Affordable Meals at Disney? Do They Exist?

There are a few tricks for saving money on meals at Disney World. Trick number one is to eat at your hotel in the cafeteria when possible. This place can actually be pretty expensive too, but at least you can check out a wider range of things available and get a muffin or something in the morning. The baked goods are a bit cheaper and you can grab something that you can carry with you for a snack later on. Trick number two involves bringing your own snacks from home. My boyfriend and I brought some food from home like granola bars and pop tarts. These came in really handy to save some money at breakfast. Lastly, eat at self serve places. While it is nice to sometimes have your food served to you, take out or cafeteria style is great because it saves you on tips. There are a bunch of great Disney guidebooks out there that give you the names of lots of inexpensive places to eat at the park. Place I reccomend are Pizza Planet at MGM (it's loud, the food isn't great, but kids just love it and it can be a bit cheaper than other sit down places), and if you are willing to leave the park, there are some good places in Downtown Disney...especially the Fish and Chips place there.

I highly recommend getting the book Unofficial Guide to Disney World. Their information on the restaurants is outstanding. They give you quality ratings, approximate costs, and menu offerings. It's about $20, but you'll save that much in a couple of days if you use the guide. At Epcot, most of the countries have counter service restaurants (AKA fast food). The quality is usually very good, and the price is fairly reasonable. You shouldn't have to spend $60 for four people to eat hot dogs! I don't like to eat at MGM, so I'm not much help there. Pizza Planet isn't too pricey, but I find all of the pizza at WDW to be on the bad side. At MK, we like Pecos Bill's. They have some great wraps. I think with a side and a drink, it runs about $7-8. If you're paying that much for food, you may want to consider the dining plan. It's around $39/day for adults and $10/day for kids under 10. It includes one sit-down meal per day, one counter service, and one snack. It's a LOT of food-- each sit down meal includes an appetizer *and* dessert. Counter service meals include a dessert, which we'd take along as a snack for later. Intercot.com has a section called "info central." If you go there, and look under "dining," you can pull up the menus for almost all the restaurants on property. Great way to plan out your meals.

OMG $60 for hotdogs, I would expect a smorgasboard for that, that is taking advantage of people and that is sad because that means people with a little less money just can't make it...very disappointing.

I think when I went to Epcot I ate at some resturant that served Hamburgers but it was still really high. i had free tickets to go for me and my ex husband this was 3 years ago but at the time it was fun

Disney has the dining plan now, and it's a GREAT deal! At least, depending on how you eat. For $38.99/adult and just $10.99/child (up to age 9) per night, you get: * 1 counter (self explanatory) service meal which includes the meal, drink and dessert! * 1 table service meal (very nice restaurants included!) includes appetizer (for each person), main course, drink and dessert! * 1 snack (last i heard, up to $4.00) Cast members can tell you exactly what is included, but can be milk, water, soda, ice cream, cookies and more! Overall I think it is a very good deal, especially at dinner time. There are VERY nice restaurants included, you can get steak dinners for everyone, which could alone be more than the cost of the dining plan per day! Good luck and we are planning a trip this summer and will DEFINITELY use the dining plan!