*Thread For All Who Love The Dining Plan*

[Tinkerbell10403]

This is a thread for all of you who absolutely LOVE the Dining Plan!! It doesn't matter if you got it for free or not....let's face it: The dining plan is an amazing way to save money on your vacation. Is it possible to enjoy yourself at Disney AND eat a Table Service, Counter Service, and a Snack for $35.00 a day (for Adults) without this plan? Probably not. Let's give a cheer for saving money, eating at some absolutley Awsome Disney Restaurants, oh and getting a bill that says balance of $0.00.

In this thread, post everything you love about the Dining Plan!! Let's Keep This One Going!!!

 

[disneytraveler]

Ok i will join you to! The dining plan was great when i visited Disney last week!

Being able to eat at a host of great places and relaxing . I was on the premium plan package which gave me b/l/dinner each day with appetitizer
and dessert!

 

[Beauty]

Ours was a given. We had the free dining and our entire package for 4 adults with 9 nights at Pop Century, 9 day park hopper plus passes and dining was $2,000. I haven't figured an exact total yet since we just got home last night but I'm sure we spent well over $1,000 in dining so we got our passes and rooms for under $1,000 dollars for 4 adults!!!!!!

 

[Samantha]

I'll let you know in less than a week!

 

[gonemousin']

We used it in May and we're going to use it again in December! It was a lot of food, but we were able to eat in wonderful restaurants that we otherwise may not have budgeted for. I wish I could have gone during the free period, but it's still worth every penny we paid. We loved the flexibility too!!

 

[tmanaster]

We used it in June and loved it! Will definitely buy it again next time we go! It was great to not worry about budgeting for food and we ate in many places we might not have tried.

Definitely add me to the love it list!

Tricia

 

[TooBoyz4us]

I can't comment on the new Dining Plan yet,but......in the past we have always gotten the silver plan and LOVED it. I hope we like the new plan just as much.
DH will not go to Disney without it.

 

[DisneyMom5]

I have six kids, and not once did I have to look at a menu price or tell them no. We all ate till our hearts content, and went to 4 character meals to boot. They got dessert at every meal, and they were so full that between meals they only once begged for a treat...which I then got for them using a snack credit.
Dh, who is extremely cynical and frugal, liked the idea of trying the dining plan for free. He was soooo happy with it, that now he is pretty set on purchasing it the next time we go.
We're sold.

 

[TINKERIFIC]

So far I am liking the dining plan and I have never even been to WDW. Our first trip is 12/15 - 12/23 at POP with my DH and DD8.

For those of you who do love it, please give me some advise on good theme park CS for lunch or even breakfast, if it is enough to share for 2 adults. My plan is to:

BREAKFAST (POP): pay OOP for my DD and utilize one CS for my DH and I to share. For those who have ate breakfast at POP, what are the portions like? My DH and I are not big on breakfast, just something to hold us over until lunch would be fine, but my DD loves her waffles.

LUNCH: one CS for my DH and I to share and my DD to utilize her CS. Please let me know of some CS, which provide servings which are plenty enough for two adults to share.

DINNER: ADR's for

LIBERTY TAVERN (MVMCP) 5:50 pm
LE CELLIER (CANDLELIGHT PROCESSIONAL) 7:00 pm
WHISPERING CANYON 7:20 pm
50'S PRIME TIME 5:00 pm
CRT (BREAKFAST) 8:10 am
OHANA (MIGHT CHANGE TO CRYSTAL PALACE, NOT QUITE SURE, ADVISE?) 5:00 pm
MAMA MELROSE (FANTASMIC PKG) 4:30 pm

 

[henrylovespooh]

I am a Dining Plan Lover. We used it in March and we tried new restaurants and even new food that we might not have tried without the plan. Sure sometimes it seemed like a lot of food, but we often sampled from the appetizer, entree and dessert and never gorged ourselves.

The snack credits came in handy for bottles of water in the parks and for popcorn for the kids.

We were able to share CS meals with our son and saved some credits for breakfast at ASMo, which was nice.

We easily saved $300 and if I had any idea my husband would have wanted to go back this October, I would have booked the trip when free dining was offered. I think it's a good deal when you have to pay for it, but it's the ultimate deal when it's free!!!

 

[Frantasmic]

I have not used it (yet) but booked it back in January and will gladly pay for it for all the reasons listed.

 

[henrylovespooh]

Tinkerific,

We thought the portions were good to share at breakfast if you ordered the breakfast platter with pancakes (I'm sure they have waffles too). Some come with eggs. Then you can choose a muffin or danish as "dessert." I got the platter and shared a pancake with my DD2 and gave the muffin to my DS3. We stayed at ASMo so I'm sure the food court is similar to Pop.

At the Magic Kingdom, Columbia Harbour House has a Captain's platter with chicken fingers, fried fish and fries. It's good to share. I ate the fish and my DS ate the chicken and we shared fries. DH and I never shared meals (he's a big guy and eats a meal by himself), but I tried to share with my son to save credits for breakfast since it didn't matter whose credits we used.

We loved the CS lunch at Flame Tree Barbecue - the ribs are really good and so are the onion rings. For us, it was too small a portion to share but you could take a look and decide for yourself. The frozen lemonade dessert was really good too.

At MGM, I would avoid the ABC Commissary for a CS meal. I've been twice and both times it's been bad. The only thing I liked were the danish. If you can avoid a CS meal here, I think it's a good idea.

Hav a great trip!

 

[disneyjunkie]

My son and I used the plan back in April and will use again next April.

It was nice to order what you wanted without worrying about the price.

I never felt like we HAD to order everything that came with the plan. There were several times we didn't order dessert. Not once did I feel like we were "wasting" money by not order everything we were entitled to.

We finally made it to Tappenyaki, Wilderness Lodge, Chef Mickey's, Crystal Palace, Ohana (dinner) Cape May Cafe clam bake, and Rose and Crown. There's no way we would have gone to all of those places if I had to pay out of pocket.

During our next trip (Easter 2006) we’ll get to try Brown Derby, Le Cellier, 1900 Park Fare, San Angel Inn, Liberty Tree Tavern, Concourse Steakhouse....

 

[honeymo78]

Disneytraveler - glad to hear you had a great time on the premium plan. We'll be doing that again next week for our honeymoon. Did you do any tours/recreation?

 

[disneytraveler]

Honeymo78- I did the Keys to the Kingdom tour and my tour guide was Heather. She did a great job ! We went behind the the scenes and saw
some of the buildings and the utilidors plus went on Haunted mansion, Jungle
cruise, and Pirates. I did not do any of the recreation but plan on it on my next trip .

I also went to see La Nouba on the premium plan to! That is a must see event!

 

[honeymo78]

Traveler - we've never done that tour before but I hope we get to next year. This is the first trip with no tours for us at all but we decided to spend some time at the waterparks and do some parsailing and jet skiing. I love being out on the water. I never see too many premium plan people on the boards so I love it when I run into one. Did you have any problems with CMs confusing your plan with the regular dining add on?

 

[TINKERIFIC]

Tinkerific,

We thought the portions were good to share at breakfast if you ordered the breakfast platter with pancakes (I'm sure they have waffles too). Some come with eggs. Then you can choose a muffin or danish as "dessert." I got the platter and shared a pancake with my DD2 and gave the muffin to my DS3. We stayed at ASMo so I'm sure the food court is similar to Pop.

At the Magic Kingdom, Columbia Harbour House has a Captain's platter with chicken fingers, fried fish and fries. It's good to share. I ate the fish and my DS ate the chicken and we shared fries. DH and I never shared meals (he's a big guy and eats a meal by himself), but I tried to share with my son to save credits for breakfast since it didn't matter whose credits we used.

We loved the CS lunch at Flame Tree Barbecue - the ribs are really good and so are the onion rings. For us, it was too small a portion to share but you could take a look and decide for yourself. The frozen lemonade dessert was really good too.

At MGM, I would avoid the ABC Commissary for a CS meal. I've been twice and both times it's been bad. The only thing I liked were the danish. If you can avoid a CS meal here, I think it's a good idea.

Hav a great trip!

I have read about a lot of people using child TS/CS credits for adult uses. For example, paying OOP for a child TS in order to utilize these for an extra TS for adults or a 2 credit TS. I was told by a CM at WDW dine that the child & adult credits are now tracked seperately, including the CS. Therefore, once you run out of adult CS/TS you will probably have to pay OOP because only a child (age 3-9) can order off the childs menu and the credits can only be used for the childs menu.

 

[puddleduck]

I have read about a lot of people using child TS/CS credits for adult uses. For example, paying OOP for a child TS in order to utilize these for an extra TS for adults or a 2 credit TS. I was told by a CM at WDW dine that the child & adult credits are now tracked seperately, including the CS. Therefore, once you run out of adult CS/TS you will probably have to pay OOP because only a child (age 3-9) can order off the childs menu and the credits can only be used for the childs menu.

Some people have children 10 and over who do not eat enough to justify ordering an adult meal. The parents pay for a meal off the kid's menu and use the extra (adult-because they are 10 and older) credit for another ts or cs meal. I have also heard that they have not started separating the credits into adult/child, that they are still just ts and cs credits, although I could be wrong on this one.

 

[LglBlonde]

I love it!!!

 

[MyGoofyfamilyandme]

Even though we won't use ours untill 78 days from now lol I'm really excited about having it . I mean it saves us money on food i have a very very frugal hubby lol so for me and him this was the best plan yet we got this out totally vacation cost us 1700 thats pretty good. lol GO DDP