Is the dining plan even worth it?

Vividtrack · Oct 7, 2015

I was just wondering if you all thought the dining plan is worth the money? We are going ten days, but won't be there the first night until dinner time. We will be off resort two full days at universal and a third to Cape Canaveral. The last day we leave at around lunch. So it's really only 7 days worth of meals we would need, but you have to have a meal plan for the entire stay correct?

sharonabe · Oct 7, 2015

Yes, you are required to have the dining plan for the entire stay. It is based on the nights you stay, so you may not have as many meals as you are thinking.

You will have to do the math to see if it makes sense for your family. Even with days offsite, it MIGHT still work if you want to do some signature dining which would require 2 credits per person. Using your TS credits in this way would be fairly easy. The difficulty you will encounter is using your QS credits. Breakfast is not a good value, and if you aren't on property enough to use them for lunch or dinner, you could easily lose value on those.

Take a look at the places you WANT to eat and post again to see if those choices would make the plan worth it for you. OH, and we need to know the makeup of your family too. How many Disney kids (9 and under) and how many Disney adults (10 and up).

jon18uk · Oct 7, 2015

If you are paying for the dining plan (so not on a free or half price with a package offer) it is rarely worth it.

Yes you do need to have a dining plan for every night of your stay, but you can use credits in any order you wish. So if you are at Universal then you could save one of the table service credits from that day (and use a quick service for dinner) to pay for a two-credit signature dinner another night. But this may not work out good value of paying for the package.

Christian Lefebvre · Oct 7, 2015

It depends on the restaurants you plan to attend - for us, it's totally worth it! We'll save about $400 over the course of 7 days.

librarymom2007 · Oct 7, 2015

I think it's too much food. We won't pay for it again.

Blisskitty · Oct 7, 2015

My friends and family love it. I've gone with my parents and my brother and his wife, and I've gone with my (all over 30) friends. I won't book a Disney vacation without it. For me, it's about the convenience of having everything paid for up front, and it gives the penny pincher in me the opportunity to try new restaurants I most likely wouldn't pay for out of pocket without grimacing- much less pay for a soda/hot tea and *gasp* dessert. On the trip I took with my friends, we took two days off of Disney and went to Universal. We used those two table service credits to go to a couple of signature places- breakfast at Cinderella's Castle and dinner at Jiko. They were both outstanding experiences and we were all really glad we had the extra credits. I'm going in December with my mom, and we lucked into free dining, but we already knew we were going to get the plan, regardless if we could make free dining work or not. It just isn't a thing we go without any more. As a result, we are trying all new restaurants when we go (with the exception of my favorite breakfast on site- 1900 Park Fare.) I know there are a lot of nay-sayers, but it really gives me the peace of mind to not freak out over a mediocre $20 cheeseburger meal and a $50 dinner in one day.

MakiraMarlena · Oct 7, 2015

from a strict monetary standpoint, sometimes it is worth it. If you have several kids under 10 and you want to do a character meal a day, it's worth it. Otherwise you will have to do the math. You are at a disadvantage because you will have the plan based on a 10 night stay but you plan to spend at least 3 days eating somewhere other than WDW. Unless you can figure the use of 2 credit meals and find a use for all those quick service credits, you won't be using the plan to the best of its (strictly monetary) value, and you might actually end up losing money on the deal.

If you are like the above poster and you place value above and beyond just the monetary value - on the "convenience" of having the plan, then you may think differently.

Vividtrack · Oct 7, 2015

Our group is 4 adults, QS are fine for lunch and most likely sit down at Epcot for dinners. None of us are really breakfast people. We may have a desert or snack here or there, but I am not thinking every day. At this point, I am thinking it's not really worth the money for us. Thank you for all the information.

Baklava · Oct 7, 2015

We used the calculator and determined that it was worth it for us. I found that to be a good tool.

Baklava · Oct 7, 2015

http://www.distripplanner.com/

More helpful with the link, isn't it?

Jadyreen1282 · Oct 7, 2015

If it's free yes. If not probably no. But look at it this way. If you do have extra TS credits just eat at signatures. Great food and experiences.

Nancyg56 · Oct 10, 2015

Othes have already pointed out that you will need to crunch the numbers yourself and then determine if the DDP is worth it. If you are adding signature meals you may find it is, but I would look closely at menus and then decide. if you will not be using the snacks and donto like to have dessert or beverages with meals, it probably will not pay off.

mkh531 · Oct 10, 2015

We just got back and the DDP was definitely worth it for us. We used the distripplanner calculator before we went which told us that we would at least break even if not save up to $200. after looking over my receipts it looks like we sent just about exactly $1000 on food and beverage altogether with the DDP (including tax & tip, excluding most alcohol except the wine we ordered at Artist Point). This was a 5 day trip for a family of four. Last time we went, with similar meals and the size family (at younger ages) we spent much more--closer to 1500. The savings comes form the kids--they are $20 a day on the plan, but since the cost for them at most character meals is $20 anyway you start saving big with 2 or more meals over the course of the trip. Dh and I realized that the larger savings, however, comes from the included refillable mugs--we never stopped to pay for coffee or bottled water, since we loaded up on coffee with the mugs both before and after going into the parks, and had the kids drink water form the mugs when at the resort so we had leftover bottled water from QS meals to drink while touring. Also, we used snack credits and dessert credits for our breakfasts.

We ate ate Whispering Canyon, Roaring Fork (many times), Artist Point, Columbia Harbour House, Ohana, Tusker House, Be Our Guest, Chefs de France, Sunshine Seasons, Pecos Bill. For four people to eat full meals at all these places, including tax and tip, for less than $1000 is pretty impressive IMO. (we also ate at CRT but that was prepaid months ago and not included on the plan).

North of Mouse · Oct 10, 2015

Vividtrack said:
I was just wondering if you all thought the dining plan is worth the money? We are going ten days, but won't be there the first night until dinner time. We will be off resort two full days at universal and a third to Cape Canaveral. The last day we leave at around lunch. So it's really only 7 days worth of meals we would need, but you have to have a meal plan for the entire stay correct?

'Very' subjective! Way too much food for us, plus even though we eat all we want, we spend lots less as we eat much differently than the plan allows (never eat desserts with meals, or drink sodas with meals). Would rather have one meal per day, then eat or snack as we wish (our lax vacation rules LOL).

Some families I know 'must' have their '3 squares' - could never eat like that ourselves and keep our weight in line - even with all the walking we do, our normal exercise routines are put on hold.

supersnoop · Oct 10, 2015

mkh531 said:
The savings comes form the kids--they are $20 a day on the plan, but since the cost for them at most character meals is $20 anyway

This is the most important thing for people to realize. I think Disney gets families hooked on the plan when the kids are young and they save lots of money. Once those kids turn 10, there is very little, if any money to be saved.

disneyjunkie · Oct 11, 2015

Blisskitty said:
My friends and family love it. I've gone with my parents and my brother and his wife, and I've gone with my (all over 30) friends. I won't book a Disney vacation without it. For me, it's about the convenience of having everything paid for up front, and it gives the penny pincher in me the opportunity to try new restaurants I most likely wouldn't pay for out of pocket without grimacing- much less pay for a soda/hot tea and *gasp* dessert. On the trip I took with my friends, we took two days off of Disney and went to Universal. We used those two table service credits to go to a couple of signature places- breakfast at Cinderella's Castle and dinner at Jiko. They were both outstanding experiences and we were all really glad we had the extra credits. I'm going in December with my mom, and we lucked into free dining, but we already knew we were going to get the plan, regardless if we could make free dining work or not. It just isn't a thing we go without any more. As a result, we are trying all new restaurants when we go (with the exception of my favorite breakfast on site- 1900 Park Fare.) I know there are a lot of nay-sayers, but it really gives me the peace of mind to not freak out over a mediocre $20 cheeseburger meal and a $50 dinner in one day.

EXACTLY

We won't do disney without the dining plan. I don't care about maxing out the plan or getting the biggest bang out of it. I care about having as much of the trip paid in advance as possible.

It isn't too much food because no one is forcing us to order/eat more than we want. Just because a ton of food is included with the plan, doesn't mean you have to order and try to eat it all.

bcarey2k · Oct 11, 2015

A curve ball that I found is that my son was on the kid plan and I was on the adult ... About every other meal, I ate his and he ate mine ... He was a growing boy and liked the extra food .... As an aging adult, I enjoyed the smaller portions.

Win / win

-Brian

3Gsandme · Oct 11, 2015

Unless it is free or deeply discounted, for my family, it's not a good deal.

Minniesgal · Oct 11, 2015

We used the plan once , hated it and would never use it again. It is far too much food and we found we stopped wanting to eat out because we were not enjoying eating so much or so often.

Yes you could not order food But it you don't use your credit s you are wasting the money you paid for the plan. Also the convenience of being pre paid Isn't even there as you still have to pay tips and adult drinks so you are still paying out a lot OOP every day.

When we go without the plan we spend about half the cost of the plan on food

MarieKat · Oct 11, 2015

I'm just back from my first trip and I have mixed feelings. Having food paid for upfront was nice. However. The food is often so overpriced that what you pay in tips onsite is what the meal is actually worth. I live in NYC and I think Disney restaurants are overpriced-that's saying something, lol. If/when we go back I"m going to crunch numbers and my husband and I are going to have a serious talk about what we want to do and what might make more sense, like splitting, ordering kids' meals and just generally eating more frugally. I can still see us splurging once or twice on a particularly nice place but we kind of went nuts on this our first trip together, and I can see things being different in the future.

Is the dining plan even worth it?

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