Disney Dining plan questions?

[ibisti]

Btw, is this the case with the restaurants in downtown Disney? We have in the past ended up down there on a few evenings. Do the 3rd party restaurants take bookings that far in advance such as rainforest/planet Hollywood / wolfgang / house of blues etc

 

[Master Yoda]

Ok, so by the sounds of things the Disney dining has changed in the last 5 years since our last visit! Looks like some forward planning is in order!

That it has. The proliferation of the dining plan as well as its use as a promotion tool has made the restaurants as popular as the e-tickets and just as crowded. Walking into a restaurant and getting a table is simply no longer possible with any consistency.

 

[psukardi]

Btw, is this the case with the restaurants in downtown Disney? We have in the past ended up down there on a few evenings. Do the 3rd party restaurants take bookings that far in advance such as rainforest/planet Hollywood / wolfgang / house of blues etc

Yes. If they accept the disney dining plan they take the ADRs.

 

[Master Yoda]

Btw, is this the case with the restaurants in downtown Disney? We have in the past ended up down there on a few evenings. Do the 3rd party restaurants take bookings that far in advance such as rainforest/planet Hollywood / wolfgang / house of blues etc

Yes but it is kind of a mixed bag. Some will use only Diseny's reservation system and others will use a combination of their own system as well as Disney's. As a general rule the 3rd party restaurants at DownTown Disney tend to be easier to get into last minute than the Disney restaurants, but it is nothing that I would bank on.

 

[mickeysbrother]

Ok so i booked a 7 day vacation in september. 3 adults 1 child with free dining. Its 2 stand up meals btw.
We are paying for breakfast every morning. And maybe paying for a sitdown for 1 day.

How hard is it going to be to use all our credits if we eat lunch and dinner? Seems to me that its nearly imposible for us to go home without using all our credits...

Also we get 1 snack in that day correct? plus dessert and an appetizer every meal?

Is there a list of stand up restaurants that are avail and what snacks are avail?

tip is included or out of pocket?

The day i fly in we are going to the parks. Do we have credits for that day also? and the day we leave do we have credits for those?

 

[Master Yoda]

Ok so i booked a 7 day vacation in september. 3 adults 1 child with free dining. Its 2 stand up meals btw.
We are paying for breakfast every morning. And maybe paying for a sitdown for 1 day.

How hard is it going to be to use all our credits if we eat lunch and dinner? Seems to me that its nearly imposible for us to go home without using all our credits...

Also we get 1 snack in that day correct? plus dessert and an appetizer every meal?

Is there a list of stand up restaurants that are avail and what snacks are avail?

tip is included or out of pocket?

The day i fly in we are going to the parks. Do we have credits for that day also? and the day we leave do we have credits for those?

There are three different dining plans. The quick service plan, the plus plan and the deluxe plan. The quick service plan includes 2 quick service meals and one snack per night of your stay. The plus plan includes 1 quick service meal, one table service meal and one snack per night or your stay. The deluxe pan includes 3 table service or quick credits per night of your stay.

It sounds like you might have gotten the quick service plan. If that is the case and you plan on doing 1 table service per day, you might want to look into upgrading to the plus plan. You can do this for the price difference between the 2 plans.

A desert is included with each meal (both table and quick service), but an appetizer is only included on the deluxe plan.

Tips are not included with any of the dining plans and must be paid out of pocket.

Your dining plan becomes available the second you check in. You receive a days worth of credits for each night of your stay. You can use as many or as few of your credits as you want per day. If you are there for 6 nights and you want to do 6 sit down meals on your first day you can, but you will of course exhaust all your credits. You can likewise skip a table service meal one day and do a signature (2 credit meal) on one night.

You should not have a problem using all of your credits as long as you don't save them. I have seen some people hold onto their credits thinking they will run out only to have 1/2 a dozen snack credits left on their last day.

This link should give you a list of all the restaurants on the plan.
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/m...alog/WaltDisneyWorld/en_us/PDF/2013Dining.pdf

 

[mickeysbrother]

Yes i am getting the quick service.
So 7nights 8 day. My last day would not have credits because im not staying that night...

So i get 2 credits per day per person im guessing. 1 credit = 1 quick service.

So the first day i check in at 3 pm i would have 6 credits that day... Thats perfect. 2 dinners that night

 

[Master Yoda]

Yes i am getting the quick service.
So 7nights 8 day. My last day would not have credits because im not staying that night...

So i get 2 credits per day per person im guessing. 1 credit = 1 quick service.

So the first day i check in at 3 pm i would have 6 credits that day... Thats perfect. 2 dinners that night

With a 7 night stay each person would receive 2 credits per night for a total of 14 for the entire trip.

 

[mickeysbrother]

This is my 46th time to the world and never have a got a free dinning plan. I feel like such a noob...

Im not usually this lost when it come to Disney lol

so 14 credits per person for our 7 nights.

Any suggestions on where to get our free dining plan moneys worth for food?

 

[boilerpicc]

I guess thats what alot of visitors will do but the whole structure of booking tables for restaurants so far in advance seems a bit to constraining. We like to take each day as it comes and not have to do things as we made a decision 6 months earlier.

I hate doing reservations 6 months in advance, and it is not always necessary. For the super popular restaurants (BoG, Le Cellier), it pretty much is. But if you are flexible in when and where you want to eat, you can always find someplace. We have been going during free dining time in September for the past several years. We don't decide where we want to eat generally until the morning of. I hit up the app and see what is open. There are always more openings at lunch than at dinner, and you can always find something open at one of the restaurants in Epcot.

 

[boilerpicc]

Yes i am getting the quick service.
So 7nights 8 day. My last day would not have credits because im not staying that night...

So i get 2 credits per day per person im guessing. 1 credit = 1 quick service.

So the first day i check in at 3 pm i would have 6 credits that day... Thats perfect. 2 dinners that night

That's not quite right. You will have 14 meals per person available the second you check in to use at your leisure. They are not tethered to a specific day. So, if you aren't coming in until 3, you will probably use 1 meal that day and can save the other meal for the day that you leave. The number of credits and snacks you have remaining will always be printed on the bottom of your receipt.

As for how hard is it going to be to use your credits, it shouldn't be that bad. My family never has an issue burning through the meal ones, but we always have snacks left over. Always. I don't know how, but it always happens. We generally end up using our snacks at the hotel store to buy things to eat on the airplane. Any single serving bag of chips/pretzels/etc count as a snack. Drinks (non-alcoholic) also count as snacks if you find you need to burn any remaining credits.

As for restaurants, everything takes the dining plan. I cannot think of a quick service that doesn't. I also can't think of an item on a quick service menu that isn't covered. We always end up trying to get the most expesive thing on the menu at every restaurant we go to. The chicken and ribs combo at Cosmic Ray's is the priciest QS item that I can think of off hand. I don't think I could eat two of those in a day!

 

[Hot Lava]

It has already been discussed, but using at DTD is always an option. And try using at off times (not at noon and not for "regular" dinner hours). Can you eat early or late lunches? Early dinners? That might help.

I completely understand that you want to wing it instead of being tied to the reservation thing. If you are comfortable with that, you should do it. But you might end up having unused credits. And yes, check the morning of to see what might be open.

I also think that using for character meals is a good idea. Those things can be pretty pricy. Using TS credits seems like a good idea.

 

[bethymouse]

One year we loaded up w/ snacks because we didn't use all of our quick service credits, but I don't think they do that anymore. ( PS- we drove down to Florida).

 

[Shelleyx4]

On the flipside...when i made our reservations i didnt know about the 180 days adrs and started booking some of ours about 5 months out. Got all of them i wanted and just 2 weeks ago, going in 24 days, was still able to find some dining reservations open to switch them around. And just yesterday i was playing around and there are still some decent reservations open. But if there are some restaurants you may have your hearts set on i would try to make some adrs. It's hard for me too to know what days and what times we are going to want to eat at a certain place so far ahead of time.

 

[mrdisman]

Hi this is a first post, so please be kind to me! We have just booked our 2013 vacation to the Wilderness lodge and as part of the deal we have the dining plan thrown in.

You're at Wilderness Lodge...I'm sorry..that's as far as I got...