Anyone else completely priced out of the buffets at Disney now?

[AdamEfimoff]

IMO the main reason they are so $$ is to make people feel they are getting their money's worth on the dining plan. I'd like to see the breakdown of what percentage of guests pay out of pocket for buffets.

The only one we go to is Trail's End.

I agree. But I can't get the dining plan anyway. So I really don't care about the dining plan. Have no plan on going to a Disney resort. By the way the W in Brisbane charges 42.50 Australian for the buffet. Australian prices are really high though. I spent 100 dollars on drinks and two appetisers . And these were not even the most expensive things on the menu.

 

[Kelly Sullivan]

We’ve always been priced out of the dining at Disney which is why we wait for the free dining promo. Last year we upgraded from the free QS plan included with the cabins to the dining plan that included table service. It was $500 more but so worth it to be able to relax and enjoy our vacation without having to worry about the $$$. I will admit the buffets are amazing at Disney and the food has always been hot fresh and delicious. I wish there were more buffets that weren’t character meals as my kids have outgrown the characters but they love food and I will admit it is usually the biggest part of our memorable experiences

 

[North of Mouse]

So has anyone else pretty much been priced out of buffets at Disney? We are completely. I was thinking about doing a breakfast at Trails End in December if we go but with the recent price increases, we are done. And I do hate it, because the one that we love the most was breakfast at Bomas. That is now what $30 per adult. We just won't do buffet meals any longer. When it cost $100-$120 just for a family of three or four to eat breakfast, we are done.

Almost priced out at 'everything' Disney! Can we afford it? Yes. Are we going to give it to Disney? No! We've been going since !972 right after MK opened, but the last 10 or so years after prices are becoming insane, and 'extra' hard tickets are being sold everywhere they get a chance, we're nearly done.

Plan to go back in a few years after some of the current construction is finished, then -------- We enjoy going so many other places also.

Yes, we still enjoy Disney, but the 'worth' to us is getting much less.

 

[North of Mouse]

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[North of Mouse]

Uh oh, sorry about double post - stupid computer!!

 

[CamperMouse]

I was holding onto our ADR for O'Hana, but I see now it is time to send it back to the pool. Our group just won't eat enough to justify $250+ at the end of the meal. The best thing about our trip is staying at Ft. Wilderness. We can grill and have left over steak with eggs for breakfast. The savings from that TS meal alone will probably buy our groceries for the week.

 

[Selket]

I've been able to dine at buffets because we've gotten free dining for our last few stays - but ones without it then we stick to QS usually. We ate at Tiffins in August (free dining) and I noticed they have a few things on the menu that seemed lower price in line with a regular TS spot. Tiffins is beautiful and might be worth a look for people opting out of Buffets but want an upscale meal. The buffets are special though with the characters and variety - I'm wondering if Disney is trying to make the dining plan more appealing by pushing these prices up.

 

[tlmadden73]

Food everywhere is just more expensive and has been going up at the same time that all the Disney dining prices have gone up. (Maybe not at the same rate).

Unless you are eating Subway or McDonald's going out to lunch "back home" costs $10-15/person minimum (and that's just a sandwich, chips and a drink).
You can't find a non-fast food burger anywhere for less than $10 at most places.

Go out to dinner, just at chain restaurants, and you are lucky to get an appetizer, meal and a drink for under $20/person.
If prices didn't go up . you are more than likely getting smaller portions than you did 5-10 years ago.

It stinks .. all around ..

Just like you know going to the ball park you are going to pay $8-10 for a cup of beer and $5-8 for a hot dog (when you could go home and 10 times that amount at the grocery store for the same price) .. you know you are going to Walt Disney World and paying more for food. Know what the prices are (on average) and budget accordingly or don't plan on eating in the resort.

 

[Lisa F]

I was holding onto our ADR for O'Hana, but I see now it is time to send it back to the pool. Our group just won't eat enough to justify $250+ at the end of the meal. The best thing about our trip is staying at Ft. Wilderness. We can grill and have left over steak with eggs for breakfast. The savings from that TS meal alone will probably buy our groceries for the week.

it's great that this works for you but this is not a typical comparison. I'm a single mom. I work full time. We rarely go out to eat and I cook regularly. I like to cook but not so much the time and the cleanup, especially on work nights. This is not vacation for me. Vacation for me is someone else cooking and cleaning up and eating at places I don't eat at the rest of the time with a festive theme and atmosphere. Compare it to the cost of QS all you want, but having to cook my meals, even if it's a big savings, is a no-go for me and I suspect most vacationers. Staying at a Disney hotel is also WAY more per night than my rent is for my beautiful year round house in what is a resort vacation area for others... but I don't compare the cost of Disney hotels to that and just stay home either. My kid can go to the park or even the beach at home for free but that's not vacation to us either. If the point is just to be sheltered and fed and even entertained in some way, then going to Disney is a losing proposition all around!

I am not happy about the price hikes either but I have always found the "I can just buy my own groceries" to be an unfair vacation comparison. Buying groceries and cooking yourself will ALWAYS be a far less expensive option than going out, and that's always been the case, not just after this price hike. At a "cheap place" around here it costs me, the bf and our 3 boys nearly $100 to go out to eat and for that $100 I can feed all of them with massive portions and nice meals and leftovers and cooked to order breakfast and snacks and treats with some leftovers for the entire weekend, so about 6x the meals. BUT I am also cooking and cleaning constantly, loading and unloading the dishwasher, handwashing pots, running the dishwasher twice a day with all of the dishes we generate.

I know some people do this because that is what the budget is for them and they could not have a Disney vacation otherwise, but they would be priced out of Disney buffets at half the price (especially for larger families). But it is not really typical "vacation" behavior. Staying home is the cheapest option of all!

 

[david middleton]

Maybe I'm not a typical Disney visitor, but I've never thought of the buffets as something that should be value priced or accommodating to people that don't want to eat a lot of food. I go to them for the overall variety of food available. It's just another sit down option instead of ordering off the menu. I'm on vacation and plan my food budget accordingly.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

We're another example of ... we can afford it, but don't feel like it's even close to being worth the cost. We haven't even been since Dec 2017, but even then we felt fleeced. The food quality and character experiences just don't match the price tag they're putting on these meals...and that price to quality ratio gap is just growing even more with the recent increases. I kept hearing the cliche saying about a fool and their $...and I'm tired of being the fool.

 

[Nancyg56]

I was holding onto our ADR for O'Hana, but I see now it is time to send it back to the pool. Our group just won't eat enough to justify $250+ at the end of the meal. The best thing about our trip is staying at Ft. Wilderness. We can grill and have left over steak with eggs for breakfast. The savings from that TS meal alone will probably buy our groceries for the week.

This works if you like to camp. At home I am chief cook, bottle washer and housekeeper. If this is my fate on vacation, I am going to pass. I know I can save money this way, but it is nto a viable plan for me or my family.

it's great that this works for you but this is not a typical comparison. I'm a single mom. I work full time. We rarely go out to eat and I cook regularly. I like to cook but not so much the time and the cleanup, especially on work nights. This is not vacation for me. Vacation for me is someone else cooking and cleaning up and eating at places I don't eat at the rest of the time with a festive theme and atmosphere. Compare it to the cost of QS all you want, but having to cook my meals, even if it's a big savings, is a no-go for me and I suspect most vacationers. Staying at a Disney hotel is also WAY more per night than my rent is for my beautiful year round house in what is a resort vacation area for others... but I don't compare the cost of Disney hotels to that and just stay home either. My kid can go to the park or even the beach at home for free but that's not vacation to us either. If the point is just to be sheltered and fed and even entertained in some way, then going to Disney is a losing proposition all around!

I am not happy about the price hikes either but I have always found the "I can just buy my own groceries" to be an unfair vacation comparison. Buying groceries and cooking yourself will ALWAYS be a far less expensive option than going out, and that's always been the case, not just after this price hike. At a "cheap place" around here it costs me, the bf and our 3 boys nearly $100 to go out to eat and for that $100 I can feed all of them with massive portions and nice meals and leftovers and cooked to order breakfast and snacks and treats with some leftovers for the entire weekend, so about 6x the meals. BUT I am also cooking and cleaning constantly, loading and unloading the dishwasher, handwashing pots, running the dishwasher twice a day with all of the dishes we generate.

I know some people do this because that is what the budget is for them and they could not have a Disney vacation otherwise, but they would be priced out of Disney buffets at half the price (especially for larger families). But it is not really typical "vacation" behavior. Staying home is the cheapest option of all!

WE talked about this recently. As a young Mom, I compromised a lot to take my family places. WE packed lunches, etc. I am not going to do that any more. My family was costing a vacation in Aruba and looked at condos to rent. We could buy breakfast food, etc. Sure, except my DH is not going to be happy with bagels etc so that means we either go out or I cook. I am NOT cooking. We decided to go back to our (my) first choice, an all inclusive. Problem solved. LOL!

 

[Alli1988]

I try to take an honest approach. Can I pay it? Technically, Yes. Should I buy it? No. Am I going to buy it? Yes. Are viewing the menu prices going to ruin the mood? Yes. Is it going to make me leave or cancel? No. Solution: accept the price of the dining plan and take the most advantage of it. At least I can leave a meal feeling like I tried my best to get the most of out of, and focus on the fun instead of the regret. My husband always says, without the dining plan we will visit these places and convince ourselves we have to purchase the cheapest thing when we don't even want that... just get the meal plan and order what you want. I've done the calculations and we "get our money" from the meal plan. It makes sense for us - especially since it's always "free" when we go. We have a split stay this year and still decided to purchase the plan - for half our party. We will split the credit and the meals to really maximize. I agree with most people above about breakfast, it isn't worth it in a lot of cases. It's Golden Corral level food for the most part in my opinion. I've been disappointed with 90% of our breakfast buffets - even on "free" dining I still leave feeling like we wasted a credit. Ohana, Akershus, Garden Grill characters don't make up for the food. We have Crystal Palace (for early MK entrance) and Hollywood and Vine breakfast ADRs this year - Sophia is my toddlers favorite by far right now. After this trip we will probably be on APs and buy out of pocket and only do 1-2 sit downs - not buffets.

Do many people share meals or order apps when not on DDP and not at buffets? We have two kids - it would make sense for us. I feel like I don't see people doing this and might feel like I was "wasting a spot" or "wasting the servers tip" but not ordering a 3 course meal per person. Maybe not at Disney springs, but at Disney parts/resorts I would. We are always there during free dining so many the restaurants are filled with people mostly on free dining too?

 

[Tramp&TheLady]

reading through this thread it appears there are a lot of people who feel the same as us. It's time to vacation elsewhere. I wonder if Disney has finally reached the tipping point where we will see a real push back and reduction in number of bookings. We already had a DVC trip planned for May. But, that's going to be our last trip to WDW for at least three years. We plan to use DVC points in California or rent them out until then.

 

[Lisa F]

I try to take an honest approach. Can I pay it? Technically, Yes. Should I buy it? No. Am I going to buy it? Yes. Are viewing the menu prices going to ruin the mood? Yes. Is it going to make me leave or cancel? No. Solution: accept the price of the dining plan and take the most advantage of it. At least I can leave a meal feeling like I tried my best to get the most of out of, and focus on the fun instead of the regret. My husband always says, without the dining plan we will visit these places and convince ourselves we have to purchase the cheapest thing when we don't even want that... just get the meal plan and order what you want. I've done the calculations and we "get our money" from the meal plan. It makes sense for us - especially since it's always "free" when we go. We have a split stay this year and still decided to purchase the plan - for half our party. We will split the credit and the meals to really maximize. I agree with most people above about breakfast, it isn't worth it in a lot of cases. It's Golden Corral level food for the most part in my opinion. I've been disappointed with 90% of our breakfast buffets - even on "free" dining I still leave feeling like we wasted a credit. Ohana, Akershus, Garden Grill characters don't make up for the food. We have Crystal Palace (for early MK entrance) and Hollywood and Vine breakfast ADRs this year - Sophia is my toddlers favorite by far right now. After this trip we will probably be on APs and buy out of pocket and only do 1-2 sit downs - not buffets.

Do many people share meals or order apps when not on DDP and not at buffets? We have two kids - it would make sense for us. I feel like I don't see people doing this and might feel like I was "wasting a spot" or "wasting the servers tip" but not ordering a 3 course meal per person. Maybe not at Disney springs, but at Disney parts/resorts I would. We are always there during free dining so many the restaurants are filled with people mostly on free dining too?

that was my solution too, lol. I am doing a split stay so that helps and I rearranged things a bit to group the majority of my AYCTE experiences at the beginning of the trip so that I can use it for that, along with a day at Epcot and food booths for the snacks. Second half is all of our via Napoli and Plaza type places where we'll share a meal and Signature dining where I don't feel it is a great value on the DDP vs. OOP, especially since I am inclined to just order an app or two for myself. I had bariatric surgery and share with my son when I can but I am not going to eat only what he likes either... at someplace like via napoli or Plaza it is easy but at a signature I order my own thing and let him have his plain filet and fancy mac and cheese. I also order kid meals at places where the options are appealing (ie LTT lunch). I don't feel badly about doing any of it, I give Disney plenty of my money. I do tend to jack up the tip to what it would be if I ordered an average adult meal for myself if I eat just an app or a kid meal though.

I realize that I basically played right into Disney's hands but this is my last trip for a while so I'm going ot do what's right for me.

 

[Lisa F]

This works if you like to camp. At home I am chief cook, bottle washer and housekeeper. If this is my fate on vacation, I am going to pass. I know I can save money this way, but it is nto a viable plan for me or my family.
WE talked about this recently. As a young Mom, I compromised a lot to take my family places. WE packed lunches, etc. I am not going to do that any more. My family was costing a vacation in Aruba and looked at condos to rent. We could buy breakfast food, etc. Sure, except my DH is not going to be happy with bagels etc so that means we either go out or I cook. I am NOT cooking. We decided to go back to our (my) first choice, an all inclusive. Problem solved. LOL!

I'm right there with you, lol. I don't usually do breakfast at home, the bf does (he does not like Disney and is way too cheap to pay Disney prices without being miserable about it so Disney is a "just us" thing for the kiddo and me) and I would not be doing it on vacation either. Though if the kid wants to have cereal or a frozen waffle more power to him, we might do that in our dvc unit. I bought frozen waffles on my first trip with him in 2014 and left the box unopened. I suspect we'll be hitting roarin' forks and captain cooks for breakfast.

I am a DVC owner since 1999 (so long since paid for itself) and we bought APs on the last trip to get 2 trips out of the tickets, so this next trip is all paid for except for food and incidentals at this point with plane tickets purchased. I budget for the vacation I want and then consider the money gone. I don't even worry about getting value from volume at buffets honestly because the kid wants those experiences and he won't ever be 10 again. Someday he won't want to do character meals with mommy and I will be sad, but I am not going to miss out on those experiences now over a hundred bucks over the course of my whole vacation in price hikes when the entire trip is already so expensive. And I suspect Disney is counting on that being the typical visitor. For every person who says "no more, I'm taking a break" there are 5 people wanting a Disney vacation and restaurants remain booked. When they start seeing vacancies you'll start seeing AP discounts again, taken away when bookings pick up again. We've all seen it before.

As for me I am hoping for a return to quiet January park days in advance of Galaxy's Edge opening and judging by the number of available ADRs and ease of getting some good ones, I'm hoping that is the case!

 

[BOST99]

I agree that the increases are to push people to the dining plan. We are also in the bucket that we could afford it but the quality just isn't there to justify the price. BOMA is probably the only exception on our last trip but if prices go up I won't be able to justify that and likely would do an AKL sit-down.

I think if we enjoyed our meals more then we wouldn't have a problem but we had 2 great meals in chain restaurants that were better then a lot of our meals in Disney. On our last day we did Tusker's House Breakfast Buffet for the characters and spent over $100 (2 adults, 1 child & 1 infant). That evening we went to Chuy's for dinner and had a great dinner for around $80 which included entrees for everyone, at least one appetizer and at least one beer (maybe 2?).

 

[Pmlocke]

I have never understood the character dining experience for breakfast. My wife and I did it twice with the grandchildren (Tusker House). Yes it was fun, but 30 dollars for eggs? I still do character dining for dinner, at least three nights every trip. I can justify that kind of money for my dinner but not when I can eat at Denny's for a couple of bucks. Yes I know there is more than just bacon and eggs and pancakes, and yes I understand that I get Donald and Mickey at breakfast which you can't do at Dennys, but basically, it is still breakfast. I am not saying no one should do it, I am just saying for myself and my wife, we agreed that a 30 dollar breakfast was a little extravagent for our tastes, which is what I took the purpose of this chat group to be about, our personal feelings on the subject.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I have never understood the character dining experience for breakfast. My wife and I did it twice with the grandchildren (Tusker House). Yes it was fun, but 30 dollars for eggs? I still do character dining for dinner, at least three nights every trip. I can justify that kind of money for my dinner but not when I can eat at Denny's for a couple of bucks. Yes I know there is more than just bacon and eggs and pancakes, and yes I understand that I get Donald and Mickey at breakfast which you can't do at Dennys, but basically, it is still breakfast. I am not saying no one should do it, I am just saying for myself and my wife, we agreed that a 30 dollar breakfast was a little extravagent for our tastes, which is what I took the purpose of this chat group to be about, our personal feelings on the subject.

I think the breakfasts are very popular for families with young kids since the littles tend to be happier in the morning. When my kids were young we preferred lunch. We didn't like using morning time in a restaurant when crowds were lower, my kids needed to eat as soon as they woke up so I didn't feel like rushing to a breakfast ADR, half of our crew weren't necessarily morning people and I felt like lunch was more bang for your buck. You get mostly the same foods at dinner for a little less than dinner but you aren't paying $30+ for eggs and bacon.

 

[snappy]

Some go late morning so get both breakfast and lunch selections. Not sure if they pay the breakfast or the much price though.

We did breakfast with the kids once back around 2004 at chef Mickeys. Our son got sick afterwards on big thunder. That was it for us. Lunch at Tusker house a couple times but only because they offer vegan choices for DD22 there. Otherwise we wouldn’t go there.