Hi we are staying in WDW for 14 nights with a 10 year old and a 2 year old and are considering taking the plan.

Is it worth taking it as we have no hire car and can you buy it there?????

HI have just booked flights and car hire for next April and am booking hotel direct with Disney - very good savings to be made about £1000 compared with a package! Not sure which hotel we will stay at was looking at either Port Orleans/ Caribbean resort both the same price, but reading reviews think one of the All-Star resorts might be better for the kids (four and eight) anyone got any recommendations.

BAck to the topic! Thinking of the dining plan but just need to clarify - can you eat at any of the resort restaurants or is it just the one you are staying in? Also I assume you can use your plan to book lots of character experience( provided you book early enough).

How is it to drive out for food I realise this undoubtedly cheaper but can imagine parking must be a problem (or is that just England!!). Is it practical to go out for breakfast and if you are going to use the extra magic hours how are the breakfast places open early enough on site to take advantage of teh dining plan.

First time to Disney and want to make it superb for th children so you might see me pop up a lot
THanks
Julie

Going on the Disney Dining plan, was planning to book up some key meals next week (mainly the character meals), as for the other restuarants how easy/difficult are the table service ones to get in "on the spur of the moment"... It would be nice to have some spontanious decisions left rather than planning every single day to the last carrot !

Going End July, start of August.

Bad form to respond to your own post, but here's my experience of the dining plan.

1. Definately book your "table serve" restaurants before you go, especially the more expensive ones. Coral Reef, Chefs de France, Le Cellier are examples of popular ones.

2. Book your character meals in advance.

3. Book the corresponding meal in the days when the parks have the extra magic hours. You can eat and then have extra time in the park whilst not feeling hungry and work off those American sized portions.

4. Only use the expensive table serve resturants for table service credits. Cheap table serves like the Plaza you won't get value from. For example a meal at the plaza for two kids and two adults came to just over $50 chargeable to DDP. Thats £25. As you pay £60 a day for this family, $120 of spend, you won't get you monies worth BUT chefs de france, we had a $100 spend on DDP. Breakfast (table serve) comes to $30ish tops and snacks to $20ish tops. Menus are online on various sites including pricing.

5. If you are not sure which you want to eat, because you have a choice of a few, pick the most expensive! (file this under Grandmother and Suck Eggs).

6. Always order the full compliment of courses, you can spread them around if necessary (staff don't seem to mind).

7. Breakfast Cerials with a serving of Milk are a snack, so if you have fussy kids remember this. Also it seems as if Snacks and Buffet meals are lumped together, so there is no recognition of adult and child. BUT you need to go up with the kids for their stuff and then back for the adult stuff as the servers are "obliged to recognise when its a kids meal or not", but if there are no kids present they don't know (and play the game with you).

8. Buy the mugs and take them to all your hotel meals. They work if you use them for Brekafast and refill them for either a trip or later at night in your room.

9. You get a GOOD entitlement of drinks with meals. Two bottles with counter service breakfasts, which means you can take these with you for the parks and use the mugs for the drinks (like cofee and tea) with food. Trust me you'll want to buy LOTS of drinks in the parks, but if you have DDP and Mugs, you shouldn't need to.

10. Always ask what you can have on DDP. It gets repetative but they will tell you anyway, so get that over with first!

thanks for all that info,going in 6 weeks and got free dining plan.lots of adrs booked,coral reef,le cellier etc. cant wait. mo.

Hi, I'm staying in the Disney Caribbean Beach Resort in September and have got the free Dining Plan. Can anyone recommend restaurants that we should go to? We are not hiring a car so are limited on destinations I suppose.

Any other tips gratefully accepted.

Thank you
Pauline

Another tip especially in response to the above poster, you can book you restaurants (bookings are call ADRs - Advanced Dining Reservations, 180 days before you arrive. If staying at a Disney Hotel, 190 days. You need to book bang on your first day if you want to get into Cinderellas Palace and some of the other popular restaurants.

To some people who like "spur of the moment" this may seem stupid, but trust me, the character meals get booked up way in advance, and then you have to settle for the lottery of cancellations.

We have free dining this year, like the above poster and I have booked all my restaurants already.

I recommend putting a plan together using a spreadsheet, so that when you phone up the ADR people in the US you are prepared to go through your needs one by one but pretty swift or you'll spend a few tens of pounds in phone calls!

My recommends (if you have 14 nights and two non-teen kids) are:

Epcot: Coral Reef, Chefs De France (during EMH for Epcot to coincide with the Fireworks), Ankershus (Princesses)
MK: Crystal Palace (with Pooh), Liberty Tree Tavern (with Goofy), Cinderellas Castle (Lunch)
MGM: Mama Melrose, Hollywood and Vine (Playhouse Disney)

After that check out the menus on the internet and pick from that. The only "bad" restaurant we ate at was the Plaza in MK, wasn't worth it.

And you can eat at some of the other hotels main table serve restaurants. I'd recommend Spoodles at the Broadwalk in the Evening, just because its a lovely place to take some pictures after your meal and have a walk. We have done this once last year, so not again this year, we're doing Aloha at the Polynesian.

And I'd have your last Table Serve meal in your hotels restaurant if I were you, it makes packing etc easier. But then thats your choice!

Remember the DDP is now Entree and Desert only, plus you have to pay a tip. However that is MORE than enough food.