Help Please With Free Dining

[steamboat willy]

We are newbees to any dining plan.:confused:
We are planning on our September 11th trip with the Free Dining.
What is included? Snacks, Counter Service and a Setdown Meal? Can we use two meals for Ohana?
What do you do to stretch out your dining plan.
It will just be DW and myself for our 25th Anniversary at the World. Can't wait!:thumbsup:

[KatMark]

We are newbees to any dining plan.:confused:
We are planning on our September 11th trip with the Free Dining.
What is included? Snacks, Counter Service and a Setdown Meal? Can we use two meals for Ohana?
What do you do to stretch out your dining plan.
It will just be DW and myself for our 25th Anniversary at the World. Can't wait!:thumbsup:

If you are getting the regular dining plan, it is one snack, one counter service and one sit down meal per person for each night of your stay. Ohanas is only one credit per person--not two.

Congratulations on your 25th wedding anniversary. DH and I celebrated ours at the Coronado Springs this past September and had no desire to go anywhere else for this special anniversary.

[tjstrike]

You can eat at a single place multiple times as long as you can get ADR's. Being your first time, I would try several different places to find out which ones you like the best. If you read the threads and polls most of the best dining is found at the resorts or Epcot.

[steamboat willy]

Not new to Walt Disney World or its food at all, we are way old friends with 10 x many visits since 1972. But First time on any Dining Plan. Since it is offered for FREE, we just need suggestions on how to best use. We usually get up and go to ASM Food Court for a lite breakfast, then off to a Park where we catch lunch after 1:00 and back to the resort for a :swim: in afternoon. Then hop back or to another park for evening and of course another meal. We also enjoy visiting all the resorts as well as the countries in Epcot. Just open and really enjoy reading YOUR suggestions and opinons. Don't we all!:cool:

[ledudes]

We usually eat a light breakfast at our food court that we pay for, then we use our counter service for lunch and have a nice sit down dinner. We tend to save our snacks when the Food and Wine festival is going on because we like to use them at the different booths there. Keep in mind the snack item is usually most things under $4.00 so rather than just buying a water with it, try to use it for a pricier item to get the most bang for your buck. If we have any left over snacks at the end of our trip, we go to the candy store and buy fudge cause it counts as a snack and it almost $4.00 a piece. Remember it doesn't matter what days you use your credits. You get one of each per night of your stay, but that doesn't mean you have to use one of each per day. We usually save a counter service for our last day. As far as restaurants, we love Le Cellier and Boma! Kona Cafe is great food too, especially the almond chicken.

[BelleLovesTheBeast]

Before we started doing the DxDDP we would use our snack credit for breakfast (on either fruit or pastry). Then use our CS for lunch and use the TS for dinner. If we wanted to dine at one of the signature restaurants we would POP for one of the buffets since they are usually the cheapest meals.

Another way to make it stretch is if you dine at Cosmic Rays which has a chicken and ribs combo ($13.99) you can split it because it's such a big meal and give yourself an extra CS meal somewhere else. There are a few CS locations like this. We've found that to be an excellent way to make the DDP go further. Especially good if you will be in the parks for a day more than the number of nights.

We never use snack credits for drinks. We save them for food items that cost around $4.

Congratulaions on your 25th anniversary!

[hlkeck]

I agree wholeheartedly with Belle. We are not small eaters and find plenty of meals that we can share on 1 CS and then use the left over CS to share a breakfast. You can generally find snack items for breakfast as well. I think they closed this loophole - but we were able to get boxes of donuts and poptarts from our resort gift shop for 1 snack credit in sept '07. don't know if you can still do that. But even though you think you won't have enough food - I am always soooo full on the dp that I truly say 100x a trip -- is it really time to eat again? If you pick the right CS meals, you will go a long way with that dining plan!

[nicster]

DH & I have used the dining plan a couple of times now & we LOVE IT! The only down side is being obligated to the ADR (which is very necessary if you want to eat at a nice place for the counter service). The suggestions already given are great to stretch your meals, I would like to add that you can get Hoopty Doo Revue for double credits (well worth it) or the Luau (we will do both this time). Enjoy your anniversary!

[steamboat willy]

DH & I have used the dining plan a couple of times now & we LOVE IT! The only down side is being obligated to the ADR (which is very necessary if you want to eat at a nice place for the counter service). !


What do you consider a nice place for the counter service? :confused:
Keep those suggestions coming. We are in the excited mode right now. Know what I mean? :thumbsup:

[nicster]

Opps! I wrote counter service & I meant to write table service. Our faves are Le Cellier & Mama Melrose, but you probably have your own. Sorry about the confusion.

[steamboat willy]

Thanks for the quick reply. Your setting in California and We're over here in NC talking about Disney, now is that not neat! We're off to some dining of our own right now.
It's Friday night out! :thumbsup: