How to save money not doing the dining plan??

[Blondie58]

Many folks love the dining plan (DP) and find it perfect. We tried the DP once and felt it was too much food for us. What works for us is eating out once a day. Most days we have breakfast in. We sometimes make sandwiches and take snacks to the parks for lunch and then we enjoy dinner out. Sometimes we enjoy lunch out and then just snack for dinner. We have found the grocery offerings at the resorts are great for us. Eggs are $4.00 a dozen. Bagels are $3.50 and English muffins are about the same. Peanut Butter is $3.69 for a small jar that lasts at least the week. And you can buy fresh fruit and bottles of water. EVERYTHING is more expensive than at home BUT far cheaper than eating out three meals a day. With the meal plan we also found ourselves eating more than necessary just to get "our money's worth". We would also rather do less food daily and splurge on tours and the Sunday morning buffet at the California Grill. So much is personal preference. (Also to note: Some of the tours include a meal.)

 

[bakerworld]

Disney GC's are very easy to combine and the staff are use to dealing with them so your meals are still 'pre-paid'. Plus if you've leftover funds the cards don't expire.

 

[_19disnA]

If you have a car, the best way to save money on meals while at Disney is to eat offsite at the many local restaurants. Try to limit the number of meals eaten at the parks, since choices are very limited right now and even when more choices are offered, they tend to be pricey. Eating breakfast in your room can also save money, if you pickup items from a local grocery store. Restaurants off of Disney property tend to have better prices and more choices. I think that is really what you are asking. Dining plans are currently unavailable, so those aren't really an option. Even when dining plans were offered you will get opinions all over the map on their value.......works for some, not for others.

 

[KellO]

I second the gift card idea. You could set an amount of money per day and buy that much in gift cards. If you’re not sure of what amount you should use, and you’re used to paying for the dining plan, you could probably search for what the dining plan price per day would be and use that as your guide. (Disclaimer: I stopped using the dining plan years ago because I didn’t find value in it based on how we vacation, so I’m not sure if the dining plan $ amount would be useful. Maybe someone else will chime in on this to be sure!)

If you can find gift cards at a discount that will increase your savings. If you have a Target red card (either the credit or debit card version), purchasing Disney gift cards there is (in my opinion) the easiest way to get them at a small discount. Automatic 5% off this way, with no researching or planning ahead required. There are other and better ways to get a discount, but this is a quick and easy one.

If you use the gift card idea, a tip I learned here on the boards is to use the Disney gift card website to combine your gift cards, and then carry at least one empty card with you on your trip. If you happen to lose your gift card with a large amount of money on it, you can easily go log onto the gift card website and transfer the money onto your empty card.

This sounds like a great tip! Especially in terms of saving or when it comes to birthdays/other special occasions and people can give you something you'll use specifically on holiday rather than just giving cash. I'm wondering if I can purchase a physical gift card here in the UK for use at WDW...

EDIT: I've just checked and the official Disney website says that international guests can only purchase the e-vouchers since they won't ship internationally. After looking into it a bit more, apparently I can buy a bunch of e-vouchers then purchase a physical card when I get to the US. Using the online account, I should be able to transfer the codes to the one card, if I wish. Has anyone actually done this?

 

[mkb3]

I'm a big eater and our first trip in 2017 we did the dining plan. I ate plenty on that trip and still had some leftover credits. When planning for our 2018 trip I was given the advice not to do the DP as it was more expensive so I didn't. We didn't worry about price and got food when we wanted it. That trip we had California Grill, Ohana and Chef Mickeys and I still spent less money than I would have spent on the DP. In 2019 we didn't do the DP again, enjoyed Food and Wine and ate anything and everything we wanted and spent even less on food than we did on the 2018 trip. Unless something changes when the DP comes back, it was a one and done for me.

 

[Fangorn]

... After looking into it a bit more, apparently I can buy a bunch of e-vouchers then purchase a physical card when I get to the US. Using the online account, I should be able to transfer the codes to the one card, if I wish. Has anyone actually done this?

Yes you can do this.

Just buy the e-cards on the giftcard site and send them to yourself. You'll get emails with the codes. Once you are able to get a physical giftcard, you can go to the giftcard site and transfer the funds from those e-cards to the physical one. There is a $1000 max per card, but of course you can do multiple cards if you need to.

It's really, very easy.

Steve

 

[Lumpy1106]

Agreed on the gift cards. We charged everything to our Magic Bands, then, the night before we checked out, we went on Target.com and bought enough gift cards using our Target Red Cards to pay off the balance. You can get a print out at the concierge or just look it up on MDE. You save 5% with the Red Card, but if you don't have one there are other ways you can get about the same discount on the gift cards (Sam's Club is one). Use the Disney Gift Card website to move funds around - $1000 max, 5 cards max. You'll need physical gift cards to take to the Concierge to settle the bill, but no problem - if you don't have a couple of spent cards handy you can always go to any gift shop and buy some ($15 min per card).

But there's more...
The parks are open such short hours right now that it really doesn't make sense to have more than one meal in the parks. Do a TS lunch (those are a tiny bit cheaper anyway), then snack your way into and out of the park, grabbing breakfast and dinner outside the park. If you want to budget, that's easy, all the menus are posted online.

It took me years to convince my wife that the DDP costs us a lot more, but now that we are DVC members and have a full kitchen I doubt we'll ever use it again. Could be you'll come to the same conclusion.

 

[Lumpy1106]

We just got back from a 10 day stay. We noticed that we didn't eat as much as we normally do with the dining plan. When you have to pay attention to the prices, you start thinking - do I really want that? We did loose some weight on this trip, which is a bonus.

a little OT, but if you've ever used the LoseIt! app, it's the same idea. You could have a cookie, but then you have to go to the app and enter it, and how many calories are really in the cookie anyway, and...forget it. I don't really want a cookie that bad. The weight comes right off.

 

[KellO]

Yes you can do this.

Just buy the e-cards on the giftcard site and send them to yourself. You'll get emails with the codes. Once you are able to get a physical giftcard, you can go to the giftcard site and transfer the funds from those e-cards to the physical one. There is a $1000 max per card, but of course you can do multiple cards if you need to.

It's really, very easy.

Steve

Thanks!

 

[igrsod]

We love getting the Dining Plan, for it's ease of use... no guilt ordering etc. BUT... if I'm honest with myself, it's actually cheaper for us to eat out of pocket.
We don't all need an appetizer or dessert. We don't really drink alcohol with meals too often. We don't even drink anything but water with meals. We find when we have the dining plan we have these things, as the perception is you will lose the value of the plan if you don't order them. But if we just eat as we normally would, we would skip appetizers, have a regular meal, share a dessert and just drink water... WAY cheaper. We have done the gift card idea on the shorter trips where we didn't bother with the dining plan and it worked so well.

 

[DisLiss]

For my family, just our normal eating habits result in saving money over having the dining plan. Our way of eating is similar to what's already been mentioned above:
*We don't like to wait for breakfast, so we keep breakfast items in the room, eliminating the need to buy one Disney meal.
*We tend to be "grazers", so we opt to keep snacks in our bag that we eat here and there, which cuts down on how many snacks we buy in park. We also often buy small portions of food when we do stop for something to eat. (I love kid meals at counter service places because I like getting a water and also some clementines as a side as opposed to the chips and fries that often come with adult meals, too. )
*We are big water drinkers to begin with, so coupled with the extra hydration needs of a Disney trip, we drink a ton of water, which can save money if you might often opt for specialty or alcoholic drinks.
*In non-pandemic days we are big on sharing. None of us are accustomed to eating a lot of sweets, so if someone wants to try a particular treat, we will buy one and share it among us, or if possible, pack some into a ziploc to finish later. And even with savory snacks, if we all wish to try a few, it still works out better to buy one each and cut it in 3 or 4 pieces, than to buy 3 or 4 and then find that we're getting too full to finish them all individually. This is particularly true in Epcot, and even more so when there's a festival happening.
*Because one of us is not big on the waiting involved with table service restaurants and one of us sees any time eating as time not spent on rides, we tend to go more more quick serve places, which cost less. It's also often easier to get less food that way--you can buy side dishes or again, a child's meal, very easily. I personally love a place where I can get a side salad and some fruit instead of a full meal at lunch. So cool and refreshing.
*Lastly, some of us are vegetarian/vegan, and the plant-based meals, while not ALWAYS less than their meat counterparts, are still often less.
*Lastly, we find that during the year people sometimes ask for ideas for gifts for our family, and depending on the situation, we might suggest Disney gift cards. Our kids love having a way to buy their own snacks as they go along, and a card can be a good budgeting tool for them. They can see the total decreasing and know to be careful in their decisions about their snacks. And if a card is given to us as a family gift, then we can use it to cover a few meals depending on the meal and the card amount.

 

[kevtlas]

I agree that it really depends on your eating style. We've done the DDP in the past and while there is value vs OOP for what it provides, we've stopped using it because it's just too much food and we (I) always feel like we need to get everything we're allowed otherwise we are throwing money away. Our last few trips we skipped the DDP and I tracked everything we spent on food. We didn't restrict ourselves nor did we choose restaurants based on cost. We prefer TS vs QS, so most meals were TS. We always rent a car for the first day and hit Walmart for snacks and drinks, even when we used the DDP, so when comparing, I added the money spent at Walmart on food/drinks to both the DDP cost and the OOP cost. We realized that on average, we spent at least 35% less OOP than we did when we used the DDP in every one of our last four trips! One trip (staying offsite in our RV) was almost 70% less, but we also ate off property during that trip, which we usually do not do except for the first day when we have a car.

 

[moumo]

Last fall, we took an Uber from the airport rather than ME and had a quick grocery store stop at the closest Publix which also has adjacent liquor store. Breakfasts in, one bigger meal per day (maybe lunch to get out of the heat and sit). Snacks as I want them.