Disney Dining Plan

10/30/2011 By Jason Bean 1 Comment

Hungry? I’m Going to Disney World!

Most people wouldn't believe it, but these days I think the favorite part of our family trips to Disney World for me is the catering and dining experiences we enjoy while we're there. The last few years we've gone with a group of friends we've had varied, lovely, and unexpected experiences, like italian catering showcasing their rich banquet catering varieties unlike what one would normally visualize when thinking italian food for example. Our meals shared together are some of our favorite times shared as a group, and a great opportunity to make long-lasting memories.

The other magical thing about dining at Disney is that if you have food allergies, this place delivers on keeping your experience as fantastic as everyone else's. You just have to give them notice and be prepared to be flexible. The "notice" is nothing more than letting them know when you make your dining reservations that you have a guest with food allergies in your group. And if you hadn't thought of it, you SHOULD DEFINITELY make reservations for your sit down meals as far out as possible, 180 days is the earliest you can make it. Don't wait until the last minute.

Over the last few years our family has tried the majority of dining options within the park. We've always done the Disney Dining Plan. This gives each of us a snack a day (drink, ice cream, fruit, pretzel, etc.), a quick service (QS) meal (think of it as Disney fast food), and a sit down service. Below are some of our experiences and thoughts about where to eat in each park.

Magic Kingdom Dining Options

Crystal PalaceÂ - buffet with characters (obviously good variety for kids)
Liberty Tree Tavern - served family style, great food. We had roast beef, roasted turkey, ham, pork loin and it's all fantastic
Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe (QS) - variety of sandwich options for chicken, burgers, dogs, bar-b-que and more. A wide variety of gluten free options available if you let them know you need it.
Casey's Corner (QS) - Casey at the Bat themed dining. Great hot dogs and corn dogs, Cracker Jacks. Good toppings bar including nacho cheese for great cheese fries!
Golden Oak Outpost (QS) - good place for an angus burger and toppings
Main Street Bakery - you can get huge pastries and donuts here that count as a snack. A good option to grab a snack that will feel like a good breakfast to get you started to enjoy Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom.
Aloha Isle - all you need to know is get the "Pineapple Whip". Only served at Disney World, Disney Land and the Dole Plantation in Hawaii.

EPCOT Dining Options

Teppan Edo - Japanese steakhouse Teppan-yaki. Great food, great service. Our friend who grew up in Japan felt "at home" when we dined here. Time your reservations to be able to watch Illuminations fireworks display.
Tutto Italia Ristorante - excellent Italian, great atmosphere
San Angel Inn - good food, time reservations so you're seated on deck for Illuminations fireworks show.
Biergarten - great buffet and dinner show, my son really liked it. Lots of German food options to try and explore.
Akershus Royal Banquet Hall - my wife and daugther tried this for the first time this year. Character dining with the princesses, food was not as expected, but go here for the atmosphere and the Princesses, not the food.
Coral Reef Restaurant - dining hall is located below large aquarium tanks at Under the Seas exhibit. Variety of good selections of seafood entrees.
Restaurant Merrakesh - if you enjoy Moroccan food, I enjoyed this meal. Was not a favorite of the rest of my family.
Misc. - so many different options to try a bite here and there. Explore! Be adventurous! If you go in September and October, even more options as part of the Food & Wine Festival at EPCOT

Animal Kingdom Dining Options

Flame Tree Barbeque (QS) - we almost always have a meal here during our visit. Great BBQ ribs, chicken and other meal options.
Restaurantosaurus (QS) - the place for burgers, a good salad, shrimp po-boy. Toppings bar and drink refills help refuel you up for the day.
Yak & Yeti - a variety of Pan-Asian dining options including BBQ ribs. I thought it was good. Rest or our group probably won't return, but I think it was mainly due to out-of-the-ordinary bad service.

Hollywood Studios Dining Options

50's Prime Time Cafe - old school, American fare, the atmosphere is great. Like stepping back in time and sharing a meal at the kitchen of one of your favorite old TV show kitchens. Really have fun interacting with servers. Get the PB&J milkshake. Food isn't amazing, but it's good and hearty and no trip really feels complete now without a meal here.
Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater - food isn't too spectactular. Atmosphere is eating inside of booths shaped like old cars and watching tv show and movie clips on the ceiling and walls like you're at a drive-in theater

Disney World Resort Options

Beach Club Resort /Â Cape May Seafood Buffet - do it every year! all you can eat crab legs! Great clam chowder, peel 'n eat shrimp and more. Did I mention all-you-can-eat crab legs? Nuff' said!
Polynesian Resort / OhanaÂ Breakfast - we do it every year. Ask for Tina Marie as your server if you can. Breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausages, potatoes, fresh fruit, Belgian waffles and more. The orange, guava, mango juice is fantastic!
Wilderness Lodge / Whispering Canyon -Â great breakfast, lunch and dinners (all you can eat skillets) lots of fun with the kids. Be sure and ask for extra ketchup
Wilderness Lodge / Artist Point - Signature Dining - not on dining plan but a fantastic meal
Wilderness Lodge / Roaring Forks (QS) - a variety of good options all day. I had great deli sandwiches and panninis. Flat bread pizzas also had good reviews. Good pasta and burgers. If you're staying at this resort, get the mug that gives you free refills for your entire stay. Then you can save drinks and snacks that come with your meals for breakfast items and treats in the room after hours.
Fort Wilderness Campground / Hoop-Dee-Do Musical Revue - a western themed musical review show, served with fantastic fried chicken, corn on the cob, sweet tea and other great food.
Fort Wilderness Campground / Trail's End Restaurant - buffet style American fare. Good home-cooked style food in a rustic themed environment
Animal Kingdom Lodge / Boma - friends had a meal there. Sounded delicious. Good breakfast and dinner buffets. Think we'll be adding this to our list of future reservation
Contemporary Resort /Â Chef Mickey's - breakfast buffet with characters. Not my family's favorite, but I enjoyed it. The birds flying around that flew in from the Monorail openings were a big distraction to eating.
Contemporary Resort / California Grill - (Takes two sit-down service reservations on meal plan) Upscale, very nice restaurant. Great sushi! Be sure to schedule for fireworks at Disney you can go out on roof and catch the fireworks in the middle of your dinner. Ask for Walter to be your server. Best service I've ever had anywhere!
Coronado Springs /Â Pepper Grill (QS) - good food court for quick service, but not convenient to get to from your room if you're not close to main building. Huge variety of options though, make it worth while.
Coronado Springs /Â Maya Grill - nice sit down dinner with Mexican flair. Delicious flan dessert

I'm sure I've left off some of our suggestions that we've discovered here and there, if you have a question about one of the places I've mentioned, or maybe somewhere I didn't, just let me know and I'll give you some feedback and opinion if I have it.

For specific details about any of these restaurants and more, you can visit the Disney Dining & Reservations website for all of that information.

10/29/2011 By Jason Bean 3 Comments

Whatever You Do, Don’t Go to Disney World… When Everyone Else Does

My family and I recently got back from our annual trip to Disney World. I'm sure you're thinking that that's quite an expense to take every year and why would you continue going to the same place every year. What's so great about it?

You're right, it is a great expense, but it's one that we have deemed as important enough to forego other things in our lives to make it happen every year. For my part that means a lot of lack of sleep and long hours working as much as I can on a variety of different projects.

Go Off-Season

Here's the thing we've found though about our Disney trips. We go off-season to save money. We pay attention to the deals and discounts all year and pick the times that are best for us. For that effort we've found that the following times are great for low crowds.

The first full week AFTER Thanksgiving - added bonus of everything being decorated for Christmas, which we love. Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!
Mid-to-late December - crowds get heavier the closer to Christmas, but still not a bad time. Last year we went at this time and the weather was a bit cold for the average guest, but not for us Hoosiers.
Mid-October - this was a great time of year for crowds. Weather was great! Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.

The bonus of going with low crowds is that you can actually enjoy your time and not feel like cattle at your local stockyard. The ability to get into a park at opening gate and get all your favorite rides in at least once before lunch is well worth the adjustment in your calendar.

For us, one of the benefits of going each year is that we've further cushioned ourselves to not feel like we have to cram everything into the vacation. We relax more. We spend more time at the resorts. We don't stress as much. We actually enjoy our vacation! We get so sick and tired of seeing parents drag their crying kids in the middle of a meltdown around the park to get their time in!

Stay on Resort

We also stay on resort every year. We feel the combination of being able to take advantage of all the Disney transportation between the resorts and parks is worth it. Plus, when you stay on resort you can take advantage of Extra Magic Hours at the parks. This helps even further with trying to avoid crowds and get more accomplished in the parks. I'm sure we could save some money staying off resort, but part of us making it a great vacation every year is staying on resort.

This year we stayed at Wilderness Lodge, which is a deluxe resort. Usually well out of our budget, but due to a special we could take advantage of on the room rate, we stayed here instead of the normal moderate resort for only about $150 more for the entire week. The other nice benefit of a deluxe resort is free wi-fi access, worth $10/day if you're like me and need to be able to connect and take care of some business in the early mornings or evenings. Otherwise, your Internet experience at Disney is less-than-magical.

We've stayed at Fort Wilderness cabins, Caribbean Beach Resort and Coronado Springs in the past. Fort Wilderness cabins sleep six and have a small kitchen that could be used to save some money on dining by having breakfast items in the morning and quick lunches if needed. Our favorite moderate resort is by far Coronado Springs. Recently renovated, rooms and amenities are very enjoyable with great pools. Access to the Pepper Grill market is a bonus as well.

Take Advantage of the Disney Dining Plan

I can't stand spending money. Perhaps more accurately, I don't like seeing the money I'm spending leave my fingers and wallet throughout my vacation. It kind of ruins the experience for me. One of the ways I enjoy my vacation is that we do the Disney Dining Plan every year. All I have to do when someone wants a snack, or a meal is to present my Key to World card and I get handed food. Usually more food than we can eat. I've never gone hungry at Disney, and folks, that sounds like a vacation to me! I'll publish a post later with more tips and suggestions on where to grab some food while at Disney.

There's a variety of things you can do to save money and stretch your snacks. Usually for every Quick Service meal you get a snack/side item and a dessert. We've found that grabbing some fresh fruit, brownie, chocolate milk or fruit juice as one of these items and throwing it in our bag gives us another snack later in the day, or when we're back in our room.

This year, we purchased to-go travel mugs that gave us free drink refills from the Roaring Forks restaurant at Wilderness Lodge. So, we would grab another drink as part of our dining plan and then use the mug for our drinks with the meals. This let us stock our fridge in the room with drinks for later or milk in the morning for breakfast.

The Best Vacations We've Ever Had

Our family vacations to Disney have been the best we've ever had. We've combined them with other trips on the front or back end of the week to make each trip a little different. As the man-of-the-house, the Magic of a Disney vacation for me is that once you step off the plane in Orlando, or step onto the property at Disney, your vacation has begun. By going off-season, staying on resort and doing the dining plan, everything is taken care of for me. I don't worry about anything and I just enjoy the time with my family.

I realize our family has the opportunity to be more flexible than other families. We home school our kids. My wife is a wonderful stay-at-home mom. I work on the Internet, so I can be productive from just about anywhere with an Internet connection. But I can tell, if none of those things were true and we had to fight to schedule our vacation and then sacrifice all the time, money and effort to make a trip like this happen. I absolutely WOULD NOT GO TO DISNEY WHEN EVERYONE ELSE IS THERE! If my kids are doing well in school, I have no hesitations taking them out of school at any age for any opportunity to share time together as a family. Don't go in the heat of summer when you're going to be miserable in the parks and stand in lines because everyone else is there. Take a family vacation, and if you're going to take one, do everything you need to do to ENJOY YOUR FAMILY VACATION!

If you're planning a trip to Disney and have questions about anything, feel free to leave a comment and I'm sure me or my wife could give you some tips or pointers to help you really maximize and enjoy your vacation.