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Tag Archives: Disney Dining
Do the Disney Dining Plan – A great option for families!
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Disney offers five different dining plans, from two quick-service meals per person per night to three meals at the restaurant of your choice. For 2013, Disney’s Basic Dining Plan includes one quick-service meal, one table service meal, and one snack per person per night of their reservation.
This is a great option for most families because it saves you money and also allows you to try a variety of restaurants. One of the best ways to plan your meals is use a quick-service credit for lunch and a table-service credit for dinner. You can grab lunch wherever is conveniently located near you and then plan to make dining reservations for dinner. You can end with a big meal and then be ready to start all over the next day.
If you travel to Disney World during the free dining promotion, you can receive a free basic dining plan when you stay at a moderate or deluxe resort. You receive the quick service dining plan for free when you stay at a value resort. The quick service dining plan will include two quick service meals and one snack per person per night. One of the biggest drawbacks to this plan is that it does not include character meals. However, you can always pay the difference to upgrade to the basic dining plan if you choose when you are at a value resort. For a one week stay, it ends up being about a $200 difference to pay to upgrade your dining plan rather than stay at a moderate resort.
Do you want to Eat with Mickey Mouse?
What’s so special about Character Dining at Walt Disney World? Why would you spend extra money to see the characters while dining, when the characters are in the park for free? I’ll tell you why…time savings!
We love to go to Disney World in the summer. Epcot has a great Character Spot, where you can see all of Disney’s main characters (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto and others) all at one time. The drawback? Unless you’re willing to forego Soarin’ and Test Track first thing, the lines in the afternoon and evening can be 60-90 minutes! If you have breakfast at Chef Mickey’s (at the Contemporary), you can have the characters all come to your table WHILE you are eating and save tons of time! More time to have fun in the parks! You have to eat anyway, right?
Dining at the Be our Guest Restaurant
New Fantasyland was the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom history. As a regular to Disney World, I was super excited to see this new expansion come to life. This expansion brought many magical additions such as the new Little Mermaid ride, Gaston’s Tavern, Prince Eric’s castle and Ariel’s Grotto. My kids loved these new areas of Fantasyland, but one of the highlights is the new restaurant called Be our Guest.
Tucked insides the Beast’s castle, you can find this French-inspired restaurant. Be Our Guest is a quick service restaurant during lunch and becomes a table service restaurant for dinner. If you love the Beauty & the Beast movies, this is the ultimate restaurant for you. Are you ready for a tour of Be Our Guest?
As you approach the castle, you walk over a bridge where you can see a stream and forest beneath you. You then enter the castle through double doors and proceed through a hallway of knights where you can find menus displayed on screens for lunch. This hallway leads into the study where, during lunch, you are given a rose by a host or hostess which then records the order you place at a touch-screen terminal. You can then enter the ballroom which is straight from the Beauty and the Beast movie. The room is adorned with beautiful chandeliers and you can even see the snowy evening through the windows in the back of the ballroom. To the left is the West Wing of the castle which is dimly lit and displays the rose in the corner of the room. If you have younger kids, be sure you skip this section. It is a little scary for kids! To the right of the ballroom is the Rose Gallery which features a beautiful dancing display of Belle and the Beast dancing in the center of the room. You place your rose on the table and magically, a server brings you your food. The drinks are self-service, but as a result, offer free refills!
The most important thing to know, though, is how the food tastes. Even if you don’t think you’re a fan of French cuisine, the food is fabulous! In my opinion, this is one of the best options for a quick service meal at the parks- quality food in a magical atmosphere for a reasonable price.
For lunch, your options are a tuna or quinoa salad, croque monsieur, a turkey or steak sandwich, vegetable quiche, or braised pork. You can choose from salmon, steak, pork, shrimp, chicken, and vegetarian pasta for dinner. Don’t miss out on the best part of the meal, either! For dessert, they serve three different cream puffs and three different cupcakes. If you’re a chocolate-lover, the chocolate cream puff is wonderful. However, the strawberry cream cheese cupcake is an equally delicious choice (and my personal favorite!).
Be Our Guest is super popular, so arrive early for lunch. For dinner, be sure to book an Advanced Dining Reservation. For restaurants at Disney World, Be Our Guest is quickly becoming the most popular restaurant to book and dine during a vacation. Be sure you experience it during your vacation!
Have you experienced Be Our Guest yet? Do you prefer lunch or dinner? Be sure to let me know in the comments what you’ve thought about this addition to New Fantasyland!
When Siera isn’t planning Disney Vacations for her friends and family, you can find her spreading magic on Facebook at facebook.com/spreadingmagic or on Twitter at twitter.com/spreadingmagic!
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A Dinner Feast Awaits You At Liberty Tree Tavern
There are TONS of amazing Disney World Restaurants to choose from, and you could literally spend days researching and planning which ones you are going to make your ADR’s (or Advance Dining Reservations) for.
If you’re looking for a place to eat dinner at the Magic Kingdom, I highly recommend you make an ADR at Liberty Tree Tavern. You’ll find this New England colonial style Inn at Liberty Square, and as an added bonus you can turn this meal into a mini history lesson for you and your family!
T-Rex – Adventure and Dining Prehistoric Style
We all know that everything that Disney does with animatronics is amazing, but there is another person who is pretty good with animontronics too. Tilman Fertitta owner and CEO of Landry’s Inc., has formed a really good partnership with Disney and he has brought his own brand of animontronics to the Disney family. He has restaurants at three locations including, The Yak and Yeti in Asia in the Animal Kingdom, The Rainforest Café in Animal Kingdom, and he has two restaurants in Downtown Disney. The first is another Rainforest Cafe, which has animatronic animals that sing or dance every 20 minutes when a thunder storm goes off. Rainforest Cafe’s can be found across the country.
The second location is another very unique dining experience; the T-Rex restaurant. It is located at the end of Downtown Disney Marketplace and is touted as a “prehistoric family experience”. As you enter the restaurant you pass Discovery Dig, where you can pan for fossils, precious stones and gems in Discovery Creek. You can also check out the Paleo Screens which will help expand your knowledge of the dinosaur era.
When you head into to eat there are different “themes”, all with unique decor and moving dinosaurs. The Fern Forest, Geo-Tech Room, Coral Reef, Ice Cave, and Sequoia room. The ice ceiling actually changes color while you eat, the area over the grill has fire spitting out of it like a volcano, and there is a meteor shower every 20 minutes.
