Dining on a budget

If you’re trying to budget consider cutting out breakfast. My family aren’t big breakfast people. We just get granola bars and then eat an early lunch. We usually do one large meal and one small meal. Then we share some snacks at the end of the day. We share quick service meals.

I don’t do the meal plan because we just don’t eat a lot at Disney because we are too busy with other stuff and then I’m worrying too much about making sure I get my moneys worth instead of enjoying our time.
 
If you’re trying to budget consider cutting out breakfast. My family aren’t big breakfast people. We just get granola bars and then eat an early lunch. We usually do one large meal and one small meal. Then we share some snacks at the end of the day. We share quick service meals.

I don’t do the meal plan because we just don’t eat a lot at Disney because we are too busy with other stuff and then I’m worrying too much about making sure I get my moneys worth instead of enjoying our time.
I would absolutely cut out breakfast and do protein bars, but my husband loves breakfast, especially when on vacation. So, we will probably doing a lot of sit down breakfasts
 
I would absolutely cut out breakfast and do protein bars, but my husband loves breakfast, especially when on vacation. So, we will probably doing a lot of sit down breakfasts

I love breakfast, too! Being a big breakfast eater is, IMO, another reason to pay OOP rather than use the DP. In general, breakfast food is less expensive than lunch or dinner, so when you redeem credits on the dining plan, you get more value if you use them for the more expensive meals.

The real sit-down breakfasts are at the table service restaurants, and won't be covered under the free dining (unless you're staying deluxe level; mods and values have QS plans). So, if you're thinking of doing them, you're either paying OOP anyway or paying to upgrade to the regular dining plan, and thus adding like $400 to your costs.

I think the point is just to realize that the DP only pays for 2 meals, so even if you go with the plan, it's best to think of ways to save on at least one meal. Eating a big breakfast can be a great way to save on lunch. You can have a filling breakfast and then just snack or eat a packed sandwich (really cheap to get deli meats and store in your hotel fridge or make PB&J) before having a regular-sized dinner.

I started to play around with menus and prices just to give you some examples.

Not sure where you're staying, but I pulled up the menu for Pop. The "Bounty Platter" comes with eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, breakfast potatoes, and a biscuit for $11.59. Get two of those if you've got really hungry adults, plus 3 kids breakfasts for $6.49 each (since you're okay cutting out breakfast for protein bars, I assume you don't need that much food), and that's a ton of food for a bit over $40. You can easily spend less if some of the rest of you don't need the biggest breakfasts on the menu.

Especially with sharing meals, you can make your lunch or dinner come out to around the same price. For example, kids chicken nugget meals come with 4 nuggets, and two small slides like a danimals yogurt (which are really small), a packet of baby carrots, apple slices, or a Go-Go squeez applesauce and cost around $7 and change ($7.19 at Pop, $7.49 at Colombia Harbor House in MK). But an adult portion comes with twice the nuggets (8 pieces) and an adult-sized side including fries as an option (Colombia Harbor House for $10.49) or two sides (Pop for $10.99), so two kids can get the same amount of food for about $2 less per kid. Now, I love those Go-Go squeez pouches, but I just bought a 12-pack for $5 at the grocery store, so no need to pay Disney prices for things I can throw into my checked luggage or have Amazon deliver for free to my hotel.
 


You are “paying” $10.66 a meal with your $800 savings. Would you get regular free dining or quick service with your hotel?
 
We always come out cheaper buying our own meals. Quick breakfast in the room: protein bars, pop tarts, granola bars, etc. And then for other meals, sometimes the meals are just a lot of food. We sometimes split table service meals. Sometimes the adults order kids meals because that is what we want. And some restaurants are a better deal financially than others.

And we have purchased quick service breakfasts. The kids meals are a better deal for our family. Enough food and it includes a drink.
 


With the mod hotel we would get “free” quick service. We can upgrade to regular dining for $1200 difference

For the ease, I’d personally change to qs free dining. Your two snacks a day pp can easily be $300. Last I checked (someone correct me if I am wrong) kid and adult credits are pooled so you have enough credits to share. The kids meals are pretty sad.

There are just three of us, but we would share two adult meals three times a day. Some meals were $12ish, some hit $20 a meal like flame tree bbq. You also get booze with your meals if that is your thing. Beer is like $8.
 
I can change my reservation from CBR with room discount, for an increase of $1200 to POR “free” (upgrade) regular dining plan and park hopper. I would have to move to POR because there are no more rooms at CBR with the free dining promo. So I think the $1200 would be be $350ish for park hopper, and the rest would be food expense. We want to do some character meals.
 
You are “paying” $10.66 a meal with your $800 savings. Would you get regular free dining or quick service with your hotel?

How do you get $10.66?

I took $800 divided by 5 days for $160 per day. Then divided that by 5 people to get $32 per person per day. Then divided that by 2 meals to get $16 per meal. I know there are snacks included in DDP, but how much value you get from them depends a great deal on how much of a snacker you are. We found it really easy to bring our own snacks for a fraction of the park snack prices.
 
I can change my reservation from CBR with room discount, for an increase of $1200 to POR “free” (upgrade) regular dining plan and park hopper. I would have to move to POR because there are no more rooms at CBR with the free dining promo. So I think the $1200 would be be $350ish for park hopper, and the rest would be food expense. We want to do some character meals.
if you want to do any character meals and park hop then free dining is a no brainer. The character meals are outrageously priced. I thought about keeping quick serve dining and paying out of pocket for 2-3 character meals and it ends up being close to the price difference. I ended up taking a night off our trip at the beginning and switched to AKL for around the same as my trip would have been at CSR and regular DP is included.
 
I can change my reservation from CBR with room discount, for an increase of $1200 to POR “free” (upgrade) regular dining plan and park hopper. I would have to move to POR because there are no more rooms at CBR with the free dining promo. So I think the $1200 would be be $350ish for park hopper, and the rest would be food expense. We want to do some character meals.

This changes things quite a bit. The original question was if 5 people could eat quick service for under $800, which they undoubtably can. Now you're bringing in character meals, which are a whole different beast.

So, how many character meals do you plan to do? Which meals? Will all members of the party be attending? Keep in mind that TS can eat up 2 hours of your day on one meal.

Breakfast at Crystal Palace would be a bit over $150 (or 1 TS credit each) for 3 adults and 2 children. Dinner at Cindarella's Royal Table would be over $340 (or 2 TS credits on the DDP) for the same party. Both without tip.

Now that we're out of the land of QSDP vs OOP, and into the land of character dining, your best bet is to compare the prices for the dining you want. For 5 people doing multiple character meals, you may be better off on the DDP. You can see pricing more easily in the pricing thread under the Dining board. https://www.disboards.com/threads/buffet-character-shows-aycte-pricing.3108466/
 
That is true, we split meals so I guess our servings are 10.66 with the meals being more.
For the ease, I’d personally upgrade to free dining. Your two snacks a day pp can easily be $300. Last I checked (someone correct me if I am wrong) kid and adult credits are pooled so you have enough credits to share. The kids meals are pretty sad.

There are just three of us, but we would share two adult meals three times a day. Some meals were $12ish, some hit $20 a meal like flame tree bbq. You also get booze with your meals if that is your thing. Beer is like $8.
How do you get $10.66?

I took $800 divided by 5 days for $160 per day. Then divided that by 5 people to get $32 per person per day. Then divided that by 2 meals to get $16 per meal. I know there are snacks included in DDP, but how much value you get from them depends a great deal on how much of a snacker you are. We found it really easy to bring our own snacks for a fraction of the park snack prices.
that
 
How do you get $10.66?

I took $800 divided by 5 days for $160 per day. Then divided that by 5 people to get $32 per person per day. Then divided that by 2 meals to get $16 per meal. I know there are snacks included in DDP, but how much value you get from them depends a great deal on how much of a snacker you are. We found it really easy to bring our own snacks for a fraction of the park snack prices.

It's very good Math, but to "Disney-fy and family size it", since OP has 3 adults and 2 kids, I'd take the $160/day, split it to the $80 meal...and then note that kids meals are 1/2 the cost of adult meals, so her party would need to spend more than $20/adult ($60) and $10/kid ($20) at a CS to make the QSDP "easily worth it." Now, adults can drink on QSDP, so it's not as hard to do, but then again, that might not be in the normal budget-minded mind...
 
So, on the DDP, if my 10 and 17 year old’s order waters with their meals can my husband and myself have their alcoholic beverage? If it’s included in the price I am paying technically for their meal, then shouldn’t we be able to have them? This is doubtful, but worth asking.
 
So, on the DDP, if my 10 and 17 year old’s order waters with their meals can my husband and myself have their alcoholic beverage? If it’s included in the price I am paying technically for their meal, then shouldn’t we be able to have them? This is doubtful, but worth asking.

For NOW, b/c everything changes with the dining plan, it seems you CAN have their alcoholic beverages as long as BOTH of you are in the purchase line...the CMs must see 2 adults in order to give 4 alcoholic beverages (apparently, the most they will give or let one adult order is 2)...this is subject to change at any moment b/c it is Disney and it is a loophole that they could decide to change tomorrow...
 
So, on the DDP, if my 10 and 17 year old’s order waters with their meals can my husband and myself have their alcoholic beverage? If it’s included in the price I am paying technically for their meal, then shouldn’t we be able to have them? This is doubtful, but worth asking.

I don't believe you can at TS restaurants, not entirely certain about QS.
 
Are adults allowed to eat off the kids menu?

At QS, yes both on the dining plan and OOP. At TS, you have to order off the menu that matches your ticket if you're on the dining plan, but many TS restaurants (Not the super fine dining locations but many others) will allow you to order off whatever menu you want if you are paying OOP.

When we went last time, DS was 10 so technically a Disney adult. We skipped the dining plan because there wasn't a blessed thing he would eat from the adult menus, and it was better for all of us to just let him order what he wanted from the kids menu and pay OOP.
 
I can change my reservation from CBR with room discount, for an increase of $1200 to POR “free” (upgrade) regular dining plan and park hopper. I would have to move to POR because there are no more rooms at CBR with the free dining promo. So I think the $1200 would be be $350ish for park hopper, and the rest would be food expense. We want to do some character meals.

Our first family trip I did the full on deluxe dining plan, and saved some money vs paying oop, mostly because we wanted to do LOTS of character meals. On subsequent trips, it hasn't made sense to do the dining plan. When I look at how the numbers worked out, it was really the character meals that tipped the scales one way or the other, so that is an important part of the calculation. Also, we were not limited to purchasing kids meals with the meal allotments from our dining plan. We did a couple of 2 credit meals (like CRT) so there were a couple of times when we used 3 dining credits and split the meals among all 4 of us, or got 2 meals plus an extra side. We also didn't always get dessert and certainly didn't order the most expensive thing whether we wanted it or not. We just ate normally, and we still came out ahead when I compared the receipts to what we spent on dining. And yeah, I really did a spreadsheet showing what we were likely to eat where for the whole week to make my decision about the dining plan.
 
I have a family of five going to the world in July. I opted to book with the Sun and Fun deal rather than the free dining offer because it saved me money up front. Now I am having second thoughts. We will be staying 5 nights, and 4 park days. There is an entire day that we won’t even be on property due to a martial arts tournament. The difference in cost is just over $800 more with the quick service plan free dining, vs the fun and sun with 25% off the room and no dining. Is it possible to eat for less than $800 for 3 adults and 2 children in a 5 night stay, and 4 park days???? Not sure if I’m actually saving money

I know you're stressed about the food costs...but the way I figure it for you...

You have an athlete and a car, since you're going to a martial arts tourney. And you only have 4 park days, with the one day off park and off park eating...so the question becomes, can you even comfortably spend $1200 in just 4 days on food at Disney? Would you want to, when budget obviously matters to you? And what happens if someone gets sick or tired from the tourney and wants to pass on food...or if the coach has a "set eating concept" pre-tourney?

If it were me, pass on the DDP in all forms, keep the discount you have, and fully enjoy your 4 park days. Eat what you like when you like, and plan 1 or 2 "sit down meals that suck park time away" b/c in the new Disney concept, they shorten park hours from past 8-midnight MK type hours from a decade ago...even in the summer, you may only have 12-13 committed park hours per park...and if you have a short day, go offsite and have a fun meal...
 
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