so confused about dining pkg

[ladybug]

Hello, I am brand new to the board & am trying to plan our trip for next month! I know what took me so long. It will be just DH & me celebrating our 10 yr wedding ann. our first vaccation ever. We didn't have a honeymoon & he's never even flown! We unfortunately still have now children.
We are thinking about the myw dining option that gives you 1 cs, 1 snack & 1 ts each for 5 days, it will be $350. We are also on weight watchers & while it is a vaccation we don't want to destroy what we have achieved.

Is this a good meal plan for the $ or would we be better off buying our meals. We have no idea where to eat since it is our 1st time there. I'm trying to go through the posts but thought I'd ask. We were thinking about a fridge for our value resort room for snacks & water that we bring.
Would appreciate your thoughts.
Thank you,
Diane

 

[grodgers49]

I understand all of the moderates and deluxe resorts now come with a fridge. There are several places where you can eat and not gain too much (just keep on walking). You can go to http://www.allearsnet.com and she lists all of the menus for all the places to eat.

 

[sammax]

My BF and I went this past week, and on the dining plan we shared a counter service for breakfast, (eg. an omelet with a side order of bacon, juice and some fruit), and we shared a counter service for lunch (one day it was at the cafe in Morocco), and we each used a table service for supper. Otherwise it would be too much food for us. This way though, we didn't spend a dime for any extra food, and we took no snacks or anything with us. It worked out great for us, and we're looking forward to doing the same thing again in November.

 

[ceecee]

I'd skip the dining plan. It will make you want to eat more than you should. Remember you don't really want 2 desserts and a sugary snack if you're watching calories. The portions IMHO are large enough to share. Maybe you could try sharing a few entrees. We usually find we are not as hungery doing all that walking.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

Sharing a cs breakfast and a cs lunch could work for you if you are watching fat and calories and instead of dessert you could get fruit.

Also, snack credits can be used for bottles of water and fruit not just sugary snacks.

You could also request from many sit down restaurants a sugar free dessert.

Dining at Disney is expensive - this might help ease the costs a little while still providing you with quality (non fattening, non greasy) meals.

 

[ajm1107]

I just wanted to comment on this. I to am doing Disney and am on weight watchers. I have lost over 100 lbs and don’t want to gain any while there. When I was looking at the plan and trying to decide, I realized I was planning everything around where we were going to eat and how to get the most food for the money. I realized that I could not do the plan. I would rather spend twice the amount of money on food and just get what I want vs trying to make sure I get the full value. Good Luck

 

[Nora94]

I would do it. There were so many healthy choices on the menu. An appetizer can be a salad, btw. And we did what others said, we split a breakfast counter service, getting fruit as the "dessert" and then we would split lunch counter service too - you can get some healthy sandwiches or fruit or salad. Than for dinner you can get the salad as your appetizer or just try a cool one and not finish it. Even if you only ordered one dessert and one appetizer and split it you would be coming out way ahead money wise.

We used our snacks for water bottles - made it nice not having to keep one and fill it up. Or you can get bottled juice, fruit, etc.

I don't see how you could eat healthy and spend less than the $35 a day really.

About the planning meals thing, I was stressing about that too before we left. When we got there I found that if I knew what park we were going to be at that day it was easy to just go to the front desk at the hotel and find a resturant in that park or near it that would fit our desires and times. If you didn't have the dining plan you would have to make arrangements eithe rway. So, don't really see what the dining plan does to that - either way you need to make a PS if you are doing table service at all. And you can try to walk up, we did at Grand Floridian Cafe and got seated instantly.

I would do it if I were you.
Nora

 

[MandM-Mom]

You could always share your TS meal, disney does not care about sharing. I shared alot with DD a few weeks ago and we used the dining plan. If you are wondering about savings I did a report on what we spent compared to what we paid for dining plan. It was posted Yesterday. Check it out you will see it does allow you to save a bit. We shared all CS aswell.

 

[old one]

You could always share your TS meal, disney does not care about sharing. I shared alot with DD a few weeks ago and we used the dining plan. If you are wondering about savings I did a report on what we spent compared to what we paid for dining plan. It was posted Yesterday. Check it out you will see it does allow you to save a bit. We shared all CS aswell.

Did you share any meals at places like Le Cellier or Royal Table on the meal plan? Did they give you a hard time or make you feel bad about it?

We have the meal plan but we would rather share our meals and be able to eat several lighter meals than to eat two large full meals.

Thanks

 

[vascubaguy]

If you are staying for 5 days (4 nights) then your dining plan will be based on 4 * 35 = 140 pp (so $280 total)

That could work in your favor if you will be there 5 full days because you could share the meals and stretch the numbers. On this plan you can definately get a lot of food, but it doesn't mean you have to get it all. Most all of the restaurants have health conscious meals. If you want to try out a lot of the restaurants at WDW, I think you would probably get your monies worth out of the plan. However, if you aren't a big eater and would split the majority of your meals, then you may want to skip the plan.

To give you an idea of how it could still save you money. If you went to Le Cellier and ordered the ribeye (even if you didn't eat all of the other stuff), the entree alone is over $35! Plus add on an appetizer (salad), dessert (fruit maybe 4.99?), drink and taxes/tip - easily $50 for 1 person.

Take a look at the menus at allearsnet.com and check out the prices. Oh, and just remember, you will be doing lots of extra walking so you can up the calories because you will burn them back off.

 

[MandM-Mom]

Did you share any meals at places like Le Cellier or Royal Table on the meal plan? Did they give you a hard time or make you feel bad about it?

We have the meal plan but we would rather share our meals and be able to eat several lighter meals than to eat two large full meals.

Thanks

We shared at CRT. We just told them we were sharing and they brought us extra plates. Very nice about it. I did a MYW dining Report with a breakdown of all of our meals, if you want take a look, it breaks it all down to what we got for what we paid.

 

[Nora94]

Did you share any meals at places like Le Cellier or Royal Table on the meal plan? Did they give you a hard time or make you feel bad about it?

We have the meal plan but we would rather share our meals and be able to eat several lighter meals than to eat two large full meals.

Thanks

You can't share at Royal Table for Breakfast cause that is a set plate of food per person. You also can't share at any buffets.

Nora

 

[vascubaguy]

You can't share at Royal Table for Breakfast cause that is a set plate of food per person. You also can't share at any buffets.

Nora

Yup, unfortunately can't share the character meals or buffets...

 

[SRUAlmn]

We have shared at RFC, Sci-Fi, Le Cellier, Beaches & Cream, and Cinderella's (for lunch- before it was a character thing.) The server gave us a little bit of an issue at Sci-Fi, but he went to talk to his manager and then came back and said ok. Everywhere else didn't even bat an eyelash, and like someone else posted, many places brought the meal out on two separate plates. They were all very nice and accommodating and some places even gave us more than they were supposed to to up their tip percentage I'm sure they're used to people asking

As for the Weight Watcher thing, I think the one advantage of doing the dining plan would be that you could make healthier choices without having to pay as much. A lot of the healthier fish, salmon, chicken entrees can get pretty $$$, and you can save quite a bit if you have the dining plan. Otherwise, if you are watching your $$$, you might resort to counter service places which are mostly burger, fries, fried chicken. There are some with healthier options, but not many.

 

[old one]

Thanks for the info everyone. We have the dining plan, but I think it would be more fun to split meals and try out more places that way!