disney dining

[lorapinky]

Hi everyone

I was wondering if anyone had used the disney dining option yet? My travel agent mentioned it to me when I booked our trip. We said no to it at the time but I am now hearing more about it I am wondering if it makes sense?

Paying for all your meals up front sounds good but me and my partner lived on snack meals all the time whilst in disney so would we benefit from it?

How does it work?

Has anyone used this yet? If so how did you find it?

 

[kkymmy]

I haven't yet used it but we're seriously considering it for our trip next year.

For each day of your holiday you get:
1 snack (usually something less than $4)
1 counter service (ie where you queue for your food macdonalds style)
1 table servce (where you sit and are waited on)

BUT you can use them how you want....if you just want snacks one day then you can use four snack credits...if you want a character meal you can use table service credits to pay (1 or 2 depending on which experience)....you can use more than one credit of the same type in a day, but say your holiday was for 14 days and you used 14 snack credits in the first week you would have to pay upfront for any additional snacks.

If you want to try a range of Disney dining then this is great as it encourages you to go to different restaurants and some of the table service restaurants especially are very good.

If you are staying onsite then this is a great option as the resorts have snacks with counter and/or table service restaurants. It gives you freedom when it comes to spending money if you know that your food is already accounted for although you will still need to make ADR's for table service.

I can't imagine it being as good value if you're staying offsite as you'll have access to cheaper, more varied restaurants with the likes of I-Drive, and you'll also have access to supermarkets. As we're onsite without a car to access either of these the dining plan would make sense for us.

HTH

 

[Madjock]

You do actually have to be staying onsite to have the dinning plan.

We have booked it for our December trip. It's worked out good value for us and it's nice knowing it's all paid for upfront. We have booked lots of character meals for the kids and as it will be way to much food for us I will share a couple of meals with DD which means we are able to visit quite a few really nice table service restaurants as well.

We do like to sit down to a 'proper' meal in the evenings which makes this worthwhile but if you prefer to eat on the hop, so to speak, you may find it's not such good value for money.

 

[princess jackson]

We have used it twice, and loved it both times.

Down side it does cost more compared to eating off site, but we like the idea of paying upfront for your meals.

Plus side tips are already included,
pay up front
lots of choices where to eat, character meals, etc.

Use them when you like, ie use 2 table service meals for a signature dinner, we did this and our bill came to $160 for three of use.

We do not eat on our arrival day, so we were able to use of vouchers everynight, and have a signature dinner (2 vouchers).

We would use this everytime we go.

 

[Miffy2003]

I'm not sure how well it would work if your partner eats a lot of snack meals, but if you are happy to do lots of Table Service meals, and happy to limit yourself to dining onsite I think this can be a bargain

 

[paulh]

on average a TS meal would set you back $35 odd $$$ there abouts,there is a spreadsheet about on the dinnig part os this site,its in the returant section.the CS meals average about $12 a day and snack credits under $4.So thats $49 per day if you buy from a uk TA think its £21 a day pp at todays rat of $1.83 it would be $38.43 per day.But thats working on the average most meals will work out more expencive so you get more bang for your buck.
Wolfgangpuck upsatirs for instance most epecive meal with starter main and desert would cost with tip cost cash $71 but only one TS credit.plan means you can eat at upmarket places and not wory about cost.Disney hope that as you are eating cheap you will spend more money onsite like going to the parks and spending in shops,and not be tempted to go ofsite to universal or seaworld ect.like Magical express cots disney little in the long run but brings them in big rewards,You stay longer (americans)and spend more money.
We are using it in august,luckily we got it free with our room incentice was you book room buy a 1 day base ticket for each person in party and you got the dinning plan free.Will let you know what the food is like when we get back
Paulh

 

[kkymmy]

I was pricing it up with the character dining....TCD have an option where you can book breakfast at chef mickeys through them....they wanted to charge £174 for three ADRs at their expense when with the dining plan it will be one table service credit each, making it about a tenner! (with the other £11 going on CS and snack!)

*duh at me for banging on about dining plan and staying offsite, let's just say it's been one long, boring and lonely day*

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

We paid £924 (£22x3x14days) for our dining plan.

When we went in 2001 our total food bill came to approx £1200 (being "locked" on site as it were)

In 2003 our total food bill came to approx £900 staying on I Drive so 3 years on I thought £924 was a good deal.

Our actual bills just for Table Service are below:

Name No/ Tickets $ £
Raglan Road 1 ticket 68.66 38.14
Boma 1 ticket 83.04 46.13
CRT OOP
H and V 1 ticket 87.00 48.33
Spirit of Aloha x2 tickets 150.00 83.33
Le Cellier 1 ticket 154.00 85.56
Spoodles 1 ticket 163.26 90.70
Yacht Club Galley 1 ticket 122.62 68.12
Maya Grill 1 ticket 138.90 77.17
Liberty Tree 1 ticket 104.54 58.08
Whispering Canyon 1 ticket 119.60 66.44
O Hana 1 ticket 95.75 53.19
Le Cellier 1 ticket 160.08 88.93
G Floridian Café 1 ticket 130.83 72.68

Total $1,578.28 £876.82

Of course, we also had snacks and Counter Service on top of the above. So from our point of view, very good value. There was one Hell of a lot of food though!


(sorry about the formatting: first figure $s second figure £s)