungry, without paying for the atmosphere of the table service restaurants (figuring this is only a question of quantity and not overall experience.)

And I don't think I ate a burger the entire time I was at Disney World last time on quick service. I didn't get tired of the choices at all! Fish, Chinese, schwarma, salads, pasta, pizza, Mexican...plenty of choices if you research ahead of time!