Dining Package Questions

[DoleWhip81]

My wife and I are planning a trip to Disneyland for late in the year. We were debating on adding a the Donald's Dining plan. Does anyone have any comments about this or alternatives???

 

[Amy&Dan]

It is generally not considered to be that great of a deal. It can be time consuming since it takes the cast members longer to ring a meal up with the dining plan, its not very flexible and I seem to recall that if you order something that is cheaper, you just lose the difference. It is good in that you can pay for it ahead of time which can make budgeting easier. I suggest you click on the brown colored Dining link on the top of this page, price things out and see how paying out of pocket compares to paying for teh Dining Package. This is nothing like the Dining Plan at Walt Disney World (not sure if you have been there and done their dining plan which is an excellent value). Good luck with your planning!

And I have family that lives in Waxahachie, I love it there!

 

[hlbtimes2]

Like Amy said, it's complex to use and doesnt save money, but is a great tool to use to prepay. We have used the dinning plan twice. We booked way in advance and wanted to pay for as much as we could while we had the money. We are horrible at saving money. In the future we'll buy gift cards if we want to prepay.

They do not give change for the vouchers. So, say its $5 snack voucher and you spend $4. You either need to spend more and get over the $5 and pay cash for the difference or loose the $1. The vouchers are not good in downtown disney, and some of them are only good in the parks not at the hotels. They take FOREVER for the cm's to enter at the register. I've heard they are going to a scan /bar code system, but havent seen it yet.

If you do decide to go with the plan, I recomend you buy a couple days less then then length of your say. Say 3 day plan for 5 day trip.

 

[bjsmom]

We use it and I love it because the only cash I need to bring is for shopping.

 

[blackjackdelta]

Found the DP to be too much of a hassle and you stand a chance of loosing money.

Jack

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

If you like the dining plan because you can basically pre-pay for your meals but don't want to possibly lose a few bucks with every transaction, I would suggest purchasing a disney giftcard or disney dollars. They are both accepted at all counter service places and resturants (except in DTD) and the disney dollars can be used at the snack carts too. This is what we're doing, it makes me feel like we aren't spending too much money because it's basically already gone