What is your dining strategy?

[Tulip2796]

We are visiting the parks this weekend for the 1st time with our young children. Does anyone have a dining strategy they use in terms of how they handle breakfast, lunch and dinner? Do you eat all meals in the parks? Look for certain quick lunch spots and do "bigger" dinners somewhere? Any recommendations about places you prefer? I know people like different things, but looking for recommendations. We purchased AP's and this will be our 1st trip (just 2 1/2 days long) so we will eventually figure this stuff out but want to have some ideas in mind since I usually stress about my kids' meals. TIA!

 

[Ermise]

Like you said, I'm sure there will be varying perspectives on this, but our strategy has been to eat breakfast at the resort (we usually stay in the cabins in FW or other accommodations with a kitchen) and eat lunch and dinner in the parks. We have always preferred to stay in the park vs. leaving at mid-day for breaks/naps etc. Our boys were 2, 4, and 7 on our first trip and will be 9, 12 and 14 in February when we go next. When they were smaller we usually did quick service lunches and a mix of quick service and table service dinners. It could be hard for them to sit through a long table service dinner at the end of a long day. I can recall a few dinner meltdowns from the youngest when he was stuck at a table for close to an hour.

Now we prefer to do table service lunches when the parks are at their busiest and then quick service dinners. It just feels nice to get off your feet for take an extended mid-day break. We typically rope-drop so we are ready for a break by then. We have our "must-do" restaurants at each park:

MK: Be Our Guest lunch, Columbia Harbour House
AK: Tusker House, Satu'li Canteen
HS: No huge favorites here, have eaten everywhere
EP: Garden Grill, Coral Reef, Sunshine Seasons, Tutto Italia (my favorite is San Angel Inn)
Fort Wilderness: Trail's End

 

[MudQueen22]

We try to maximize our park time.
For our first two trips, we were rope drop people. We would get up early, eat breakfast while either waiting on the buses, riding in our vehicle, or waiting on rope drop. I brought dried fruits and nuts in a ziplock bag in case we got hungry while in line for a ride. We would eat an early lunch (sometimes character), then dinner at the resort or at another resort. If we could schedule character meals in the park, we felt it was a good double-dip for us with our time. We got to see the characters (our kids like this, and so do we), and we could eat at the same time.

On our next trip, we will have our camper with us. We plan to average two of the three meals per day at the camper to save some money and allow us to go to the character meals we want to go to. (The exception is Epcot because we like the food there. We may do two or three meals there.)
On park days, we will likely get there at rope drop most days (eating breakfast on the way), have a character meal in the park (if there is one we want to go to), then dinner at the camper. If we're still up to it, we will go back to the park.
On a few days, we will not do rope drop, but will stay late at night. In that instance, we will likely eat lunch at the camper or take it with us, then have a nice meal at the park.

On off-days or arrival and departure days, we will do character meals at other resorts. (At least one of our non-park days, we will have all meals at the camper.)

Our camper meals will mostly be cold foods since it is so hot there in July (sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, etc.), but we may grill and do a few crock pot meals also.

 

[Ermise]

One other point I think is important is we bring lots of snacks into the parks (goldfish, granola bars, fruit, etc.) We found it is very important to be able to stop for a quick snack at any given moment. You do so much walking that it was easy to forget kids need to eat more than normal because of all the calories burned. Water and somewhat healthy snacks go a long way in making the day run smoother.

 

[FFstreetDoc]

We used to leave the parks to eat meals. Hardly ever had a meal in the park. One trip we decided we were wasting too much time going back and forth to eat at the camper, room or restaurants off site. We started checking out the counter service dining options and were surprised at the quality and value of the food. Table service, especially buffet's are too pricey for our style. In some parks there are counter service options that are directly connected to table service restaurants. Yak and Yeti at AK and San Angel at EPCOT are two examples.

AS others have stated, bring your own snacks. Especially with young ones, it will save you enough money to feed them a meal or two...lol

 

[siren0119]

Trip last year with 2 kids (age 8 and 10 at the time) - we were all about maximizing park time and staying on budget. We had grocery delivery to our room, I knew there wouldn't be a microwave so we opted for cereal & milk, fruit, breakfast bars, and then stuff for packing lunches to bring in the parks (bread, PB&J, wraps, deli turkey and cheese, fruit, snack bags of chips). It did save us quite a bit of time being able to eat in the room before heading to the bus, and being able to just sit down and eat lunch whenever and wherever we were ready. Food lines take time just as much as ride lines LOL. If budget isn't as big of a concern, at minimum I'd say make sure you have water bottles that you can fill up (we found collapsible ones on Amazon that were amazing) and plenty of snacks. You do a LOT of walking and hydration and a quick snack go a long way toward making the day more pleasant and keeping stamina up. I pre-planned one park meal per day so we didn't have to think too much about what we were eating, plus knowing we were only doing one "DISNEY" meal a day meant that we treated it as something really special.

Trip this fall with just adults - we were all about food and just enjoying the parks on our own. We ate what we wanted when we wanted, and kind of let the wind take us. Whole different experience from the trip with the kids, but just as enjoyable.

 

[Rach3975]

We do breakfast in the room, TS lunch in the parks, and a QS dinner. Some days dinner is in the parks, other days it's at a resort food court. (We don't specifically leave the parks to eat, but some days we were back at our resort at dinner time due to a rest time or the kids' schedules.) As far as doing our biggest meal at lunch, we like the chance to take a longer break at a restaurant during the busiest time of day, plus last trip our kids were young enough that we were worried that after a busy day at the parks they'd be tired and impatient at a TS dinner.

 

[twoolle]

With young kids we prefer to do bfast in the room then a late ts breakfast or early ts lunch...if we are going to do table service at all! We like to break and return to the park so there's really no time for a table service dinner. Some nights we dont even eat dinner we are too busy riding! But if we plan to be in the park all day we might do an early TS dinner (with a light lunch) just to have a place to rest for a bit.

 

[rideswithchrist]

I did lots of asking before our last trip and this is what we did:
Breakfast in the room except our last day.
Lunches were packed and brought in so we could eat no matter where we were or when it was. We had 3 under 7 and our family seems to get hungry quick and I didn't want to be locked into reservations.
Dinner was planned out depending on what park we were at- but no ADRs (we were there in a lower crowd level though)

We did order pizza and ate in the room once when we were all very tired and it was amazing!

We adjusted depending on weather (ie, we ate lunch at the Backlot Express when it started raining and saved our sandwiches for an early dinner).

At the very least, bring some snacks in for your kiddos- cheese sticks/nuts etc.

This worked so well for us that we are doing it again, but with camping

 

[Oliviaxxx]

We do breakfast in the room and then parks from 9am-1:30 ish. We then do a late lunch at sit down place. Back to the room for a rest then back to the parks around 5:30 usually still full from lunch and get a snack on the go for dinner.

 

[gorkt]

Generally we do two meals a day and a snack or two.

For example, grab a late breakfast then a mid afternoon snack, then an early dinner. Or else a pastry for breakfast with a later lunch, like 2pm, and then a small QS dinner late.

I like to avoid main dining hours, because it makes it easier to get ADRs plus you can ride rides while most people are eating.

 

[Kathleen Zwally]

We leave hotel room 7ish. We fill our mugs and head on out. I.put granola bars in my backpack, but usually we don't eat breakfast. Around 930/10 get a snack (cinnamon roll?). Lunch 1230 quick service. Snack 3 (ice cream?). 7pm dinner...usually table service buffet

 

[NickC]

It depends on which park we are visiting, but if we are staying in the same park all day, our plan would be as follows: Since we RD every day, we have a quick breakfast. For me, it's a Quest bar from home. For my family, it is a pastry from the hotel QS. This allows us to have maximum time while the parks are a bit less crowded. No time to waste sitting down for breakfast. Having a light breakfast also allows us to have an early lunch---which is much less crowded. Then we do table service dinners. This allows us to take a break from touring without leaving the park.

Of course, there are always exceptions to our plans. Sometimes we will take a ferry from MK to HDDR for dinner. And since we usually stay in the Epcot area, we can stop at our hotel for a bit before walking to dinner in the WS.
On our next trip, we plan on spending more time in DS in the evenings, so this opens up a ton of new dining options for us.