The first request of Disney Details to share was all about our meals– what we did for food, and what character meals we booked (I am going to start there).  I have to put the disclaimer out that we did a lot of character meals this trip.  We weren’t sure how much time we wanted to spend in line to meet characters, but also knew that with bringing a 4 and 6 year old that are a little hesitant by nature, this might be the MAIN event if they had gotten really nervous about rides (which only our 4 year old ended up being just a bit!)– so we booked a lot.  We went all out this time, and next time when we go back with all 3 kids will do just a couple!  We booked 1 big meal per day for this trip. Here is what we booked, and who was there:

1). Lunch at the Beasts Castle (Magic Kingdom). I have to say right away: there are no characters at this meal. The Beast does come if you book dinner, but that takes more meal credits (more on that soon!) and I also wasn’t sure my kids would do super well with him, so lunch was perfect! The castle is beautiful and the food was good- if you are on the meal plan, I highly recommend this!

2). Late breakfast/early lunch at Tusker House (Animal Kingdom).  This included Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy.  We loved this. At the recommendation of a good friend we booked this at 10:45 so that we were there for both the breakfast food and the lunch food (this was a buffet style restaurant), but we only ended up needing breakfast food and lunch dessert because there was so much wonderful food! 🙂 I cannot recommend this meal enough. The restaurant is beautiful and the food was good, and the character interactions were absolutely wonderful.  These characters took the most time with our kids, and they do a little dance parade through the restaurant– it was all so great!

3). Lunch at Cinderellas Royal Table (Animal Kingdom).  This lunch had Cinderella, Aurora, Jasmine, Ariel, and Snow White. It is also one of (if not the?) more expensive meals you can get at Disney.  BUT it is the only way you can go up in the castle and was a must do for us– and we absolutely loved it. The food was delicious, the view was beautiful, the kids ADORED the place (and the wand and sword they got), and the princesses were perfect.  It takes 2 sit down meal service credits (more later on that!) but for us, it was 100% worth it.  I think the menu can be tricky at dinner for picky kids– lunch worked out great for us. We went to the boutique first (will blog about that another day) and then went straight to lunch and it worked wonderfully!  E2 loved showing all the princesses her new princess look, and E1 had to hug them each an xtra time before they left. He is quite the ladies man. 😂

4). Breakfast at Hollywood and Vine (Hollywood Studios). This meal includes Goofy, Doc McStuffins, Princess Sofia, and Vamprina (it is typically all Disney JR characters) and my kids were over the moon!  Vamprina was a big surprise and E2 was so so  happy. It is another buffet style that we booked right between lunch and breakfast, and the food was yummy.  We really enjoyed this!  They have different characters at other times of the day, so make sure you get your reservation with the characters you want! This is a good time to mention that the characters in full body costumes (like all of these ones, Mickey, Minnie, etc) don’t talk.  They are still fabulous at interacting with the kids and it doesn’t feel like anything is missing-but just do you know!

5). Bon Voyage breakfast at Trattoria Al Forno (Boardwalk Resort).  This included Rapunzel, Flynn Rider, Aril, and Prince Eric.  We weren’t sure how the details of this would work since it was at another resort and we didn’t have a ton of extra time built in but once we heard the princes were there, we knew we had to book this for our boy, and we loved it. The food is top notch, and this resort is just a fun boat ride away from Hollywood Studios or a short walk to the back entrance to Epcot (which is what we did after)– so planning it on either of those days of your trip would work well.  The characters did come around to the tables separately (vs together in couples) so pictures weren’t with them together, but they interacted a bit, the food was wonderful, and it was SUCH a fun part of the trip. We recommend taking a Lyft or Minnie Van from your resort to this meal, and only breakfast has the characters!  I wish we would have done this earlier in our trip because E2 was a bit done by then and didn’t want to wear her Rapunzel dress even though Rapunzel is her favorite, but E1 dressed like Flynn and it was SO fun.

I am going to talk really quickly about the meal plan now because this post is long. We highly debated doing the meal plan.  And honestly, in the end, MOST of the advice we got from people who have kids pointed towards that we should not do it– that it would be too much food, and maybe a waste of money.  But a few things caused us to go ahead in the end:

1). We don’t eat expensively, and were worried we wouldn’t make it worth it money wise. BUT those character meals are ALL buffets that have a PRE-SET price no matter what you eat.  So to be transparent (in hopes of being helpful!), the character meals alone were going to total us $700 and the meal plan would cost us around $900. For that remaining $200, the meal plan gave us 2 snacks per day per person, and 1 extra meal per person.  We thought we probably COULD have eaten for around another $100 (instead of the $200 extra the meal plan would cost us) if we were really careful but it would have been less food than 2 snacks per person and 1 meal per person per day.

2). We didn’t want to have to worry and wonder about the $ when we were there.  It’s Disney World, and food is expensive.  We didn’t want it to be an experience ruiner to stress about how much we were spending (on top of everything else we spent!).

3). Last and most important, there was a “stay, play, and dine” deal that came out for our resort on our dates, making the meal plan total $800– which is definitely what we would have spent on food (if not less) so it was a no brainer in the end.

The meal plan was perfect for us.  Admittedly, the Gums love to eat, and we love snacks. We have friends who went a few weeks before us and had also bought groceries and it was way too much food for them. We bought minimal groceries (our kids like to have a snack of some sort every couple hours haha so we got some fruit and granola bars), ended with NO leftover snack or meal credits, and are sure we got our moneys worth and more.  We used one of everybody’s 2 snacks per day on breakfast at the resort (bagels, yogurt parfaits, cereal, etc) and the other on an ice cream snack or treat in the afternoon.  We were able to split some snacks and some of those “quick service” meals (which is what we ate at the non-character meal of the day), and it all just worked out perfect for us and was SUPER easy.

SO if you are super light eaters, want to do a lot of grocery shopping and packing/bringing food into the parks (which you can do!), or don’t plan to do many character meals– the meal plan is not a better deal. But if you plan to do lots of character meals (I would say 3 or more), want an all inclusive experience without grocery shopping, have expensive taste in food, or love trying lots of different foods- it’s so worth it!  Many google searches online can give you all the details of the plan so I won’t go into that there, but let me know in the comments below if you have any questions!!

PHEW this is long!  But Disney food and meals warrant it, in my opinion!  Last tip?? Use the mobile ordering on the app! We didn’t wait in one food line because we always ordered through the app, picked up quick, and moved on.  It was SO easy!

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