Food

This one is tricky to cover. Mostly because I don't know you or your family’s eating habits. What I would say is this. There are three different classifications of food "joint" on property: Snack, Counter Service, Table Service. You should estimate that a snack is going to cost you at least $2.50/person/item. So if you want a bottle of water and a box of popcorn, that's at least $5. Counter Service is typically going to cost you $10/person for an entree, side and drink. Think of this as nuggets, fries and a coke. Table Service is going to be around $20/person for an entree, side and drink... and maybe desert, not including a tip.

My wife and I have been known to go and eat only Counter Service meals and snacks the entire time. On the other hand, a nice Table Service meal is good, too. It just depends upon your tastes and what you think you're going to want. Adding in children who have varying eating habits or who aren’t yet ready for sit-down niceties, and, well, you need to make a value judgment on your own.

If you're not flying in, make sure you stop somewhere right off property to buy a pallet of water and whatever other snacks you and your family likes. You can all wear backpacks into the parks if you want... so it's easy to carry that kind of stuff with you. Remember, a bottle of water is at least $2.50 in the parks. :) If you’re staying on property, take a bus to the nearest Park. Change busses and go to the Boardwalk Resort. Walk out the front door of the resort, down the street and head over to the Hess gas station on the corner. It’s the only gas station officially on property and prices are typical convenience store prices plus a little bit for being Disney’d. But you can get snacks and water there and then hand-carry it back to your hotel doing the bus trips in reverse.

New from a few years ago is the Disney Dining Plan (DDP). It's basically a meal plan for a fixed price. Currently, Disney offers three versions of the DDP: DDP-Quick-Service, DDP (the basic plan), and DDP-Deluxe. You can find the specifics here: http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/benefits/disney-dining-plan/

To determine whether the DDP is a good option for you, at the end of the day, you have to think about how much food you'll get from the plan and compare it to your estimated eating habits. Just remember that it's basically a "credit" added per person/day for each "meal". So if you skip a meal on one day, you'll have an extra credit to use on a different day. And some restaurants require 2 credits per person... so you have to get creative if you're going to use the DDP to its full potential. But, once you leave WDW, your DDP credits are worthless (even if you get the NE ticket option). So if you have extra meals, especially snacks, on the last day, you might want to think about living it up... or buying a few extra snacks (my wife is partial to Mickeyhead Rice Crispy Treats on a stick) for the road.

Virtually no one I know has ever made full value out of the DDP. And now that they’ve altered the plan to adjust to the different resorts (Quick Service vs Basic vs Deluxe), the chance of you liking the plan is even worse. However, I have heard stories of people feeling completely satisfied with the DDP. For example, if you have teenagers who eat their bodyweight on a daily basis, the DDP could work for your family. AllEars.net has menus (with prices) for virtually every restaurant on property. So take a moment to check the plan you’re considering buying against the restaurant list of the places you can go to eat. Consider what you think you’ll eat and add it up to get a rough estimate. If it doesn’t significantly exceed the cost of the DDP, don’t get the plan.

I’ve only gotten the DDP twice – and both times, it was a freebie. On one of those trips, I kept track of the food costs that we both: a) ate; and, b) would’ve eaten had we not received so much for free (ie: deserts). What we discovered was that it was almost a wash. Had we paid for the DDP, we would’ve just about eaten the full value of the DDP. But had we not purchased the DDP and instead were paying for our food that we wanted to eat, we would’ve lost money by buying the DDP.