Dining plan...worth it?

[Octoberbabiesrus]

Darren and I are debating over the dining plan. We are trying to figure out if its worth the added cost or could we forego it and do it cheaper?

Opinions are needed! Thanks!

 

[scrapnmom]

I had this same problem before we went last Nov. What I did was made a rough plan of where we would eat each day and used the menus posted on allears.net and chose what we might eat and added it up. I think this is the only way to know for sure. Also considering the fact that we were offsite for a day, it did not add up for us, and I was positive we could eat for significantly less than what the DDP would cost us.

 

[Octoberbabiesrus]

Allears has the menus? I couldnt find it...someone else told me tht too.

 

[Octoberbabiesrus]

I did a lil digging and FINALLY found the menus.

 

[bumbershoot]

the Dis has menus too, wdwinfo.com.

It's best to figure out what you would eat, add tax, and compare that to what is allowed on the DDP (what is included, that is...you can order and pay out of pocket for anything you wish beyond the DDP).

If you poke around on the Dining Plan forum, you can find a spreadsheet where you can enter the foods you would eat and it will help you figure it out much more easily than taking notes and such.

 

[nancy drew]

at WDW, the dining plan is totally worthwhile for us. my kids love the characters, and i love knowing that they will have the opportunity to interact with the characters outside of the lengthy lines at the parks. using the dining plan we can do one character meal per day, which we might not be able to do otherwise. and we can eat at any counter service restaurant without me trying to figure out the cheapest way for all 3 of us to get enough to eat. when i have the dining plan i feel like i have options, and i am more likely to "splurge" on something expensive just because i can.

 

[AC & Savy's Mom]

The dining plan is so worth it for my family (me, dh, ds4 and dd2). We even buy our dd2 the dining plan because it would cost us more than $10/day (for kids 9 and under) to feed her any other way. We went for 4 days in September and decided against having the dining plan for that trip because it was so short. We ended up spending $100/day on food...it would have cost us the same money for the dining plan, and we would have gotten to eat at a nice restauant versus eating "counter service" the whole time, like we ended up doing. (The dining plan is $37.99 for adults and $9.99 for kids under 10.)

There's a lot of good information on the Disney Dining Plan forum (a sub-forum of Disney Restaurants). They answer a lot of questions you may have.

It really depends on what you think you'll be eating while you are there. If you are planning on going to the "full-service" restaurants, yes, I totally think it's worth it. If you don't want to go to a full-service restaurant, then it's not.

Good luck!

~Tami

 

[mom2aredhead]

You will not pay for the little one (obviously) and for your 5 year old, the price of the plan is essentially the price for a character meal.

If you think you will do at least 1 sit down table service meal per day, it may be worth it. BUT, you are essentially pre-paying for your meals, so if the baby is fussy or you guys are not hungry or you made reservations somewhere across the park (or outside the park) and you do not want to stop what you are doing to eat, that "credit" will be lost unless you are able to reschedule it later in the trip.

We done with and without and probably saved a bit of money on the dining plan, but for 2 adults and 1 child age 4, it was not a HUGE amount. It definitely has you eat better food (versus grabbing a hot dog) but it is a pretty big time commitment.

 

[~Kristina~]

I've never done it before. I think with small kids who don't eat much that it's not worth it. For us it would have been 106.00 a day for the dining plan, that's 5 people. If my oldes ate a full dinner, then it would have been worth it to get - for us. But it all depends on your situation. When they are older, we'll definitely be getting it.

 

[sherabby]

Darren and I are debating over the dining plan. We are trying to figure out if its worth the added cost or could we forego it and do it cheaper?

Opinions are needed! Thanks!

We think it is well worth it. We usually set up character meals once a day for my son (7). He just loved our trip last year and he is helping plan our trip in July too!

 

[disneydad78]

We go to walmart in kissimmee, buy water and gatorade mix, Eat breakfast in room which has kitchen,eggs,bacon,pancakes,good big breeakfast. Freeze drinks and chill others. Make sandwichs and put food in 2 backpacks. It works for us, then we have more money for nicer dinning at night!

 

[Darcy03231]

I don't really think that it saves much, if any, money. For me its the ease of knowing most of our food is paid for up front. Also, if I didn't do the dining plan we would most likely only end up doing one sit down (ie character) meal. Since I'm traveling with a 4 y.o. I think we're all going to really need that break to sit down, relax and eat. Also, I'm not into commando touring. If you are, I don't think the dining plan is for you. We like to get up early, go to the parks until early afternoon, go back to our resort, swim/rest, have a nice dinner (usually around 6-6:30) and then go back the parks at night and see whatever else we can. I don't like to come home and feel as though I didn't have a vacation. For me, its quality time, not quantity time. If we don't see/do something one trip, we'll get it another time. Of course, I might feel differently if this were our one and only trip, but we're frequent visitors to WDW and the Orlando area in general.

 

[mumom95]

We did it back in November, and LOVED it, will do it again for our trip in December (even with the changes).

We could definitely eat cheaper than the dining plan. I didn't do it because it was a money saver. But what I loved about it, was being able to go to the neat restaurants every day, sitting down and ordering whatever I wanted, and not having to worry about what it costs because it was already paid for.

I like to make my vacations as stress free as possible. The dining plan allows that for our family.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I never knew about the Dining Plan till I joined the Disboards.

For our Sept. trip I calculated where we'll be eating and what we'll be eating and found out that it would be break even for us since our DS12 is considered an adult on the plan and he doesn't eat much.

We were tempted by the Free Dining that may be offered in Sept. since that's when we'll be there but then we'll end up losing our room discount. So we decided not to do the Dining plan.

Once you look over the menus, figure out where you'll be eating and what you'll be eating, that will help you decide if it's worth it for your family.

 

[WAHMto5]

We won't go without it! We love it and it has saved us lots of money and headaches