WDW Family in need of help at DL regarding dining

[sjaz22]

We travel to WDW often and always do the DDP. We are unfamiliar with the options at DL. We will be staying for 3 days at VGC. Does DL offer a dining plan? If not, is food expensive? What are must eat restaurants, either quick service or table service in the parks or hotels?

 

[Girimama33]

Disneyland does not have a dining plan. You can pre-purchase vouchers for character meals, but they typically do not save you much.
Yes the food can be expensive, but you may be able to split meals if 2 are not huge eaters.
For QS, I like Plaza Inn, Harbour Galley and French Market in DL. TS I like Blue Bayou.
For DCA, I like Corn Dog Castle, Flo's and Smokejumpers Grill.
TS wise, Steakhouse 55 at DLH is great, so is Napa Rose in GCH.

 

[tlovesdis]

Disneyland does not offer a dining plan. There are expensive places to eat such as Blue Bayou or Carthay Circle. In general QS meals will cost you about $1-$15 depending on where and what you get. TS meals will cost you $20 and up, again depending on where you go and what you get. There are a ton of options at DLR and you will get so many opinions on where to go and what to eat! I would check out the menus on All Ears to get an idea.

Some of my families favorites...

In DL - Cafe Orleans (TS), Carnation Cafe (TS), Plaza Inn (QS) and Rancho del Zocalo (QS) - We also love the Minnie and Friends Character Breakfast at Plaza Inn

In DCA - Wine COuntry Trattoria (TS), Pacific Wharfe Cafe (QS), and Corn Dog Castle (QS)

In DTD - Jazz Kitchen and Rainforest Cafe

Hope that helps a little!

 

[figment_jii]

As Girimama33 and tlovesdis have said, DLR does not offer a Dining Plan like WDW does. They do sell dining vouchers which might save you a little, but in general, they aren't really considered a great value. You can pre-purchase the vouchers from places like Costco and other travel sites. I haven't used aRES (so don't take this as a recommendation for the site), but if you scroll down to almost the bottom of this page (http://arestravel.com/722_attraction-tickets_a18.html) you can read about the dining vouchers.

You can get a sense of the cost of foods if you look at the menus on places like Allears.net and wdwinfo.com.

You'll get a lot of different opinions about where to eat (or not to eat). I highly recommend checking out the Disneyland Dining Reviews thread for photos and reviews from fellow Dis'ers. I recommend starting with the last post (more recent) because, like WDW, the menus do change at DLR. You can find a lot of my photos and dining reviews in that thread, but as recap, these are a few of my family's favorites:

• DL: Carnation Cafe (TS), Cafe Orleans (TS), French Market (CS), Plaza Inn (CS)
• DCA: Carthay Circle Lounge (TS-ish; think like HBD Lounge - not a true TS, but not a CS either), Clarabelle's (Snack)
• DTD: Brennan's Jazz Kitchen, RFC
• Hotels: Storytellers

One thing to note is that dining reservations are much easier to get at DLR than at WDW. Reservations open up about 60-days in advance, but it's very rare that anything would be fully booked on the first day (or even week). If something is showing as unavailable on the 60-day mark, it's more likely it has not yet been loaded into the system (rather than being already fully booked). You can often find prime dining reservations with less than a week to go. The dining system rolls somewhere between midnight and 6:00 am, but folks don't need to be online right when the system rolls, so no one has really figured out if there is a pattern to when the system rolls. Like WDW, DLR has a $10 per person no show fee. I still recommend making reservations if you know you want to eat somewhere specific or at a specific time.

 

[Hojoanaheim]

Figment has excellent information! Here are some my families favorite places to eat:

DL
Plaza Inn (QS) - (must eat) The chicken dinner is big enough to share between two people (My husband and I share)
Café Orleans (TS) - POM FRITES - garlic parmesan fries - YUM! If you get the Monte Cristo sandwich, you can share, but they might charge a split fee


DCA (These are not "must eats" but pretty good in my opinion)
Flo's (QS) - I like their rotisserie chicken and mac and cheese
Boardwalk (QS) - My husband and I share the Sundries tomato pasta

Napa Rose (TS) Definitely one of my favorites! But we save this for special occasions $$$

Have fun!
Kriss

 

[RemainSeatedPlease]

A unique TS restaurant in DL is Blue Bayou. It is inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and has a really lovely atmosphere. There is a hefty price tag to go along with that. If you plan to eat here, I would suggest making reservations, though as figment mentioned upthread reservations are often not as critical for other restaurants.

I will also mention that counter service restaurants tend to be of better variety and higher quality at DLR compared to WDW. Don't discount it as all burgers and fries, there are lots of places to get unique food offerings. I like Royal Street Veranda for their gumbo in a bread bowl, and I like the pasta dishes at the pizza port in Tomorrowland. In DCA, the cozy cones have several cone-shaped treats available (I particularly like their chili cone queso).

 

[melvin1970]

We are regulars at WDW also so when we went to DL 3 yrs ago we weren't sure either. We found out that we loved the Plaza for the character breakfast and Carnation Cafe in DL. At CA Flo's was really good and there is a Pizza/Pasta place on the boardwalk area that is good too! We are going to DL again this year and hoping to try a couple different places. Down Town Disney looks like it has some good places also. We did eat at Rain Forest Cafe last time and it was good. I like to look at the menus on allears.net.

 

[Sagginit]

I found the difference was QS quality and variety was better. I only had 3 meals in 4 days at the parks. We ate at Flos, the mexican restaurant at the wharf in DCA, and did a character meal at goofy's kitchen. I felt like for the price of Goofy's kitchen the food was not that great, I mostly did it for time with the characters but may skip on future trips as the characters in the parks are so much easier to see at times than in WDW. We stayed right across the street and with the fridge/micro wave we just loaded up on groceries and went out to dinner after the park closed twice. It actually saved us money and time, we had leftovers from dinner for lunch in the room when we went for our afternoon rest.

 

[blondietink]

We visited DL for the first time in November and we were indeed impressed by the counter service at both DL and DCA. Lots of choices and it was even difficult to find a hamburger at DCA. We had the character breakfast at the Paradise Pier hotel and it was awesome. Great interaction from the characters and lots of choices at the buffet. Loved the smoothies included. I think I only saw one or two popcorn stands. The rest of the cart type food was mostly churros, our new favorite.

 

[sechelt]

There are restaurants on Harbor Blvd., across from DL, including McDonalds, Denny's and, I think, IHOP. Don't be put off by leaving the resort. It's safe and the distance is nothing like you walk at WDW. Within The Grand is Whitewater Snacks, a counter service place near the private entrance to DCA. It was the only place my picky, pre-school grandsons would eat. Because of the villas, it also sells a few supplies like milk, bread, eggs, etc.

 

[Camshell]

For QS that you can get right outside of the hotel in Downtown Disney and take up to your room I would recommend Jazz Kitchen Express (New Orleans style food), and Tortilla Joes Tacqueria (Mexican). Yummy food, close to the hotel and nicely priced.

 

[Indiana Scott]

Lots of good advice but I just wanted to say stay away from Capt. Kidds on Harbor. It looks like a good, cheap option but for people that have fallen victim to it we can tell you the food is hideous and has sat out for hours (days?).

 

[disneychrista]

Honestly counter service meals are about the same cost as eating at casual table service outside the park / back home. We spend between $10 - $15 per meal. Skip soda and get water to save nearly $3 per meal