Sorry for the delay folks... Now back to my review:
Disney Dining Plan
Hmmm, is it worth it?? Maybe it is or maybe it's not. It depends on your eating habits really. My wife went in thinking it would be a great deal for us to have the dining plan, but very quickly we knew it cost us more that if we would have paid for our meals. Let me explain our situation and our rational behind it and you can decide for yourself it would be worth it or not.
Typically, we would rarely order any desert from a restaurant at home, but when on vacation, we like to try different foods and would often have one with our meal. On the Disney dining plan, a desert comes with your Table Service meal. The quick service meals worked out great because it came with a drink plus our two snacks per day made up not having a desert during this meal. Ultimately, the downside to all of this is the amount of food you get. In the end, we had 24 snacks left (between my wife and I) so we took home 24 sacks of candies from the Market Place for our son to enjoy when we got home.
By my calculations, the dining plan cost us about $300 more than if we would have paid out of pocket. When we decided to go for the dining plan, we told ourselves that we would eat what we'd normally eat and not order the most expensive item for the sake of trying to save money. If we would have chosen the most expensive items on the menu and hunt down the most expensive snacks, we would have save a bit of money, but not much. I understand the convenience part of it, it was nice to order what we wanted and not have to reach for our wallets to pay for it.
For us, we would never chose the dining plan again as the convenience of it does not outweigh the extra cost we incurred. Again, this is our experience with the plan and I'd say if you plan on taking the most expensive items and snacks on the menu, then go for it! For us, it's just not worth it.
Up next: Final thoughts....
