dining plan

[paulh]

i am looking at the dining plan for california i can`t make my mind up if it is worth it do you save money by using it?
Paulh

 

[hlbtimes2]

No, there is no savings. Its more a budgeting tool then anything else. We've used it on our last 2 trips. We've booked when we had money, and since we aren't good at saving money- it made sense for us to pre-pay for our meals. Buy prepaying it takes the stress of needing so much money while we are there.

Actually, if you dont use the plan carefully, you could end up loosing money! They do not give change for the vouchers. So, say you spent $4.75 on a snack, you would loose 25 cents on a $5 voucher. Because we are a family of 4, we never had that problem! We just make sure we are spending over the dollar amount and give a little cash to make up the balance. Unused vouchers can't not be refunded, so you have to make sure you use them all! The first time we had them we bought cookies for the trip home, with our last few dollars in vouchers. I recomend you buy less days worth of the plan then you trip is- so if you are going for 4-5 days, get the 3 day plan. That way if you aren't big eaters (we dont eat 3 full meals a day) or you want to eat in downtown disney you have that option and dont feel that you have to eat on site because you have to use your vouchers.

 

[txaggie94gigem]

where do i find out more about these vouchers? what places in downtown disney can you use them at?

 

[TLinden16]

I did the dining plan last October, and if definitely didn't save any money, but I basically used it to prepay some of my meals in advance. I got a package that inculded a character breakfast, a character lunch (which I used for brunch at Goofy's Kitchen), and a bunch of dollar amount vouchers.

It was nice to have some meals prepayed, but I don't think I'd bother with it again.

 

[Tink]

When we booked our vacation a few months ago we looked into the DL dining plan. We tried to figure out sample days to see if it saved us money and it really didn't. The DL dining plan is very different from WDWs, where yu can save some money.

We opted not to do the dining plan. It just didn't seem worth it to us. You'd think that they would make it save the guest some money, to keep them eating on property, instead of going off site.

 

[hlbtimes2]

where do i find out more about these vouchers? what places in downtown disney can you use them at?

No place. They are good in the parks and 3 Disney hotels. That is why I recomended buying less then the number of days in your package- so you can eat in downtown disney. If you buy day for day, you are going to need to eat in the park to use them all.

They really are just more of a budgeting tool then anything else. That is budgeting as in planning, not budget as in cheaper. LOL