Dining plan good deal, but...

[Dinglehopper]

...wasn't for us.

I wish I had found these boards before my family and I went. 2 kids, me and the wife. It was our first trip, and a prepaid $35/day sounded great, convenient and hassle-free. We ended up not being drawn too much to the counter service, and preferred the sit down restaurants much more, but would've spent far less than what is considered two "sit down credits" for some of the signature restaurants. We ended up not using a lot of credits, and then paying out of pocket for what we wanted. We had a great time, though.

At least now we know for next time!

 

[tigerlilly]

Good info to know. So where did you eat? Glad you had a good time.

 

[Dinglehopper]

We liked eating at the World Showcase, though sadly many of those restaurants were omitted from the plan. We loved Germany, Morocco, Norway and Mexico. MGM was a close second location-wise. We ate at Prime Time and Sci Fi Drive-In! and one of our other favorites was Boma.

Can't wait to go back, though. I think we're hooked! Some friends of mine are planning a trip and have been asking about the Dining Plan. I'll have to refer them to these boards. The biggest downer for us was the snacks and the counter service; a lot of it was stuff we could easily get back home and were not really interested in eating. There's definitely volume on the plan, but not necessarily anything we wanted to eat.

 

[jenr812]

Thanks for your review. I think that for some people, it works great, but for others, not so much. Glad you had a nice trip and WELCOME TO THE DIS

 

[Kaycee]

First of all, welcome to the DIS Boards!

I'm sorry the Dining Plan didn't pay off for you. Thank you so much for sharing your experience though, so that others will have more information when making the decision on whether or not the plan is right for them. We have decided that the plan would not pay off for us either. We are not big eaters, and we rarely order appetizers or dessert with our sit-down meals. We also enjoy many of the restaurants that are not included in the dining plan.

I'm glad to hear that you had a great time anyway. I hope that you'll spend lots of time here with us on the Boards as you plan your next WDW trip!

 

[scrump]

Welcome!!!!

That's interesting, I actually spoke with some friends of mine who got back recently. Family of five on the dining plan and first trip to the WDW. I referred them to the allears menus, and of course they had the list of restaurants on the plan, but it really didn't sink in until they got there. I think they figured, "OF COURSE we'll find stuff to eat, why worry about it now?" So I guess they got there, and certain "moods" hit them, and like you, had no interest in the fast food/counter service that they can grab back home. So the dining plan ended up being more restrictive than they anticipated, if they really wanted to care about what they were eating. I think after a couple of days of sticking to the plan, they ditched it and paid out of pocket for what they wanted to eat and for when they wanted to eat it.

Thanks for sharing the experience! We opted out of the Dining Plan as well because we feel we can eat healthier at Table Service and on average we end up spending less than $35/day anyway.

 

[vicb]

...wasn't for us.

I wish I had found these boards before my family and I went. 2 kids, me and the wife. It was our first trip, and a prepaid $35/day sounded great, convenient and hassle-free. We ended up not being drawn too much to the counter service, and preferred the sit down restaurants much more, but would've spent far less than what is considered two "sit down credits" for some of the signature restaurants. We ended up not using a lot of credits, and then paying out of pocket for what we wanted. We had a great time, though.

At least now we know for next time!

Thanks for sharing your experience. I was kind of thinking the same thing for our upcoming trip. The WS is our fav place to eat and we don't do much snacking in the parks.