Reasonable priced sit down dinners?

[kristie73]

I'm winging it. This is our first trip to Disney World and we are planning a little last minute. A trip in late March for 2 adults and 2 boys under 10. I got the T-Rex Cafe reservation when we first arrive for 7pm. YAY!

My husband's birthday will be while we are there so that will be an fairly expensive meal and I'm still trying to decide on a character meal for breakfast lunch or dinner.

A lot of you are talking about other cool restaurants like California Grill and Ohana's, but those look expensive!

Are there other cool places that are a little more reasonable for dinner or is that unheard of? I'm not sure what other places I should try to get reservations for. One of those needs to be cool for my husbands birthday dinner and possibly a character meal. I need a few more ideas for meals that are a little more reasonable but still awesome. Any tips?

 

[lions1995]

There is a list of menus (food / prices) at http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm It may be a good start. Some of the menus are older, but they are still a good reference.

 

[JennyDrake]

It depends upon your definition of "reasonably prices"--but off hand, I would say "no." With that said, you can find the same foods at LUNCH for less than dinner prices--at times substantially so. Buffets and "regular" TS.

 

[TDC Nala]

The least expensive character meal onsite is at the Swan resort's Garden Grove buffet. They have character dinners nightly and character breakfasts on weekends, but usually feature two or three characters rather than four.

The Swan isn't operated by Disney. The Disney character meals are more expensive. They're all fixed price meals, so everybody pays the same price no matter how much or how little they eat. Breakfast is almost always the cheapest of the day.

 

[OhThePain]

A relatively inexpensive but really great meal is at Sanaa at Kidani. We like the food much better at Sanaa than some of the Signatures (namely California Grill and Narcoossee's). The 4 of you could easily share the bread service for 2 and the entrees are pretty reasonably priced. There is enough to choose from for both those who enjoy food with a lot of spice and those who like to play it on the safer side. The atmosphere is nice and there is a great overlook area right near the restaurant with a nice fire pit and a great view of one of the savannahs for before or after dinner. Both buildings of AKL (Kidani and Jambo) are worth taking some time to check out.

As far as character meals go (not counting Garden Grove), breakfast is less expensive than lunch or dinner, but none of them are reasonably priced, IMO. Disney has really priced the character/buffet/family style meals to the point where they really just aren't worth paying OOP for them anymore (but make the dining plans seem like more of a savings).

 

[natfrac]

When I think reasonably priced sit downs, I think of Sci-Fi Dine In, 50s Prime Time, Rose & Crown, or at the Boardwalk--Big River Grill or ESPN Club. I'm sure there are more. As someone mentioned, look at allears.net for menus with prices.

 

[Havana]

I find Via Napoli to be a value for a sit down meal. One pizza may seem high priced, but maybe with an appetizer, it can feed 3 adults.

 

[Havana]

The Plaza at MK is decent priced for sit down burgers.

 

[Heluvsme]

Sci-Fi Drive In and Plaza at MK are the least expensive, and then ESPN would be next I believe. OH, and House Of Blues is reasonable as well!

 

[tndisneyfan]

50's Prime Time is very reasonable and has large portions.

 

[Terry in NJ]

I am going to base my response on the assumption that by reasonable sit down meals you mean that they are NOT $32-$42 an entree and maybe thinking $17-$25 an entree.
Tony's Town Square in MK The lasagna this past August was to DIE for! REALLY! I am from an area in which Italian restaurants are on every corner. Tony's was so so good.
The new Mexico restaurant on the lake in Epcot, omg our meal was fabulous. We are going back again in August of 2012.
Also, I can suggest, Mama Melrose in Hollywood Studios...
I don't know where you are staying but I've always had a good meal at the Kona Cafe at the Poly and it's reasonable.
Have fun planning!

 

[Hopefully]

I am going to base my response on the assumption that by reasonable sit down meals you mean that they are NOT $32-$42 an entree and maybe thinking $17-$25 an entree.
Tony's Town Square in MK The lasagna this past August was to DIE for! REALLY! I am from an area in which Italian restaurants are on every corner. Tony's was so so good.
The new Mexico restaurant on the lake in Epcot, omg our meal was fabulous. We are going back again in August of 2012.
Also, I can suggest, Mama Melrose in Hollywood Studios...
I don't know where you are staying but I've always had a good meal at the Kona Cafe at the Poly and it's reasonable.
Have fun planning!

I think if you are looking for less expensive than this, you are going to have a hard time at WDW

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Plaza Restaurant at Magic Kingdom is your best bet for a reasonably priced table service meal. Keep in mind you should make reservations for any of the table services restaurants (and fairly soon). Plaza serves burgers/sandwiches/salads that are relatively good and will run you something like $10-15 a person, which isn't a lot more than you'll pay for a counter service meal, is better quality, and you get to sit in a relatively relaxing place.

California Grill is very expensive, and 'Ohana is pricey as well (but is a buffet-type meal). Disney meals in general are ridiculously overpriced and often low quality, especially some of the counter service places. Another option might be Downtown Disney, but the prices there aren't much (if any) more reasonable.

There are a number of threads re character meals. Check allears.net for info on those as they have different characters at different locations so you might be able to find one specific for your sons. Some popular ones are breakfast at 'Ohana, Crystal Palace, and Cape May (I'm sure there are others).

Hope you have a great time on your first trip!

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

I am going to base my response on the assumption that by reasonable sit down meals you mean that they are NOT $32-$42 an entree and maybe thinking $17-$25 an entree.
Tony's Town Square in MK The lasagna this past August was to DIE for! REALLY! I am from an area in which Italian restaurants are on every corner. Tony's was so so good.
The new Mexico restaurant on the lake in Epcot, omg our meal was fabulous. We are going back again in August of 2012.
Also, I can suggest, Mama Melrose in Hollywood Studios...
I don't know where you are staying but I've always had a good meal at the Kona Cafe at the Poly and it's reasonable.
Have fun planning!

Funny how Disney seems (to me anyway) to skew our concept of "reasonable." Kona could easily run $150 (including tax/tip) for a dinner for 4 people and that doesn't seem reasonable to me at all, but for Disney isn't that bad.

 

[kristie73]

I'm so overwhelmed. I'm in the medium dollar sign range, but for sure that can still be high.

How do you decide where to book and when? I'm thinking okay we'll be at Epcot Sunday, let's pick somewhere there for dinner. Is 6pm available? It is... good, I'll pick that. But is that what you all do? Then just wing it for breakfast and lunch? Or do you think okay it will probably take us until lunch to get through some of Magic Kingdom, then we'll take a break take the bus downtown for the T-Rex cafe. I mean how are you figuring this out to make these reservations?

 

[tzolkin]

How do you decide where to book and when? I'm thinking okay we'll be at Epcot Sunday, let's pick somewhere there for dinner. Is 6pm available? It is... good, I'll pick that. But is that what you all do? Then just wing it for breakfast and lunch? Or do you think okay it will probably take us until lunch to get through some of Magic Kingdom, then we'll take a break take the bus downtown for the T-Rex cafe. I mean how are you figuring this out to make these reservations?

Basically, yes.

I make a spreadsheet with all 4 parks' hours for our each day of our trip. We then plan part of each day (ex. morning EMH at MK on Tuesday or evening at Epcot on Friday). I do this every trip whether we make dining reservations or not. We always get park hoppers so this allows us to be flexible about what we want to do for the rest of the day.


Last trip we did the dining plan and did most of our meals at Epcot or the resorts near MK (easy to hop on a boat or monorail to get there). We always spend part of each day in those two parks so that was convenient for us. We wanted to try Sci-Fi at HS so I booked a lunch. That way we could either go there and do some rides in the morning and then leave after lunch (which we did) or if we wanted to sleep in or do another park in the morning we could get there by lunch and spend the afternoon/evening in HS.

 

[stauncie]

How do you decide where to book and when? I'm thinking okay we'll be at Epcot Sunday, let's pick somewhere there for dinner. Is 6pm available? It is... good, I'll pick that. But is that what you all do? Then just wing it for breakfast and lunch? Or do you think okay it will probably take us until lunch to get through some of Magic Kingdom, then we'll take a break take the bus downtown for the T-Rex cafe. I mean how are you figuring this out to make these reservations?

This. sort of.

We start by figuring out which restaurants we want to go to. (each person in our family gets to 'pick' a set number of places, depending on the length of trip.)
We don't get hopper passes (we travel during the off season, when its cooler and the park hours are shorter, so we don't see much benefit to hopping. )

After we decide which places we want to dine, we look at park hours, and plan those accordingly. Crystal Palace on MK day, Le Cellier on Epcot day, etc. From there we are flexible. I don't have a set 'hour' I try to make reservations for, whatever open reservation they have, we take. HS day, we eat at Y&B, because we don't like any of the places at HS, and its just a quick boat ride there and back.

Alternately, if we can't get into Crystal Palace, we try for Chef Mickeys, or 1900 PF, or WCC all just a quick monorail (or boat) ride away.

After our TS reservations are made, then we plan the CS meal around that. If our reservation is a late lunch, we eat a late breakfast, and then we will also eat a late dinner. (Or maybe share a CS or eat a snack instead of a CS meal at all)

For our family, half the fun is eating in the restaurants, and planning the trip.

Its supposed to be fun! its vacation, after all.

 

[bcrook]

Hi,

I was about to post a similar question. So, I will just ride yours for awhile and pick up some pointers.

First of all, I will have a Tables in Wonderland Card, that gives us an 20% discount (or basically covers the tip).

We tend schedule 3:00 pm lunches and take advantage of the much cheaper lunches. For example, we scheduled a 2:50 Liberty Tree Tavern at MK and expect to spend about $75.00 instead of getting the dinner which would cost us about $150.00 for a family of four.

We have a dinner reservation at Rose and Crown and expect to spend $100.00 (that includes $8.00 Guinesses) and Sanaa is manageable for $100.00 (including desserts) we could eat at both restaurants for $75.00.

$85.00 for Grand Floridian Cafe or $70.00 for lunch. Kona for dinner about $90.00.

These prices are about what we spend at TGIFridays for my family.


As for the picking which restaurant on which day, I pretty much do what the pp said. We get a hopper so we have flexibility. We look at the schedule and choose which parks we think we will be visiting and schedule a lunch or dinner that way.

 

[Bonniec]

I'm so overwhelmed. I'm in the medium dollar sign range, but for sure that can still be high.

How do you decide where to book and when? I'm thinking okay we'll be at Epcot Sunday, let's pick somewhere there for dinner. Is 6pm available? It is... good, I'll pick that. But is that what you all do? Then just wing it for breakfast and lunch? Or do you think okay it will probably take us until lunch to get through some of Magic Kingdom, then we'll take a break take the bus downtown for the T-Rex cafe. I mean how are you figuring this out to make these reservations?

My advise? You don't need to do TS everyday. You certainly won't need it more than once per day either. Some of the counter service places are very good (Columbia Harbor House at MK, Sunshine Seasons and Tangerine (lol however you spell it) at Epcot, Flame Tree at Animal Kingdom)....those are all great places. Also, some of the snacks are downright delicous!

We usually eat breakfast before hand (hotel, McD's, whatever) and then snack all day long. We usually do one meal at the parks. Disney has so much to chose from! TS is nice but they can take a big chunk of time out of your vacation. I love to snack my way through Disney World....egg rolls, cream cheese pretzels, dole whips, fish n chips, CUPCAKES (omg cupcakes),.....pretty much any bakery is your best friend.

I would plan a few TS places that really stand out to you ahead of time. The rest of the time, just wing it. You can also do some researching on the Disney Food Blog for good restaurants as well as the best snacks and such.

 

[kristennn]

We're paying out of pocket for the first time (we've been 3 times before)
In the past i have made one ADR per day since we were on the dining plan. This time I am making 5-6 ADR's so not quite one per day.
First I figured out where we would be on which day. I paid for the subscription at www.touringplans.com and used www.easywdw.com and looked to see which parks they were predicting to be the slowest on days we were there - and took into account where we wanted to spend mroe time etc. For example We're just doign one full day at animal kingdom - one at hollywood studios and 2 days at magic kingdom and epcott. I also left a little open time at the very end of our trip - where we can do downtown disney or if we didn't do everything we wanted at a park we can head back.
So once I penciled in which days at which parks I made a list of where we want to eat. Then I made ADR's based on where we would be. So if the restaurant is in a park ... at that park. Or if it's at a monorail hotel I might do it for a day when we are at magic kingdom. We like to do rope drops too so one really early breakfast - and a late breakfast on our last day.
We are doing a few expensive meals ... cinderella's castle for breakfast ... 1900 park faire for dinner. We're doing le cellier which is pricey because my husband really wants to but for lunch instead of dinner.
We're doing 50's primetime because I always wanted to check it out but didn't think it was a good value on the dining plan. I would like to do Kona for breakfast if I can figure out a good time to do it - because I have heard it is really really good and it's comparably reasonable. We're planning to do Ohana's character meal for breakfast mostly because the food is SO good - and it is more reasonable than some other character breakfasts. We are also debating Tusker house character meal for a lunch.
Once you get started it can be hard to limit yourself. There are plenty of good counter service options though too - especially in the world are at Epcott.