Disneyland Dining Plan--worth the $$$?

[yaya74]

Is it worthwhile to get the dining plan? What type of "snack" does it offer? Thank you for your time and suggestion.

 

[nicolispicoli]

short story, no.

It saves you no money and basically is only a prepayment type deal. if you like to know you have budgeting out of the way, I guess it would make sense. But, they don't give money back on vouchers, which has the potential to make you lose money.

 

[skiingfast]

Is it worthwhile to get the dining plan? What type of "snack" does it offer? Thank you for your time and suggestion.

It depends on when you go. If you purchase it now and can beat price increases that will be the only savings you will get.

You get a booklet of couchers. Some will say premium character meals and have a dollar value. They go downto the "snack" vouchers with a value of $5. You can apply these at any Disney Dining location toward your bill and tips at TS. You do not recieve any change back, this what can cost you money.

 

[Liat]

We lost money the one and only time we bought the dining plan. The no change back thing killed us.

The one exception that I can see is the premium character meal. At peak season I think this can save you some money, but in my opinion the plan is not worth it.

 

[mouseymommy]

Somebody here posted that they use DL gift cards instead. I thought this was a great idea and did the same thing for our last trip. I bought them at the grocery store and got double gas rewards! This was from Safeway, but I know a lot of other grocery stores do the same thing. I have already gotten a few cards for our next trip.

 

[sonnyjane]

Run, don't walk, away from the DL dining plan!

 

[mmlover74]

Everytime we have been to DL, we have listened to the above advice and not bought into the dining plan. Instead we use Disney Reward Dollars for our food.

 

[californiamomof4grls]

It all depends on how savvy you are with them. There was someone on the boards talking about how you can use them as dollar values instead of using them as separate checks i.e. Snack check. Premium Character check. If you use the cash value you can get closer to the amount of money you are using your total. Maybe paying a few cents over instead or giving them a dollar or so in change you don't get back.
It doesn't save you money. But some people would use it as away to save the money for food ahead of time by adding it to the vacation package through Disney Travel Co and making payments. So I suppose it would depend on what you are looking in to it for.

 

[sonnyjane]

It all depends on how savvy you are with them. There was someone on the boards talking about how you can use them as dollar values instead of using them as separate checks i.e. Snack check. Premium Character check. If you use the cash value you can get closer to the amount of money you are using your total. Maybe paying a few cents over instead or giving them a dollar or so in change you don't get back.
It doesn't save you money. But some people would use it as away to save the money for food ahead of time by adding it to the vacation package through Disney Travel Co and making payments. So I suppose it would depend on what you are looking in to it for.

Yes, you can just use them as "dollars", but what's the point of paying for "monopoly money" when you can just use real money?

OP, let's say you buy the 2-day meal plan that costs $106. Guess what? The VALUE of that is also $106. You don't save a dime by purchasing vouchers. You'll get two "character meal" vouchers for $33 each, two "meal" vouchers for $15 each, and two snacks for $5 each. As the PP mentioned, you don't HAVE to use them for snacks, or character meals, etc. You can take a $33 character meal voucher to the Pizza Port and buy two pasta meals for your family, but you will not get any change back. Basically, yes, if you're smart, you can use the vouchers and not lose money, but why make things complicated when you could just use regular money? Or, if you would like to "cap" your food spending, then as others suggested, put money on a Disney gift card, but I see no logic in purchasing vouchers and making things more complicated than they have to be.

 

[californiamomof4grls]

Yes, you can just use them as "dollars", but what's the point of paying for "monopoly money" when you can just use real money?

The value would only be if you were wanting to add it to your payments and only make one vacation payment. You wouldn't have to keep track of what you've spent on the card either it would be what ever was left in vouchers. So, like I said earlier it would really depend on your reasons for wanting to purchase them for savings or convenience of vacation planning. Some people like to have it all prepaid and not have to worry about money at all once they get to the park.

 

[DLR29]

The value would only be if you were wanting to add it to your payments and only make one vacation payment. You wouldn't have to keep track of what you've spent on the card either it would be what ever was left in vouchers. So, like I said earlier it would really depend on your reasons for wanting to purchase them for savings or convenience of vacation planning. Some people like to have it all prepaid and not have to worry about money at all once they get to the park.

Then the best option for this would be to pre-purchase Disney gift cards which can be used at more locations and don't have the losses of the DL dining plan.