Table vs Quick/ Counter Service

[gobstoper27]

In a single trip how much of your dining plans consist of table service vs quick/counter service? My 180 day opens up on Thursday and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to proceed. We did 4-ish table service restaurants my last trip (not sure if Lunch @ Be our Guest counts) and I'm having an internal debate if that is the route I want to go this year. My mother in law eats soooo slow and service at a couple spots (SCI-FI and Dine) was even slower.. We don't do the dining plan, works out better for us not to. Just curious as to what everyone else does.

 

[JillC LI]

Usually we do CS for lunch and TS for dinner, but one day we always do Kona Cafe (TS) for "brunch" and CS for dinner.

 

[danyoung56]

I do the same - CS for lunch and TS for dinner, unless there's some special event like the Food & Wine Festival. During the F&WF I always spend one evening cruising the booths for tasty morsels and fine wines, and I usually end up having a great dinner a few bites at a time!

 

[docdebbi]

we usually do our TS at lunch, need the longer break- out of the sun and crowds- then. Dinner is often quick service, or once per trip Hoop de doo! Breakfast is usually quick in the room, but one buffet to meet characters

 

[danyoung56]

I'm fine without breakfast, but if an early rez will get me into the parks before open, I'm down with that!

 

[awoogala]

We do breakfast in our room most days (not big breakfast people- protein bars or carrot sticks, maybe a bagel for the kids), and one or 2 TS meals a day for lunch, dinner , depending on what park we're in. Lots of times, we eat at lounges, also- no reservations needed, cocktails and appetizers to share. I don't like a lot of the q.s. food, and it's vacation, so I like to splurge, and I like the ac, and getting a glass of wine.

 

[RememberWhen]

We’ve got two Littles (currently DD2 and DS7) so we like to do one sit down a day, often a character meal. It gives us time to sit and relax and get some pictures. We don’t have a set meal.

 

[KaliSplash]

We were usually the breakfast snack, counter service lunch and table service dinner.

 

[Tinkerbella16]

We always say we aren't going to do a lot of TS every trip and then we do the opposite lol. While my niece is still little, we like to do character meals so she can meet as many characters as she can so that is less we'll have to do around the parks. We are big breakfast eaters, especially in Disney...so we like to book TS breakfasts. This years trip we have 5 TS breakfast and 4 TS dinners. We like to do QS for lunch and whatever days we don't have a TS, we do QS on those days. We never book TS for lunch. We take midday breaks each day, so we are at the resort food court for lunch usually.

 

[gobstoper27]

I'm fine without breakfast, but if an early rez will get me into the parks before open, I'm down with that!

I can go without breakfast to! I feel so bad for the fam as I starve them until lunch I'll only do breakfast on our non park days

 

[gobstoper27]

We always say we aren't going to do a lot of TS every trip and then we do the opposite lol. While my niece is still little, we like to do character meals so she can meet as many characters as she can so that is less we'll have to do around the parks. We are big breakfast eaters, especially in Disney...so we like to book TS breakfasts. This years trip we have 5 TS breakfast and 4 TS dinners. We like to do QS for lunch and whatever days we don't have a TS, we do QS on those days. We never book TS for lunch. We take midday breaks each day, so we are at the resort food court for lunch usually.

how many days are you guys staying? Last visit we did primarily all TS at Lunch, Big Mistake!!! We ended up leaving my in-laws at Be our Guest, lol. We are taking breaks everyday and I really think it'd be easier to eat back at the hotel but, there are so many QS places that I want to try this trip. Oh well

 

[LeighM]

When we had the dining plan, we usually had one QS and one TS a day. We couldn't do to TS meals a day because of the amount of food. But we've been going lately when it's hotter and humid and find we don't eat as much so we've been doing more QS. During my trip a couple of weeks ago, we had TS on our arrival day at our resort, once at House of Blues, and 'Ohana later in our trip. Everything else was at a QS or lounge. There are some more table service places we want to try our next trip but lately most of our favorite foods have been at quick service locations.

 

[eliza61nyc]

We do a TS dinner every night. Once in a while we may have also a TS lunch. Usually that's when we go to AK, we end up at rainforest cafe.

 

[Spoon full of Sugar]

We do one TS every day - usually dinner...but we switch it up if we have later plans that get in the way of dinner, then we do a late TS lunch. We also love Crystal Palace breakfast buffet one day per trip.

 

[Rsj88]

We do mostly quick service and add a few of our favorite table service restaurants. We’d rather have a longer trip than more TS meals (unless we get free dining!) Buffets aren’t really worth the money for us anymore since our DS is now counted as an adult. So we will pick one and try a few new places. I like to do TS for lunch. We are rope droppers and by 11:30 we are ready for a break as the parks get crowded. Then if we want to park hop in the afternoon we aren’t tied down by a reservation.

 

[Goofyque']

Our habit is to generally do one TS a day. We often do it mid-afternoon, when we can take a break from the heat, the crowds, and often the usual afternoon thunderstorm. If we do a TS breakfast, then it is CS the rest of the day.

 

[Weather_Lady]

For a trip of, say, 6 nights and 6 days' worth of meals (arriving before dinner on day 1 and leaving after lunch on day 7), we'll have 4-5 TS meals and 7-8 CS meals. (*I'm counting meals at lounges, or assembled piecemeal from festival kiosks, as CS.)

We'll do one TS meal most days, and it's typically lunch (except for our last night, when 'Ohana is a dinner tradition), in order to allow for maximum flexibility during the evening. This was a lesson we learned after our first WDW trip: too often, we finished with a park earlier than expected, but had to traipse back to it after our mid-day break just for a dinner ADR, when we'd rather be elsewhere.

The remaining meal each day (lunch or dinner), as well as all meals on our arrival day (no need to tie ourselves down with ADRs in case of travel delays) will be CS. We are light eaters in the morning and we have yet to find an onsite breakfast that we felt was worth the price, so breakfast is always cereal, granola bars, fruit and/or a Pop Tart, enjoyed in our hotel room from a stash of food and picnicware we bring with us.

Although we always allot money for "1 snack per person, per day" in the parks as well, we only end up getting mid-afternoon snacks about half of the time, as even the CS meals are so filling that we're generally not hungry again until dinner.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

We take long midday breaks with a full nap, so we don't have tons of time to linger at sit-down restaurants. We usually do about four TS in an 8-night trip.

 

[JIMINYCR]

Most of the time we do go with the DDP. We usually grab a quick breakfast at the resort, if not we will grab something in the park. Then we sometimes do QS at the park for lunch and other times skip lunch all together, but we always have a TS planned for a late dinner so we can relax after a full day on the go in the parks. When we do eat lunch, we have the QS planned out for for the park we are in. The TS dinner sometimes is at the park we are in, other times we plan to hop to a different park for our ADR meal. We found doing all TS meals take up too much valuable time and is way too much food for us.