Dining Plan Worth It?

[lpanderson]

I have never done the dining plan andd usually have no need to because we travel with my parents and stay in the Beach Club Villas so we use the kitchen area.
This time, it will just be myself, my fiance and my 4 year old daughter. I am contemplating the Dining Plan for us. Is it worth it? I am worried that we will not use it all and will be out the money.

 

[morethananyonex]

Only you can answer that question. You need to eat a certain way at Disney for the plan to be worth it financially. It can also be worth it in different ways, for example some people feel it's worth it to be able to prepay for meals even if they aren't saving money on the plan.

Generally, the DDP is worth it (or at the least you don't lose money) if you would eat "DDP style" without being on the plan. Meaning, does your family eat at least one TS a day, preferably dinner? Do you eat at mostly expensive price fixed meals (the buffets/family style meals are all sitting at around $40 per adult right now)? Do you order dessert or expensive entrees at other TS restaurants? Do you order drinks? Do you eat QS once a day? Do you order individual meals or do you share? Will you be maximizing your snack credits, meaning would you purchase more expensive snacks if you were off the plan? Do you buy resort mugs?

If you can answer yes to all or most of those questions, DDP may work for you, but I would still crunch the numbers. I don't know the child price off the top of my head, but the adult price is just under $60 per person per night right now (58 something). Keep in mind since the DDP is so expensive, you really need to be eating in the DDP style every night to make it financially worth it. Take even one day off and you're probably better off paying OOP even for the more expensive meals.

Free dining is a whole different animal if you are able to get that, but if you are paying OOP there's not much room for waste before you start losing money.

 

[AllisonsMunecas]

We always get the dining plan and it saves us money. It really depends on how/where you like to eat. We like to eat at the nicer places, and we like to get dessert, so it's definitely worth it to us. I am very money minded, so I kept up with my receipts, and the on the last trip, the DDP saved us about $200. We could have ended up spending less than the plan, if we had ordered waters, skipped desserts, etc, but that is just not our vacation style. Like the previous poster said, it really depends on your family's habits and needs.