Will the Basic Dining Plan be enough food?

[Bnearing]

I know it's a snack, a counter service, and a table service each day.

How do most of you use that? Counter service breakfast, a snack mid-day, then table service dinner? Does it end up being enough food or do you find yourselves buying a little more in a day?

Just curious, we went with the basic plan for now.

Thanks!

 

[DisneyHardin]

When we had the basic plan this summer, we paid OOP for a breakfast, had a counter service lunch and TS dinner each day. I made later (Like 7:30) ADRs for each night, but I would imagine if you ate a later breakfast, had a snack and then had an earlier ADR for dinner you might be able to get by without buying too much extra.

 

[bluejasmine]

we found it to be enough food, when we arent staying CL eatting breakfast there we just purchased CS breakfast, my DH is the only one who would daily get a full breakfast, the rest of us were happy with bagels or danishes and yogurt.m So we kept it at about $20 a day or less

There were times we had left over CS and snacks and used them to get food to bring for the car ride home..

Now if your a family who wants 3 hot meals a day with appetizer, entree and dessert then I Deluxe is for you..The next trip DH and I do just the two of us will be deluxe

 

[hsmamato2]

we ate cereal and milk in the room- used credits for a cs lunch ,snack in afternoon,then a big sitdown dinner somewhere. We used 7 days of credits in 8 days,and didn't buy anything extra except some milk at gift shop and a couple cups of tea for dh.(didn't want to use a credit for tea,it was cheap)
one day we had an early dinner planned,so...cereal in room,snack midmorning(made it a BIG one,do your research)
early dinner(like 3 or 3:30) then later in the night ate cs at a park,like at 9 or 10 o clock at night.
it was a LOT of food including drinks and desserts...

 

[disneychic2]

My DH and I split a cs meal for breakfast (plus a bowl of fruit with a snack credit) and again for lunch then ts for dinner. If we get hungry b/4 dinner, we use a snack credit, but that seldom happens. We usually have 8 or 9 snacks left at the end of our stay. The cs combo meals are plenty of food for the two of us, especially when you get dessert with it.

 

[jcarwash]

The basic plan is still a lot of food. Like others on this thread we do the same; a light breakfast (we actually bring a bag of bagels with us), but then 1 QS, 1TS, and 1 snack per day is a lot. It can be hard to use up all the snack credits in particular.

 

[KennyandKim]

We are actually thinking about upgrading our Dining to Deluxe. We are a family that are big eaters. We did do the dining plan on our last trip and did pay out of pocket for some snack items. My husband likes his popcorn..lol We used CS for breakfast or lunch and always used our TS for dinner. I did find myself paying OOP for cheaper things rather than use our dining credits. Our next trip we are staying WL club level so we will have access to food all day so hopefully I can stick with regular dining and pay less out of pocket.

 

[MyTwoPrincesses]

Yes, it's enough food, though we do find we need to pay for one meal OOP due to our flight times (you get credits based on # of nights, not days). But during the day, 2 meals + a snack is plenty. Remember, the meals include dessert and they are larger than what you'd eat at home. Many CS desserts can be boxed up and saved for breakfast. Or you can use a snack credit to get a giant muffin, cinammon roll, bagel etc.

We also threw a couple of boxes of cereal bars with our luggage to eat as a light breakfast in-room. We paid OOP once or twice for an appetizer, but only because it looked good, not because we needed it. And when we did that, we didn't all get dessert.

EDIT: This is our general use:

Extra dessert from previous day or snack credit or cereal bar for breakfast

CS lunch (most days)

TS dinner (most days)

Last trip, we were there for 7 days, 6 nights.

Day 1: CS lunch, CS dinner
Day 2: TS brunch (late breakfast) and TS dinner (buffet)
Day 3: CS lunch, TS dinner
Day 4: CS lunch, TS dinner
Day 5: OOP TS lunch, CS dinner
Day 6: TS lunch, TS dinner
Day 7: CS lunch

For our upcoming trip, this is my plan:

Day 1: CS lunch, TS dinner
Day 2: TS lunch (OOP), CS dinner
Day 3: CS lunch, TS dinner
Day 4: TS lunch, CS dinner
Day 5: CS lunch, TS dinner
Day 6: CS lunch, TS dinner
Day 7: TS lunch, TS dinner
Day 8: CS lunch

 

[brymolmom]

We think it is plenty....But some of that is because there are 4 of us (2 adults, 2 kids) and we often split 3 CS meals at a time.

We bring a box of cereal in our luggage and have a small bowl of cereal with a piece of fruit or other snack credit item (cinamon rolls from Main St Bakery - YUM) for breakfast most days. Then CS or TS for lunch and the other for dinner.

On our 'sleep in' day - we have CS for breakfast and eat much later than usual - so we keep lunch light - with an 'ice cream lunch' using snack credits - then schedule an early TS dinner that night.

It is so much food that I usually am sick of eating full sit down meals by the 6th day or so. So for our upcoming trip we'll be on the basic dining plan but intentionally will be doing two 2 credit shows/meals so that we do not have a sit down every single day of our trip. To cover the days with no TS, we will be splitting a bunch of meals and MAYBE buying a few CS meals OOP by the last day.

We like to do the pizza at the resort - 2 CS credits for a large pizza, and we feed our family of 4 with that plus a sncak credit or two.

 

[Disney_1derland]

We are light breakfast eaters, so we use our credits for lunch and dinner. We almost never get hungry enough to use our snack credits throughout the day so we use those for pastries at breakfast.

I find the portions to be very large so with counter service we often split meals. We are always stuffed and I would say at least 1/2 of us are big eaters!

 

[Bnearing]

Thanks everyone! I think we'll stick to the basic plan. It will cost us about $500 to upgrade to deluxe. Um...no way! We can certainly pay OOP for a couple lunches or snacks if necessary.

 

[hannahdrewmom]

Just make sure to pay for the cheaper meals oop. (Look at allears.net before hand. Some of them might surprise you.) I got mixed up on a trip a couple years ago and told dh to pay with our credits for the wrong meal. It was about a $50 difference in the one we paid oop vs. the table service. Bad mommy! Bad planning!

 

[disneymom06]

It has always been enough food for us. We do have cereal in the room (or leftover desserts). We do schedule a few breakfast ADR. Lunch is usually CS and a TS for dinner. Occasionally the kids just want to go back to the room with a pizza and snack credits we use as we go.

I admit that I am always worried about running out of credits but then the last day I max out all of our remaining CS and snack credits for the drive home. It always amazes me that we have credits left over and no one was ever hungry.

 

[CathieArms]

I know it's a snack, a counter service, and a table service each day.

How do most of you use that? Counter service breakfast, a snack mid-day, then table service dinner? Does it end up being enough food or do you find yourselves buying a little more in a day?

Just curious, we went with the basic plan for now.

Thanks!

While I haven't done that particular plan, I've researched it quite extensively and I think it's very doable. A lot of breakfasty foods count as snacks, so there's your breakfast, then you have a QS for lunch and then a TS for dinner. I think it would work out quite well, actually.

 

[ajchambers1]

Our family of five found that we actually eat just as well and for LESS money without the dinin plan than with!

 

[JJsmama]

It depends on what you mean by 'enough food.'. By my definiton, No, itg was not enoigh for us. We still had to pay 1 meal a day OOP. We are actually NOT 'big eaters'. We will not want app, entree, dessert every meal plus snacks. But my boys are growing fast and are VERY thin, so i really need to feed them often. They also wake up very early and very hungry and I like to get a big breakfast in them that includes a variety of healthy options. this year we are doing Dxdp, so that there are three meals a day. If we werent doing so many character meals and HDDR, it would definitely be cheaper to do regular DDP and pay OOP for extra meals. This is what we always did in the past But, is two meals a day enough for growing kids? Not mine.

 

[elainesj]

I was super worried about this and brought a ton of snacks and breakfast options (like packaged oatmeal) with me. We didn't eat any of it.

We had plenty on the DDP. That said, we're a family that has no problems sharing. With 2 A and 2 K (9 and 8), we usually shared 2 CS meals for breakfast and/or lunch and it was plenty. Also, we don't like to drink sugary drinks too often so 3/4 of the time, we got water with our meals (the waitstaff sure looked at us funny!).

Also, we have no problems sharing snack. I bag of popcorn is often enough to satisfy the 4 of us. So we stretched our credits that way too. We blew threw most credits near the end of the trip. about halfway through I knew we had to eat more...so we started using more and more credits. On our last morning for breakfast, we used 5 CS credits plus 2 snacks for breakfast...a big meal for us. About 1/3 of that food accompanied us to the airport and we ate it there which worked really well for us.

Next time I'd like to do Deluxe...more so for signature meals. We really did enjoy the dining part of our vacation and it was a huge component to our vacation fun.

E

 

[momH2the4th]

We bring breakfast foods (individual cereals, granola bars) and have those in the room some days. Other days we do a character breakfast (which is a buffet), plan it around 10:00 and that will last us until we have an early CS dinner. I feel like I eat more food when I'm at Disney than I usually eat at home. We have to pay very little OOP for our family of 6. (Also, watch for character meals that require 2 dining credits.)

 

[Eastern]

It was plenty of food for my family of 5 (3 teen boys). We didn't eat most of the CS desserts. It was more food than we would have eaten if we had paid OOP because towards the end, we weren't that hungry, we were just eating meals because we had credits left.