Question about dining for all you offsiters!

[acwaters]

House of blues at downtown disney accepts restaurant.com coupons. You just have to spend a $100 there. We spent $115 (four alcohol beverages, 3 adult meals, a kids meal and 3 dessert, and 3 coffee's) I bought a $50 gift certificate for five dollars. So basically a $115 meal costed us $60. The food at house of blues was really good and the prices were not bad. Best meatloaf i have ever had

 

[JimMIA]

Way back when DDP included appetizer, entree, desert, and gratuity, we used it and ate most meals onsite. In fact, eating onsite was one reason why we couldn't endure more than about 5 nights at WDW -- it all tastes the same.

Once they took all the value out of DDP, even when staying at DVC, we ate virtually all of our big meals offsite. We found a world of variety, better food, and lower prices -- whether you're talking McDonald's or fine dining or the hundreds of options in between.

I think our last big onsite meal was 4-5 years ago when we had family at WDW during our stay and we all (12 people) did the character dinner at Norway. If we eat anything other than snacks onsite, it's a quick serve sandwich.

There is an enormous range of offsite dining. Here's a link to a thread on offsite restaurants: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=498998

Our favorite offsite restaurant is Columbia at Celebration, and there are a number of other very good restaurants in the same area there. Here's a link to the Celebration places, which contains links to several of the restaurants: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=34956129&postcount=46

Whether we stay offsite or onsite at DVC, we only use the kitchen for snacks and drinks. We don't cook, per se, although those big gas grills at WBC sure do look inviting!

 

[JimMIA]

I don't know about grocery stores in Orlando, but I know many grocery stores here in Chicago offer a prepared Thanksgiving meal that you simply pick up and reheat. That may be an option for Thanksgiving dinner instead of Tusker House.

Publix has pre-cooked thanksgiving dinners with all the trimmings. You have to reserve ahead, and pick up the day BEFORE Thanksgiving, because they are closed on the holiday itself.

We've been doing the Publix dinners as our regular Thanksgiving dinner for a number of years, just because it makes life so simple. And it's good!

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Our favorite offsite restaurant is Columbia at Celebration, and there are a number of other very good restaurants in the same area there. Here's a link to the Celebration places, which contains links to several of the restaurants: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=34956129&postcount=46

The menu at Columbia Restaurant looks great. I can't believe we've never heard of it. Thanks for the recommendation. We'll definitely give it a try on our next trip. Do they have carryouts, or is it dine-in only? Most days we're so tired, we just pick up something on the way back to Windsor Hills.

 

[sb682]

We stayed at WBC on our last trip and I only cooked one meal, pancakes and bacon, on our "rest" morning before MNSSHP. We hit Publix on our arrival day and bought chicken strips, Cuban sandwiches, mac & cheese, iced tea, chips, and other snacks. We ate that for dinner and one or two lunches. For breakfast, we had coffee, juice, Eggos and smoothies. DS's birthday breakfast was a cake made out of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which was only 10-15 minutes away on 192. We also did Chick-fil-A and Landscape of Flavors for dinner, and other than that, most of the time we ate CS meals in the parks. We also bought 1 snack per person every day. We actually spent less than we budgeted ($80/day for 2 adults and 1 kid) and were able to do some TS restaurants (Kona, Beaches & Cream, Rose & Crown).

 

[JimMIA]

The menu at Columbia Restaurant looks great. I can't believe we've never heard of it. Thanks for the recommendation. We'll definitely give it a try on our next trip. Do they have carryouts, or is it dine-in only? Most days we're so tired, we just pick up something on the way back to Windsor Hills.

You haven't heard of it because Columbia is a native Florida restaurant. Its home is the historic Ybor City area of Tampa, but they have several other restaurants in Florida (none, unfortunately, here in Miami ).

They might do take-out, but if you're going to take the short drive down to Celebration, by all means do a sit-down dinner. You'll be shortchanging yourself if you don't. Start with their legendary 1905 Salad, which is tossed at your table. After that, order anything else on the menu -- it's all great.

When you finish, walk around the corner to Kilwin's for some Toasted Coconut ice cream (To DIE for! )

Enjoy!

 

[nugov2]

We ate on site pretty much the entire week we were there. We ordered pizza one night (can't remember from where) on a nonpark day. We also at at T Rex in DTD, so it is technically off site. We also had 2 mornings where we ate breakfast at the house. We didn't want to cook while on vacation though.

 

[BonnieA]

I always stay in an offsite timeshare. I have yet to make a meal. Breakfast is do it yourself, including microwave breakfast sandwiches etc. Lunch is usually at a park. Dinner is at an off site restaurant. I buy gift cards for a discount on various sites. I save them up for my trip. Usually end up with dozens of them. We eat very good offsite and since I already have the cards, it is less out of pocket.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

You haven't heard of it because Columbia is a native Florida restaurant. Its home is the historic Ybor City area of Tampa, but they have several other restaurants in Florida (none, unfortunately, here in Miami ).

I realize they're not a chain, but we've been visiting Orlando yearly since 1993, staying offsite many of those trips, and I can't believe we've never heard of this place. Their menu looks AMAZING. Can't wait to give it a try.

 

[Dynamoliz]

We're just back from an offsite timeshare, Sept 25 - Oct 1. I too am in the "not cooking" camp! Part of the fun of vacation is going out to dinner. We had a package that included 2 days of Free Dining Credits at UOR. We used them for breakfast & lunch one day, and lunch & dinner the other (stayed at Universal Studios for HHN so we were there from 10 am - 11:30 pm).

We also ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, Benihana's, The Melting Pot, and one night husband and I went to Fogo de Chao (spelling might be wrong there ...) whilst DD23 was on a date and went to Ethos Vegan Kitchen. She said it was the best dinner of the trip and she wished there was something similar at home. She is vegetarian, not vegan, but this definitely factors into which restos we choose to go to. This was our first time to all of the above restaurants and we enjoyed them all. Heads up re The Melting Pot if you go with both carnivores & vegetarians in your party ask for a '2 pot cooktop' when you reserve, as most tables only have one and veggies won't be happy if you cook meat in their pot, rightly so. The resto was full that night, and so we just all ate the vegetarian option.

In the past we have been to Texas de Brazil and I would say it is superior to Fogo de Chao, (the are both Brazilian steakhouses) due to its amazing salad bar. We can also vouch for Columbia in Celebration. Past favourites have also included Macaroni Grill and Sweet Tomatoes. We have to eat breakfast at IHOP once/trip ... tradition! We also like to go to BOMA, and this time we went for breakfast.

There is certainly no shortage of restaurants to choose from, all price ranges and styles of food. It is hard to pick between trying new places and visiting past favourites. My fav this trip was the Cheesecake Factory, with Benihana close behind. We were there less than a week. I could see, maybe (ha!) cooking if we were there for two weeks, just to have a break from restaurants, or maybe picking up take-out, but for 6 nights we didn't come close to be tired of dining out!

 

[reddfrogg]

Roy's, Carraba's, Maggiano's, Giordanos, Emril's etc......etc...etc.. There are so many great places to eat!!!

Eat a good breakfast at your place, then enjoy a good sit down in the evening at any of the many great places to eat!!

 

[sersee05]

I will definitely have to look at the thread about good restaurants offsite! We tend to have "out to dinner Saturday" at my house since I normally cook all the time. So I kind of want to stay away from the chains that I can have at home(carrabbas, outback, etc). So I will have to hit some I have never been to before.

So it seems a lot of you do what I plan on doing and that is having breakfast at the house. I think that will work out perfectly! I just was shocked at those Disney prices! My Ta had me signed up for Yachtsman when I had dining plan. I looked it up just to see if I wanted to keep the ressie..Holy moly on the pricing!!

There used to be a place a long while ago called Jungle Jims.. I think? My husband and I went there on our honeymoon. Wonder if that still even exists?

 

[BonnieA]

Jungle Jims has been gone for a long time now. RIP

 

[aleksandr]

Unfortunately, Disney food pricing has become astronomically high for fairly mediocre quality. People who pay out of pocket must be subsidizing the free meal plan folks Plus, the fact that you have to book six months in advance for a meal, even during a non-peak season, is off-putting.

We stick to one or two character breakfasts during our stay, and then like everyone else, eat quick service in the park during the afternoon, and at an off-site restaurant during the evening.

Last year I made one dinner reservation at the Yachtsman. What a disappointment that was for what is argued to be one of the best steak houses at Disney. The steak was no better than what you can pick from a Texas Roadhouse (and had more fat and gristle) and at 3 times the price! And the service was certainly not warm and welcoming for a supposedly signature experience.

While places like Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, Longhorn, etc. don't evoke the Disney atmosphere and are not the highest quality themselves, they at least don't massively overcharge on mediocre food and certainly don't require reservations to get a table.

 

[2girlsmom]

Agree that Disney pricing is astronomical. That said, we do probably 4 or 5 TS meals a year at Disney, and the only one I have decided to avoid are the buffets, in large part due to the fact that my girls are 13 and 15 so Disney adults, yet do not eat enough at a buffet to justify a NORMAL priced buffet, let alone a Disney priced one. At most TS places we can and do order 3 entrees instead of 4, sometimes get an appy or dessert for all 4 of us to share. In most cases the restaurants' portions are WAY big for us, and sharing meals keeps the price at least approaching reasonable. We also love to get pizza, usually from UNO (across from DTD), and 2 medium pizzas usually leaves enough for one meal plus 5 or 6 peices for snacking later in the villa. Sometimes we eat breakfast in the room, sometimes we go to Starbucks or Dunkin, etc. As a Tampa Bay resident, agree that Columbia is awesome!

 

[Bellamouse]

Unfortunately, Disney food pricing has become astronomically high for fairly mediocre quality. People who pay out of pocket must be subsidizing the free meal plan folks Plus, the fact that you have to book six months in advance for a meal, even during a non-peak season, is off-putting.

We stay offsite (at what arguably is a nicer acommodation than Disney Deluxe), and pay OOP for our meals. It is still MUCH cheaper than the "free" DDP.

Our room is costing us $57 a night (total). You can't even get close to that at even a Disney Value for that price. So the savings on the room leaves plenty of money to pay for Disney restaurant prices. At least for us, since we are just DH and me (no kids). We often split meals as well (not to be frugal, just because we like to eat lots of different things at Disney and we just can't eat all that we want if we order each our own!). We sometimes just do appetizers and a salad or something. Like at Via Naploli. We get a big salad to split, some kind of appetizer (maybe calamari) and then an order of Zeppole for dessert. Mmmmm, mmmm. Then we might do a big dinner at Cali Grill where we each get our own entree. But it all balances out, and we still spend less than $1000 for the week on food for both of us. It probably also helps that I don't drink - only DH does. So that saves us money too. We also do snacks of every sort (dole whips, karamelle kueche, kringla bakery, whatever we see/want basically!), and F&W Festival kiosks. We don't skimp or budget - we just get whatever we want and it still totals a little over $900 for the week.

But even though we stay offsite, I still insist on eating at Disney. We never eat offsite. I don't care for chain restaurants at all (blech!), and while Disney dining isn't always A+ food, we only go to places we really love with food we can't always get at home (like Boma, or Via Napoli for Zeppole, Raglan Road house, etc). We do enjoy the theming at places like 'Ohana and the Luau and the Biergarten. So if the food is less than stellar (although I think the food at Biergarten is terrific), the joy of being at Disney makes up for it for us.

But if our room and food (including tips and alcohol) totals $1300 for 7 days for us, that's only $185 a day. We also buy 10 day NE park hopper passes with WPFM tickets, so our per day cost for that comes out to about $34 each (no need to buy a Disney ticket to get "free" dining). You can't get much cheaper than that for a Disney vacation, and that's without cooking ourselves or bringing peanut butter sandwiches to the parks.

So I don't feel like I'm subsidizing anyone's free dining, but YMMV.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I do feel like I am subsidizing the Dining plan.(And I am referring to the entire DDP not the "Free dining" I expect the restaurants get the same poor payment regardless of if the diner thinks it was 'free' or not) Combine the high prices, subpar food and often indifferent service and I eat less and less at Disney every year

There are other options that are not chains. You just have to drive to where folks live

 

[Bellamouse]

Yes, probably true, but I go to Disney because I want to be at Disney. I don't want to spend my time out in the "real world" in traffic (I live in massive traffic) looking for a good restaurant. I can go to other vacation destinations if that's what I'm looking for. Destinations that are known for fine dining like New York or Boston or California or DC or something.

Until Disney prices me out and/or the food becomes really bad, then I'm still going.

 

[MrsDanielle]

You can add our family to the breakfast at the villa, lunch at whatever park we happen to be at, and dinner offsite crowd. While Disney table service food is fine, there are very few places which are good enough to justify the horribly inflated cost, IMHO. And quite frankly, we like eating when we are hungry (not held to any specific ADR time, which would have been booked six months before when we would have only been guessing about when we would want to eat).

Our favourite dinner places in Orlando are Olive Garden, TGI Fridays, Giordanos, Chilis, Golden Corral, Buffalo Wild Wing, and Friendlys. Yes, they are all chains but they are chains we don't have here at home, so we look forward to visiting each of them on our trips to the states. Our family of three can eat at some of those places I just listed for the same price as one adult at Chef Mickeys and the food is much, much better.

We do love the Ohana character breakfast, so sometimes add that into our itinerary.

I cannot believe there are no Olive Gardens in your area (Toronto, right?). I'm from Winnipeg had we've had two of them as long as I can remember! (at least from the early 90's). So strange! Maybe it's available in western Canada??? The lines here are always ridiculously long too.

 

[JimMIA]

Last year I made one dinner reservation at the Yachtsman. What a disappointment that was for what is argued to be one of the best steak houses at Disney. The steak was no better than what you can pick from a Texas Roadhouse (and had more fat and gristle) and at 3 times the price! And the service was certainly not warm and welcoming for a supposedly signature experience.

For steak, you could have enjoyed a wonderful steak and true fine-dining experience at any one of the Charley's offsite for less than you paid at Yachtsman.