Disneyland dining plan

[trish4bruce]

Weare goingto be visiting DL next summer and I was wondering if they offer a dining plan like DW does? If they do are there times when they offer free dining?

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

They do have a dining plan but it is nothing like WDWs dining plan and really isn't worth the money IMO. You get dollar for dollar vouchers, so there is no savings involved, plus they don't give change so if you buy an item for $4.50 and give them $5 voucher, you lose $0.50.

 

[Queenbillabong]

They do have a dining plan but it is nothing like WDWs dining plan and really isn't worth the money IMO. You get dollar for dollar vouchers, so there is no savings involved, plus they don't give change so if you buy an item for $4.50 and give them $5 voucher, you lose $0.50.

It's not quite dollar for dollar vouchers. You also get character meal or premium character meal vouchers that you can use elsewhere for a dollar value (premium is $39 for the adult ones, not sure about the child ones).

It can be worthwhile, depending on what you want them for. It's not the same as the WDW plan for sure, but it does work out for some. I don't use it every time, but I have and would use them again if I wanted to completely pre-pay and have a definite budget. Some people suggest gift cards for that, but since they are not applicable at all the restaurants, it's not as good for this particular issue (dining as opposed to souvenirs) IMO.

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

It's not quite dollar for dollar vouchers. You also get character meal or premium character meal vouchers that you can use elsewhere for a dollar value (premium is $39 for the adult ones, not sure about the child ones).

But you pay the $39 for the voucher, so yet again it is dollar for dollar, it's just not as easy to lose money with that voucher like it is with the others.

IMO you would be better off putting the money you would spend on the Dining plan onto a gift card or using Disney dollars if you can get your hands on them. At least with Disney dollars they give you change back.

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

I just wanted to add...I have never seen DL do free dining but you can get free character dining vouchers with certain packages. The one I know of currently is through Costco travel; you get a premium character voucher for each person in your party and one $20 gift card (per package, not per person).

 

[DisneyMomma81]

*Here's* a recent thread which includes my opinion on the Dining Plan.

 

[Queenbillabong]

IMO you would be better off putting the money you would spend on the Dining plan onto a gift card or using Disney dollars if you can get your hands on them. At least with Disney dollars they give you change back.

Disney gift cards are not accepted at all the DTD restaurants or some of the carts in DL and DCA, which is why I prefer the plan (or partial plan) to getting gift cards for meal purchases. It's not for everyone, but it does work out for some (myself included).

 

[DisneyMomma81]

Disney gift cards are not accepted at all the DTD restaurants or some of the carts in DL and DCA, which is why I prefer the plan (or partial plan) to getting gift cards for meal purchases. It's not for everyone, but it does work out for some (myself included).

QB ~ none of those DTD restaurants will take the plan either.... if they don't take DGCs they won't take the plan. Very few carts in the parks don't take the cards.

 

[TheColtonsMom]

We used the dining plan at christmas and it took some planning and alot of menu reading to make sure we used every dime.

We did do BB and 4 character meals using our dinner vouchers as this turned out to be the best way to NEVER go under our largest voucher amounts. The 1 premium character meal voucher went to GK and the regular meal tickets covered the other three when we added a snack voucher or two. We were never under the $ figure on the voucher and we used some of the $5 snack vouchers and 1 extra childs meal ticket to make up the over difference at BB. Several times we were able to get 3 CS meals or snacks using only 2 vouchers and if we were getting snacks and we were slightly under we usually bought a bottle of water and stashed it in the backpack for later paying a little out of pocket so we could not lose the under money. When we ate at TP grill in DCA we had "extra" money on our vouchers and bought one of their kid's snack packs (cheese, crackers etc) and saved it for snacks while watching Fantasmic later. Total out of pocket for overages while dining or snacking & tips (at TS if you are under you can designate the difference as tip) was $22.50 for 4 1/2 days.

It was very nice to know the money in our pockets was all designated for souvineers and fun..the food was prepaid.
It can work and we did not lose a dime but you have to be very aware. Plan your meals as best you can..we did deviate a bit but not much.

Use of the Dining Plan did mean we ate at more TS restaurants than usual and sometimes bought things like the "extra" water bottles etc that we likely would not have bought otherwise.

As we did this last trip with the dining plan our plan for the next trip was always to put the $ value of the dining plan on a DGC for our next trip to see if we did better or worse that way so I did ask around who did/did not take gift cards. Inside the parks and hotels (excluding DTD) all the restaurants accepted DGC and the only snack cart that did not was the ice cream vendor near ROA as he did not have a cc machine (did not ask if this was normal or if it was temporary should have I guess) all the other snack carts accepted them.

The dining plan IS NOT accepted by restaurants or snack vendors in DTD neither is the DGC so plan accordingly if you want to eat in DTD.

It is accepted at every establishment that sells FOOD in DL, DCA, DLH, PPH & GCH. Be aware anything like candied apples, tigger tails etc IS NOT FOOD it is MERCHANDISE therefore it is not covered by the dining plan but is covered by a DGC.

As I said before our next trip we are putting the $ value of the Dining Plan on a DGC. This is an experiment to see what we actually spend on food & snacks when we are not restricted by the amounts on the vouchers. It could be more, It could be less time will tell. Whichever one turns out to be the better value for my family will be the one we use after this as I do like having the food pre-paid before the trip..it worls well for us but we really do not eat in DTD and I know alot of people do niether option will cover DTD dining.

I do think Disney needs to makke the vouchers a better value..give you some boost for pre-payment..even a 10% discount would be nice. I am sure many more people would use the plan and it would not be so much work to make sure that snack that was 50 cents less than the voucher didn't compound over the length of your stay to end up losing you money.

Well that's my 2 cents...sorry it was so long.

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

Disney gift cards are not accepted at all the DTD restaurants or some of the carts in DL and DCA, which is why I prefer the plan (or partial plan) to getting gift cards for meal purchases. It's not for everyone, but it does work out for some (myself included).

The dining plan vouchers are not accepted at DTD restaurants either so I don't see how they helped you any with that

 

[TheColtonsMom]

Disney gift cards are not accepted at all the DTD restaurants or some of the carts in DL and DCA, which is why I prefer the plan (or partial plan) to getting gift cards for meal purchases. It's not for everyone, but it does work out for some (myself included).

There is not one single DTD restaurant that currently accepts the Disney Dining Plan at DLR.