What should I choose, lunch or dinner? About This Page:

[Disney Franatic]

I am making my ADRs this week. Are the lunch buffets less money than the dinner buffets? You can't tell the prices anymore when looking at the menus on the WDW site. If lunch is less, we don't mind eating our big meal at noon.

[chezp]

Generally they are. I'd check out the prices in your PassPorter or on All Ears Net. They give you more information than the Disney World website.

[Pris]

There might be a small difference in cost, but, personally, I would just go with whatever fits your touring schedule best. I, too, suggest the menus at allears.net They will give you the prices as well as any discounts that are offered, with any restrictions on discount uses.

[Her Dotness]

The problem you run into estimating character buffet prices is that All Ears menus give a range which doesn't tell you much.

The low end is a typical price for the least expensive room season whereas the high end reflects the price near major holidays or during the priciest season of the year. If you don't know in which "stay season" your trip dates fall, that can make estimating difficult.

Personally, I would calculate to find the halfway amount per person to see if I could afford that, totaling for adults and kids in your family.

If you can't afford that, then a character meal may be unaffordable altogether, an unpleasant reality it's better to discover in advance.

Otherwise, plan as if you're certain you'll have to pay the maximum price per person which may leave enough extra to cover the tip and then some.

[yalibrarian]

In most cases, lunch at buffets will be a bit cheaper, but I always say with Disney, the only constant is change. When we did Biergarten a few years back, lunch was $5 less than dinner; dinner had a couple of additional meat dishes but was otherwise the same. All Ears seem to have different prices shown for lunch and dinner so that might be a place to check.

[JoanneS]

Lunch is usually a little bit less expensive, but filling up at lunch tends to make you less willing to tour in the afternoon. But if you're used to eating your big meal at lunch, then go for it. I don't think the savings will be as much as you expect, but it should be cheaper.

[CinderAbby]

Lunch is typically cheaper and that's the meal we chose for years and I have to be honest, sometimes those lunch meals are hard. It's nice to have that afternoon time in the air conditioning but we had to stop what we were doing and spend anywhere from one to two hours to have that meal (at least 15 minutes beforehand to check in and typically 90 minutes for the meal - and that's if we got seated on time). We had to watch the clock and make sure we were in the "right" area at the right time.

While I don't regret the years we did do that, we won't be going back to it anytime soon. We either do the breakfast meals and get in the park early or stick to dinner time when we know we'll be running out of steam and it's easier to be in the right place at the right time.