Disney Vacation Planning

Tuesday Disney Tips: The Cost of Free Disney Dining

Brenda Affordable Disney Vacations, Disney Dining Plans, Disney Vacation Planning, Saving Money on Food, Tuesday Disney Tips , , , , , , 8 Comments

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

Nancy Disney Gift Giving, Disney Vacation Planning , , , , 2 Comments

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! 🙂

Tuesday Disney Tips: Creating More Space in Your Disney Resort Room

Brenda Tuesday Disney Tips , , 5 Comments

I absolutely love the Disney resorts. I always choose to stay on property, even if we have to pinch pennies with everything else. But as much as I enjoy the theming, the ambience, having free transportation to and from the parks, and being close to everything, there is one thing I have an issue with at the Disney resorts – the bathrooms.

I have stayed at value, moderate and deluxe resorts. The size of the bathrooms is usually adequate and this year, at the Contemporary Resort, we even had a private toilet area with a door that closed to the rest of the bathroom. What’s my problem then? Well, as you might deduct from this picture, there is not enough counter space.

Plus, I have a family of five including: my husband, myself, a 25-year-old son, a 20-year-old daughter and a 17-year old son. We all have necessities when it comes time to being fresh and clean, not to mention our primping needs. We have MANY products for brushing, flossing, gelling and deodorizing. We need a place to put it all!

Luckily, I have a way to overcome this deficiency while creating more space and greater efficiency for our time and needs. It is the shoe organizer.

My organizer was especially easy to hang this year because the Contemporary has a metal ladder-type rack for hanging towels, which served me perfectly when hanging my shoe organizer.

We each have our own row (that is 4 large slots each). We traditionally assign rows according to height so my youngest son gets the top row because he is tallest, and my daughter gets the bottom row because she is nearest to the ground (haha). Everyone organizes their things the way they want and it makes getting ready to head to the parks easier and much quicker.

I have used this trick for several years and it has worked out really well. The only issue I have run across is that the bathroom doors at a couple of the moderate resorts were quite thick, so I bought extra large hangers to use when faced with that problem.

If you have a large family, including teens with lots of special products, this should really help you. I hope it will make your trip easier and more enjoyable.

Brenda is a native Texan born and raised on the Gulf Coast. She visited Disney World twice as a teenager and always dreamed of growing her family Disney. She took her first-timer husband and their three children to Disney World in 2000 and they now spend every Thanksgiving there. Brenda writes with a comedic twist on various Disney topics. She will be sharing tips she has learned during her travels and also hopes to enlighten people on little-known freebies that Disney has to offer. She wishes she could have met Walt Disney and considers herself to be a student of Walt. In parallel to his dream it is her wish that everyone would take at least one trip to Disney World in order to share in its magic with their families.

Tuesday Disney Tips: How to Use Your Disney Give A Day, Get A Day Fastpass Card

Brenda Tuesday Disney Tips , , , , 0 Comment

I just got back from my 10-day Walt Disney World vacation. When I arrive home it is very hard to decide what to write about first as there is so much to say. Since the Give A Day, Get A Day volunteers must use their vouchers by December 15 or lose them, I decided to cover the Give A Day (GAD) Fastpass option for anyone planning to use their voucher during an upcoming trip.

If you are among the one million people who have volunteered this year and received a voucher, you know that there are several options for using the voucher: a one-day theme park ticket, a special GAD fastpass, an EarHat figurine with exclusive trading pin, or donating the park ticket to a participating charity.

My family of five volunteered, so we received five vouchers. We decided to use them on the fastpass option, so I am going to make using the voucher for a special GAD fastpass crystal clear so there will be no guessing involved on your part.

Since each of us volunteered, I had a voucher with my name on it, one with my husband’s name, and one for each of my children bearing their names; five vouchers in total, each one good for one park for one day. We decided to use them on the most crowded days during the Thanksgiving holiday.  We used one voucher on Sunday at Epcot (I will use that example for the purposes of explaining how to use them), one on Monday at Hollywood Studios, one on Tuesday at Magic Kingdom, one on Wednesday at Animal Kingdom and the last one on Friday at Hollywood Studios again.

Step 1

First and foremost, be sure to pack your voucher(s) and make sure that you take a valid ID for the person named on each voucher. A valid ID is considered to be one of the following: valid government-issued passport, valid driver’s license including a photo, or valid government-issued photo ID. For children under 18 who do not have any of the previously listed IDs, a copy of a birth certificate is acceptable. School IDs are not considered government-issued photo IDs and will not be accepted.

Step 2

Take your entire party to the Will Call window at the park. This window is located in the front of the park before you enter the gate. Take the voucher, a valid multi-day park ticket and the appropriate bearer’s ID with you to the Will Call window. Give the cast member the voucher and the appropriate ID and tell them you would like to get the special fastpasses for your party. The cast member will give you a volunteer button to wear.

The Honorary VoluntEAR button is very special. Cast members all around the park thanked us for volunteering.

The cast member will then ask to see the room key for each person in your party. You may have up to 6 people in your party. Once he sees the room keys for each member of the party, he will give each of you one of these little beauties – a special fastpass card. It is a hard card similar to your “key to the kingdom” park ticket.

These will be used for inserting into the fastpass machine at your favorite rides. My nephew joined us at the park, so we got a total of 6 GAD fastpass cards.

The cast member will then give you one of the Disney’s Fastpass Special Exchange Card Guides that explains how to use your card. The one shown below is from Epcot.

As you can see, there are two different groups of fastpass rides: the Donald Group and the Daisy Group. On that day, the Donald Group included Test Track and Soarin’. The Daisy Group included Mission Space, Living with the Land, Captain EO and Maelstrom. Each of the special fastpass cards allows the bearer to ride 3 rides from each group.

Step 3

Insert your special GAD Fastpass into the fastpass kiosk (just as you would your park ticket) and it will give you a fastpass with a return time that starts immediately.

In our case, we had 6 people and each of us could ride 3 rides from Donald and 3 rides from Daisy; for a grand total of 36 free, immediate rides while in the parks during the busy Thanksgiving holiday season. In other words, when we got to the line for Soarin which was 70 minutes, we put our card into the fastpass machine and it issued a fastpass with the current time on it and we rode right away.

For this park, since there are only two rides listed in the Donald Group, we used two on Test Track and one on Soarin’. Other parks have 3 listed under this group, such as Hollywood Studios that listed the choices as Aerosmith’s Rock N Rollercoaster, Tower of Terror and Toy Story Mania. In that case, all 6 of us rode together, one time on each ride.

The fastpass is good at the park you are visiting for that day only. They are only good until the regular park closing time at the end of the day in which you received it. During Extra Magic Hours they are not supposed to be valid, so I didn’t try it.

Even if all the fastpass machines are out of passes and closed for the day, you can still get fastpasses with these cards. Please note that in some instances, the machines were completely out so a cast member had to write us a special fastpass. Also be aware that not everyone knows what the special passes are. We had someone who appeared to be a manager at the Kilimanjaro Safari ride at Animal Kingdom that went ahead and tried our card even though their fastpass machine was out, and it worked. When another guest asked him how we were able to get fastpasses, he told her because we had these special cards that happened to work. He told her she could get them from the front of the park and I had to explain to her that they were for special Give A Day volunteer passes.

Please remember that these special fastpasses do not affect your regular park ticket at all. So, you are still able to use your park ticket to get regular fastpasses for a later time. We used ours in conjunction with our room keys for the maximum time-saving capabilities. They were great for us to use during this busy season and we really appreciated having them.

Hope this will make using your voucher for a GAD fastpass card easier. Enjoy your trip and remember to let us know all about it!

Brenda is a native Texan born and raised on the Gulf Coast. She visited Disney World twice as a teenager and always dreamed of growing her family Disney. She took her first-timer husband and their three children to Disney World in 2000 and they now spend every Thanksgiving there. Brenda writes with a comedic twist on various Disney topics. She will be sharing tips she has learned during her travels and also hopes to enlighten people on little-known freebies that Disney has to offer. She wishes she could have met Walt Disney and considers herself to be a student of Walt. In parallel to his dream it is her wish that everyone would take at least one trip to Disney World in order to share in its magic with their families.

Travel Tuesday Tales: T-Minus 36 Days and Counting…

Nancy Christmas Holidays, Travel Tuesday Tales , , , , 7 Comments

While our friend Brenda is enjoying her vacation in Walt Disney World, I thought I’d take today to provide a quick update to our Disney vacation planning. We leave for Disney World in 36 days, on December 30…and as always happens when you start planning so far in advance….I can’t believe that we’re about a month away!

I can’t believe it because I have quite a bit to do in the next month for this trip.

Oh yeah. And we’ve got a few holidays sprinkled in there as well. 🙂

First let’s start with an update to some previous plans: Instead of 4 going, there are now just 3, myself, my DH and our DD. So I have had a few changes to make in the past month or so, namely to all of our ADRs, and Candlelight Processional reservations.

I also have been regularly in touch with Disney Vacation Club (meaning *daily*), in the attempt to reduce the size of our accommodations from a 2 BR to a Studio or 1 BR. Knowing how crazy busy this week is at Disney, I’m not holding my breath, but it’s worth the try, so that we can save the points for another trip. (And isn’t that always the case: you start planning your next one before you leave on the current one? Or is that just me…. 🙂  ) In any event, currently we still have a 2 BR at Old Key West for the first two nights, and now have a 1 BR at Wilderness Lodge for the 2nd 2 nights. In addition to calling DVC, I’m also on the waitlist for something smaller, so we shall see what happens.

Now what is done so far?

  • Accommodations (well sort of): check.
  • Basic Disney Dining Plan added: check.
  • Advanced Dining Reservations for all dinners: check.
  • Flights booked: check.

And what needs to be done in the next few weeks?

  • Tickets ordered: To Do!
  • Magical Express contacted: To Do!
  • Parking/transportation to and from airport: To Do!
  • Check park hours: To Do!
  • Any additional tours/meals/events booked: Research, maybe yes, maybe no.
  • Check luggage situation and replace some suitcases: Research, but probably To Do!
  • Check for new comfy walking shoes for me: Oh definitely To Do!!!!

This is, of course, in addition to getting ready for Christmas. Yeah, it’s gonna be a fun month! 🙂

Now you may notice that I don’t really have any itinerary planning on here, and I will say that is a benefit of many trips: for us at this point, we don’t worry about this as much as we would if we were still fairly new to Walt Disney World. Plus, and this is a biggie: there will be lots of crowds, and so we have learned that flexibility will be key during our time there over New Years. We have a few favorites at each park, and certainly know where we will be each evening (we decided that when making our ADRs). Beyond that, once I see the hours for each park, and see when the Holiday events will be ending, then we will narrow it down to which park we’ll go to each morning, and we’ll chat about if there are any Must-Sees for anyone on this trip. That will be about it for itinerary planning for this Disney vacation for us. (Note: it really helps here that we are 3 adults, so no little one meltdowns if we just can’t see something…..)

This weekend, DD will be home from college 🙂  so we’ll have a chance to talk a bit about if there are any extra things anyone wants to do, like doing a tour or something like that. We also need to decide if we want to get Park Hoppers for 4 days or 5, so I can order them from Undercover Tourist. And then I need to call Disney to arrange for Magical Express.

Oh, and before Black Friday, I’ll be looking at our suitcase situation, and my shoe situation, both of which are apparently necessary purchases….

And that will be it then, for a few weeks, as I get ready for Christmas………

…….until I start obsessing about the weather forecast. 🙂