Portion sizes of meals

[Disneyfanfour]

Okay, so I'm trying to stretch our DDP credits and our cash budget. Can two medium sized persons share most of the entrees/meals or are the meals just enough for one? Our pace won't be too quick each day, so we won't be burning a ton of calories, and we could stand to lose some weight...okay, you get the idea.

 

[proud_canadian]

I don't think you can share at table service restaurants.

BUT, for counter service, we had two adults, DD6 and DD3. Most of the time we ordered 1 adult meal and 2 kids meals and that was the perfect amount of food. There were even times we ordered 2 adult meals between the 4 of us! We just found there was a TON of food! You should be fine to share some meals. Or maybe get a meal and a snack credit or something to share between the two of you.

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

My DH and I have sizeable appetities and we have split meals several times at QS locations in WDW and not went hungry. Many of the TS palces also have huge portions and we have split occasionally. Of course you cannot split at buffett's or price fixed menus (Askerhus, Cinderella's Royal Table) and a few other exceptions but for the most part you shouldn't have an issue.

 

[Nadjalu]

You can share meals on the dining plan, but not at buffets or all you care to eat places.

That said, some meals are big enough to share. However plan on only sharing 1 meal a day.
Even though you will be going "slow" you burn tons more calories than at home, so you will eat/need more nutrition.

DH and I usually share breakfast or lunch and each have our own dinner and a couple snacks during each day and we go at a slow pace.

It also depends on the places you eat. Some meals are bigger than others.

Some CS sharable meals are at:
Cosmic Rays, the rib/chicken combo, the cheesesteak sandwich.
Wolfgang Puck's Express, the pizzas
Sunshine Season's, the Italian sandwich and the asian plate

Good luck and don't hold back to much, enjoy yourself.

 

[SDSorority]

DH and I split TS meals and ordered an appetizer-- we were FINE! Had a dessert (read: school bread) a few hours afterward.

We were not on the dining plan, but that was plenty of food for us! (I don't eat much, but DH eats a TON so it worked out for us and helped our $$$.

 

[whacked]

It really depends on what you order, and what your eating habits are.

The chicken and rib combo at Cosmic Rays as an example, is too big for all but the largest appetites. Many things from counter service are easy to split.

At the sit downs, you may get a plate charge if they let you split.

We also find the Crystal Light singles save us a ton of money on drinks. Just bring a water bottle.

We like to split things so we have room for snacks/desserts too. We tend to split and graze based on our activity level and hunger.

Save some room for pastries from Main Street Bakery and booths in EPCOT.

 

[TLinden16]

I'm going to move this to our restaurant board.

 

[whacked]

It really depends on what you order, and what your eating habits are.

The chicken and rib combo at Cosmic Rays as an example, is too big for all but the largest appetites. Many things from counter service are easy to split.

At the sit downs, expect at least a plate charge if they let you split.

We also find the Crystal Light singles save us a ton of money on drinks. Just bring a water bottle. (this leaves your snack credits for tastier things)

We like to split things so we have room for snacks/desserts too. We tend to split and graze based on our activity level and hunger.

Save some room for pastries from Main Street Bakery and booths in EPCOT.

 

[shellybaxter]

I think it would depend on how many meals you eat per day. We usually eat two meals per day and I wouldn't want to split with my husband.

 

[Amysita]

I was on the QSDP...and the portions were more than large enough for two to share. Most QS restaurants the meal consisted of a very large main dish (Ex. if you order chicken - they give you HALF a chicken! the pork chop I got was 2 inches thick - so thick - it had two rib bones, quesadilla was stuffed thick and roughly the size of half of a medium pizza) then two sides (once again very generous portions) or one side and a salad, and a dessert...I can put down some food ... and I never finished a single meal. I usually threw half of it away...very wasteful. IDK why on earth Disney would think a normal person could put down that much food. Most people around me - I saw the same thing...tossing half of their food (men & women). Even with tossing that much food...if I chose to eat a second meal later in the day, I had to force myself to do it since I was still full from my earlier meal. I was eating an early lunch around 11ish...and then forcing myself to eat dinner on a full stomach to use up my meal credits around 9 at nite! Needless to say, I wound up leaving meal credits on my card.

And forget about the snack credits! I only used 2 of them for myself ... I used the remainder on my last day to buy ridiculously large cookies to take home and took them to work (16 cookies) and it took an office of eight women & two men 2-1/2 days to eat them all.

 

[disneypolybride2008]

if you were on the deluxe plan and were full all the time i could see sharing a meal. this past trip we were on the regular dining plan and i felt starved the whole time.

we used our quick service for lunch or late breakfast, this meant getting up and waiting a couple hours to eat! I'm used to getting up and eating, so that was hard. Then we would use our snack for ice cream at the waterpark, most days. Then we ate most days in the late evening for our table service. This meant going from 11am to 9pm, sometimes 10pm with just the snack.
We did eat Liberty Tree twice, which was excellent and let us get full. Once we ate at 5pm there.

So, I would say i would definitely NOT want to have to share 1/2 of my food!

 

[MrsLS]

It really depends on what restaurant it is and what you order too. But you get 2 meals a day at least with the regular plan so I wouldn't really think you need to share. If you say you don't eat that much, that is plenty.
If you want 3 meals a day, you can use a snack credit for something for breakfast like a muffin or bagel. Or do a late breakfast or early dinner buffet.
But to really answer your question you'd have to be specific on what place and what you are thinking of getting.

 

[brytorlyn]

I second the chicken and ribs combo at Cosmic Ray s( half a chicken, third rack of ribs, mashed potatoes and green beans). Hubby, DD19, DD10 and I frequently split one counter service breakfast and two counter service meals at lunch for the 4 of us. Depending on appetites or inability to agree on what to eat we use the fourth counter service at breakfast or lunch...even once for an afternoon snack when everyone was hungry and thirsty. Sometimes we use it at night for late night snack.

A tip when sharing is that Sunshine Seasons allows refills on your drinks and I believe Restaurantosaurus does too.

At HS Fairfax Fare also has a hefty chicken and rib combo that is sharable.

At our resort (Pop Century) you can get a large omelet (or scrambled egg and meat etc platter) with home fries and add a bagel as your dessert. Add a large juice or refillable mug and we had plenty for hubby and I and even our younger DD.

We also liked splitting up our meals this way because we were able to have more variety. Sometimes we ate a granola bar for breakfast (that we had in the resort) and then split 2 CS meals at one place at about 11 in the morning and then if we had late dinner ressies we would eat somewhere else at 2:30.


Hubby and I felt that without the kiddies we would have been able to happily exist on one breakfast between us, snacks and one CS lunch and then 2 TS meals at night.

 

[brewhome]

I'm not a huge eater, but I found that with all the walking I did, I pretty much demolished all meals that were put in front of me, ha ha! I do agree that some CS places do give you a ton of food - Tangierine Cafe is one of them, along with Cosmic Ray's and Sunshine Season. Also, the CS in Norway gives you a big sandwich, cup of soup, drink and dessert for a CS credit - that could probably be split. The other one is Starring Rolls - the sandwiches have a TON of meat in them, and you can split one of their outrageously huge cupcakes as your dessert credit.

My thought is... it's vacation! Plan on buying a few snacks OOP and maybe a side dish or two, if you can afford it. For example, we got 2 adult CS meals and 2 kids CS meals at Flame Tree BBQ, and paid OOP for fries and rings - definitely worth the $8 OOP. That fed me, DH, DS1 (9) and DS2 (7) for lunch and we ended up getting something small back at the resort for dinner later.

Have a great trip!!

 

[Disneyfanfour]

Great strategies and info, everyone! I love these boards!! Thank you.

 

[DCDisney]

Most of the CS meals are shareable if you order carefully like some of the bigger meals suggested but some of the meals we prefer aren't as big. For TS again there are a few meals that are very shareable like fried chicken at 50's Prime Time is 3 or 4 pieces though they aren't huge pieces. But most of the TS meals are not a very large serving of the protein portion and veggies are hard to find so unless you are also ordering apps you may end up trying to make do on the bread basket. Even places like Le Cellier where the steak looked large on the plate it was actually a very thin cut and had lots of fat and gristle to remove so it was easily eaten by 1 person (we didn't have an app though). For 2 adults I think your best bet would be sharing a CS breakfast (they have huge platters that are easily shareable) and a CS lunch and then having your own TS dinner. Sharing 1 TS dinner wouldn't be that bad but having to share a lot would definitely become an issue of having to agree and then dealing if it wasn't enough food.