Disney dining package - quality of food?

[taptonaria27]

We're looking to got to Disney next Easter, considering the Disney Dining Package with the premium upgrade but I'm worried about the quality of the food on offer, I really do not want to eat fried fast food all week.
It looks as though you can book lovely restaurants for dinner but I'm less sure about breakfast and especially lunch if we're in the parks.
Does anyone have any feedback please?

Which Disney park? France, China, Florida, Tokyo?

Lunch is hit and miss. We did Disney Dining in Florida last summer.

I found it very stressful at lunch time: dinner was fine in proper restaurants but fast food was painful. Everyone is queuing and quite often the choice limited.

I think you need to research. We didn't realise that could get a decent lunch from Starbucks and some cafes were great," be my guest" as an example in Disney: we learnt from our mistakes!

I am a veggie and found veggie options hard and also didn't like the chips and burger type options for lunch for kids, too heavy!

Snack credits are good to use in places like Starbucks; massive cooling drinks perfect for heat.

We took loads of snacks from home; breakfast bars, fruit bars etc for breakfast and we lived on that for breakfast, a decentish lunch and a proper evening meal: we had some lovely evening meals.

You can get croissant, cereals, fruit etc for breakfast in hotel if that suits and there are lots of stalls selling fruit throughout Disney. It's just picking wisely as a banana has equal credits to a full size Starbucks coffee (50p v £4!)

My concern was living on fast food too, sorry didn't read that bit. The kids did eat a lot of chicken buggets, French fries and burgers but equally I did ensure we had our quota of fruit (as snacks) and veg with dinner .

There is salad about (!) and other less traditional fast food options but you do need to research.

We had loads of snack credits (think they may have changed system since) and ended up bringing sweets home as presents to use them up.

We went for the premium package at Disney Land Paris and the food was lovely. Not a chicken nugget in sight!

Disneyland Paris was great in the Disney hotel

Disneyland Paris was so amazing in the Newport bay hotel

We did 3 weeks last May with free Disney dining in a moderate resort, so 2 counter service meals. We did eat quite a lot of fast food but did find other options (e.g. Epcot has loads of choice) and probably could have avoided it a lot more. I can't say that we wasn't pleased to eat home food again but it certainly wasn't a problem.

We have just booked for October next year in a moderate and have upgraded so we have 1 table service and 1 counter service. With that I know that fast food won't be an issue as we will be able to eat one meal a day that is restaurant cooked and we rarely ate 3 meals in a day anyway.

The quality of food is definitely hit and miss but with research and planning you will be fine.

We have recently got back from Florida, restaurants offer good quality food so evening meals will be fine, just make sure you read the menus and book in advance.

Breakfast was great, most days I had scrambled egg on toast, pancakes here and there with fruit and full fry up type on character breakfasts. Most of the counter service restaurants are "fast" food, but many do salads, flatbreads, sandwiches etc.

Hotel sold ready made salad boxes/fruit boxes and served some decent meals alongside fast food.

It depends on which Disney park(s) and what level dining package. More info needed!

In a Florida, We always have the dining package (one table service, one counter service, one snack per person per night of stay) and have always found it fine.

You can go burgers/nuggets/fries all the way, or not touch them at all. The range is huge.

You don't have to have your table service/sit down meal in the evening either. There are restaurants in each park which will have lunchtime bookings - it can provide a welcome break from he heat/a nice change from all the walking. We've used our table service credits for anything from breakfast at Chef Mickeys (sometimes at breakfast time, sometimes the last breakfast sitting - 11.30am, which, by the time you're seated and ready to eat is an early lunch!) to dining in Cinderella's castle (2 credits per person, and not really a venue you go to for the food as it's a bit hit and miss imo).

Like a previous poster imbalance out any fries etc with fruit, either as a dessert or a snack.

There is a wide variety of cuisines on offer, if you take the time to do the research.

We went to Disney florida at Christmas and stayed in a Disney resort, I am so pleased that I didn't book the Disney dining plan. It was just me and an 11 year old child, we ate a good breakfast At the hotel then wanted very little during the day and had a large meal in the evening, the food was not good throughout Disney. I found it very junky. I am vegetarian and ended up with little to no choice to eat. Found a middle eastern place st animal kingdom with a very long line of vegetarian Brits. It was quite funny! We don't eat a lot of snacks or sweets or fizzy drinks so would not really have got good use from it,

I know for some bookings the ddp is free so that might make it good value for money. I hated seeing guests in the hotel buying crap to use up their plAn credits.

The food at universal and the universal hotel was much better quality. Again we didn't have any food plan, just bought what we wanted.

DD is vegetarian now, but was pescetarian when we were in Florida. Just as well because, disappointingly, real vegetarian food was hard to find. She ate a lot of sushi on holiday. We did find two places that were excellent – Pei Wei and Sweet Tomatoes. Both self-service, but with excellent food, and a good choice of veggie options.

We found that a lot of dishes which would be considered vegetarian had bacon in. Macaroni cheese everywhere had bacon in it, many salads had bacon in them as well.

We decided not to opt for a Disney dining plan as we stayed at the Universal site and didn't want to have all of our meals within Disney.

Have a look at the menus for Sanaa and tepan edo, beautiful and not a chip in sight!

We had the free dining plan at a moderate resort. You can eat very well but it's essential to do your research to avoid eating the same rubbish. There is a list you can download and then it's worth looking at each restaurant and making some notes as to what they serve and the best time to go.

Epcot is great and almost all of the restaurants are eligible for the DDP. You can now use your plan for breakfast at Be Our Guest which is fantastic but you must book early. We loved Wolfgang Puck Express at Disney Springs. You order at the counter but the food gets brought to you, they serve a good range of food (and wine!). Use your snack credits wisely, you can almost get a meal out of them if you study the list of eligible items properly. Another tip is to use the restaurants at other resort hotels, we had good experiences at the Contempory and Disney hotel and got to have a nose around too.