College of William & Mary
- Campus Dining

Pretty Decent, Lots of Options

The food's not amazing, but the quality varies depending on which place you choose to eat. there are several different places that you can use meal swipes, and also places where you can use flex points or dining dollars on campus. You can even order Domino's with your flex points which is definitely nice during finals.

What is food?

Over the course of my time here, it gets progressively harder to convince myself to eat. Because I have classes during what would be considered "meal times" it seems to be impossible to ever get there when they serve food. They say hours are from 7am to 8pm or so, but there are intervals where they are not actually serving anything (thus by swiping in you waste $10.35). There is always salad and usually pizza, but one can only eat this so many times before wondering why they have a meal plan. The worst thing is the breakfast for dinner that happens at least once a week. Also, the lack of sanitation of silverware and cups is appalling. No wonder everyone's always sick.

Meal Plans: an Unfortunate Necessity, at Least Once

As only a sophomore, I already regret getting such a large meal plan with 19 meals a week. The meal plans at William and Mary are a waste of money for someone with any time whatsoever to go off campus and put together a relatively healthy meal. Options on campus vary greatly from one dining hall to another, but within each one, meals get very repetitive. At the main dining hall, which is unfortunately my most convenient option, the food is of VERY low quality. Along with the repetitive meal options which include chicken patty sandwiches, meatloaf, and "breakfast for dinner," very strange options often arise, such as "beef-stuffed green peppers." The salad bar is limited and even the ranch dressing tastes weird. Remarkably, the pizza is actually one of the worst things offered, despite how easy it is to make pizza and the fact that it is made every single day for lunch and dinner. Silverware and dishes are often dirty, with white scum lines on cups and black scum in the cereal bowls. Cleanliness is hardly maintained when it comes to the food either. Between myself and friends, I have seen or heard of hairs in panini sandwiches, a blue Starburst wrapper in a piece of baked fish, a fingernail in baked apples, a grasshopper in the ice machine, and a piece of a plastic bag in a grilled cheese. Thankfully my stomach has been very tolerant, but some people even feel sick after eating at "The Caf." The meal plans are also extremely expensive and, in my opinion, unfair. The price for plans with 10, 14, and 19 meals a week is the same; the difference is the amount of "Flex" dollars that one gets along with the meals. Unfortunately, by having a weekly system, meals are naturally wasted each week. It is also very unclear which meal plans have "guest swipes" to swipe in a friend--thats right, you cannot even use an extra meal to help out someone else--so if someone loses or forgets their student ID, a meal costs $10.35. There is a large grocery store within a fairly reasonable walking distance of campus, so with any spare time, one should get a meal plan freshman year and try as hard as possible to avoid dining halls afterwards.