Dining plan for two, is it worth it?

[Disneytrip]

We'll only be visiting the parks 3 out of the 6 days that we are there (maybe 4 days, not sure yet). So my question is for a party of two is it really worth it to get the Magic Your Way package with dining (we have AAA)? We usually do one counter and one nice meal in the evening. Also we usually don't do breakfast ( i bring my own) and do not snack much. I just don't want to be stressed about not using all my meals and don't want to feel like I am wasting money. Thanks for any tips!

 

[SB in KY]

I would think you might even enjoy the dining plan more on your non-park days....the resorts have some of the best meals anyways.

What do you usually budget for food? If you would normally spend $65 or 70 per day for food for the 2 of you...go for it. You can enjoy your lovely dinners without even looking at the right side of the menu!! You can also have your counter service meal and if you want a snack or drink, great, its included....if you don't so what....you haven't wasted any $$

I am really not a dining plan commando....we booked places we wanted to dine (in spite of the fact that meals elsewhere might have cost more $$) and if I want chicken instead of the surf and turf I am going to order chicken!!

We still came out ahead expense wise and it just gave us a lot of freedom to try new things and places....can't wait to return in November with the whole family on the dining plan.

 

[Jpgirl]

Disneytrip-we just got back 2 weeks ago and we're pretty much alike. We did the dining plan and it was worth it for us. We did end up with leftover cs credits but we definitely got our money's worth just on the table service credits. We're not huge eaters and did the ts at lunch but just one of out ts at Le Cellier was $70 and that was for lunch. We like it b/c we don't have to worry how much money to budget and take-it's paid for and we just go and eat. It also gave us a chance to try different restaurants that we wouldn't have otherwise tried b/c in the end we get too budget minded and don't want to spend the money. Go for it and have fun

 

[goodferry]

DH and I went on the meal plan in August and it was worth it for us, but it was a TON of food, more than we usually eat. We used all our snack credits for water but one, which we used for a frozen lemonade. I would do it again in a heartbeat, because it was definitely money saving, and we got to order some things and eat some places we might not have otherwise.

 

[MEK]

The dining plan is definately worth the $. There are so many great restaurants to chose from. You have to be a little less spontaneous, but you will definately get your money's worth if you like to try a table service meal each night. I thoroughly enjoyed the dining plan. I went during the free offer. I would definately pay for it in the future. Example: family of 4 - one meal at Tony's $177. Cost of plan for day = $140.

Most of the resturants did not give itemized receipts, so I can't do a breakdown on each day. I just know that I ate healthy and I really liked the whole dining out experience. ________________________________________________________________
Max is my favorite cat! aw:

 

[taylorl25]

My DH and I just got back from 2 weeks on the dining plan and although it was a lot of food we definetely thought it was worth it. We did 3 signature dining expereinces and thought it was nice to have a bit of romantic time. We definetley got our moneys worth although as DH is vegetarian my meals were woth considerably more than his. The only thing is it did take a lot of time to get to different resorts to eat, but as the parks were so quiet we didn't need extra time there as we'd already ridden all the rides.

If I go back next year it will definetley be with the dining plan.

 

[Hopefully]

It sounds as if you are very much like DH and I. We have been to Disney many times and we take a slower approach now (No more commando touring for us). We very much enjoy Epcot, and love to eat at the WS restaurants. We also enjoy one nice meal per day. We will eat in WS as well as different resort restaurants.
I would suggest the approach that we took. I looked at all of the restaurant menus on allearsnet.com. I looked at the cost of what we would likely order each evening at a TS restaurant. I didn't look at how to maximize the plan, but rather, what would we like to eat. I added up those costs, and most days even without using all of our CS meals (which we very likely may not), it was worth it from a cost perspective.
I had a great deal of fun planning all of our ADR's and I am looking forward to our trip in 2 weeks. I will not worry about maximizing the plan, but rather enjoy the freedom to eat when we want during the day, and to enjoy the sit-downs I have ADR's for.

 

[mickeysaver]

We number crunched it and found that with the little occasional extras, doing the meals that we wanted in the parks that it was still about even with the out of pocket plan coming out $2 cheaper. Gabby is a pretty picky eater and we prefer breakfast over big dinners. We booked CSR through Disney with a room only AAA discount. For us, it works out perfectly. Maggie

 

[harleyquinn]

DH and I are debted this as well. We also bring our own breakfasts and don't snack. i would love the excuse to dine at all the restaurants, but I love with spending far less and eating counter service.

I really just want to bite the bullet and do it, but it would be very hard to convince DH.

 

[scarlett873]

DH and I did the dining plan earlier this month. We are usually so budget oriented that we skip out on the TS restaurants. I'm always afraid of having to pay too much for our meals. But with the dining plan, we were able to actually relax and enjoy ourselves and we were able to dine wherever we wanted and order pretty much whatever we wanted! And the best part was that I didn't have to worry about the final bill! The dining plan comes to about $70 per day for 2 adults, so about $280 for our time there...we easily spent $400, and that does NOT include tax and tip, by the time it was all said and done. We don't eat much in the way of breakfast...so we would eat lunch fairly early and then would have our dinner around 5pm or so. And we would split our snack credits each day. DH would order a water and I'd get a popcorn/ice cream and we'd share. I was never hungry for snacks throughout the day, but when waiting for the fireworks or something at the end of the day, a nice bottle of water and a box of popcorn were perfect. DH and I are totally sold on the plan and probably won't travel to WDW again without it! (well, as long as it stays reasonably priced, that is!)

 

[PortieOwner]

I just got back and had the free dining plan, which was great. I am on the fence as to whether it is worth it for $35 per person per day. The dining plan was not a hassle at all. It probably made life easier than paying out of pocket. I am someone who would typically make a pig of myself on vacation but I didn't do that this time and I was happy. My stomache really behaved and I didn't have to worry about being sick on a ride. Even eating moderately I was never really hungry even 4-6 hours after a buffet meal. I was least happy when we went to a place for the purpose of maxing out value of the plan (Le Cellier). We would have been better off with a more efficient, lower scale place or a buffet.

For our family we tend to do buffet breakfasts and character breakfasts and maybe character meals. These are fixed price and the breakfasts are really pretty cheap ($18/adult). Other meals we would tend to hit counter service, split meals, and maybe even get food from outside WDW. Even on this trip we had some food and drink supplies (bottled water, bagels, cream cheese, milk, cereal, crackers, cookies, apples, grapes) with us in our room but we didn't use that food very much.

I agree with what someone said that it seems like a lot of food was wasted. You could feed many hungry familes with the stuff left behind just at Pepper Market. We were very good that way--really wasted nothing, but also didn't order too much food at any meal.

PS. I don't like that WDW is giving servers 15 percent max for the dining plan. I always added onto that tip, and had squirrelled away lots of spare singles and fives to do that. It could be a bit of a hassle leaving an extra tip if you don't have cash or want to charge it to your room.

Portie

 

[momloveson]

We'll only be visiting the parks 3 out of the 6 days that we are there (maybe 4 days, not sure yet). So my question is for a party of two is it really worth it to get the Magic Your Way package with dining (we have AAA)? We usually do one counter and one nice meal in the evening. Also we usually don't do breakfast ( i bring my own) and do not snack much. I just don't want to be stressed about not using all my meals and don't want to feel like I am wasting money. Thanks for any tips!

Take the advice earlier about checking out menus and seeing what interests you. There are 3 of us and our son was only 4 so he didn't eat much. We were at Disney for 9 days, but only at the parks for 4. Still, a LOT of our enjoyment was sampling food from the different resorts...(Especially loving BOMA at AKL). We planned the dining as part of our vacation experience. If you are typically NOT big eaters, then I would say maybe forfeit the dining plan. The planning involved can be pretty mind-boggling for someone stressed for time. The payoff may not be worth the savings.

However, if you are adventurous eaters and like new things, then plan on sampling what Disney has to offer. You can still do this without a meal plan. The only problem I really have with the plans is that you have to get them for every day of the trip. We didn't use an official meal plan, but we Did have vouchers (think the system may have changed) purchased in advance which we PLANNED to cover ONLY 1/2 of our meals. We ate so much and we actually had 2 vouchers LEFT OVER at the end. and we struggled to order just the right amount of food so we didn't waste....but we still wasted so much. Our savings was wonderful, but we would have NEVER purchased THREE appetizers for the 3 of us in "real" life and we normally split a desert at the end of a meal (instead of getting THREE provided by our vouchers). We often used 2 vouchers for the 3 of us to share because we just couldn't see wasting food unnessessarily.

We made excellent use of our vouchers because I needed to stretch $2300 for an awesome, memorable, fantastic 14 day florida dream vacation for 3 of us staying at disney resorts for 9 of the days and traveling for 5 of them. We had a few down days and because we didn't have a meal plan for EVERY meal on every day, we could use some of our down days to eat left overs...nothing like starting your day with a filet mignon for breakfast....lol. Also, on certain days, like if we were going to BOMA at 6pm, we would eat a small breakfast, a quick lite lunch, and little else for the rest of the day. Not the kind of day that lends itself to a meal plan. Of course, other days we would have been able to take full advantage of a meal plan.

I guess what I'm saying is if you look at the menus available here, and see a lot of places that interest you and you price out what you would normally eat, then you'll have a pretty good idea of if it would be a value for you or not.

 

[DeirdreTours]

PS. I don't like that WDW is giving servers 15 percent max for the dining plan. I always added onto that tip, and had squirrelled away lots of spare singles and fives to do that

That astonishes me. The service we received on our recent 8 day trip was never worth 15%, much less more. Only once was a server rude, but they were routinely rushed and forgetful. They are clearly handling WAY too many tables. My DH and I did some rough calculations in several restaurants and figure that many servers must be making $400-$500 a day in tips.

 

[PortieOwner]

PS. I don't like that WDW is giving servers 15 percent max for the dining plan. I always added onto that tip, and had squirrelled away lots of spare singles and fives to do that

That astonishes me. The service we received on our recent 8 day trip was never worth 15%, much less more. Only once was a server rude, but they were routinely rushed and forgetful. They are clearly handling WAY too many tables. My DH and I did some rough calculations in several restaurants and figure that many servers must be making $400-$500 a day in tips.

Almost every server we had was great, and where we are from a 20 percent tip is typical and pretty much what is expected. I am more likely to tip well on vacation.

Portie

 

[kgibbler20]

My mom and I went to Disney for the first time in June. We had no budget to compare to, but we kept track of everything that we spent, out of pocket and dining plan. We figured out what we actually spent on the dining plan vs. what we would have spent for the same meals if we had to pay for them. We came out over $160.00 ahead of the game.

Even though I'm a newbie I feel like a savings of $160.00 is well worth it.