NEW! Universal Dining Plan Starting July 1!

[damo]

Has anyone used the Meal Deal option? At $29.99 per day according to their website I'm wondering if this might be a great option.

It shows you can eat as much as you want from 11AM - 30 minutes before park closing. Going with my 15 year old son and we all know how much teen boys can eat. Might be just as easy to go this route to allow me to better budget my trip.

Can I purchase this option at the park? Was planning on ordering my tickets from undercover tourist and staying onsite.

Probably good for a teenage boy. Remember that it doesn't include breakfast and only includes a few counter service restaurants at each park. It also doesn't include a drink.

You can purchase this option at the parks.

 

[orlandonewstarts]

Thanks Damo.

Really enjoying planning this vacation thanks to DIS. Now to hurry and get to January

 

[ldoogie]

Has anyone used the Meal Deal option? At $29.99 per day according to their website I'm wondering if this might be a great option.

We purchased this for the first of 3 days in the park. I have read mixed reviews and most people are highly unimpressed with the quick service meals but we don't want to leave the parks to eat. We have 3 boys (12.5, 7.5, 6) that eat a lot. I will try to report back on what we think, we will be there Oct 23-25.

 

[Metro West]

We purchased this for the first of 3 days in the park. I have read mixed reviews and most people are highly unimpressed with the quick service meals but we don't want to leave the parks to eat. We have 3 boys (12.5, 7.5, 6) that eat a lot. I will try to report back on what we think, we will be there Oct 23-25.

Just remember...your dates will be HHN nights at the Studios which will close at 5PM each night for HHN set up. You might want to go to the Studios in the mornings then head over to IOA until the 7PM park closing.

 

[ldoogie]

Just remember...your dates will be HHN nights at the Studios which will close at 5PM each night for HHN set up. You might want to go to the Studios in the mornings then head over to IOA until the 7PM park closing.

I wish we could but we aren't doing park to park tickets. Trying to keep cost down bc this is a Disney and US trip. We will swim in the evenings.

 

[jlines]

So after asking many questions and scouring the internet for info we went with not very much info on the dining plan. We did have a very successful experience nevertheless and would like to share it for those who are wondering as much as we were just how it works. Just remember that it is a work in progress and still gets changed......

We have done the Disney QSDP 2x so I can compare it a little bit. The credits are like tickets in that you can use them any way you want for a 14 day period. We got the 2 day free DP by booking through UV. Some of the things we learned are that the credits CAN be used at Simpson's FFB, and the cashiers has a list of what counts. The change we came across was that the coconut water was under the beverage credit list but wouldn't ring in as one. The Simply Lemonade did however and I meant to see if the Odwalla would also. The big pink doughnut is a snack credit so that may make some of you happy.

Day 1 IOA
Dinner at Mythos- beef medallions, "cherry coke", coconut cream dessert shot
Snack at Croissant Moon Bakery - chocolate cheesecake (yummo)

Day 2 US
Lunch at Frying Dutchman - basket 'o bait, iced tea
Dinner at Lombard's - beef filets, cherry coke, chocolate mousse cake shot

Day 3 IOA
Lunch at Thunder Falls Terrace - rib platter, iced tea
Snack at Croissant Moon Bakery - carmel cheesecake & key lime cheesecake

We aren't big soda drinkers so we still had our beverage credits left. On day 4 we went to Sea World and saved the credits for day 5 - back at US. This day we decided to do the Meal Deal since we would be there all day and knew we could eat 3 times. Since this doesn't included drinks we simply used our beverage credits for this day.

Final thoughts: In doing the math we did come out ahead as we would have spent more staying somewhere else and buying food in the parks. I would NOT ever buy it though as we usually drink water and would prefer better desserts The Meal Deal was worth it to us as we enjoyed the food at Louie's and actually had a good burger at Mel's. It was pretty crowded so maybe that provided us with fresh, hot food. Monster's Cafe, however, was awful. We basically ditched that meal and went back to Louie's.

Hope this helps some of you!

 

[ldoogie]

The Meal Deal was worth it to us as we enjoyed the food at Louie's and actually had a good burger at Mel's. It was pretty crowded so maybe that provided us with fresh, hot food. Monster's Cafe, however, was awful. We basically ditched that meal and went back to Louie's. Hope this helps some of you

Thanks for the info, we are doing a day of the meal deal. I'm bummed Monster's wasn't good bc I heard the theming was pretty neat. Guess we will go with the other two.

 

[-Hope-]

Hi everyone!

We were in Orlando last week, at Universal 9/23-9/25 with 2 days free dining and I wanted to share our experience.

We had three park days but only two days of dining. I briefly considered adding another day but realized it would have been way too much food and would be more economical to just pay OOP for any extra meals. So, with 2 days of dining the four of us each had 2 drinks, 2 snacks, 2 counter service, and 2 full service credits. So, 8 each in total.

On our first day 9/22 we were at IOA. We picked up our dining cards at the reservation kiosk at the Port of Entry. 4 dining cards, one for each of us, that tracks the credits individually instead of for the entire party. I had a sharpie with me so I wrote our initials on the cards to help keep track.

We headed to 3 Broomsticks for lunch. The kids both had fish-n-chips, my dd got a pumpkin juice and ds had lemonade. Mom and I both had salad, she had tea, I had coke zero.

Later that same day we made our way back to 3 Broomsticks where we used two snack credits for Butterbeer. (The kids got theirs in refillable mugs so we paid OOP for those).

For dinner we ate at Cafe 4 simply because it was POURING rain (for hours, not just the typical short showers) and we didn't have the gumption to walk back to Thunder Falls Terrace. For those of us who got a full meal this was an okay choice, my mom and dd got lasagna which came with a breadstick and (maybe) a salad. I got the special, a spinach calzone, which also came with a salad. We had plenty of food and it was okay. Not great but not horrible either. Ds on the other hand wanted pizza, nothing else on the menu appealed to him. He got ONE piece of pizza with no sides for his dining credit. He left hungry and used a snack credit to get ice cream from Cinnabon/Arctic Freeze. He was still hungry though (this is not much food for a growing teenage boy) so we drove through McDonald's after we left the park (it was close to park closing and most places were shutting down so nothing in the parks to grab).

If you're keeping track you'll notice that we've used ALL eight of our counter service credits and 3 of our 8 snack credits on our first day.

Day 2 we were at the Studios. Around mid-morning we were thirsty so dd and ds each got a Powerade from a cart and I got a bottled of water. 3/8 drink credits.

We had lunch at Finnegan's and used 4/8 full service credits. 2 fish-n-chips, 2 seafood bakes, soda for ds, mom and I, chocolate milk for dd. We got to experience the dining plan dessert and I was pleasantly surprised. There were four choices for dessert shots; mousse, cheesecake, cookies-n-cream, and coconut cream. The shots were actually the perfect size after our full meal to get a little bit of a sweet treat without overindulging.

Later that night we headed to Krusty Burger for dinner. We had no counter service credits left but dd, ds and I each used a drink credit on sodas. (Mom had a Duff so she paid OOP). Combined with our drinks from earlier in the day we'd used 6/8 drink credits. Still only 3/8 snack credits.

Day 3, back to IOA- on our way into the park we grabbed a Cinnabon, Arctic Freeze Ice cream and apple juice as well as a rice krispie treat and coffee from Starbucks. So, all 8 of our drink credits were used and 6/8 snack credits.

We had a late lunch ressie (2:00) so mid morning we headed back to 3 Broomsticks to use our last snack credits on Butterbeer. We also split an order of fish-n-chips which we paid for OOP. And a woman came around with a dessert tray while we were eating so dd got a strawberry, rasberry trifle and ds got an ice cream, also OOP. So, all snack credits used at this point and only 4 remaining full service meal credits total.

At lunch we headed to Confisco's and here's where things got hairy. Someone, somewhere had credited something wrong. Our cards were showing that we had NO full service meal credits but still had 2 drinks and 2 snacks. Thankfully the manager was able to go into our account and see that there was a problem (we obviously didn't use a full service meal credit at Krusty Burger) and it was taken care of. After a 25 minute wait.

But all in all we had a good experience with the plan. We were in the parks for 3 days with 2 days worth of dining. We paid OOP for souvenir Butterbeer mugs, a Duff beer, one counter service meal each (so 4 total) and 3 snacks split 4 ways. We had granola bars we brought from home for breakfast on 2 of the 3 days and bought one meal for one person outside the parks in that time. Inside the parks most of the food was good and filling (with the exception of Cafe 4 but I knew that going in and chose to eat there anyway because of the weather).

All in all, I found the dining plan to have a good variety. I'm not sure if it would be a good value to buy without doing the math on what we ordered vs. what it would have cost us to purchase but as a free dining promotion it was a great deal.