Disney meal plan question

[kfeusse]

WE are going to Disney during the time where they are offering the meal plan (one snack, one quick serve and one sit down for each night that we are staying)...so that obviously in 2 out of the 3 meals that are typically eaten each day, so what does one do for meal #3.

[Dmmetler]

We usually just keep granola bars and the like in the room. Or, schedule your full-serve meal as a brunch before you enter the parks that day (this especially works well for Character breakfasts).

[4kiddies]

WE are going to Disney during the time where they are offering the meal plan (one snack, one quick serve and one sit down for each night that we are staying)...so that obviously in 2 out of the 3 meals that are typically eaten each day, so what does one do for meal #3.

 

May I ask when you are going? And when you say they are offering a meal plan do you mean Free dining? I'm trying to plan something for this November/December.

 

Thanks!

[Farrar]

That turned out to be a huge amount of food for us. A bite of cereal and some fruit in our room in the morning was plenty to supplement it.

[AnIslandGirl]

If you're booking during the "Free Dining" promotion, you can always pay the difference to upgrade to the Deluxe Dining Plan. We always purchase the Deluxe plan, as it offers 3 sit down meals a day. We don't go back to the hotel for breaks, so the sit down meals are our way to recharge, and force us to sit down to take an air-conditioned break.

 

We have friends who are light breakfast eaters and they bring a box of breakfast bars or something similar for a quick grab and go breakfast. You could also use your snack credit for a breakfast type item (cinnamon roll, croissant, cup of yogurt, etc.).

 

Have fun!

[Jan in SC]

You can use your snack credit for a breakfast item, or you can buy breakfasty food from the store in your hotel and keep it in your room. You can also just buy breakfast from any restaurant.

[Lily_Grace]

We used ours for breakfast, but we're light morning eaters. We'd get yogurt parfaits or fruit or the like, and that would hold us over until lunch. But next time around we'll get the meal plan if it's free, upgrade to the regular meal plan, and build in an extra food budget. Otherwise we've figured it's cheaper for us to eat without it and we'll forgo the plan to buy each day.

[dhudson]

We shared for the quick service meals and just bought whatever we thought was the largest. We had more than enough food. We would buy 3 quick service meals for the 5 of us and used the snack to supplement.

[AngieC]

We just got home from Disney yesterday. We bought the individual boxes of cereal along with a couple of plastic bowls and spoons with us in our luggage and then bought 1/2 gallon of milk from the dining area. We also bought a box of snacks to put in a plastic baggy that I kept in my purse in case kids got hungry before lunch. We always ended up eating an early lunch and then a mid-afternoon snack of ice cream with the snack credit and then dinner at the regular time. It worked out perfectly and we still ended up having too much food.

[rjand6more]

We fly and pack granola bars, cereal bars, non-refrigerated OJ in bottles and check the bag. The last trip, we ordered from wegoshop.com. It was a great experience. We ordered a case of water bottles, a gallon of milk, instant oatmeal, cereal boxes, granola bars, etc. It was in our room when we got there. I would definitely do that again. Saved a lot of room in our baggage.

 

Really, the regular dining plan has so much food!! We are never hungry. I carry granola bars for the kids just in case, but we rarely even eat them at the parks.

 

We always eat breakfast at Hollywood Studios on snack credits. The Cinnamon Rolls at Starring Rolls are so yummy!

 

We always have a bunch of extra snack credits, because we often share and never use snack credits for drinks.(Always water bottles). You also can get free water at counter service restaurants. My kids are allowed to have soda(if they want) once a day while at Disney. Our rule is milk one meal. By the middle of the trip, they are sick of pop, so they opt for something else.

 

In EPCOT, Boulangerie Patisserie in France has a lot of yummy sweets to choose from. Another of our favs, however Worldshowcase does not open until 11:00, so that would be a really late breakfast...

[abbeyej]

Well, for one thing, you don't have to use all of your counter service meals at once. We find that often times there's enough food in a single counter service meal to feed two people (or provide a snack for four). So we can spend 1-2 counter service credits for breakfast, and that will be enough food for all of us to get going in the morning. Most of the hotels have a "bountiful breakfast" or some similar name that will give you a little of just about everything and either a large coffee or a large bottle of juice or milk. Two of those is usually more food than our family of four needs. While in the parks, some of the meal options are quite large (Cosmic Rays in MK will give you ribs, half a small chicken, two veggie sides, a dessert, and a water bottle for a single meal credit -- I believe Flame Tree at AK is similar), so again, you can get away with a couple of meals serving a whole family. Sometimes we find we haven't used all of our counter service credits and will spend one for a "snack" for the family to share, like a flat bread, salad, dessert, and drink. Everyone gets a small pieces of pizza and we share a bottle of water water.

 

While I tend to budget our counter service and snack credits careful, it probably isn't that necessary -- we always end up with extra credits to spend on the last day.

[Jeannie in NJ]

when we used the free dining, dd and I split all our meals (had plenty to eat) so we were only using 1 credit for the 2 of us. In fact, the day we were leaving we had 7 quick meal credits left over. We were eating at Sunshine Seasons in Epcot. Since I will talk to anyone, I was chatting with the cashier and told him this was our last meal at Disney. He saw that we had 7 meal credits left so he called someone else over to cashier and he went and made us up a large package of 7 huge turkey sandwiches, 7 brownies and 7 bottles of water for us to take to the airport. Our flight was canceled for hours that night and all food places (there were no vending machines at the airport) were closed so we really were happy for all that food.

 

Also no matter how late you may arrive your first day nor how early you may leave your last day, you still receive full credits for those days.

[kokotg]

yes to breakfast in the room (we didn't want to waste prime low-crowd touring time eating breakfast out anyway). Either stuff we brought from home, or last time we used snack credits at Babycakes and bought stuff for the next day.

[besroma]

We plan to save up some of our snack credits for the Food and Wine Festival in Epcot. We have a TS ressie for lunch, but we plan to use our snack credits at the kiosks for our dinner that evening.

 

We also will have leftover CS credits at lunch because we will share (for example, portions at Cosmic Ray's are very generous). We will use the extra credits some mornings for breakfast.

 

We will also eat cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, or oatmeal in our rooms some mornings.

 

Enjoy!

[abbeyej]

Also no matter how late you may arrive your first day nor how early you may leave your last day, you still receive full credits for those days.

 

Just a minor correction: you get full credits equal to the number of nights you're in a hotel. If you're in a hotel for four nights, you get four sets of meals/snacks (depending on the plan you have), regardless of how many *days* you spend in the parks.