Hi Crystal,
How exciting to be planning your first trip to Walt Disney World! My daughter is 10 years old, so right in the middle of the ages of your girls.
Whether you get a
Disney Dining Plan or not depends on how you think that your family will want to eat while at Walt Disney World. From the link that I provided, you can see the many options for dining plans, so you can choose the one that best fits your family. The dining plans allow you to pay for your dining in advance, so you will not have to worry about paying for food out of pocket while on vacation. While this convenience is really important for some guests, my family generally does not purchase a Disney Dining Plan. We find that we like to grab a lot of our meals in our villa - a quick breakfast in the room and then we are on our way, or a more relaxing dinner at night in the comfort of our own accommodations. We typically stay in villas in part so that we have a full kitchen to make this possible. Whether you choose to get a dining plan or not depends on how you envision spending your time.
As to which type of
Walt Disney World tickets to purchase, that will depend on how you plan to experience the Disney theme parks. A base ticket will allow you to experience one theme park per day, and adding the Park Hopper Option will mean that you can go from park to park on any given day. I think that for your first trip, you will be fine with a base ticket as long as you carefully plan your activities each day to only be within one park. That said, my family likes to have the Park Hopper Option because sometimes we head to a different theme park after dinner.
I would love to help you plan more Crystal; however, I am limited in the space that I have to answer. Please do write back if you have any further questions!