Quick service dining when you usually do standard

[sbd78]

Anyone try the quick service dining plan when you usually do the standard plan? We usually like to get the dining plan when staying at WDW, we like to prepay and not worry about food costs on vacation. We are currently booked at CBR with free dining this July. CBR only comes with the quick service plan but we can upgrade to standard for around $600 for our family of 5. We are considering sticking with the quick service plan, though. We went to WDW last summer and one of our complaints was everything was too scheduled. We went to Disneyland/CA last month and really enjoyed the more laid back, less planning vibe there. I know we will still have to plan out our FP+ selections but not having ADRs on top of our FP+ plans leaves more flexibility that I think we might appreciate. There were multiple times last year where we were having fun or not very hungry and going to our dining reservation felt like a chore. It's not like you can just skip your ADR either, without paying a penalty. Has anyone done quick service dining when you are used to the standard plan? Did you feel like you were missing out? My kids like character meals but we've done all of them so many times, I think it will be o.k. if we skip them this year.

 

[scard192]

we had the DDP when the grands were younger and they got to enjoy tons of character meals.
Last trip (2016) the kids were very vocal that they did not want to waste park time at TS restaurants when they could be on rides! Plus the previous trip in 2013 I felt like all I did was nag about having to get to an ADR or FP+; was not fun.

We did the QSDP in 2016 and it was very freeing to not be tied to ADRS and just ate where and when we wanted to. Food was already paid for so no worry there.

I made a list of QS places at every park based on what my family likes to eat and the allergy restrictions of my older DGD. I printed the list and marked those CS in MDE so when ever we decided we were hungry I had a list at my fingertips. I also noted which restaurants were inside with AC to get out of the heat.

we did 2 TS meals (used Disney Visa Rewards) so were free.
Next trip in 2020 plan to do the QSDP again and will have enough rewards for one TS meal; going to let the kids pick which one.

We only can afford to go to WDW every 3-4 years and the attractions are way more important to my grand kids so QSDP works best for us.

 

[sbd78]

we had the DDP when the grands were younger and they got to enjoy tons of character meals.
Last trip (2016) the kids were very vocal that they did not want to waste park time at TS restaurants when they could be on rides! Plus the previous trip in 2013 I felt like all I did was nag about having to get to and ADR or FP+; was not fun.

We did the QSDP in 2016 and it was very freeing to not be tied to ADRS and just ate where and when we wanted to. Food was already paid for so no worry there.

I made a list of QS places at every park based on what my family likes to eat and the allergy restrictions of my old DGD. I printed the list and marked those CS in MDE so when ever we decided we were hungry I had a list at my fingertips. I also noted which restaurants were inside with AC to get out of the heat.

we did 2 TS meals (used Disney Visa Rewards) so were free.
Next trip in 2020 plan to do the QSDP again and will have enough rewards for one TS meal; going to let the kids pick which one.

We only can afford to go to WDW every 3-4 years and the attractions are way more important to my grand kids so QSDP works best for us.

Thanks for the reply. One thing we've never done is Cinderella's Royal Table. Every trip I've considered it but always end up going with Akershus instead because it's only 1 credit on the dining plan. I was also thinking this would be a good time to do CRT and check that off the bucket list. We can pay out of pocket since it's not a great value on the standard plan anyway being 2 credits and make that our only table service meal.

 

[scard192]

Thanks for the reply. One thing we've never done is Cinderella's Royal Table. Every trip I've considered it but always end up going with Akershus instead because it's only 1 credit on the dining plan. I was also thinking this would be a good time to do CRT and check that off the bucket list. We can pay out of pocket since it's not a great value on the standard plan anyway being 2 credits and make that our only table service meal.

We did in in 2013 when my grand daughters were 7 and 2 (she turned 3 at Disney). They loved it and so glad they got to that experience.
It's worth it at least once.

 

[brockash]

Anyone try the quick service dining plan when you usually do the standard plan? We usually like to get the dining plan when staying at WDW, we like to prepay and not worry about food costs on vacation. We are currently booked at CBR with free dining this July. CBR only comes with the quick service plan but we can upgrade to standard for around $600 for our family of 5. We are considering sticking with the quick service plan, though. We went to WDW last summer and one of our complaints was everything was too scheduled. We went to Disneyland/CA last month and really enjoyed the more laid back, less planning vibe there. I know we will still have to plan out our FP+ selections but not having ADRs on top of our FP+ plans leaves more flexibility that I think we might appreciate. There were multiple times last year where we were having fun or not very hungry and going to our dining reservation felt like a chore. It's not like you can just skip your ADR either, without paying a penalty. Has anyone done quick service dining when you are used to the standard plan? Did you feel like you were missing out? My kids like character meals but we've done all of them so many times, I think it will be o.k. if we skip them this year.

One other thing to keep in mind is that while it may be only $600 to upgrade to the regular dining plan, you also need to add on top of that all the tipping that you'll now be doing. When I always think about it, I think ehh, not a big deal, but really we're dishing out at least $25 extra per TS meal just in the tip and that's with us not eating at the more lucrative restaurants. I would just be sure to factor in the tip as well. We've done both and I would have no problem doing just the QS meal plan again. It really wasn't nearly as big of a deal as I thought it might be and we actually found some QS places that we really liked but had never tried before.

 

[sbd78]

One other thing to keep in mind is that while it may be only $600 to upgrade to the regular dining plan, you also need to add on top of that all the tipping that you'll now be doing. When I always think about it, I think ehh, not a big deal, but really we're dishing out at least $25 extra per TS meal just in the tip and that's with us not eating at the more lucrative restaurants. I would just be sure to factor in the tip as well. We've done both and I would have no problem doing just the QS meal plan again. It really wasn't nearly as big of a deal as I thought it might be and we actually found some QS places that we really liked but had never tried before.

Yes, not having to tip is definitely another plus. The tip alone on expensive character meals ends up being a decent chunk of change!

 

[sbd78]

We did in in 2013 when my grand daughters were 7 and 2 (she turned 3 at Disney). They loved it and so glad they got to that experience.
It's worth it at least once.

I have 1 daughter and 2 sons. This trip falls a couple days after her 9th birthday. I know we are on borrowed time with her loving princesses! Although her brothers are not so thrilled about CRT, lol. If we can only do 1 character meal, they want it to be Chef Mickeys. (We've done Chef Mickeys multiple times in the past.)

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

I have 1 daughter and 2 sons. This trip falls a couple days after her 9th birthday. I know we are on borrowed time with her loving princesses! Although her brothers are not so thrilled about CRT, lol. If we can only do 1 character meal, they want it to be Chef Mickeys. (We've done Chef Mickeys multiple times in the past.)

Can your husband and boys go to Chef Mickey's and you and your daughter go to CRT as a "just us girls special time together"?

 

[sbd78]

Can your husband and boys go to Chef Mickey's and you and your daughter go to CRT as a "just us girls special time together"?

We probably could, but we've been to Chef Mickey's multiple times so I don't feel too guilty skipping it. Plus, I think my husband wants to see the inside of the castle too, lol.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I've never done the QSDP or regular for that matter but if in looking through the counter service menus you find enough different types of food to make your family happy I say go for it. It will certainly save you money and as you already noted you can eat a special meal OOP.

Now to to flip the coin a bit I'll point out that if you like the food/menus at Disney Springs you can eat there frequently without reservations made months in advance. The man and I did this our last trip and it was very freeing to simply book reservations at opentable.com the same day or an hour or so before we showed up; some afternoons we found it simple to do walk-ups and we were never turned away or waited for excessive periods of time.

 

[mamamelody2]

We had free DDP our first two trips. Enjoyed it. Our next two trips we had QSDP. Loved it. It's great not being tied to ADRs. Less park time is taken for eating. No added gratuity expense. There really is a wide variety of counter service meals. I didn't have a burger, chicken nugget, or pizza all week. LOL.

We just did one sit down meal and paid oop. Crystal Palace breakfast as DS's favorite character is Tigger.

 

[wdwrule]

We’ve had several trips with TS dining plan, then the last 2 trips or so with the QS plan. With our touring style we love and appreciate the QS plan. We’re not tied down to a timeframe as we’re really big on rides and general park time. For our family of four, QS is plenty of food and offers a good variety such as Asian cuisine, Cobb salads, etc. etc. Some of our favorite QS places are at the resorts and World Showcase. We love a lot of the big snacks too! Not having to worry about lots of OOP tips is very nice too. We typically just pick one or two sit-downs during the whole trip. Since your boys like the characters, have you considered Garden Grill instead of Chef Mickey’s? When we went we loved the food, atmosphere, and interaction there better at GG than CM.

 

[1911]

the quick service plan was very liberating for us,no adrs, no schedule to keep or worry about being in the right place at the right time (especially at epcot).
we won't pay for the dining plan any more as it doesn't make economical sense for us. I save our out of pocket table service meals for disney springs which has better options IMO.

 

[chocolateMinnie]

We had two trips oop, then four trips ddp and one dxdp (all in February or October) then ddp trip in August before trying qsdp. When the kids were little the ddp worked well for characters and we ate quite a lot and found that we liked the routine of dinner in the evening but as the kids got older and in August we found we didn’t like being tied to adrs and didn’t eat as much.
So our qsdp was successful and personally we wouldn’t pay for the ddp upgrade preferring to add a couple of sit down meals last minute if we fancy a change.
It does buy you a lot of extra time and flexibility too.

 

[Brett Wyman]

We prefer the QSDP even though we do TS and character meals sometimes while at WDW. But for us we don't do them EVERYDAY, due to young antsy kids. So we don't want to potentially waste a TS credit when we only did 2 or 3 QS meals in a day. We've found that we still come out ahead even after paying out of pocket for TS meals for roughly half of the days of our trips. To us, QSDP is just a lot les pressure and great with young kids.

 

[hattrickmom]

This August will be our first trip with QSDP and I have to say we are pretty excited to not be tied to ADR's! We have done many character dinners which are wonderful but its basically trying to get some food in between taking pics and getting autographs! ;D And i think we will make much better use of our snack credits on QS as well! It seems like every other trip we end up just grabbing random cookies or candy to use up credits which i guess some people might see as a good thing lol! Id prefer to use them for a bagel for breakfast or of course Dole Whips and Mickey Ice Cream Bars!