Let's back up a little and talk about eating at Disney. As long as you're not bringing a cooler in, you can bring in as much food as you want. In fact, I highly recommend you bring your own snacks and a reusable water bottle. Aside from the fact that you can bring your own food and drinks in, Disney is very much like a movie theater, in that, you'll pay movie theatre prices for the food, it's not that great, and the lines are long. So if you wanted to bring both lunch and supper with you, I wouldn't fault you.
But let's say you do want to buy something to eat at Disney, because you've always wanted to try a Dole Whip, or it seems easier than bringing a lunch, or you're staying onsite and have little access to food. There are two food options at Disney, one is called Counter Service and the other one is called Table Service. Do your research, look at the menus for all the places and see which ones you might want to eat at, and which one has that snack you've always wanted to try.
Counter Service places are fast food. You can get snacks and even full meals. The quality may not be very good, but it's fast. Here's a tip: use Mobile Ordering. You can skip the lines and just pick up your order. Most people are not taking advantage of this system yet so you'll be surprised at how much faster this is! Some Counter Service restaurants do not offer seating nearby (or very little seating), so keep this in mind if you're planning to eat a meal, especially if you have people in your party who need to sit while eating.
If you want to have one special meal, or you plan to eat a meal every day at Disney, you may want to make a reservation at a Table Service restaurant. Some restaurants even have character dining, which is a fantastic way to get pictures with your favourite characters without having to wait in line. Having breakfast before the park opens can be a great way to be first in line if you finish before the park opens (we did breakfast at the Garden Grill at Epcot and we loved it). At this point, you will want to book a Table Service. The way you do this is by making an Advanced Dining Reservation, which can be made 60 days in advance of the dining day. Here's a great trip calculator to help you figure out what day you can make your reservation on. Just pop in the day you'd like to reserve for, and check the date under "60days - Dining Reservations." On that date, get your browser open to the right page, ready to refresh at 6am when the reservations open up, and book the restaurant you want before the reservations are gone. Some restaurants, like Cinderella's Castle or Be Our Guest, are very hard to get reservations for. Consider booking at off times -having lunch at 11 or 1, having supper at 4 or 5 or later in the evening. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the booking process before you actually have to book. You don't need a ticket to book (just a free Disney account), so if you wanted to, right now, you could make a booking and cancel it just to practice (just make sure to cancel it!). You can always cancel or change your reservation as long as its 24 hours in advance, so if you didn't get the reservation you wanted, check back because one might open up. I would recommend using the browser over calling (the wait time to get connected means you'll lose valuable time, and they don't have any reservations that are not online, and they only open at 7am) and even over the app (which always seems to crash at an inopportune moment).
Dining plans are available for people staying onsite (but have been suspended since Covid began). Basically, you are prepaying for all your meals by paying a certain amount per person per day. I'm not going to go in-depth talking about Dining Plans, because my understanding is that you have to really crunch the numbers to see if it's worth it money-wise, and it can cramp your planning because you have to see if a restaurant accepts the dining plan, how many credits it uses, etc. Sometimes Disney offers free dining plans, in which case, if you're staying onsite, you'll need to calculate whether using the free dining plan is worth losing out on other discounts.
My favourite restaurants:
MK:
The Plaza
Liberty Tree Tavern (family style)
Jungle Cruise Skipper Canteen (it's affiliated with the Jungle Cruise ride, and very underrated)
Epcot:
Cantina de San Angel
Akershus (princess dining!)
Animal Kingdom:
Yak and Yeti (try the burger)
Hollywood Studios:
Brown Derby
Sci-Fi Dine In (my kids really like this one)
My worst restaurants:
MK:
Tony's Town Square (my kids didn't even like it -how can you mess up pasta and pizza?)
The Diamond Horseshoe
The Crystal Palace (you're there for the characters, not the food -I'm told breakfast is better)
Here are the other posts on DisneyWorld planning:
1 - When to go to Disney: what age is a good age? What time of year is good to go?
2 - Where to stay at Disney: breaking down the pros and cons of off vs. onsite
3 - Advance Dining Reservations: because hour long waits for lunch/dinner are for non-planners
4 - Genie+: getting on the rides faster
5 - What to take to Disney: including discussions about strollers, magic bands and memory maker
Updated Nov 30 2021
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