I often feel when I am at Disney World, that I just don’t know where to look first, as there are a seemingly countless number of fascinating visual experiences, all competing for my attention. But I usually find that, if I can stop and take the time to *really look* at some of the most insignificant things, I am rewarded with some pretty cool surprises. Take the Christmas tree at Epcot’s World Showcase: what seem to be, at first glance, just a bunch of Christmas balls, are actually miniature globes, ornaments featuring the national flags of different nations, and my personal favorite, holiday greetings in many different languages. Next time you visit Walt Disney World, make it a point to check out those details: you may be surprised at what you actually find.
Tuesday Disney Tips: The Cost of Free Disney Dining
My family has been blessed to enjoy the Free Disney Dining program for the past two years. If you have decided that the free dining plan is the best deal for you, take note of these budgeting tips. Although it is hard to believe, the free dining plan is just that. The first time we took advantage of this program, I was very skeptical about what the meals would entail. Would we have to choose between two items, neither of which we liked? Would we get the entrée free, but have to pay for the sides? The answer is no. On the free dining plan, you will receive wonderful menu items with sides, desserts, drinks – and all for free.
If you have chosen the Quick Service Dining Plan and you intend to eat only at the quick service restaurants and only get the snacks allowed on the plan as well, then you will not need to budget a cent for any meal expenses whatsoever. If you have decided that you prefer the Regular Disney Dining Plan or higher, however, you will need to budget gratuities into your spending allowance.
Although you will receive all the food and drinks at your table service meals for free, you are expected to pay gratuities at these restaurants. Whether the restaurant is an all-you-can-eat buffet, such as the Tusker House breakfast at the Animal Kingdom, or a menu table service restaurant such as Le Cellier in Canada at Epcot, your wait staff should be tipped. You will need to allow for this expense in your budget so I am going to give two quick examples of the amounts you would need to budget for table service dining. These are actual figures charged for my family of five this past November.
The first example is for an all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast at Tusker House in the Animal Kingdom. At Donald’s Safari Breakfast at Tusker House (yes, this is also a character breakfast), we enjoyed an all-you-can-eat buffet loaded with delicious breakfast food choices, pots of coffee and a delicious house fruit juice. The charge for our family of 5 adults, if we had not been on the free dining plan, would have been $143.73. Our server, JW, did a fantastic job taking care of us and so we tipped him $25.87 (18%).
Let’s take a closer look at what this all-you-can-eat buffet meal consisted of: a waffle station, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes, French toast, yam casserole, cereal, biscuits & gravy, veggie frittata, ham & cheese frittata, cheese blintzes, beef Bobotie quiche, Dino hash, carved rotisserie honey ham, oatmeal, cinnamon rolls, croissants, muffins, bagels, assorted breads, turnovers, assorted cream cheeses, jams, jellies and fruit chutneys, yogurt station, fresh fruit, assorted freshly-made donuts and sweet breads, pancakes with assorted toppings, and danish. Plus all the coffee, tea, juice, milk, chocolate milk and soda we wanted.
All the food is delicious at Tusker House and we ate until we were quite full. Remember, we paid only $25.87 for all of this.
The second example is a menu-item dinner at Le Cellier in Canada at Epcot. At Le Cellier, we each ordered steak entrees with accompanying side, dessert and non-alcoholic beverage. The meal would have cost us $236.00. Matt was a great guy and was extremely attentive to our every need so we left him a tip of 20%, or $47.20.
Let’s take a closer look at what we ordered:
Entrees: two New York Strip steaks topped with Bercy butter and served with gryuere yukon gold potato gratin; two Coffee-rubbed Kansas City Strip steaks with hazelnut butter, served with cream cheese mashed potatoes; and one Le Cellier Mushroom Filet Mignon, served with wild mushroom risotto and white truffle-herb butter sauce. For dessert: three Maple Creme Brulees and two Chocolate on Chocolate Whiskey Cakes finished with honey-thyme anglaise and a chocolate vanilla walnut sauce. Our drinks consisted of two iced teas and three sodas.
Please keep in mind that this is some of the most delicious food Disney has to offer by extraordinary chefs. To reiterate, we paid $47.20.
As you can see, then, the amount you must budget for your meal expense on the Regular Dining Plan during Free Dining is almost laughable considering all that you receive. Still, you do need to budget for the gratuities so you don’t end up short. Over our 10 days and 9 nights at Disney World, for a family of 5 adults, we paid a TOTAL of $248.87 for all of our delicious meals combined. Considering that we began with 45 table service credits, 45 quick service credits, and 45 snack credits and, thus, ate 90 full meals and 45 snack meals during our trip, $248.87 is quite a great deal.
Even as I am typing this, reality is hitting me and I am thinking ‘my goodness, we ate a ridiculous amount of food for $248.87.’ I have only covered two table service meals out of the 9 we consumed; or 10 meal credits out of the 90 we enjoyed during our trip. The best thing is that these meals are not paper bag meals these are some of the best choices prepared by the best chefs at Disney World and it is an awesome deal.
If you have any questions at all about how to use the dining plan or about specific restaurants, please feel free to contact me at bootskenworthy@aol.com. I will be happy to help you plan for your wonderful Disney trip!
Disney Holiday Gift Giving: Traveling Essentials
Wondering what to give a friend or family member who is planning a big vacation to Disney World (or anywhere else for that matter)? Or perhaps it is you taking the big trip and people need gift ideas for you? Either way, Christmas gifts are the perfect way to help make future traveling a bit easier, less stressful, and just more fun. Here are few of my favorite travel essentials that will make great gifts for anyone:
A GPS: Anyone planning a big drive to Walt Disney World…or who will be renting a car at Disney World needs to have one of these. Those of us who grew up with “maps” are especially in awe of how helpful a good GPS can be. And if you have an older one like we do, this is the perfect time to upgrade to a new model, as the prices are rarely cheaper than you will find right now.
DVD Player: Road Trip! Few words strike more fear into the hearts of parents everywhere than these two little words. Mental images of backseat fights, and threats of “Don’t make me come back there!” immediately come to mind. Of course there are a number of ways to make the time pass (and I’ll talk about another one shortly) but one of the most successful is movies. Having a car DVD player can save everyone’s sanity….and with some well-chosen Disney movies, you can get everyone “in the mood” while you’re at it!
But what if you’re not driving, but still want to keep the troops entertained while waiting in the airport…or even on the flight? Well how about a Portable DVD Player to the rescue!!
And to make sure that everyone is happy when your kids want to watch Monsters Inc. 4 times in a row, don’t forget the headphones. 🙂 Just sayin’.
Travel Kiddy: Back in the day, before it was possible to bring movies along with you in the car to entertain the kids, I made a trip to the toy store before every trip, to make a travel fun bag for our daughter. Filled with lots of fun games and things to keep her entertained, the travel fun bag made our trips much happier for everyone. Even now, while movies are great, there will be times when it’s time to turn the thing off and do something else. And Travel Kiddy is the perfect solution: travel fun bags already created, filled with hours and HOURS of entertainment for little ones and big ones too! The Travel Kiddy site is divided into different ages, and even includes a section for puzzles and games for older kids and adults. Not sure what would be best for someone else? They even sell gift certificates. This is a great site with tons of great travel items already packed and waiting to leave on vacation with you. No need to make your own. 🙂
So there you go, gift suggestions for making the trip to Walt Disney World happier for the kids….and therefore happier for the adults. Whether it’s for your family, or for someone on your gift list, I hope these gift suggestions will help. Happy shopping! 🙂
Disney Fun From Around the World: Week of December 6, 2010
Greeting Disney Friends! Today’s tour of the Disney blog-world finds several winter and Holiday related posts, 
some new ways to make your Disney vacation more affordable, and some articles that are just plain fun! I had a blast reading all of these this week and I hope you will too! So get a great big glass of eggnog (spike it if you wish 🙂 ) and sit back and enjoy your weekly round-up of Disney fun!
Starting with our friends at Chip and Company, Brenda (yes “our Brenda”) had two awesome articles about how she keeps the Disney spirit alive at home: My Disney Dream Office and A Very Merry Disney Christmas…at Home!
And Ken had another installment in his series Oldies But Goodies – Keeping The Vacation Affordable (thanks for the shout-out Ken!)
Disney Dispatch offered some great park-touring Tips from the Disney Diva: My Favorite Things, Episode 03
Have you seen how cold it has been in Walt Disney World this week? Fortunately, if you are going and you forget a hat, the Disney Parks Blog has a few ways for you to stay warm: Winter Hats at the Parks: Do You Have a Favorite?
Kelly over at the Disney Guru had some interesting things to share this week. You can find out just how “Disney” you are in Tuesday’s top ten signs you are a Disney geek (and evidently, I am a pretty major Disney geek…. 🙂 )and in Keeping Up With The Magic she had some great ideas on how to keep your Disney vacations fresh (and I learned a few new things too!)
Disney Food Blog gave me some inspiration for our trip in a few weeks. I think my husband is going to enjoy the Holiday Brewer’s Collection Booths in Epcot and this post just added to my already lengthy “must eat” food list: Things I Learned at the Funnel Cake Stand
Growing Up Disney also had multiple helpful articles this week. Team Post: What’s the Best Age for a Child’s First WDW Visit? provided some great guidelines. And if you have ever wondered what would happen if you or someone in your group became sick or injured while at Disney World, then you will want to read Wow, am I glad you’re here!
Shannon at Meltdown Free Disney has an extremely timely post for how to handle things when your kids ask the “big questions”. In Getting Real About Pretending she shows how to handle the situation with gentleness and understanding.
You may be walking a lot at Disney World, but many want to keep to an actual exercise schedule. Pop Century Fan Site has some suggestions if you are staying there: Exercise at Pop Century Resort
In the spirit of the season, Traveling Mamas has some great ideas for Affordable Travel Gifts
Looking for some Holiday fun to share with your family? WDW Daily News tells us how Disney Online Puts Fun and Ease into Holiday Planning with the New ‘All Things Merry: A Guide to the Holidays’
Finally, we were pleased to be part of the latest Disney Blog Carnival #14 where you can find even MORE great Disney bloggers, blogs, and blog posts.
Happy reading and happy weekend! 🙂
Thrifty Thursday and Delectable Disney Snacks: Take My Advice, Share!
Sorry to all the guys out there but I have to confess here and now that I love watching what I call “foo foo” movies, like Legally Blonde, Confessions of a Shopaholic and the like. They are familiar and fun so I can pop them in the DVD player, turn it on and go about doing other things because I know what favorite parts to watch.
There is a line in one of them that always makes me chuckle. In The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly, the world’s worst and snootiest boss (played by Meryl Streep), sends her assistant on an impossible errand – to get a copy of an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript for her twins to read on the train to Grandma’s. Her assistant, Andy, pulls some strings to get it, then comes into Miranda’s office, puts the copy down on her desk and when Miranda sees it, she says “One copy. What are my twins gonna do with that? Share?” That line always makes me laugh.
Sadly, that is exactly how my family feels about dessert. My mother baked beautiful desserts when I was growing up and she passed that love of baking onto me. I live in a family of sweet tooths and I am embarrassed to admit that I am head molar!
When we were at the Animal Kingdom recently, we decided to use our snack credits for the day at the Kusafari bakery. Aside from the fact that Kusafari is one of the very few places that serves real coffee (not Nescafe), we had been looking forward to savoring their wonderful treats for months in anticipation of our trip. When we got to the counter, four of us ordered the Zebra cupcakes and one ordered the White Chocolate Elephant cupcake (pictured below). We were reeling with anticipation for a bite of one of these delectable delights and we were really hungry by that time, having had a large breakfast but no lunch.
A quick description will give you a general idea about the sweet goodness of these tantalizing treasures. The Zebra Cupcake is moist yellow cake topped with mounds of super rich and creamy buttercream icing. It has homemade white and dark chocolate shavings all over the top and is delightful. The White Chocolate Elephant Cupcake is rich chocolate cake filled with chocolate cream and then topped with a light buttercream frosting and toasted coconut.
After I took these pictures, we all took bites of our treasures and commented on how yummy, moist and rich they all tasted. We were almost singing with enjoyment. After our third bite, we were giving each other that “how-am-I-ever-going-to-finish-this look.” We ate all we could, as we did not want to waste any of it and, once we threw away the rest, we all agreed that we indeed should have shared.
Trust me, if you get one of these scrumptious creations, plan to cut it into fourths. Taking my advice will do three good things for you: it will save you from sugar shock, give you some snack credits to use on other great treats, and save you from the guilt of throwing away a portion of such a wonderful treat.