Dining Plan with 2 adults, 3 Disney kids for a first visit

TheOneWithTheTriplets

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 27, 2018
I'm in the early stages of planning a trip for next February, so plenty of time, but I feel like the decision of whether or not to do the DDP would vastly change the experience for us. I'd like to hear your perspective.

We'll be two adults and three 5 year old girls. It will be our first family trip and likely the only one we'll take for several years. We're looking at 9 days, 8 nights, and the kids LOVE characters.

If we go OOP, we'd eat mostly QS, ordering 3 adul meals for the 5 of us, budgeting for a coffee a day for the adults and an ice cream a day for the kids. We'd bring dry goods for other snacks, adults would have water or bring in soda. There would be a couple of character meals, maybe one Fab 5 and one princess. This would land us significantly cheaper than the DDP.

If we go on the DDP, we would do it up on the character/themed meals: Tusker w/ ROL, Hollywood and Vine w/ Fantasmic, Crystal Palace, Akershus, CRT, Sci Fi, and 50s Prime Time as our TS. Because of the expense of those meals and how (comparatively) cheap the kid meal plan price is, we'd definitely save money compared to OOP, even if we ended up leaving QS or snacks on the table. We'd probably still only do 3-4 QS each time we did those meals, but we'd be less stingy with the snacks since we have the credits, everyone would be having drinks with meals instead of water, etc.

On the DDP, we'd do most of our TS for lunch as our mid-day rest in lieu of heading back to the resort. That would give the girls enough down time to reset for an afternoon of touring. With that kind of a schedule, we would hopefully be able to make it to the night entertainment at each park before the girls turn into pumpkins (strict 7:30 bed time around here normally).

OOP, we'd be more likely to tour straight through, with short meal breaks, until the girls get too tired. It also means more time in longer, mid-day lines since we're not taking that break for TS.

I'm willing to spend the money for the DDP if it's actually going to be a better experience. Do you think mid-day character meals are going to feel like a nice break, a respite from the crowds? Or, are 5 year olds going to want to scarf chicken nuggets and get back to rides? Is it going to feel like all of the TS time is just wasted touring time, especially since my kids can't hang later at night? Then again, it's not like the break is just a boring, adult restaurant meal. It's Cinderella! Daisy! Pooh! Milkshakes at lunch! I know a lot of it is personality, but I don't know how to factor in the "Disney Magic" of it all. Are they going suddenly double their stamina based on pure adrenaline? Or, with a 9 day trip, are we going to want the character time to regroup and rest?
 
With 9 days, you're going to have to find some down time somewhere, as in either a full day of staying at the resort or at least most of the day. Otherwise, just taking a lunch break will probably blow up around day 4 or 5.

I think your idea of using lunch as a break is a good one and should work, but you've got 3 of them in HS. Even with the new Toy Story Land, I can't imagine spending 3 full days in HS. Will you have hoppers to make it easier to get to all those meals? The travel time along with lunch could make for enough of a break so that they can make it to the evening.
 
We did the DDP and we didn't care for it. After that we calculated what the DDP would have cost us versus paying OOP and OOP always saved us money. I bet if you calculated what the DDP would cost you and use that amount of money to spend on meals paying OOP you could do your 1 TS per day for lunch and come out cheaper. But I will also say that when we go for over a week - sometimes we just one a light day and not eat that much - especially when it is hot. At 5 years old I bet your kids could share a meal if it is not a buffet or character meal. Also as the other poster said we would not spend 3 days at HS. For us now it is a 1 day park - that will change once HS is all done. I hope that helps.
 
With 9 days, you're going to have to find some down time somewhere, as in either a full day of staying at the resort or at least most of the day. Otherwise, just taking a lunch break will probably blow up around day 4 or 5.

I think your idea of using lunch as a break is a good one and should work, but you've got 3 of them in HS. Even with the new Toy Story Land, I can't imagine spending 3 full days in HS. Will you have hoppers to make it easier to get to all those meals? The travel time along with lunch could make for enough of a break so that they can make it to the evening.


We're looking at 1.5 days at HS. Arrival day would be H&V, the other full day would be Sci Fi for lunch and Prime Time for dinner or vice versa. We were loading up on TS at HS because those restaurants are supposed to be pretty fun and the QS is supposed to be pretty bad. Plus, it's going to be the lightest on activities, so we'll be willing to spend more time eating. We only want the two days there because I'm assuming I'll need two tier 1 FP to get through Toy Story land without a 3 hour wait on something. We won't have a sense of what "normal" lines are going to look like when our ADR window opens because that area will still be very new. Probably try to do a very early lunch and then a later dinner that day, with no other snacks planned.

We're looking at 3.5 MK (departure day is the half), 2 Epcot, 1.5 HS, 1 AK. Days when we don't have a TS scheduled at Epcot and MK would be ones where we planned to either go late or leave early. I don't think we're planning any days completely out of the parks, because it feels like a waste of FP opportunities with impatient kids, but we aren't going to be planning them all as full days.
 


We did the DDP and we didn't care for it. After that we calculated what the DDP would have cost us versus paying OOP and OOP always saved us money. I bet if you calculated what the DDP would cost you and use that amount of money to spend on meals paying OOP you could do your 1 TS per day for lunch and come out cheaper. But I will also say that when we go for over a week - sometimes we just one a light day and not eat that much - especially when it is hot. At 5 years old I bet your kids could share a meal if it is not a buffet or character meal. Also as the other poster said we would not spend 3 days at HS. For us now it is a 1 day park - that will change once HS is all done. I hope that helps.

If we're doing sit down, we're going to end up at character/buffet meals to keep the kids entertained. That's where the cost is better on the DDP with 3 Disney kids. One character meal nearly pays for the cost for all 5 of us for the day before we even touch the 10 snacks and 5 QS we get. Especially because we're looking at the Fantasmic and ROL packages. For instance, the H&V buffet with fantasmic for 2 adults and 3 kids is about $10 more than a day of the dining plan for the same group: it's kind of nuts.

I did go line by line on DDP versus OOP. If we do the character meals we have above, we come out well on top with the DDP, even without full utilization of the QS and snacks. Not that we'd ever leave them on the table, we'll certainly buy something with them, but I'm not factoring the overage into my value calculation.
 
If you are willing to pay for the dining plan, why not use that as your budget oop? What am I missing?
 
The dining plan can be worth it when you have Disney kids. The places you will lose out are like 50s prime time and sci fi where th oop cost is pretty low. Something like chef mickeys or trattoria al forna will get you more bang for your buck. Nice thing about character meals is it saves you from waiting in line for the characters later.
 


I would also look at the Play Stay and Dine offer that comes out for the time period. Depending where you plan to stay. It has come to about 50% off the price of the dining plan. I say since this is your first trip and plan to make it a full one with 9 days, you will appreciate the sit down meals. At 5, just plan how you will tackle one of you going up to get plates of food for/withwith 3 of them. It will also be mentally easier to say yes to the price of snacks on the plan. You also did not mention if an adult drink would be welcomed by you or your DH, this is also a nice splurge purchase that might not happen at around $10 eack without the plan. We did as you did our first trip, mostly QQ a few snacks and lots of rides. Kids loved it. This time we are doing dining plan with sit downs and more snacks, and a few adult drinks thrown in. I am greatly looking forward to it!
 
If you are willing to pay for the dining plan, why not use that as your budget oop? What am I missing?

Well, if we were to use that as our out of pocket budget, how would you propose we spend it differently than the DDP? How many meals would you do character TS, non-character TS, or QS for 9 days with preschoolers?

For us, non-character TS requires us to entertain our kids while we wait to order, get food, etc. That's why the only non-character TS I have listed are those that are supposed to be very cool because of the theme. If there's value in using a TS meal as a midday break, then we can get 2100+ OOP cost food for *only* 1800 on the DDP because of the lopsided cost of character meals. If we decide we don't want the kids to have to sit through meals, we can do mostly QS with a few token TS for a lot less.

I'm less worried about the cost of one versus the other and more about the trip experience in either scenario. Are kids going to enjoy that 5th character meal of a trip or are they going to be done with sit down meals that take too long? If the character meals are really fun, then we do the dining plan and spend lots of time with Mickey and Minnie. Heck, maybe we drop Prime Time or Sci Fi and throw in Garden Grill, too. People can't tell my kids apart, so they'd get a kick out of meeting Chip and Dale and having that "in common" with them. I think my husband and I would prefer the time to rest at TS meals, as long as we're actually resting and not just spending the whole time trying to keep the kids entertained. I'd rather sit and nurse a dessert and a drink while characters come greet us than spend all that time in line for characters.

On the other hand, if kids end up with restaurant fatigue, I'd much rather go OOP and let them just get snacks as they get hungry rather than forcing meals. Taking kids to a restaurant when they just don't want to be there is bad enough when I didn't pay two arms and a leg for the privilege.
 
I would also look at the Play Stay and Dine offer that comes out for the time period. Depending where you plan to stay. It has come to about 50% off the price of the dining plan. I say since this is your first trip and plan to make it a full one with 9 days, you will appreciate the sit down meals. At 5, just plan how you will tackle one of you going up to get plates of food for/withwith 3 of them. It will also be mentally easier to say yes to the price of snacks on the plan. You also did not mention if an adult drink would be welcomed by you or your DH, this is also a nice splurge purchase that might not happen at around $10 eack without the plan. We did as you did our first trip, mostly QQ a few snacks and lots of rides. Kids loved it. This time we are doing dining plan with sit downs and more snacks, and a few adult drinks thrown in. I am greatly looking forward to it!

Yes, I'm hoping for Play Stay Dine, but I don't want to bank on it. ADRs have to be made before that would be announced. I guess I could always make them and cancel later if I'm having second thoughts.

Buffet logistics are always fun when you're outnumbered by kids who can't carry their plates :-). We usually do the kids first, two and one, then sit them down to eat while we get our own. Luckily, their table manners are such that I can trust them to sit for the few minutes it takes for us to make our own plates. If it's super busy or the table is really far from the buffet, we make it work getting all the food at once or tag teaming. In the grand scheme of things, buffets aren't even that high on my list of "crap that's just too freaking hard with triplets". Teaching escalators, that one is a PAIN.

Adult beverages, alcoholic or otherwise, will likely only happen on the DDP. We'd end up drinking a lot of tap water at $3.50 a soda and however much more for something harder. Same with adult snacks. If we go OOP, we'll likely indulge the kids and limit ourselves.
 
The dining plan can be worth it when you have Disney kids. The places you will lose out are like 50s prime time and sci fi where th oop cost is pretty low. Something like chef mickeys or trattoria al forna will get you more bang for your buck. Nice thing about character meals is it saves you from waiting in line for the characters later.

I'm on the fence about the meals that are outside of the parks. Some of the resort and boardwalk meals seem really cool, but we'll be using exclusively Disney transportation. Won't this end up adding another 1.5 hours of transit on top of the 1.5 hour meal?
 
"crap that's just too freaking hard with triplets"
I am a mom of 8, so I get that feeling! It is hard trying to decided more than 6 months out what your kids will or will not like. It is a slight gamble either way. I say make a choice and go with it. Going back and forth mentally for months does not make for a very fun vacation for momma.

If we go OOP, we'll likely indulge the kids and limit ourselves.
This is as good of a reason as any for the DDP for me!

There are a few character meals where the food is brought to you, like you said Garden Grill, it is served family style and so is Ohana. Part of Akershus too.
 
I'm less worried about the cost of one versus the other and more about the trip experience in either scenario. Are kids going to enjoy that 5th character meal of a trip or are they going to be done with sit down meals that take too long? If the character meals are really fun, then we do the dining plan and spend lots of time with Mickey and Minnie. Heck, maybe we drop Prime Time or Sci Fi and throw in Garden Grill, too. People can't tell my kids apart, so they'd get a kick out of meeting Chip and Dale and having that "in common" with them. I think my husband and I would prefer the time to rest at TS meals, as long as we're actually resting and not just spending the whole time trying to keep the kids entertained. I'd rather sit and nurse a dessert and a drink while characters come greet us than spend all that time in line for characters.

On the other hand, if kids end up with restaurant fatigue, I'd much rather go OOP and let them just get snacks as they get hungry rather than forcing meals. Taking kids to a restaurant when they just don't want to be there is bad enough when I didn't pay two arms and a leg for the privilege.

Unfortunately, you're the only one who can really answer the questions of restaurant fatigue and character overload. With the places you've chosen, the only overlap you have is with the princesses at Akershus and CRT, so they'll be seeing different characters at the 3 character buffets. That in itself should prevent character overload.

As to restaurant fatigue, you have to eat somewhere. So it's either a sit down in the cool air conditioning with fun antics or it's a QS. My vote is for the restaurant.
 
Unfortunately, you're the only one who can really answer the questions of restaurant fatigue and character overload. With the places you've chosen, the only overlap you have is with the princesses at Akershus and CRT, so they'll be seeing different characters at the 3 character buffets. That in itself should prevent character overload.

As to restaurant fatigue, you have to eat somewhere. So it's either a sit down in the cool air conditioning with fun antics or it's a QS. My vote is for the restaurant.

You'll be shocked to hear that, with three little girls, the princesses will be quite popular. It's going to be incredibly annoying when I want to book rides for my FP+ but have to fit in Rapunzel, Ariel, Belle, etc. So, I'm not all that worried about those particular characters overlapping.

You're right, we do have to eat somewhere. At least with TS I'm not wandering with a tray full of food searching for an empty table.
 
If it's hot it's a nice time to sit in ac, rest, recap your day and plan the rest

We have no children, but I like my ts meal midday. We are rope drop folks so either first lunch seating or around 2 are our favorite times

We often head back to our resort after, pool rest then back out pat night

If we do continue park'ing, it was a nice break to recharge

As to entertaining the kids, you just spent the day at Disney! You talk about what you did, your favorites, and then plan the rest of the day
 
OP, what week in Feb are you going? If it is around Presidents Day week you can expect longer park hours. I agree with the poster who said you probably wont make it from rope drop to closing every day for 9 days. I'm taking 3 18-23 yo's next month an I'm worried about doing that 3 days in a row! A break at your hotel in the middle of the day would go far to enjoying your evenings in the parks. You may be able to make it through the first few days without a break but weather and crowds can really suck the energy out of you. I WOULD get the ddp in your case, your family is right in that sweet spot for actually seeing some savings from it and I don't think you will leave any qs or snacks on the table. I'm sure with young kids you will do lunch on the earlier side. If you eat a big character meal at noon wont the kids need to eat dinner??? We love snacks at Disney and get them for night time shows. Our schedule is usually and early lunch, early dinner and snack at night. We sometimes use snack credits for breakfast as well. I say try the ddp this trip.
 
I'm on the fence about the meals that are outside of the parks. Some of the resort and boardwalk meals seem really cool, but we'll be using exclusively Disney transportation. Won't this end up adding another 1.5 hours of transit on top of the 1.5 hour meal?

These two aren’t bad. The contemporary is a short walk from MK or the first monorail stop. You could take the monorail there and then walk back. Trattoria is a boat ride away from either Epcot or HS. That may add about 20 min each way (or you can walk which would shorten that). But since you’re going for 9 days a little break from the parks won’t make a big difference. Plus the character interaction at breakfast at trattoria was one of our favorites. The kids do a little parade around the restaurant with the characters waving their napkins. It’s rapunzel, Flynn rider, Ariel and prince Eric. To my kids that was one of the biggest hits and we did a lot of character dining on our 9 day trip in August.
 
OP, what week in Feb are you going? If it is around Presidents Day week you can expect longer park hours. I agree with the poster who said you probably wont make it from rope drop to closing every day for 9 days. I'm taking 3 18-23 yo's next month an I'm worried about doing that 3 days in a row! A break at your hotel in the middle of the day would go far to enjoying your evenings in the parks. You may be able to make it through the first few days without a break but weather and crowds can really suck the energy out of you. I WOULD get the ddp in your case, your family is right in that sweet spot for actually seeing some savings from it and I don't think you will leave any qs or snacks on the table. I'm sure with young kids you will do lunch on the earlier side. If you eat a big character meal at noon wont the kids need to eat dinner??? We love snacks at Disney and get them for night time shows. Our schedule is usually and early lunch, early dinner and snack at night. We sometimes use snack credits for breakfast as well. I say try the ddp this trip.

Not President's day. Looking at Feb 25- Mar 5. Hopefully, it'll be a lighter week before Spring Break crowds kick in.

I'm definitely not trying for rope drop to close every day! I'm *hoping* to have one late night at each park so that the girls can see the different night shows. With 9 days, I'm trying to plan late nights not to coincide with rope drops. My only day that's planned as full is AK, but we're only doing one day there. With them being too short for FoP and EE, and too scared for Dinosaur, it's only a one-day park for us, but I want to make the most of the one day. Otherwise, it's either go early or stay late, not both. My concern about the midday break at the resort is that it just seems like so much to get everyone out of the park and onto the bus. I think, realistically, we aren't going to go back at that point because it'll be too much time and hassle. That's why we're thinking of doing 3/4 days, either early or late, rather than an out and back.

Yes, the kids will need dinner too, but we'll likely only need 3 QS to feed the five of us if we've had a big lunch. We are planning on getting snacks for night shows, but, even then, we won't need 5. Hubby and I will end up eating the remains of whatever the kids picked, as they're not generally at the point of finishing a big ice cream sandwich or pretzel. Maybe the Mickey Bars will be an order of 5 :-). We'll use the QS and snack credits if we have them, but if we were OOP, we could likely get away with having ordered fewer entrees or snacks than we will if we know we have the credits on the DDP.
 
As to entertaining the kids, you just spent the day at Disney! You talk about what you did, your favorites, and then plan the rest of the day

This is certainly our plan in general, but there's waiting for buses, waiting to get through security, waiting to get onto rides, etc, etc. There are only so many times you can rehash the same story! Adding in the time waiting to be seated, order, and have food served is just that much more downtime to fill. If we were to go the OOP route, we'd stick to QS that have mobile ordering so we could seriously cut down on the wait to eat.
 
These two aren’t bad. The contemporary is a short walk from MK or the first monorail stop. You could take the monorail there and then walk back. Trattoria is a boat ride away from either Epcot or HS. That may add about 20 min each way (or you can walk which would shorten that). But since you’re going for 9 days a little break from the parks won’t make a big difference. Plus the character interaction at breakfast at trattoria was one of our favorites. The kids do a little parade around the restaurant with the characters waving their napkins. It’s rapunzel, Flynn rider, Ariel and prince Eric. To my kids that was one of the biggest hits and we did a lot of character dining on our 9 day trip in August.

Ariel is one of my girls' favorite, Rapunzel is another, so that is definitely a big sell. That character meal is breakfast only, right? We were generally looking to avoid sit down breakfast, as the morning is when they're going to have the most willingness/energy to bang through more rides before they start to get tired. But, that's a really good character set for us. Hmmmm...
 

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