TS Dining-do you stay in the parks?

[familyfirsttimer]

For those of you with younger kids (my DD are 4&7), how do you plan most of your TS meals? DO you mostly plan them in the park you are going to be in. I know lots of people hop around to other places and we did get the hoppers for that reason but just wondering how worth it is really is with younger kids to do that.
For example, I see lots of posts on Boma at AKL but just to go there for a dinner seems a little complicated for me.
Any thoughts, I truly appreciate.

 

[MinnieNurse]

We try to stay in the parks on the days we are there. If at DTD or taking a day to swim at the hotel we usually go to a resort or eat at DTD. I think anyway you do it you will have a blast. If you think your kids may need a break you may plan to leave early then go to a resort to eat then head back to the park for fireworks or Fantasmic.

 

[lady_hlh]

We took our 3 year old last year in September which is still really summer in FL. We would go to a park in the AM, then in the PM when my DD was hot and cranky we would go back to the resort for a dip in the pool and to relax. Then we would head back out for dinner and some rides or fireworks at one of the parks. We had park hoppers so that we could go where ever we wanted in the AM and not worry about where we had already made an ADR for a TS dinner. It is pretty complex and time consuming to go to dinner at another resort using the bus system so we only ate one TS at the Contemporary because we could just take the monorail from MK. You could also use the monorail to go eat at the restaurants at the Poly.

 

[FogliaFamily]

We had the DP with our family: me, DH, DS 3, 5, 7. I planned our lunches and dinners at the parks and then went that day to that particular park. This also gave us some sort of a plan instead of sitting there each morning wondering where to go. It is more difficult to get from resort to resort. They suggest going to DTD and then transfer there. We also did Chef Mickey at the Contemporary and then hopped the monorail to MK. Allow plenty of time to get from hotel to your reservation - it takes about 45 minutes with the bus transportation, getting into the park and to the restaurant-although I must say they are very lenient if you are late - we got to the Beirgarten in Germany 15 minutes late and no problem. TS are definitely time consuming, but a nice change of pace. By day 4 my husband was done with the sitting down and eating. I loved it and the boys did fine. And so much food with the dining plan.

 

[Tam1067]

When we first went, the kids were 6, 4, and 1. We ate at our resort (WL) 3 times total for dinner (twice at Whispering Canyon, once CS at Roaring Forks), and then took the WL/CR boat over to Chef Mickey's one evening (a really easy ride the kids liked). The other evenings, we did TS in the various parks we decided to visit that evening: Epcot (Biergarten), and MK (Crystal Palace). I would avoid major transfers between resorts because getting on and off busses is a hassle with the kids and all their gear; plus, they just get tired. Now that my kids are more mobile, we're actually doing Boma--which I wanted to do last time but didn't have the energy for before!

 

[Dizneydaz]

We do TS sometimes in parks, sometimes out. Like previous posters, we don't always stay in one park for the entire day. A mid-day break is always a welcome change. And since my DD6 favorite activity is the pool, it's hard to explain to her that mommy and grandma want to stay in the parks when she wants to go swimming. I've made about 1/2 of our TS ADR in the park and 1/2 out. This gives us the flexibility to not be committed to go to a certain park everyday.

One thing to note, however, is that we always have our own rental vehicle and don't use Disney Transportation at all. It gives us more leeway and more time. We usually pay an average of $200 for a van for anywhere from 7-9 days. It's worth it to us for the flexibility it gives us. We stock up on supplies at Super Walmart on the way in, we can go to restaurants outside of property (McDonald's-the regular ones not the on-property) and our latest fav-Bahama Breeze), we've even gone to Sam's Club to get our Digital pix downloaded to CD's so we can take more pictures.