Disney World – Planning Food
I can’t wait because in 24 days, I will be at Disney World (not that I’m counting)!! So how do we plan our Disney World trips? In June, I did a blog about Disney planning for dates, hotels and park tickets so you can look back at that. But in this post, I want to talk about planning for meals and over the next few weeks I will talk about other planning.
Why meals specifically? It’s pretty simple – unless you want to exist on popcorn, quick serve burgers, tiger tails and all the other snack food that is readily available throughout the entire park, literally every few feet, you need to make plans. Now some people might think that we are a little too food oriented (like my nephew – but who wants to listen to a physically fit teenager,) and that’s ok. When you visit the parks as much as we do – you learn what you like and don’t. And besides who wants to live on junk food, and wouldn’t you rather sit down in air conditioned comfort after hours and thousands of steps? And as Disney adults we know where the good stuff is. Who wouldn’t want to experience wine in Italy, cerveza in Mexico, ice cream sundaes on Main Street, a steakhouse with a view of the Magic Kingdom, a restaurant in space or dinner in a castle with princesses?
The first thing in this process is to make sure you have the Disney World app on your phone; this is an absolute MUST to navigate your plans (and pretty much everything else related to your trip.) And make sure to connect your family (and friends) together to make it easier to reserve everything that you need while you are in the parks.
So as far as food is concerned, Disney does have a dining plan option that you can buy. (Disney Dining Plan | Walt Disney World Resort) We never buy the dining plan because even though you get one quick-service meal, 1 table-service meal, 1 snack and 1 refillable mug per night of stay, the cost of about $100 per person for adults and over $30 for a child 9 and under seems like a lot. However, this is something you might want to explore further (and they also have a dining option that is completely quick-service restaurants.) This just doesn’t fit our way of doing the parks. But it might be a great option for first timers, because you will find the cost of food in the parks adds up quickly. It still doesn’t guarantee you a reservation – so the rest of this still applies.
We like to eat at restaurants with table service and at the more upscale eateries as well (including the most luxurious and expensive restaurant in Disney World – Victoria and Alberts – but that is a discussion for another post.) We always book the restaurants that we want to eat at right at the 60 day mark before our trip – this is the earliest you can book any of them for trip, and that is the best way to guarantee a reservation at some of your favorites and those aren’t even always guaranteed. The most popular or newest locations book up insanely fast. In addition, on the Disney World app you can see all the restaurants by location along with the menus. One other note is that if you want to just do a quick service restaurant for a meal, use the online order option on the app. This makes it way easier to order and just pick up versus waiting in a long line! I should also mention that all of this applies to ANY Disney park trip – the restaurants are different, but the process is the same, 60 days out.
We have actually made this process a fun part of our trip planning. And even with as many days a year as we spend in Disney Parks (typically 20 to 30,) we are still finding new places to eat. Next time we will look at some of the places we like to eat.
