Regular Dining Plan: Is it possible to eat that much?

[theresamom]

Hey!

I had every intention of getting the regular dining plan for my next trip to Disney World (in a few short months...).

I was planning on having the plan for 5 days.. that's 5 table services.

Well, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's really possible to eat that much food in such a short period of time. I understand that one could just nibble, but that seems so wasteful.

Our ressies are for Ohana, LTT, Coral Reef, Biergarten and GFC (if that makes a difference).

Thanks for your thoughts on this..

 

[taylor3297]

My family loves the regular dining plan. We eat a light breakfast in the room before leaving. Then for lunch we do counter service then the table service in the evening. It works out great for us.

This past trip we did do the breakfast at Tusker House. So since we had a huge breakfast, we had a snack around lunch time, then did a counter service for dinner.

Now I couldn't do the deluxe plan where you have 3 table service a day. That would be way too much food.

 

[gtpoohbear]

I guess it depends on how you are used to eating at home - do you only eat a big meal once every few days and then just snack in between? If not, I can't imagine you'll think it's too much food. It's only one meal a day after all. That would never even be enough for my family - we have to have 3 "real" meals a day or people get grumpy. (And I'm not just talking about the kids, lol!)

 

[fuzzlekins]

Hey!

I had every intention of getting the regular dining plan for my next trip to Disney World (in a few short months...).

I was planning on having the plan for 5 days.. that's 5 table services.

Well, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's really possible to eat that much food in such a short period of time. I understand that one could just nibble, but that seems so wasteful.

Our ressies are for Ohana, LTT, Coral Reef, Biergarten and GFC (if that makes a difference).

Thanks for your thoughts on this..

I had the same concern b/c in the past, we've done primarily CS where I would order a kids' meal for pretty much every meal (much better portion size for me and a cookie is adequate dessert). I also don't drink soft drinks, only water. And dessert with every meal is a bit much for us (I LOVE dessert but hubby doesn't typically eat it.) I, like you, also hate to be wasteful. But, since they offered the Stay, Play, & Dine deal which is only about $50 more than FD for us for 8 nights, it was kind of a no brainer to do it. I'll still hate to be wasteful but I also don't want to over-eat and feel miserable. It comes down to the $$ for me. If it's a better deal to do the DP, then so be it. We will primarily eat a light breakfast in the room all mornings except 2 I think (character breakfast for one), so that does indeed help with appetite later on in the day.

 

[DisneyTravelers2008]

We typically do this version dining plan. A few times we have had extra table service credits. We used them to get sandwiches for the drive home. And if we had extra snack credits, we got some Mickey head rice crispy treats for friends back home. For what I calculate on the dining plan, you pay for the table service and get the counter service and snack as a freebie so it works well for us. THe meals a a nice time to sit and relax and have some down time.

 

[sharonabe]

We typically do this version dining plan. A few times we have had extra table service credits. We used them to get sandwiches for the drive home. And if we had extra snack credits, we got some Mickey head rice crispy treats for friends back home. For what I calculate on the dining plan, you pay for the table service and get the counter service and snack as a freebie so it works well for us. THe meals a a nice time to sit and relax and have some down time.

Your calculator must be old. There is no TS where you can get the full value of the regular DDP ($55 in 2013) thereby making your CS and snack "free." In fact, it's getting harder and harder for adults to break even, even with all entitlements used.

 

[lsulindy]

We've never done any dining plan before, but with the Stay, Play and Dine, I'm considering doing it for this trip. I can't decide if I should upgrade to DDP or stick with the QS. We usually do a 2 or 3 character meals a trip. So, that makes me think I should get it, but I don't want to do a TS every day. We'll only have 5 days this trip. It's not a matter of how much food, it's a matter of time. I just don't want to spend that much time getting to ressies, waiting to be seated, eating, etc. TS is such a time drain. I'd rather grab QS or a snack and eat while staking out a parade spot or waiting for a show or my fastpass time, etc. I want to eat quick and at a time that's convenient in the moment.

 

[sharonabe]

We've never done any dining plan before, but with the Stay, Play and Dine, I'm considering doing it for this trip. I can't decide if I should upgrade to DDP or stick with the QS. We usually do a 2 or 3 character meals a trip. So, that makes me think I should get it, but I don't want to do a TS every day. We'll only have 5 days this trip. It's not a matter of how much food, it's a matter of time. I just don't want to spend that much time getting to ressies, waiting to be seated, eating, etc. TS is such a time drain. I'd rather grab QS or a snack and eat while staking out a parade spot or waiting for a show or my fastpass time, etc. I want to eat quick and at a time that's convenient in the moment.

Non peak pricing for your family to upgrade would be about $42/night. Five nights would be roughly $200. I think you can easily do 2 character meals for less than that if you stay with the QS AND it would give you some "leftover" QS meals to use for breakfast, so less OOP for that. I'd stick with the QS if it were me.

 

[lsulindy]

Non peak pricing for your family to upgrade would be about $42/night. Five nights would be roughly $200. I think you can easily do 2 character meals for less than that if you stay with the QS AND it would give you some "leftover" QS meals to use for breakfast, so less OOP for that. I'd stick with the QS if it were me.

Yes, it's roughly $200. Thanks for your input. I was thinking along those same lines. I haven't taken the time yet to decide which meals, I'd want to do and run the numbers. I'm still not actually sure if "this trip" is really happening. I'd love to do BOG, but if we do go, it's booked for our dates. I'd have to luck out to find an opening. Other than that, the meals I'd prefer are at resorts and not parks, and I don't know if I want to take time traveling to resorts for dining this trip. I want to maximize park time.

 

[dmdelight]

we have done both the ddp and qsdp-there is too much food on both plans for us!

we don't usually have dessert-never mind 2 a day! we are much lighter eaters than the disney portions given.

i too feel bad about wasted food-we've tried giving away some previously-it has worked at some locations and others not so much-facial expressions of strangers clearly said who are these crazy people not wanting their dessert?!

my dd(19) and i often eat from kids menu and thats more than enough.

we do not feel the need to use all the credits available as we've only done fd-would obviously be a different situation if paying for dining plan

 

[rainynight]

It's a lot of food. We had unused quick service credits when we checked out. The portions are so large that even though we ate an early lunch (no breakfast) we would not be hungry at dinner time. By the end of the week we were over food and most of the food was getting trashed, we were just getting meals because we had the credits and because we had our hearts set on trying certain restaurants.

For us, 2 adults and a 4 year old, we would get 1 or 2 aduts meals at lunch and share. Our desserts would be bottled water. Even then it was so much food that we wern't that hungry at dinner most days.

If you're family are all light eaters, I wouldn't pay for any dining plan. But if it comes free or discounted, then go for it as unused credits will be no big deal.

 

[Fantasmiss]

We struggle to eat up the last credits... But we still love DP and that's one of the thing I'm looking forward to the most! Regular is best for us as we like both TS and CS. Deluxe would take up WAY too much of our holiday time and we'd miss our CS favourites.

 

[karen l]

We struggle to eat up the last credits... But we still love DP and that's one of the thing I'm looking forward to the most! Regular is best for us as we like both TS and CS. Deluxe would take up WAY too much of our holiday time and we'd miss our CS favourites.

We feel the same way. Some trips we use all the credits - there have been a couple of trips where we have a CS left but with a teenager it doesn't happen too often.

 

[Dean]

Hey!

I had every intention of getting the regular dining plan for my next trip to Disney World (in a few short months...).

I was planning on having the plan for 5 days.. that's 5 table services.

Well, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's really possible to eat that much food in such a short period of time. I understand that one could just nibble, but that seems so wasteful.

Our ressies are for Ohana, LTT, Coral Reef, Biergarten and GFC (if that makes a difference).

Thanks for your thoughts on this..

You might want to take the menu's and look at your choices with calculations to see if you'll "save money' or not. Breaking even is a losing proposition in my book because of the risks involved. For your choices you'll likely be OK if you also plan to order the more expensive options where applicable but you will need to use your snack credits and QS meals for higher end options as well. That's more true if the above are all or mostly dinner though I'm assuming that O'hana is breakfast. Put another way, if you don't plan or value being on the higher ends of those options (menu's, dinner over lunch), QS, snacks you're likely better off paying OOP.

 

[gizfish]

We are just back from free dining, the 1 QS, 1 TS 1 snack a day plan. We like to eat. We love trying new places and new restaurants, and I will admit it, consistently order twice as much food from a new place or place we rarely get to go to and enjoy most of it that night. That being said, for us it was way way way too much food. We would never pay for the dining plan because we ended up wasting so much since we could not possibly eat it all. Even if free dining came out again when we went, I think we would do the % off option offer instead. We found that by dinner time we were so stuffed, we really could not enjoy our meals. Feeling pressure to eat a real size dinner after snacking and lunching all day took away from our enjoyment of the trip. Unless you actually eat a large lunch with dessert, a snack and a huge dinner with sides and dessert every day at home, you will be shocked and overwhelmed at trying to eat this much food.

 

[Donna M]

Unless you actually eat a large lunch with dessert, a snack and a huge dinner with sides and dessert every day at home, you will be shocked and overwhelmed at trying to eat this much food.

And this is how Disney makes their money. They expect a lot of people won't be able to eat that much food and many credits will go unused. Your money in the Mouse's pocket.

 

[WSLover]

We have free dining for 7 days of our 10 day trip. Yes it is a lot of food but we plan on not stressing out over the CS meals if they are not eaten and just enjoy the TS meals we have planned ('Ohana breakfast and dinner, Rose & Crown Pub, Boma, Brown Derby, and Les Chefs de France). There are two of us and we are thinking about splitting the the 2 CS meals over the rest of the day. We plan on saving our snack credits for Food & Wine Festival and use them on one day focused on F & W with no TS planned for that day. We doubled up one of the TS for the Fantasmic Dinner package at The Brown Derby. If you use your TS credits for Signature restaurants or Event Dining like the Spirit of Aloha it works well for light eaters.

 

[dnsmills]

We always combine a few TS credits for a dinner at a signature restaurant. On our upcoming trip we're having dinner one night at Yachtsman Steakhouse and then at Narcoossee's another night. This helps us (1) keep us from being forced to have a TS dinner EVERY night, (2) ensure we use all of our credits and (3) have some WONDERFUL dinners that we would otherwise not be able to afford.

 

[NateTiff]

I really enjoyed the dining plan on our past trip. Yes, it was hard to use up all the credits though, but that was mainly because we spent a day at Universal Studios and had an extra day's worth of meals to use up. I got to enjoy restaurants and food I wouldn't normally go to, knowing it was paid for made a difference. I already included the dining plan in my next trip!

 

[vtownpatty]

This will be our third trip using free dining (first time for our DS 10 to eat as an adult). We love it and have never felt like it was too much food. We normally use snack credits for breakfast items have a QS for lunch and TS for dinner. After walking miles in the parks all day, we are ready for a nice dinner. We generally don't buy snacks between meals, so that probably helps. With our son now being a Disney adult I could see us sharing some QS meals and maybe using those extra credits to get a "real" QS breakfast that we could all share. We love the fact that it is mindless - we don't have to worry about looking at prices - just order what sounds good!