Dining Help Needed for First Family WDW Trip!

[Opie100]

I am taking my wife and 5-year-old daughter to WDW for our first family trip there in mid-May. We are staying with friends off-site for a few nights, and then renting points to stay BoardWalk Villas and Animal Kingdom Villas for three nights (total). (I am trying to convince DW to buy into the DVC!) I have requested the dining plan, but am not yet decided if I am going to keep it.

QUESTION 1: If it was your first full day at Epcot, would you plan to have a sit down dinner (at Coral Reef, for instance), or would you just play it by ear and try the quick service dining options (for dinner) at Epcot? (we will probably come back to the Villas for a break during the day.)

QUESTION 2: Same question for Magic Kingdom! (I think we want to try Boma for dinner at AKV.)

QUESTION 3: I realize this is a subjective question, but I'm trying to determine from an operational perspective if we should get the dining plan for three nights and plan to have sit down meals, or if we should play it by ear. Moreover, should we be buying the dining plan for these three days at all? We have two DVC ressies, so we will have to pay twice.

[RMulieri]

I personally love having a sitdown table service meal everyday. It gets us out of the heat and lets us relax for awhile before we move on to more park touring. But if you are going back to the villa each day for a break, counter service will be fine .

[Opie100]

Thank you - I just called for reservations and everything is booked between 5-8pm each night anyway. Do y'all recommend the Quick Service dining plan, or should we just wing it?

[catne]

I would just wing it for that short of a trip...there are plenty of counter service restaurants with good variety so you're not limited to just burgers & fries.

If you really want a TS restaurant, did you try any of the resort restaurants: they are not usually as booked up as the park restaurants

...for MK resorts, it's just a quick monorail trip to go to dinner from the Magic Kingdom. We like Kona Cafe at the Polynesian, The Wave at the Contemporary and the Grand Floridian Cafe at the GF.

...From Epcot, it's a short walk over to the Epcot resorts, and lots of choices over there from buffet to signature.

[abc999]

For your Epcot days, you might want to "eat around the world" Just go to each of the countries in the World Showcase and get a snack item.

Or open your options to where you want to eat dinner, if your first choice is taken. Instead of Coral Reef, how about Beirgarten or Teppan Edo. There are tons of options.

[brendaziz]

well regardless of if you do dining plan or not- the only tip/advice i can give as far as meals goes is to be sure to enjoy/soak up all the dining where u are staying whenever possible.
you're staying at 2 great resorts for dining, so whatever u choose, I wouldn't travel too far to eat ever.
Boma is great (i like bfast best) and Jiko is really yummy too.
At boardwalk I love everything in that area but would walk over to beach club for a few things as well.
that sounds like a REALLY nice vaca though! you can't go wrnog w/ both of those resorts!