Is the dining plan worth it?

[happyfamily2]

We are going with our 2 kids 8 and 5 for 4 nights/5 days in March. I have heard good and bad about the dining plan and cannot decide if it is worth it.
Anja

 

[caroline1851]

We went a few weeks ago with dd2 and ds6 and it was totally worth it. We got $800 worth of food and the meal plan cost us $604.

I tend to be cheap when eating out, so I probaly would've picked items that were cheaper that i didn't really want if I was paying oop. I found it relaxing to be on the meal plan because cost wasn't an issue. I found though, especially being with little kids, we had to spend money oop becuase they were hungry often between meals. So we brought some snacks from home and spent about $150 oop in addition to the ddp.

I thought it was just great. Also, i enjoyed having a dining reservation each day..it was a great pre-planned break in the day and also, i would've gone crazy if I had to eat cs for every meal. It seemed the lines were huge for all cs places.

 

[michelleiada]

We went last year with a large group. Some had dining plan and some didn't. The ones that had the dining plan spent less money and had a huge amount of food. Dessert was included with both meals, sitdown or counter service. They had expensive dinners everynight. In fact, the dinner alone was sometimes worth the daily $39.99 rate. The only thing that some of them didn't like about the dining plan was that the kids had to eat off of a specific "kids menu" and they had picky eaters. Some of the most obvious kids choices were not always on the menus (chicken fingers, cheese burgers). They found the kid pizza to be terrible. On more than one occasion, they ordered from the adult menu for the kids and just paid out of pocket, even though they had purchased the dining plan for the kids. This was the only thing that I heard complaints about. Overall, I think it is a good value.

 

[mom2aredhead]

Yes, if you plan to eat at least one table service meal every day. (Keep in mind that each sit-down meal takes at least 1 hour + any travel time.)

Otherwise no.

The kids menu's are awful and with the appetizers and tips no longer being included as they used to be, it's not as much of a cost savings. If you plan on eating only a few special sit-down meals then having counter service or going off-site the rest of the time, you're better off out of pocket.

The jury is still out on the new quick service plan.

 

[mbanks21]

If you can feed your kids for less then $20 a day at disneyworld then dont get it. Otherwise youd be crazy not to. I would imagine with 2 kids youll want to do some character meals and fun sit down restaurants to get them out of the heat