Meal Plan

[guatemom]

We are trying to decide whether to go with the meal plan or not. It is 2 adults and a 4 year old who is a VERY picky eater. Do you think it is worth the price to go with the meal plan? I feel like you need to eat big meals to get your monies worth. Any suggestions?? Are you able to take snacks in the parks?

Thank You, Susan Y

 

[ndgqccmiller]

Yes I do I think it is a good idea. 13.99 for the 4yr old you can't get a snack and one meal for that there. Also I don't 37.99 for adults is that bad either. The problem I have w/ the dining plan is for kids like 10-13. I don't feel they should charge adult price for them. My son is 11 and can not eat that much, still eats kids meals when we go out. I wish they would do a jr meal like 19.99 for ages 10-13. I think that would be great.

 

[badblackpug]

This depends entirely on what your child will eat. Check out the menus on www.allearsnet.com and decide whether she will eat anything listed.

 

[Aliceacc]

My 7 year old is also an incredibly picky eater; her older brother and younger sister are so much easier. I chose to get the meal plan; here's my reasoning:

The choices of where to eat aren't really limited by the meal plan; it's one table service, one counter service and one snack per day. The price for a child is a good one-- it would probably be hard to feed her for less at WDW. So the real dilemma isn't the cost, it's finding places that have food she'll like. (And to be honest, as long as they have chicken nuggets or pizza, she'll manage for a week. Most do.)

The meal plan will also enable us to have one or two character meals-- they would be expensive outside the plan. We're also planning on the Fantasmic dinner package at MGM, so the meal plan will come in handy there.

Take a look at allears and the menus. But as long as the plan makes sense for the adults, I think the kids' price is still a good one.

 

[dcforbreakfast]

To figure out if we wanted it, we went to allears.net picked some hypothetical places we would eat, figured out what we would realistically order if we were paying out of pocket and then added it all up. The DDP was a huge money saver, based on our tastes.

 

[disneygal2007]

YESSSS get the plan. When we went with the kids in 06 we spent nearly 1,000 dollars on food for 1 week for 4 people!!!!! Now when my husband and I went alone this past we got the plan and we counted one says worth of food bills and with that one day it was closed to 200.00 bucks for 2 people . So I say
get the plan u will be happy when u get home trust me.

 

[ehrn]

I also think you should look at the menus and look at how you eat--and note the changes to the plan after 1/01/08. We are so glad to have tried it in Sept but i don't think we'd get it again--until we have teenagers maybe. We did go during free dining when restaurants were very busy, but my 2.5yo got so tired of sitting around at table service meals, and it really did take a lot of time--now, it was really hot so those breaks were nice, but it's not how we usually do Disney. We usually share most of our food too, so this was a lot of food at one time. Yes, you can bring snacks in the park. Just try to look at how you eat and see if it works for you, it might be worth it to try it out once just so you know. I'm glad I tried it.

 

[Janet Hill]

My son is also a very picky eater. Everywhere we ate, they accommodated picking and choosing from the kids menu so that we could put together a meal he would eat.

 

[Elmo888]

To start with, it is only worth it if you are planning to do one table service meal per day. If you aren't and plan to only eat counter service, then it isn't.

After that, I would crunch the numbers, esp. if you are going in 2008 using the new plan.

I crunched the numbers after choosing table service restaurants (as others have stated, check allears.net for menus and prices), and, because of the prices of the children's buffets ($11.99 and up) vs. the cost of the children's meal plan per day, we still came out ahead on the meal plan. We have 2 children, and we are doing a number of buffets.

 

[thepeach80]

We just did it and it was great to not have to worry about $ while we were there. We did 3 character meals and the luau (2 TS credits). The kids never went hungry and even at the luau they offere pb&j if needed, which it wasn't for my kids. Evan ate his weight in the rice alone. There was always a chicken or pizza option which was great for the kids (and my super picky DH!).