POR - Royal room with DDXP or Poly CL?

[toes-n-h20]

2 adults and a 5 year old, first visit. Would you suggest Port Orleans Riverside Royal Room with Deluxe Dining Plan or Poly Club Level and pay as you go for meals? The stay would be 7 days/6 nights. Poly Club Level is $800 less than Port Orleans with Deluxe Dining Plan.

 

[Jeanieblue114]

When we have stayed CL, we make a point of lounging at the resort a lot and having a slow paced trip. So we make use of the extra food and drinks provided by CL.
Your first trip, you will be spending most of your time out of the room. (It will take an hour or more to get back to your room from parks generally...each way).
So besides a continental breakfast and a drink/dessert in the evening, you may not make much use of CL lounge.

The Royal Guest rooms are lovely. I've stayed in them twice now.
But, they are not the most convenient. You will be taking a bus most places.
There is a boat to downtown disney.
They are beautiful, but not nearly as good a location as the Poly.

I have done each dining plan.
Deluxe plan is an enormous amount of food.
Not only is it 3 meals a day, but it includes appetizers and desserts.
And you will be chasing reservations most of your trip and killing many hours in restaurants.
If that's what you would like to do, that's fine. But just be aware of that.
You will probably throw away a lot of food too.
The regular dining plan is more food than most people eat at home.
And I've reviewed my receipts several times with different dining plans, if we had skipped a few desserts (that we didn't want anyway), we would have paid less out of pocket.
The deluxe plan works best if you are doing a LOT of signature/2 credit meals.
With a 5 year old child, fancy restaurants with dress codes, might not be the best choice.

If I were you, I'd do the poly because the location is excellent and will save you a lot of time. It's a very lovely resort (although the service isn't as great as it used to be), and do either out of pocket or a standard dining plan.

Or princess rooms with out of pocket or standard dining plan.
Loved the rooms but location isn't nearly as convient.

 

[Spunky946]

We just came back with the deluxe dining plan and I don't think I'd do it again. It was nice once to try a lot of signature restaurants that I would probably not pay out of pocket for. We did reservations most days and it was a lot. There were times where we stayed at the park, because we did not have enough time to go back to the hotel. We may have done somethings differently.

On our last day of our trip we ended up canceling our signature dinner, ahead of time so we could have flexability and we ended up not using the credits to the max.

It was great don't get me wrong, but I don't think I'd do it again.

 

[MinnieLovesMickey12]

I think you should ask yourself...could you feed the 3 of you 3 meals a day for 7 days on $800. If not the better deal would be getting the deluxe dining plan.

If you do club level and have to pay for all your meals and snacks out of pocket I assume it is going to cost you way more than $800.

 

[MichelleWDWfan]

I would suggesdt the Royal rooms at POR,and the deluxe DDP.
More worth it in my opinion. The royal rooms are great and POR is a nice resort. Deluxe DDP gives you the freedom to try so many of Disney's great restaurants and fantastic cuisine.

Since you can make your dining reservations 180 days in advance it will give you plenty of time to decide.

You get 3 meals per day, but you can use up credits by dining at signature restaurants that cost 2 credits, then eat one other meal plus snacks per day.

There are really great signatures to experience.

Cinderella's royal table - you get to eat in the castle at Magic Kingdom, and meet Disney Princesses.

Luau at the Polynesian resort - fantastic show and meal.

Hoop De Doo review - fantastic show and all you can eat meal at Fort Wilderness.

Plus many other regular disney restaurants that are signatures.

There are alot of character meals that cost 1 credit, not to be missed:
Ohana @ the Poly, Chef Mickey's @ Contemporary, Tusker House @ Animal Kingdom, Cape May Cafe @ beach club, and many more.

Allears . net lists all disney restaurants and their menu's.
Can also buy a Disney DIning book at most big book stores.

I do the deluxe dining plan almost every trip. I love the freedom it gives to eat at any restaurant I choose. (I prefer Table service meals, not Quick service)

The only thing is you have to make your dining reservations in advance.

 

[clanmcculloch]

IMO it comes down to whether you'll be having a resort based vacation or activity based vacation. With a resort based vacation you'll be around your resort a lot to take advantage of all of the entitlements that come with staying CL making Poly CL a much better choice. With an activity based vacation you're out and about a lot of the time meaning you'll be eating away from your resort so you'll be in restaurants a lot more making POR with DxDDP a much better choice.

Take some time to think about how you want to spend your days and make your decision based on that.

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

My pick would be Poly CL! I think the convenience to both the MK and Epcot monorails (when we stayed there CL we just walked from Hawaii to the TTC instead of doing the loop around and switching) is a huge plus, especially with a little one. On days that we did a big TS lunch, the evening offering from the lounge were a good option if we weren't really hungry enough for a full meal. The cereal, pastries, fruit from the lounge worked well for us for breakfast. With all that said, we've never done the Deluxe DDP so I really can't comment on that specifically, but I can say that we did Poly CL.