Disney dining options

[WelshMoth]

Off to DW and Universal this August. Thanks to MN I'm working my way through all the do's and don'ts and seeing our YouTube clips and The Dibb.

My question is food. DH booked without a dining plan. We're not big eaters (think hearty breakfast - porridge or cereals, lots of fruits etc), small lunch snack and then dinner in evening. I understand that a breakfast option isn't really a thing in Disney.

So, I'm stuck in what to do now. One MN'er has written that you can get a quick service dining plan as opposed to a Table service dining plan. Has anyone experience of this?

I've also read that in order to get value from your 'plan', that you must be consuming 2 meals and 2 snacks each a day? Sounds great but I know the reality of eating that regimented will be a burden and DH is the type to not want to waste so will be insistent on snack loading and getting his value. Judging by the cakes and pastries I've seen on YouTube, I don't want to be loading up on that every day for 10 days (10 DW, 4 Universal).

Any help and advice please?!

Getting value is different to breaking even, if I remember correctly the snacks cover quite a lot of gifty confectionary type bits alongside fresher stuff so can be brought home, rather than eaten there. Me & my husband went on our honeymoon a few years ago and didn’t do a dining plan but I wish we had-payg is expensive and harder to budget, when we did DLP since we paid for the dining plan, and will when we go back to WDW in a few years with DC. Unsure whether they do it for WDW but DLP did a half board option where you could have breakfast then either lunch or dinner but a proper meal, rather than the counter service types. We enjoyed the more sit down meals in DLP, as we got nicer food and a little time to recuperate before heading back into the park madness. (We opted for the premium package so included character dining etc for the kids which meant we cut queues and so on too but that wouldn’t be essential)

If you don't use all of your credits daily, you can save them until the end of the holiday and exchange them for plenty of options that you can take home for you or as gifts.

Goofy Candy Co and Ghirardelli at Disney Springs were our go to at the end of the holiday. We had around 40 snack credits left.

We did the DDP last year and we were fine - some days we had a big buffet breakfast, then a QS evening meal. Others we did the big meal in the evening so a snack breakfast with a QS lunch. It works however you make it work but do exchange credits for snacks you can take home. Makes the holiday last longer!

We only book when free disney dining as TBH eating in WDW without would cost a fortune.

Quick service is 2 quick dines per day and 2 snacks. As pp says snacks can be redeemed in shops and you can bring back candy gifts etc.

I'm not sure how much a dining plan is to buy though.

We have done the quick service and the standard dining plan before, and prefer having one restaurant meal a day. I found it works really well, DH and ds tend to have big breakfasts on site (qs meal), then we grab lunch anywhere (sometimes a combo of snacks) and have a sit down dinner later in the day. Love all the themed restaurants, t-rex etc. Also you get cocktails, wine etc as part of the plan and I do like trying out the cocktails when at Disney! Quick service is fine too, there are lots of really interesting places to eat now and you can use your credits in many different ways.

Fyi for 2 weeks the full dining plan would cost about 2k. Quick service less, obviously. Hope this helps.

Sorry, the 2k was for three people for 2 weeks! so err yes, £650 each?

Aargh! Still don't know what to do!
Quick/Counter service appeals to me as I've done a fair bit of research on the sites and I rather like what's on offer but I also like to sit down and have table service too.

It's me, Dh and 3 DD's (13 and 10).

Sweet, what's DLP?

Welsh if you are wanting to do character dining for the DDs to cut having to queue for characters so much the Disney dining plan is great 1QS, 1TS and 2 snacks.
Don’t forget you still have to tip.

Get yourself over to the Disney food blog website and YouTube channel - lots of advice on where to eat and how to best use the dining plan credits

I've downloaded the App. Do we each need separate accounts or can I book fast passes for us all on my own app?

You link all the park tickets to your account and then book them for the whole party. Same with dining reservations

Thanks Hermione (again) .
Should I have had my tickets by now? June 13th is my 60 day mark and I'm keen to start planning.

I'll speak to travel agents tomorrow.

Op

You should be able to obtain your booking ref and then that will link all your party on your trip.

Disney free phone number is also really helpful for this kind of thing.

They may be able to give you the info you need to log in today.

Can’t comment on tickets I’m afraid

I love a WDW holiday AND the planning, so am happy to answer any question I can!

Thanks loads Hermione.
I'm a bit annoyed and I'm not sure who it's targeted towards - DH or Thomas Cook. Booking without a dining plan seems a massive waste of money and I don't know why they didn't advise him to wait until the free dining plan appeared. It'll save us about 2k!