Best Values if You Don’t Have Dining Plan?

[DisneyStarWisher]

My DH and I love to go to Liberty Tree Tavern and split the Pilgrim's Feast. We also add an appetizer and the Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake and split those as well. The last time we went, we told them we were splitting the entree, and they brought out our meals already divided on separate plates (and the portions were huge!).

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Any place at Disney Springs will probably have better food than the park restaurants at equivalent price. I'd also consider some of the resort restaurants--The Wave and Ale & Compass come to mind.

 

[MamaJessie]

This will be the first time in over a decade we won’t have the dining plan or a full kitchen. What meals/snacks are the best value when paying out of pocket?

SciFi
The Plaza
Trail's End
the wave breakfast
Blaze
Earl's

Grubhub/Uber eats etc. really opens up a lot of options

Oh and the to go chicken meal at Ft Wilderness is a real win!! We have done it a few trips now.

 

[elaine amj]

This has been super helpful as we are planning for a one week offsite trip im February. Really nervous about no DDP

 

[siren0119]

This has been super helpful as we are planning for a one week offsite trip im February. Really nervous about no DDP

Don't be nervous, FWIW we have gone every year the last 3 years and didn't do the dining plan on any of them. I just planned carefully, and set aside money on Disney Gift Cards ahead of time so that I had a firm budget to stick to. It kinda worked like its own prepaid meal plan, I just didn't have to deal with any of the kid/adult meal restrictions.

 

[MomOTwins]

This was helpful for me too. We are the type who usually go to lots of character meals and save money on the dining plan, but with the dining place price hike this year and with our youngest growing out of the free 0-2 age range, it actually isn't a good value any more for us any more. So we weren't trying to find the absolute lowest cost, but were trying to get to where we were comfortable paying no more than what we used to pay with dining plan.

With that in mind, the table service spots we picked for our upcoming trip are below. Also, we are using Disney Visa, which gets us 10% off at the restaurants with an asterisk* below.

Arrival Day: dinner at Beaches & Cream
Epcot: Lunch at Rose & Crown*; dinner at

Via Napoli (plan to share a mezzo size pizza for the family)
MK: Quick serv lunch; dinner at Tony's​

Hollywood Studios: Quick serv lunch: Splurge dinner at Hollywood Brown Derby*
AK day: Quick serv lunch; dinner at Sanaa*
Departure day: Breakfast at Cape May Café*

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

If you avoid the character buffets you are saving a ton of money (on generally poor food). From a table service perspective, I think Disney has slowly increased the prices on some of the better "deals" (The Plaza stood out in the past) so that there's not a ton of difference between them, and the quality lags what you'll find at non-Disney restaurants. For instance, House of Blues is a much better place to eat with a more diverse menu than The Plaza at about the same price range.

 

[Nick6300]

We went in Dec without a DP. Intended to get resort mugs, and after a couple days into our trip without buying them yet, we didn’t. We were surprised that for first time in several trips, we got by just fine without them. We had juices and gatorades packed, along with our refill water bottles.

we saw someone utilizing the hot water at Backlot Express to make his ramen noodle cup he brought in for lunch.

we’ve brought in food before on prior trips but mainly just high calorie snacks such as meat and cheese sticks and nuts, P3 this time. We packed all breakfast foods to limit meals purchased to lunch and dinner.

one of the more filling kids meals for QS was at Woodys Lunchbox, the half breakfast or lunch sandwich with tots, we subbed the fruit for a 2nd tater tot. ABC Commissary had kids meal including a tasty BBQ quesadilla with fries and I subbed the fruit for a 2nd set of fries to be more like an adult meal. These were $6-7 I think vs the like $13 for a full sandwich or burger.

 

[avincent]

We just came back and are a family of 5 with only 1 kid under 10 so I did different meals that I usually don’t do on the dining plan. We did do the resort mug (actually we ended up with 2 as one was given to us) and we tried to limit our sodas to this and those included with meals. The best value all week as people have mentioned was the pizza at Via Napoli. The largest size fed all five of us for 50.00 which was cheaper than counter service and a lot better. We did a split stay and when we were at Polynesian we found Captain Cooks to be very reasonable and we would use our refillable mugs. Their meatballs were great and I think they were 9.49, pork fried rice was 8.50 and I think chicken wings were 10.99. It is worth a trip if you are at the MK it is a quick monorail ride. We did do a kids meals there last the last night because we had snacked all day. The cinnamon rolls at Gaston’s tavern are big enough to share, we did 3 of those for all 5 of us and it held us for a few hours. Whispering Canyon for lunch I think is a good deal that can fill you up for the day especially if you do a late lunch. We did Yak and Yeti and you can eat for around 20.00 a person. Last year we split some meals from 50’s Prime Time but it didn’t turn out to be that cheap because my kids ordered milk shakes and dessert. Lol We also split pasta for lunch at Mama Melrose and it was good a filling. I feel like we saved money this year but then we turned around and had splurges on Ohana room service and the Luau so for 7 days I spent right at 1500.00 for 5.

 

[sharonabe]

I feel like we saved money this year but then we turned around and had splurges on Ohana room service and the Luau so for 7 days I spent right at 1500.00 for 5.

As long as you all ate what you wanted and no one felt like they missed out on anything, I'd say you definitely saved money. Six nights of regular DDP for 4 adults and 1 child would have been around $1900. Add the room service charges to the DDP cost and you're over $2000.

 

[myjourney]

Liberty Tree- split the turkey dinner at lunch
Yak and Yet split the sweet and sour chicken and remember to order the wonton dessert

 

[jkh36619]

We find excellent value in Pecos Bills. We get an order of beef nachos and 2 plates and then go to the area with the lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, etc and load up on that.

 

[mort1331]

You have not said how many in your party. We split for 4 people the meat platter for 2 people at Polite pig in DS last year and still had food left over. Great combo of meats. yum

Absolutly great great and our 4 couldnt finish

 

[scheddj]

Brown Derby Lounge was a great bang for my buck. My gf and I shared 3 of their small plates for lunch, got completely stuffed, for $25 a piece. We could have just done 2 of the plates and been fine and gotten out for less too. The quality is way better than any quick service too.

Spot on!!! We split the Cobb salad and sliders. Added some grapefruit martinis and it was the best meal of the trip.
Also split the bread service and sliders at the Crews Cup Lounge at the Yacht Club with a couple of beers. Great food, filling and closer to real world pricing.

 

[Disneypro1]

I almost always order off of the kids menu. It’s saves a lot of money and is plenty of food. I’m 48 and from burgers to whatever. Kids menu is a big money saver. Anyone can order kids menu.