Does the Dining Plan save you money in the long run?

[Iowajes]

If you run a cost comparison using menus, make sure to compare what you will actually spend; not the value of the dining plan.

For instance- we NEVER buy a dessert with a meal, and 95% of the time we would not order a drink. If we include these things in the totals, the dining plan looks like it might be an okay "value"; but it is money we wouldn't spend otherwise (and calories we don't need to eat!)

Also keep in mind what you like to eat- I am way more likely to get an appetizer for my meal when dining normally, but on the dining plan, I wouldn't be able to do that- I'd have to get an entree.

 

[BLAZEY]

l looked at buy the dining plan but decided against it. We find the portion sizes in the US huge and tend to drink water or share a pop. Even when we go out normally to a fast food place one of us will order the meal and the other will get just a burger and we share the fries & drink. We have planned only 3 TS meals for our 8 day trip and will eat breakfast in the room. So for us the dining plan would most likely be a waste of money.

 

[GaryDis]

I just realized that even if the dining plan is a plus for the pocketbook, it's a minus for the waistline. That seems like a good enough reason to not do it.

 

[AquaDame]

Not for us... its a waste of money and a waste of food.

 

[dylans mommy]

For us the Dining Plan works very well but for some who are lighter eaters or don't want to do TS or character meals it might not be. We do at least 3 character meals plus we would eat at the other restaurants anyways even if we didn't have the plan. Each time we have gone we save all receipts and see if we saved money. Every time we have but that is just our experience. We also very much like the convenience of pre-paying for the meals. WE look at the menu at each restaurant and figure out how much it will cost us out of pocket and the meals we choose always makes the DP worth it.

We also do as other people have said, we do not eat the most expensive item on the menu because it the most expensive we get what we want. If we have leftover snack credits we will get things to bring home to enjoy later.

 

[richkaryn]

Google Disney Dining Plan Calculator. It is a free download and it's a spreadsheet that lets you put in the restaurants you plan to eat at each day, etc and it will compare costs from OOP and Dining Plans and let you decide what is the appropriate way to go for your situation.

 

[Lisaloo]

We have dined on the DDP for the very last time. It is too much food for us, even with 4 kids including three teen boys. At the end of every trip we are scrambling to spend the snack credits in the gift shop. I guess Disney really markets to some glitch in my brain because I am always convinced we need it, even when the on line calculators tell me otherwise.

 

[mimi1016]

It saved us $544 on our trip last August. For the four of us (two adults and two kids, son was under 3). After we came home, I added up all the meals we would've purchased and OOP it would've been $1,103. (This includes paying for CRT OOP) For the most part, we didn't choose meals that we wouldn't have normally ordered and we all, with the exception of the BF, prefer dessert over appetizers. We never found the portions too big (maybe we are big eaters? idk ) Like many said, it all depends on your eating habits and what type of meals you prefer. We did a lot character meals so that really maximized it for us. Next year when we go the oldest girl will be a disney adult and my son will be over 3 so I'm crunching the numbers again to see if its cost effective or not.

 

[Trinity88]

www.distripplanner.com

Generally speaking the dining plan only saves you money if you have children ages 3 to 9.

I used the site above to make my decision. In the end, it will save us about $200, so we're getting it. I do like the convenience of it and I suspect we'll be able to bring home a bunch treats we wouldn't have been able to other wise (we'll have a couple of QS and snack credits left over).

 

[ValpoCory]

I used the site above to make my decision. In the end, it will save us about $200, so we're getting it. I do like the convenience of it and I suspect we'll be able to bring home a bunch treats we wouldn't have been able to other wise (we'll have a couple of QS and snack credits left over).

$200 is a huge number. I'd be interested in seeing the website printout on that. Could be a nice education for the rest of us on how to save $200. I see you are staying 8 nights and have 5 people, so $5 per day per person makes a little more sense. But still, that's impressive to get that level of savings.

I always fall into the trap on those websites, forgetting to ask myself whether I'd dine this same way had I not bought the Dining Plan.

 

[verleniahall]

we paid OOP last year and we ende dup spending alot more than we thought we would - so this year we have the DP and we have the 1-1-1 which means that one of our meals each day is a dts - and they are character meals and we are just two adults - buffets are great for us becuase the DH eats a ton

 

[ValpoCory]

DDP adult cost = $60.04 per night + tips
approx. average to break even = $40 for a TS + $13 for a QS + $4 for a snack + $3 daily part of $16.49 refillable mug

It's hard for adults to consistently save money on that. Kids aged 3-9 are cheaper ($19.23 this year, $20.96 next year), but don't usually need as much food.

 

[Julylady]

After using the dining plan twice, we realized it was costing us more than if we had just paid for our food. And we were ordering desserts that we ate one bite of and left the rest. For our last several trips, I have purchased a $50 Disney Gift card twice a month at Target using my Red Card starting about 6 months prior to my trip. Last trip I had $600 in gift cards that I used for dining which was way less than the Dining Plan amount. However, we are not big eaters and often share meals or split things like fries. Even the kids offer to split an adult meal most of the time. We also only drink water at meals (all the time, not only at Disney).

 

[Pixiedustaway]

www.distripplanner.com

Generally speaking the dining plan only saves you money if you have children ages 3 to 9.

Which is exactly why it works for us. Family of 4, 2 girls ages 5 and 7. I used the planner and the meal plan saves us over $120 dollars. Worth it to me

 

[Trinity88]

$200 is a huge number. I'd be interested in seeing the website printout on that. Could be a nice education for the rest of us on how to save $200. I see you are staying 8 nights and have 5 people, so $5 per day per person makes a little more sense. But still, that's impressive to get that level of savings.

I always fall into the trap on those websites, forgetting to ask myself whether I'd dine this same way had I not bought the Dining Plan.

I've attached the calculation and breakdown of our meals. We actually save closer to $300. Note - there are 2 meals missing from here, CRT and HDDR. I've already paid for those and since they put me over TS anyway, I'm just paying out of pocket for those. They don't affect how much we save by going with the dining plan.

 

[mkh531]

Yep, we have 2 kids (8 and 6) and the distripplanner had us saving $200 with the dining plan. I realized it's because we are doing meals like Tusker House, and Chef Mickeys where the kids meal costs almost $20 anyway, which is what the kids per day cost is on the dining plan. So basically if you plan to bring your kids to character meals each day (we have one of almost every day of our trip) then they essentially eat their other meal and snacks for free. You just have to do their breakfast by splitting up a QS meal.

DH and I also consume massive amounts of coffee in the morning so the refillable mug at the resort will save us some $$ (even with the coffeemaker in room, it isn't enough and we have to buy coffee). Oh and we are going during F&W so our snack credits can buy awesome food.

WDWprepschool had an excellent chart that tells you which meals give you the best bang for buck on meal plan.

Edited to add: I also plan on going to Columbia Harbour house every chance I get to have a lobster roll.

 

[3boymthr]

When we went I used the DDP and loved it because then I didn't have to say no when oldest DS wanted to order the steak or the... We saved maybe fifty dollars maybe a little more but not much. We did NOT have snack credits left over - Muffins and other pastries and fruits are snack credits so most days that was breakfast. We did have a one Character breakfast and that day we had ours snack for lunch - fruit anyone? Most days our TS meal was dinner.

 

[Accident]

Some are going to overpay, some are going to underpay and when all is said and done, disney is a business and they make more money by having it than not.

Now you just need to figure out if your family is the one overpaying.

 

[ValpoCory]

When we went I used the DDP and loved it because then I didn't have to say no when oldest DS wanted to order the steak or the... We saved maybe fifty dollars maybe a little more but not much. We did NOT have snack credits left over - Muffins and other pastries and fruits are snack credits so most days that was breakfast. We did have a one Character breakfast and that day we had ours snack for lunch - fruit anyone? Most days our TS meal was dinner.

Yea, snacks and TS go quickly. It's the Quick/Counter Service credits that end up being left over due to sharing meals. Tons of food.

 

[dakotix]

I agree that the value is gone and it's more of a convenience. We usually do the dining plan and try to travel when it's free. But that doesn't always work with our schedule. Last spring we went for a little 3 day trip and so we figured it was pointless to pay for the dining plan. We went to Walmart and filled our carry-ons with snacks thinking we could just graze on that stuff while we were at the parks and then just eat a QS meal for dinner. Boy was that an epic failure.

When you consider all of the walking and the endless opportunities to eat, we ended up paying for both QS lunches and dinners throughout our stay as well as buying those "$8-10" ice cream snacks and the odd "$3" bottle of coke because it was hot once or twice. When you're on vacation it's amazing the kind of rationalizing you end up doing when it comes to spending money. At any rate when we got back we still had a whole lot of walmart snacks leftover and a pile of restaurant receipts that totaled the same if not more than what we would have paid if we just bought the dining plan. We would have eaten a whole lot better as well. 3 days of nothing but fried QS food is nasty after 3 days. It's nice to hace a TS meal every day to balance everything out.