I posted this on twitter too and the consensus seems to be yes but my family of four is staying at Universal and hitting Disney as well in November for 6 days. Should we get a meal plan or just wing it?
Quick Disney/Universal Question...
- Thread starter kelleynole#1
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Wing it for value at Disney. The meal plan is fine if you want to pre pay I guess but you can save a metric crap ton by just going and paying as you want to eat unless you have a family of massive eaters. There are tons of great venues and you won't spend near as much as you would have on the meal plan.
Universal... haven't been in years.
Universal... haven't been in years.
Wing it at Disney. Meal plan didn't seem like a good value to us and we structured our meals at times between Fast Passes so we weren't going for the sit downs very much. If you do choose to do sit down meals, I would suggest booking a time well in advance. The My Disney Experience app is great for booking Fast Passes and meal times.
I take it you haven't been to Universal in the past decade. The food especially at CityWalk is actually very, VERY good. There's some older, still bad but not ordinary Disney park bad, fast food in the two main parks but the newer Harry Potter themed food is very good and everything in CityWalk excluding Moes, Bubba Gump Shrimp, Hard Rock, Margaritaville and Burger King is excellent. Vivo is a five star Italian restaurant for a three star price and is a great value. Antojitos is one of the best Mexican restaurants in Florida if not THE best. Cowfish is a bizarre but excellent fusion of burgers, sushi and burgushi. Red Oven is a great little pizza place. Toothsomes Chocolate Emporium and Savory Kitchen not only has amazing desserts but really good fusion cuisine. Bob Marleys is some well above average Jamaican with truly great yucca fries. The NBC Sports Bar and Grill isn't anything absolutely amazing but is a good version of the classic American sports pub, certainly better than BW3, Chilis, Fridays, Crapplebees etc...
So to the OP, I would definitely say skip the dining plan. If you let me know what your family likes I can not only rec the restaurants but individual dishes as I go to Universal about a dozen times a year (mainly for Mardi Gras and other concert events, Grinchmas, Halloween Horror Nights, Harry Potter Fest and a couple of random days).
Once you're able to (I think you have to be 90 days out from your reservation...or perhaps 60 days out) reserve a table at Ohana. It's at Disney's Polynesian resort Great atmosphere. Excellent Hawaiian/Churrascuria restaurant with a great view of Magic Kingdom, a musician walking around playing the ukulele, and games for younger kids to play.
Super hard table to get though. You pretty much have to do it the exact day that you're 60 or 90 days out.
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/polynesian-resort/ohana/
Thanks a lot guys, my kids are 12 and 9 and are your average American suburban kids, they like burgers, chicken fingers, subs, pasta, pizza but they do like Chinese and Mexcian too so we have options.
I've had both Chinese and Mexican in my day, no complaints here.
I believe the last time I went was about four years ago. I've been to Disney multiple times within the last few years. I was speaking more to the food inside the parks which is just unbearable to me. Although the Epcot Food and Wine or Garden Festivals were an exception in my eyes. As far as City Walk or a place like Disney Springs, I have never had a great meal there. Definitely some decent food on the borderline of good at some places. Although I have not been to to places in City Walk that you mentioned. I'd like to try out the Italian and Mexican places you mentioned.
There is some good food inside Islands of Adventure at Mythos. I absolutely love eating in that restaurant.
Most of the fast-food type places is terrible however at all the parks. The only fast food place I like is in the Land at Epcot. There's a chinese area there that is fantastic.
When you go to Vivo get either the squid ink and seafood pasta or the lamb ragout, both are amazingly good.
I'd probably go with the lamb. To much squid ink pasta in my life as is.
Go to Morimoto, sit at sushi bar. Tell chef to make you whatever. Great meal.
As far as in the parks, some good things are around. Have to look around. Found a fried green tomato sandwich at a place in Hollywood studios. Great.
Op, we're a family of 5(only paying for 4 as one child is a 10 month old), and have been doing the Disney thing for the last 3 years. When it comes to the meal plan I think you need to decide how much you will be eating and then decide from there if it's worth it.
We always do sit down dinners and our kids are always wanting snacks so for us the meal plan has made since. Our first couple of trips we spent a fortune on food but since we've been using the meal plan it's been much better.
We've never been on any schedule with our plan like some of stated other than setting up reservations for sit down dinners. We only set reservations so we can avoid wait lines and we're not regulated to do so.
Hope that helps.
We always do sit down dinners and our kids are always wanting snacks so for us the meal plan has made since. Our first couple of trips we spent a fortune on food but since we've been using the meal plan it's been much better.
We've never been on any schedule with our plan like some of stated other than setting up reservations for sit down dinners. We only set reservations so we can avoid wait lines and we're not regulated to do so.
Hope that helps.
My bar for sushi is pretty high. Embarrassingly and snotty high actually. I would think Morimoto has some of the finest but I've never been. I find that the more restaurants these guys open, it's hard to control the quality that they strive for all the time. It's just a shame that you need to search every nook and cranny to find a edible meal in these parks.
Mine is high as well, it fits the bill. You have to let the chef just make whatever he wants, nothing off the menu. Those are always my favorite meals. Favorite was at Matsuhisa by Nobu in Vail. Dude made amazing stuff. Agree that park food needs a pick up.
We went to Disney about 8-9 years ago at the height of the recession when they were hurting. We got a killer deal - seven nights at Coronado Springs, all-park access (including the water parks and DisneyQuest) and the meal plan - for under $3K.
The meal plan included one casual meal, one sit-down meal and snacks. I will say it was nice to sit down and be waited on each night after trudging around the parks all day. We probably wouldn't have done it if not for the meal plan.
The meal plan included one casual meal, one sit-down meal and snacks. I will say it was nice to sit down and be waited on each night after trudging around the parks all day. We probably wouldn't have done it if not for the meal plan.
I would be getting the meal plan for the places at Universal like the CityWalk, not Disney. Thanks for the feedback!
http://www.distripplanner.com/
Use the link above to calculate out the costs of doing it on your own vs the dining plan. For my family, doing it on our own always seems to come out cheaper.
In regards to food quality, quick service tends to be nothing special. I find signature dining, non-character dining to be pretty good. Tiffin's at Animal Kingdom, Narcoosee at Grand Floridian, Yachtsman Steakhouse at Yacht Club, Le Cellier at Epcot have all been wonderful. Even Liberty Tree Inn at Magic Kingdom, for all-you-care-to-eat has a decent dinner. Haven't been overly impressed with anything at Hollywood Studios.
Use the link above to calculate out the costs of doing it on your own vs the dining plan. For my family, doing it on our own always seems to come out cheaper.
In regards to food quality, quick service tends to be nothing special. I find signature dining, non-character dining to be pretty good. Tiffin's at Animal Kingdom, Narcoosee at Grand Floridian, Yachtsman Steakhouse at Yacht Club, Le Cellier at Epcot have all been wonderful. Even Liberty Tree Inn at Magic Kingdom, for all-you-care-to-eat has a decent dinner. Haven't been overly impressed with anything at Hollywood Studios.
I was able to go to Vivo and Antojitos.
Got the squid ink pasta at Vivo and it was awesome. Also had the Mussles appetizer that was good.
Unfortunately at Antojitos we had bad service and I had the mole enchiladas which were pretty good as was the tableside guac. But other things my family got there were alright. Of course the bad service didn't help any either.
Sorry to hear about Antojitos. I’ve always had good food and service there but it only takes one bad employee to ruin a dinner.
Not your fault. I appreciate the recommendations.
We also went to Volcano bay on Friday and it was not very busy at all. We had pretty much no wait on any of the rides. It was cloudy but it never rained and it wasn't super cold plus all the water there was warmed even the water on the rides, so a few times we got cold when we got out of the water or off the rides. It was really empty when we first entered since we took advantage of the hour early entry which was really a 90 minute early entry.
I’m looking forward to Volcano Bay, it looks awesome from afar. But we’re probably going to wait until whenever there’s the first good warm weekend in Jan or Feb. We are going to Universal over the Thanksgiving weekend and “fight the crowd” but it’s just to do the various holiday stuff (Grinchmas live play which is now a tradition in our family, plus the new Harry Potter holiday stuff they’re adding) as we don’t need to ride any rides or do the stuff nonAP holders have to see and do to get a value out of it. The great thing about the AP pass in my book beyond all of the great “free concerts” that pop up especially around Mardi Gras is that you can pop in ride a ride or three, grab some food and leave feeling perfectly happy and stressfree rather than have to worry about hitting it all (which of course I DO have to do at other theme parks we stop at when traveling).
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I have done volcano bay and it really is amazing. Too bad it is built right by the highway. They do a great job of making it seem like you are in a different position but once you climb up rides you see the cars roaring by. Hopefully they work out the capacity and queue system because their slides are amazing. We are annual pass holders for universal but will be ending that this year. We have been for 5 years now and it is just time to try something different. Not going to be annual pass holders of Disney but will likely go when the Florida rate sales kick in for a change of scenery. My son being almost 12 and he has some all Universal has to offer at this time.
If it wasn't cloudy and the sun had shined through it would have been better. I was definitely expecting it to be busier though. But I think many of the schools in the areas may have still had school which was part of the reason I chose Friday instead of Saturday. My kids had Friday off. I still figured it would be busier due to it still being new and my brother had gone shortly after they opened granted it was peak season but he said they stopped letting people in as it had gotten to capacity. And one of the rides had a 3 hour wait and many of the others over an hour wait. We didn't have to use it but the Tapu (wristband) technology they use to let you wait in a virtual line seemed like a good idea if they were busy that is. It ended up being a non factor for us as all the rides were pretty much at a Ride Now status with maybe at most 4 people in front of you once you got to the top of the ride.
You should have went this past Friday. It felt like we had the park to ourselves. No capacity and no queue issues. I feel spoiled after hearing about your and my brother's experience. I did also get a Cabana which was nice since I had 3 kids with me as a spot to relax when needed with some privacy and meeting point plus a safe to put our valuables in and towel service.
See for me, the AP is just such a great deal I can’t pass it up. It’s not the “must ride all rides” 500x that bring me back, it’s the concerts during Mardi Gras (we usually hit up between 3-6 each year depending on the lineup), coming back for HHN once, stopping off for the Grinchmas and other Holiday events at least once, etc that makes the AP a must for me. The Preferred AP that I have renews at basically a cost of a little under 2.5 visits if you pay for parking like a commoner. And with Universal releasing at least one major ride every year I’d probably be back once a year just to ride the new ride/s so that’s one visit every year I would do. My whole family including BILS and SILS other than one poorer offshoot that is antisocial regardless of finances make it a point to catch the live performance of Grinchmas together so that’s two mandatory visits. So with HHN and a MUCH better concert lineup than Disney that extra half day is EASILY exceeded.
You definitely lucked out! From what I see in the Universal Forums it’s still selling out most weekends even now.
I highly recommend sit down reservations at Disney. It is so much more pleasant to have a reservation at sit down restaurant than fighting the crowds at fast food places.
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