We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside this time around. This trip we were took advantage of the free Disney Dining plan offer. If you booked more than 4 days I think it was on a standard Magic Your Way package you received Free dining.

Thoughts & Observations:

• The standard Disney Dining Plan we went on was a $40 value per person per night. It included one table service, one counterservice, and one snack credit per person per night. Overall this provided a fair amount of food. Due to the D23 event and a couple meals there we ended up spending very little on food out of pocket. I was really surprised that the signature dining locations did not include apetizers.. since it costs you two table service meal credits I thought it should. The way its worded in the booklet is also a bit awkward. It says Appatizer (Ages 3-9 only) or something to that effect. It means only kids can get one, not adults!! I misread this. Not really a big loss but a little odd. Also I still do not like the fact that tips are not included on the plans anymore. The way tips are handled is awkward too. If you want to charge it to your room the server brings you a receipt. You fill it out before they ring it up (usually they wait nearby while you do this) then they take the receipt and card and come back with two receipts for you to sign (one for the dining plan and one for the room charge).
  
  
• People always ask if the plans are a good value or not. This turned out to be a decent saving for us since it was free.. but what if we paid the $40 per person per night. So for the three of us it would have cost $840 for the 7 nights. Our plan spending came out to be $1,033. So at full price we would have saved a little over 20% if we would have eaten the same way off the plan. We did not go overly crazy in our dining, instead opting for some favorites and a couple new choices. We ended up using our counter service meals at: Trails End, Liberty Tree, Narcoossees, Yachtsman, and Le Cellier. For counter service we at a breakfast at the Mill, lunches at Restaurantosourus, Flame Tree, Pizzafari, Electric Umbrella, Sunshine Seasons, Pizza Planet, Backlot Express, and a dinner at Cosmic Rays. We ended up using most of our snacks on breakfast items at the Mill. We did have ice cream at Animal Kingdom, Funnel Cake/Ice Cream Sandwhich at Sleepy Hollow, some popcorn at EPCOT, and an icee at the Magic Kingdom too.
  
  
• We stayed in building 15 at the Riverside. This was a much shorter walk to the main buildings than we had last time around. The resort was fairly full due to the Pop Warner groups, but it did not feel crowded.
  
  
• Overall the crowds at the parks were on the mild side all week. The weekend saw a brief uptick and the last few days were definitely more crowded than when we first arrived, but still nothing too bad. I think part of this was due to the Pop Warner groups that were sucking up most of the Disney resort rooms it seemed. We spoke to several of them and they said there were over 56,000 people at the event this year. That included football, cheerleading, and dance teams, plus family and friends..
  
  
• On Saturday and Sunday we participated in the D23 Magic and Merriment event. Overall I thought this was a good event, not a great event. I had extremely high expectations after the couple West Coast events I had attended. I thought they did a good job and the event was fun, but it did not exceed expectations like the other two events (The Disneyland USA and Walt Disney Studio and Archive tours). For more details be sure to check out my daily logs.
  
  
• On Sunday the 13th we attended the Very Merry Christmas party as part of the D23 event. I thought it was a fun event and really enjoyed all the seasonal festivities. I am still very much opposed to this event as I feel many of the offerings should be part of your daily experience. If you are paying over $80 for a one day ticket during the holidays I think you should get to see Holiday fireworks, parades, and shows and not have to pay another $55.38 in advance (or $62.84) at the door for them on top of your daily tickets or go during the week of Christmas when its jammed!
  
  
• Overall I was a little disappointed in the Holiday offerings around the parks this year. It seems to me each year things become a little less.. for example this year there were no Lights of Winter at EPCOT, or train at the American Adventure tree.. at the Studios no holiday parade. Things just seemed toned down a bit in some areas. Or over at the Magic Kingdom where the Country Bear show has been gone for the past several years now.
  
  
• I am still extremely disappointed in the quality of the buns at the counter service locations. If you order a double burger the bun basically falls apart and cannot support it. This is extremely poor at the price point they charge. Also I was disappointed in the decision to remove all beef hotdogs from the menus and as my small protest managed to go the week without having one. Lastly I wanted to comment on the lack of fresh/interesting dessert choices at the counter service locations. At most places you had a choice of 3-4 items. Most were not that interesting to me so I usually opted for a cookie or nothing. The cookies at everywhere we ate except for PizzaPlanet were pre-packaged and not that good.. the PizzaPlanet offering was a fresh baked one. The best choices seemed to be Sunshine Seasons since there you could choose from the bakery but of course I did not like the entres there so I never ate there...