Dining Plan- First trip

[HRHPrincessAriel]

Yes, you can link your magic band to a credit card. Which is exactly what Disney wants you to do, so you will spend more.

Hollywood & Vine is a buffet, so you can grab a plate to share your meal with her. I believe the kids meal options at most restaurants are the standard fare - chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, etc. I would look at the menus of the restaurants you are interested in. Between lunch and dinner, I probably spend about $40. For example, the hot dog meal at Casey's in the Magic Kingdom is $8.95, plus beverage and tax came to about $11 - $12.

As you read through threads on the dining plan, you will note that many guests bring snacks into the park - like cereal/power bars, individual bags of crackers, etc. That will save you money since Disney snacks are expensive. However, you will have to get a Mickey ice cream bar. No trip to WDW should be without this delicious treat. And you can ask for ice/water at any stand that serves fountain drinks. I've seen families purchase drinks at a quick service restaurant to share and then pull out power bars, peanut butter crackers, etc., to eat at lunch. Disney doesn't object to you bringing food and beverages into the parks. People bring rolling coolers into the parks, reusable shopping bags full of snacks, etc. And since you will probably have a stroller for your 4 year old, that will be a great place to store snacks/bottles of water/juice for your family. My backpack usually has a few cereal bars for snacks and a water bottle in the outside pocket.

Great tips! Her kiddo couldn't share there though because she's 4. I think 3 is cutoffs at buffets.

If you are curious about prices allears.net is pretty current

 

[righttrack]

For people with kids who get a kid's meal but really don't like chicken fingers because they have a more sophisticated palate, there is a solution as well. Buffets and family-style meals are the answer. When my youngest was "kid's meal age" the last thing she wanted was chicken fingers or a burger. She enjoyed sushi at home, Indian, Thai, Italian and other international treats. So going to a buffet fixed that. May not be relevant to the original question, but just something else I thought of.

 

[CanaQueen90]

If I purchase a prepaid Visa card here in Canada am I able to use it in Florida?

 

[JillC LI]

Thanks everyone for the input! I like the convenience of having my meals essentially paid for before we go BUT my 4 year old is never going to eat very much.

I'm finding all this planning a little overwhelming. My husband doesn't like the idea of "scheduled meals" everyday?

We've always found the dining plan to be a cost saver for the way our family of 4 eats. We always have one sit-down, one counter-service, and one or more snacks per day. We get a few more desserts than we need, but we often save them for snacks. It's an individual calculation. As for "scheduled meals," if you want to eat at any of the more popular restaurants at peak time (or sometime not even only at peak time), you will need to book those reservations 180 days in advance, dining plan or no dining plan.

 

[HRHPrincessAriel]

If I purchase a prepaid Visa card here in Canada am I able to use it in Florida?

I would *think* but I'd call and ask the number on the card first!

 

[rkleinlein]

It’s nice to pay ahead and not get hit with hundreds of dollars in dining charges at check out or on your credit card bill, and to not to have to be budget-conscious when choosing restaurants and meals. But my wife and I found the dining plan far too restrictive for our family (two kids 6 and 10), far too complicated, and would NOT do it again.

My kids usually have no problem ordering off kids’ menus, but at Disney this was not always the case (and remember if you have kids, they must order from the kids’ menu or you’ll have to pay extra). My daughter loved the fish at Columbia Harbor House in the Magic Kingdom, but there is, inexplicably, no kid’s meal with just fish. You can get half fish and half chicken nuggets, but not just fish. So that’s what she got, didn’t eat the chicken, and wanted more fish. My kids would not eat the packaged grapes that are served with nearly every kids’ meal (and they like grapes) and got sick of the yogurt very quickly. In fact, they got sick of all of the kid food very quickly because it’s nearly the same, over and over, at all the restaurants.

And adults too, can face similar issues with selections. If you are positive that you are going to want an appetizer, entrée, and dessert with every single meal, then ok. But we often found (especially at lunch), that we didn’t want the dessert, or would rather have a salad instead. But you paid for and are going to get the dessert anyway. We ended up wasting a lot of food. The portions are usually gigantic (American sized), and my wife and I would have been completely satisfied ordering less and sometimes splitting entrees.

Was it a good value? Who knows? I think my particular family would have ended spending less money because we would have ordered less by ordering only what we wanted and getting exactly what we wanted. Perhaps if you strategically plan and make reservations only at the most expensive restaurants, always order the most expensive items on the menu, and always want dessert, even at lunch, you will save money, but I doubt most people save much. And I doubt Disney would offer these plans if they were not making money.

I also found it VERY difficult to keep track of what we had used on the plan and what allotments were left, especially with snacks. I asked frequently and frequently got different answers. At one point I asked our hotel concierge to double check what we had used and what we had left. He told me we had no table service allotments left when we should have each had two left. After about 10 minutes of looking into it he asked me if we were with friends or other family members at our dinner the previous night. I told him no and asked why. He said because twelve table service allotments had been deducted instead of four. I showed him my receipt and he corrected it, but I’m glad I caught it before we went to pay for our meals the next day.

But the main reason we would never do a dining plan again is because there are no refunds for any reason. I had scheduled two of our four table service meals for our last day in Epcot. That morning my daughter got sick. Thankfully she quickly recovered and we made both of the reservations, but if she had remained sick and we had missed those two meals, there would have been no refund whatsoever, and half of the expensive table service meals we had already paid for would have gone unused.

I understand some people love the dining plans. We did not.

 

[mattdenine]

We found the DDP was worth it for us especially having sit down service once a day. Places like T-Rex can get very expensive if you pay out of pocket our bill was $100 for the three of us (DW,DD and I). And although we don't usually eat a lot at home we find while on a active vacation we eat 3 meals plus snacks each day so we found we saved money with the DDP.

 

[CanaQueen90]

Thanks so much for the help!
Right now leaning towards no DDP. I feel like I don't want to schedule a meal everyday. I think that's the main thing holding me back. That most days we might just grab QS meals but on the plan will feel like we absolutely have to go to a sit down.

 

[PHS79]

Our last trip and our up coming trip we got the DDP. For us it works out pretty good. Even though I am only 6'3" and 230 lbs I was blessed with a very good metabolism so I am a huge eater. To me the portions that Disney gives for a QS are tiny and TS are rather small but luckly me DD and DW are small eaters so I end up eating what they don't, otherwise I would probably end up having to order 2 meals in order to fill up.