Family Dining Plans

[bird]

My husband and I have our 1st Disney trip planned for May 11th-15th at the Polynesian Resort with our two sons DS5, and DS3. Right now I have our dinner reservations for Boma the first night, Coral Reef the second night, and California Grill the third night. I need to pick two additional resturants.What other resturant would you recomend?? We decided to go wtih the basic Disney Dining plan and pay out of pocket for our breakfast. What are the best times for dinner? I chose 5:00-5:30!

Thanks,
Yolanda
VA

[vamaggie]

We try for the 5:30ish dinner times( he have 2 kids: 10 & 4). We also like Whispering Canyon Cafe, Chef Mickey & Kona Cafe. If you decide to use a TS for breakfast, I would recommend the Play & Dine at Hollywood & Vine (at the Studios) We had a great time in Nov and the characters interacted great (even with DS10 who really was only there for his little sis!). Get an early time (like 8:15am) and you get to walk the streets whilethey are empty and get some great pictures.

[magicofdisney]

I highly recommend 'Ohana for dinner. The food is fantastic. There are no characters, but they do provide entertainment for the kids. Since you're already at the Poly, the walk home will be short. :mickey:

[TFrauts]

We were there in August for our Honeymoon!! We LOVED 50's prime time cafe!! It is hularious!! Make sure you request a "tv table"!!

[FromKnoxvilleto Disney]

Kona Cafe and Ohana's inside the Poly are both fantastic. If you go to Epcot, Lecellier is a wonderful meal all around.

[MissStyles]

Kona's nice and laid back...and right at your hotel. You might need something like that on one of your night's. Another suggestion is Mexico for dinner. The atmosphere is lovely! You made some nice choices otherwise. :mickey:

[TinkiTime1989]

Your first 3 choices are more "grown up" meals. How about a character meal or two for your sons? The Garden Grill at EPCOT has always been a good meal for us with great interaction from Farmer Mickey, Pluto, Chip, and Dale. Crystal Palace at MK is a buffet with Winnie the Pooh and friends. We also like the Liberty Tree Tavern at MK. Their dinner is traditional thanksgiving style with Colonial Minnie and friends.

[Jared]

I wouldn't even leave the resort for your next two dinners! Kona Cafe and 'Ohana are probably my two favorite restaurants in Walt Disney World, and they are right in the Polynesian. My family makes sure to eat at both every trip no matter where we're staying.

'Ohana serves a delicious family style dinner specializing in skewered meats. Kona Cafe is a traditional table service eatery with wonderful appetizers and exquisite dessert freshly made each day.

:tasty:

[wendy*darling]

You will totally love your resort and your vacation!
The dinners you have chosen so far are excellent.
I would definitely add a character meal- Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary, Liberty Tree Tavern or Crystal Palace at MK or Garden Grill at Epcot are all fun and have good food.
Although not a character meal, I also think you would enjoy 50's Prime Time Cafe at the Studios if you will be there during meal time. Lots of fun for the whole family.

I do have to ask though.... you say you are staying May 11-15. That appears to be 4 nights. Which means you will get 4 TS (table service) credits per person for your trip. If you are actually staying on the night of the 15th (and leaving on the 16th), then you get 5 TS credits.
Boma and Coral Reef each "cost" 1TS credit. But California Grill is a Signature Dining restaurant and will "cost" 2TS credits per person to dine.
If you are staying 5 nights- you have already used 4 TS credits on these 3 meals.

You may need to be ready to pay out of pocket for one dinner. I would suggest a character meal for that, as they are typically the least expensive.

[jenfriend]

I think your children would really enjoy the Whispering Canyon. It's not a character meal, but they have lively entertainment in pony rides (wooden) and fun servers.

Ohanas for breakfast was great food, characters, service.

Hollywood & Vine Character Breakfast or Lunch is great esp. if your sons are into JoJos Circus or Little Einsteins.

Crystal Palace in MK is great if your sons are into Winnie the Pooh.

Our favorite CS meals:
Epcot: Electric Umbrella, Mexico's CS
MK: Pecos Bills, Casey's
DHS: ABC Commissary

[bird]

Please help me with this Linda, we are staying 4 nights and 3 days meaning we are checking out on the 15th. Do I have any more table credits left? Here is our dinner schedule.
Sunday-Boma
Mon-Coral Reef
Tue-California Grill(I thought I could take our qs meal and table service meal and make 2pts??)
Wed-open(thinking about Ohana)
Thurs-check out(flight depart at 8:00)can we use a quick service and snack meal on this day???

We aslo plan to either use our snack credit for breakfast or pay out of pocket for breakfast plan to do a character meal for the kids!

Yolanda

[VRod RS]

If you are staying 4 nights.. you have 4 TS credits/person, 4 QS and 4 Snacks..

I am pretty sure that California Grill will take two of the TS credits so with your other two TS meals you have used those up. I don't think they let you use 1 TS + 1 QS to make the two credits for the signature dining.

One place we found that is good for using snacks for breakfast is at the Seasons in The Land Epcot. They have a good selection and we used some snack credits for a breakfast there..

Your DDP credits are good until midnight of the day you check out and are good as soon as you pick it up when you check in on the day you arrive.

[TheMartellFamily]

O'Hanas is the best for supper. this has a great atmophere along with kids games. They give the kids what they like if you just let the server know. Another one that is great for kids and it is a buffet is Chef Mickeys located at Contemporary. This is a buffet the main characters being Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Chip and Dale. This is great since they come to the table. They have a great offering of choices to choose from. We like these two restaurants alot and feel they are great for the kids.

[wendy*darling]

Please help me with this Linda, we are staying 4 nights and 3 days meaning we are checking out on the 15th. Do I have any more table credits left? Here is our dinner schedule.
I'll walk you through it below.
For a 4 night stay, you will receive 4 TS, 4CS and 4 Snack credits per person.

Sunday-Boma
That's one TS credit per person (3 left)

Mon-Coral Reef
That's one more TS credit (2 left)

Tue-California Grill(I thought I could take our qs meal and table service meal and make 2pts??)
That's 2 more TS credits per person for this meal. Now you have used all of your TS credits. You cannot use a TS and CS together to make 2 TS.
CS credits are only good at quick service/counter service places. Not at any place where you are attended by a server or order from a menu or buffet.

Wed-open(thinking about Ohana)
This would be out of pocket.

Thurs-check out(flight depart at 8:00)can we use a quick service and snack meal on this day???
We aslo plan to either use our snack credit for breakfast or pay out of pocket for breakfast plan to do a character meal for the kids!

You have 4 CS credits to use for lunches or breakfasts as you wish. Plus the 4 snack credits.

Remember that the DDP is not designed to provide 3 big meals a day. It's great for families who like a light breakfast, a quick, but filling lunch and their big meal of the day at dinner.

As someone already suggested, a good way to use some of your snacks is at breakfast- for pastry items or fruit, etc. You can supplement out of pocket for whatever else you need. If you bring individual cereal boxes or pop tarts, etc and eat a light breakfast in your room as you get dressed in the morning- you can save your snack credits for true snacks later in the day.

The CS credits are best used at lunch (in my opinion). You can get a combo meal, drink and dessert- that's a lot of food!

And the TS credits take care of a sit down dinner for each night of your stay- unless you dine at a Signature restaurant one night (which uses up 2 TS credits).

We like the DDP, but we tend to eat more TS meals than the plan allows. So we know we will be spending money out of pocket for a character breakfast or 2, and maybe an extra TS if we do a Signature meal one night. We think it's still a good deal, and a nice way to prepay for a good chunk of our food on our trip.

Hope you like it too! :mickey:

[irish1967]

Personally, I think I would swap your California Grill ADR for two other restaurants. Not minimizing what California Grill has to offer, but I think a lot of its appeal is adult oriented. There are a lot of restaurants at WDW that are very appealing to children.

According to my quick look - the entrees at California Grill are between $19.75 and $29.50

The entrees at Kona Cafe are between $16.49 and $21.99

The difference in the prices wouldn't be enough for me to justify the cost of the additional TS credit.

Good luck and enjoy your visit!

[bird]

Thanks Linda and everyone else for your help, this is what I've done: I swapped California Grill for Chef Mickey's character dinner and Kona. So here are our dinner plans:
Sun-Boma
Mon-Coral Reef
Tues-Chef Mickey's Character Dinner
Wed-Kona Cafe
Thurs-check out(plane leave at 8:30pm) maybe we can go to Downtown Disney shop and see the lego shop!

If I'm reading everything correctly on Thurs we can use a counter service pp and a snack to end our trip

[wendy*darling]

If I'm reading everything correctly on Thurs we can use a counter service pp and a snack to end our trip
You are quite welcome!

Your new plan sounds wonderful! :thumbsup:
And yes, you can use any of your credits on any of the days. So as long as you have a CS and Snack left on Thursday- you can use them that day before you leave.

Have a great time! :mickey: