Pack trip with lots of Character Dining???

[dlynn1017]

I think 2 or 3 would be plenty.

 

[heatherwillmom]

A lot of the meals offer the same type of characters... so with just four meals you will meet most of the characters offered.

I didn't see this before, here are the current characters at Dining:

MAGIC KINGDOM
THE CRYSTAL PALACE (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet

CINDERELLA'S ROYAL TABLE: ONCE UPON A TIME BREAKFAST (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
A combination of at least four of the following princesses (*regular*): *Ariel, *Aurora, *Belle, *Cinderella, Jasmine, Mary Poppins, *Snow White

EPCOT
AKERSHUS ROYAL BANQUET HALL: PRINCESS STORYBOOK DINING (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
A combination of at least four of the following princesses (*regular*): Alice, *Ariel, *Aurora, *Belle, *Cinderella, Jasmine, Mary Poppins, *Snow White

GARDEN GRILL (dinner)
Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Chip, and Dale

DISNEY'S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
HOLLYWOOD & VINE (breakfast, lunch)
Agent Oso, Handy Manny, June, and Leo

DISNEY'S ANIMAL KINGDOM
TUSKER HOUSE: DONALD'S SAFARI BREAKFAST (breakfast)
Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Mickey Mouse, Goofy

DISNEY RESORTS
CAPE MAY CAFE Disney's Beach Club Resort (breakfast)
Donald Duck, Goofy, and Minnie Mouse

CHEF MICKEY'S Disney's Contemporary Resort (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Donald Duck, and Goofy

'OHANA Disney's Polynesian Resort (breakfast)
Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Lilo, and Stitch

1900 PARK FARE: SUPERCALIFRAGILISTIC BREAKFAST Disney's Grand Floridan (breakfast)
Mary Poppins, Alice, Made Hatter, Winnie the Pooh, and Tigger

1900 PARK FARE: CINDERELLA'S HAPPILY EVER AFTER DINNER Disney's Grand Floridan (dinner)
Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine, Anastasia, Drizella

Unless they have recently changed it, Cinderella does NOT appear at Akershus. The only park meal she is at is Cinderella's Royal Table

 

[2girlsmom]

Okay, everyone will tell you differently, that's for sure. Here's my perspective. When we went in 2007, my kids were 7 and 9, and we did A LOT of character meals; Ohana bfast, Donald's Safari, Garden Grill, Crystal Palace, and 1900 PF dinner with Cinderella. I would say the character interaction was the best at 1900 PF, actually. The food was average buffet faire except the strawberry soup, which I personally love. This past trip we wanted to try new restaurants, and the girls were 12 and 10, so characters were not SUCH a draw for us, but we did keep the Donald's Safari bfast, cause it was such a hit the first trip, and we did Cape May breakfast this time as well. Amazingly to me, the kids still really enjoyed the character interactions. So I would say that while you could possibly overdo it, I would at least probably have each child pick one they especially wanted to do/see, and plan at least that many.

In regards to the dxddp, I had read on here how it was too much food, and you had to really like to eat a lot. I didn't believe it. We did dxddp this past december, and ended up giving away 6 meal credits, and took back something like 20 candy "treats" purchases with snack credits the night before we left. We were so stuffed! We agreed that if we did dxddp again, we would do signature restaurants for 1 meal every day, and not have 3 TS meals each day, as it was just too much for us. Our next trip we are booking our tickets and hotels seperately, so doing food OOP.

 

[heatherwillmom]

My kids are teenagers now & still think an occasional character meal is fun. They like buffets too. We have done both the regular dining plan & the deluxe. We found good & bad for both plans. When we did the deluxe, we usually had 2 table service & 1 counter service. We watched our receipts & used all of our credits. It just takes proper planning & preparing. We had some snack credits left that we used for snacks to take home like Mickey rice krispie treats. When we did the regular plan, we usually had a small breakfast in the room with breakfast bars that we brought. If you think about the fact that most people eat 3 meals daily, the deluxe isn't bad if you plan ahead.

 

[lesabrowning]

Call us crazy, but we love Deluxe dining and lots of character meals : )

 

[hannahdrewmom]

Deluxe works if you know how to utilize it. You can NOT eat 3 meals a day with app. entree. dessert and not feel like a blimp. Add to that it will take about 4.5 hrs worth of eating a day.

Our family LOVES deluxe. But we use it for 1 TS and 1 Signature/Show a day. On days we don't want the signature we opt for room service which is a great treat and we would never do otherwise. We also don't feel bad if one of our meals is a CS.

Deluxe isn't always about maximizing every penny. It's about being able to do what you want when you want to. We make the ADRs but don't feel stuck with them. If we have 21meals to use I make 30 ADR's. We have flexibility to do what we want and we cancel them when we know we aren't going to need them.

With a first trip though DDP may be enough for your family and you could supplement by paying OOP for meals that are less expensive.

 

[Colleen27]

Let me start out by saying that we absolutely adore the deluxe dining plan and haven't taken a trip without it since it was created, so I'm not one of those people who gets hives at the very thought of it.

That said, I really don't recommend it for first time visitors for two reasons.

First of all, it makes dining a big part of the trip. Not excessively so in our opinion, but we've been to Disney many times and with many more trips ahead of us and thus feel no pressure to see/do it all on any given trip. For someone touring the parks for the first time, especially with three kids at different ages/stages, there's going to be a lot of must-dos in the park and multiple sitdown meals per day are likely to feel like an interruption rather than a luxury.

Second, the deluxe plan takes more planning and more familiarity with Disney transportation than most first time visitors have. It is overwhelming enough to plan a first trip without thinking about resort vs park restaurants, travel times, how to get back to your resort if a resort dinner lasts past park closing, etc.

However, if you want to do a lot of character dining, the deluxe plan could be the way to go - a character breakfast in/near your park for the day and then a more low-key dinner, with counter service or snacks in between.

If you do go with the deluxe plan, there are a few things you'll want to keep in mind. First and foremost, don't try to squeeze every dime out of the plan! It will more than pay for itself if you use 2/3 of your credits on sitdown meals, so don't be afraid to have a character breakfast, a quick service lunch, and a relaxing dinner.

Second, on the deluxe plan the signatures are a good use of credits, and they are child friendly (some more than others - California Grill being the most kid friendly of them all). They use two credits on the plan, but the "missed" meal is easily filled in with snack credits. The same holds true for dinner shows.

Third, get to know JJohnson's fabulous snack credit sticky on this board. You'll have a lot of snacks, so you'll want to have an idea of where to use them to get a lot of variety of options.

 

[missmun52]

I would say 2-3 character meals is enough for one trip, Have them each tell you what character they would most like to meet and go from there.

Also, since this is your first trip I would go with the regular dining plan; all those TS reservations take up a lot of time and there is so much you and your kids will want to see and do in the parks. For my fam, the reg dining plan is more than enough, we were never hungry and spent very little out of pocket in way of food.

 

[RalphinSC]

We've got four booked for our trip in five weeks off of the regular DDP. Looking forward to every one of them!

Chef Mickeys breakfast March 3rd
Crystal Palace eaaarly dinner March 4th
'OHana late breakfast March 7th
Garden Grill late dinner March 9th
(I know, we are seeing Mickey three out of the four times. My son loves Mickey!)

Just a BTW, our other ADRS are
T-Rex dinner March 4th
Wishes Dessert party March 4th
Biergarten dinner March 6th
Mama Melrose's Fantasmic! dinner March 8th
Boma March 10th

Definitely leaning towards buffets and stuff my DS6 would thoroughly enjoy.

 

[jen42002]

Since this is your first trip, I'd be wary of choosing the deluxe dining plan. You will be spending more time eating than enjoying the parks and attractions.

Character meals - Crystal Palace and Tusker House for breakfast.

I definitely agree with this suggestion. Our kids were 7 on their first trip to Disney. We went to Crystal Palace and Tusker House for breakfast which were both very good. I also enjoyed the non-character meals (as did the kdis) as a bit of a break from the parks. I have done the deluxe as an adult and it is alot of food and takes alot of time. For a first trip I would just do the regular dining plan and pay OOP if you want to add another meal.

 

[lblume91]

We aren't big breakfast eaters so we usually do TS dinners. We've found that many of the character meals are buffets, serving very similar foods. One trip we did Crystal Palace, Chef Mickey's & 1900 Park Fare. It was like eating the same meal every other night. The hectic pace & noise level of these places also gets old pretty quick, in my opinion.

We loved Garden Grill for a character meal. You sit down & let the characters & food come to you. At the buffets, our DDs always worried the characters would stop by while we were up getting our food.

 

[3pletprincesses]

We do a caracter meal everyday. The trip is for our girls and they love caracters and the best way to have interaction is at meal IMO.

Yes Cinderella does show up from time to time at Akershus.

for our upcoming trip, we are going deluxe for 6 nights... just changed this morning. and here's our ressie with caracters

*Chef Mickey breakfastalthough I hate the food the girls liked it
*H&V the girls like to danse with the caracters. the food is not the best but ok for lunch IMO
*1900 Park fare for dinner to see Cinderella and the step sisters, Lady Tremaine and the Prince
*Cinderella Royal table for dinner, Dh decided that he wanted to bring the girls back to see the twingle in their eyes.
* Akershus dinner to see Belle and Aurora and the food is yummy
*Tusker House becasue dh wants to see Goofy and the girls want to see Daisy
*Ohana for breakfast because the girls like Stitch
*Crystal Palace because I want to see Eeyore
*Cape May breakfast to see Mickey again
We will be trying Garden Grill for the first time too
The other meals will be either CS or signature TS

I know we are crazy but we love it