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Planning our Disney Vacation Part 4: Food

We are continuing on our journey of planning our Disney vacation! In part 3 we chose our hotel – we picked Disney’s Polynesian Resort. The next step for us was figuring out how we were going to deal with food.

There are several factors at play when trying to decide food at Disney World. Here are things you need to consider:

  • Disney restaurants you want to eat at – this includes character dining
  • The food options available at your hotel
  • Disney Dining Plan options

For our family, we started with the restaurants we knew for sure we wanted to eat at.

Disney Restaurant Choices

Normally when we visit Disney we do two character dining experience’s – one with the princesses and one with Mickey and friends. As you may remember, we are considering this trip to be our last “big” family trip, so we added on some extra for this trip.

Our dining choices were:

  • Cinderella’s Royal Table (breakfast in Magic Kingdom)
  • Tusker House (lunch in Animal Kingdom)
  • Space 220 (EPCOT)
  • Oga’s Cantina (Hollywood Studios)
  • Storybook Dining (dinner at Wilderness Lodge)

The whole family went to the three restaurants. We did not all go to Space 220 and Oga’s, but we did need reservations for all of these restaurants.

ogas cantina drinks

Here is where we started doing a lot of math. Disney has all the pricing for every restaurant online. We wrote down how much we would be spending on each meal so we could figure out our next step.

Disney Dining Plan

At this point we strongly considered doing the Disney Dining Plan. The standard dining plan would allow us to use the table service credits towards our restaurant options.

The downside of the dining plan is Storybook Dining and Cinderella’s Royal Table would take two table service credits instead of just one. That reduced our table service options by quite a bit, and we were concerned that we would end up spending quite a bit above and beyond the dining plan to cover extra meal needs throughout the week.

Cinderella's Royal Table restaurant

After doing quite a bit of math we determined that we weren’t saving any money by using the Dining Plan. On top of that, we weren’t certain that we would be getting the most “bang for our buck” with the quick service options.

For example, we don’t always want to grab an actual “meal” while we are at the parks. Sometimes we want more snacks than meals. We didn’t want to be pigeonholed into food that we didn’t necessarily want.

Dining Options At The Polynesian

At this point of our food discussion we took a look at the food options at the Polynesian. One massive perk of the Polynesian is there are A LOT of food options!

Two women at Disney's Polynesian Resort

One of the biggest concerns we have while at Disney is breakfast. We like the option of eating fast and getting to rope drop. The thought of trying to make breakfast orders for 12 people, waiting for food, and getting to the bus or monorail was overwhelming.

There are a number of other dining options at the Polynesian that would work for dinner or lunches so those weren’t a big concern for us. We also knew that we would likely do the refillable cup for coffee and drinks to make that easier on us.

While researching food at the Polynesian, we decided to look into the club level.

Club Level At The Polynesian

Club level is a special section at deluxe resorts that gives you access to food, snacks, and your own concierge to help with any needs you may have during your stay.

The club level has breakfast starting at 7am, snacks throughout the day, a light dinner service in the evening, and desserts at the end of the day. Drinks (coffee, sparkling water, juice, beer, and soda) are available all day long.

The club levels have a very large room where you eat and drink and can simply “be.” Think of it like a hotel lobby but it is nicer. Only the people who are on club level get to use this space.

Polynesian club level lounge

The biggest downside to club level is the price. It is very expensive. That being said, the perks may make it worth it to you and your family. To make a long story short, we ended up deciding to do club level at the Polynesian. Here are the main reasons why:

  • It gave us a place to hang out. The teenagers could hang out there, adults could head to the meal space while the smaller kids were sleeping (don’t worry, we had monitors and it was SO CLOSE and safe). With the size and ages of our family this really was the biggest selling point.
  • Everyone could make their own food decisions based on what was available. In the mornings we went down and had breakfast. We didn’t have to look at a menu, make an order, have someone run it back to the room, etc etc. The simplicity of breakfasts alone was worth it to us.
  • We had plenty of food to eat anytime we were at the hotel. There were also so many drink options! It really was nice to have a glass of wine or beer (or Irish coffee) at the end of the day. Additionally, water, sparkling water, multiple juice options, soda, and an espresso machine were available at all times.
  • Grandma and Grandpa were generous. Lets be honest -our parents were beyond generous and blessed us with the club level after we discussed this option as a family. We did not save any money on food. That being said – after we did all the math we don’t think it cost us a TON extra. It got a little tricky to factor it all out, but once we made the decision to do club level we stopped worrying about food prices.

Next up, our itinerary! Figuring out what day to do each park when you factor in dinner reservations, crowds and rest days can be a lot.

We hope this is helping!

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