Tell me about the Disney Dining Plans

debbiepump

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 10, 2005
Messages
514
Going next December and am going to have to buy park passes (don't want an AP this year) and keep hearing about the different dining plans, etc.
What's the scoop? When I made my ressies the CM tried selling them to me, problem was,we're getting in late and leaving early at the end of our trip and won't be able really use the 'dining plan' those days nor go into the parks, so is it worth it?
Oh, 2 adults, no kids.

Thanks
 
Going next December and am going to have to buy park passes (don't want an AP this year) and keep hearing about the different dining plans, etc.
What's the scoop? When I made my ressies the CM tried selling them to me, problem was,we're getting in late and leaving early at the end of our trip and won't be able really use the 'dining plan' those days nor go into the parks, so is it worth it?
Oh, 2 adults, no kids.

Thanks


Well, it has drectly lead to a decline in quality and menu choices at WDW IMO.

It has also lead to an elimination of To Go orders at places like Olivias.

It also leads to overeating at WDW and a likely 5 pound plus weight gain.

It has made ADR's a necessity months in advance.

It will schedule your entire trip around food.

In many cases it doesn't actually save you money. You need to calculate how much you normally would have spent with normal eating habits not what you get with the plan.

WDW accomplished there goal for the most part. The restaurants are now packed and guests are trapped on site where The greedy mouse would like us.

Now the part they are missing is this: Visiting WDW is far less fun and spontaneous as in years past IMO. In stead of trapping me on site they have given me one huge push off site. I'm hoping the lure of a deal doesn't sway too many people. I'm hoping over time they stop this madness.

I'm truly hoping for a return of WDW to pre-dining times.
 

I agree... I've never gotten the Disney Dining stuff... But it's like Fastpass, where it's geared to people who do that and not wait in a standby line like everyone did in the 'good ol' days.

I'm one who usually made my priority seating the night of the dinner... For me, I don't care what time I eat but that I eat where I want to!
 
IMO, the Dining Plan is Disney's attempt to compete with the popularity of all-inclusive type vacation destinations. Those types of places rarely save $$$, but are packaged for convenience.
 
My thoughts are that the DDP is being sold as a savings. However to get the biggest bang for the buck you would have to get ADR's for every day on the plan. So you are looking at aprox. 1 hour for lunch and 2 hours for dinner. This includes waiting and transportation. I have found that we usually skip a meal(lunch) and replace it with a snack her or there. Or we share or meals.

Planning a trip around the Dining may be something I could do in the future, but with kids it doesn't work for us. The last 8 day trip we spent about $500-600 on food for a family of 4. That includes Ohana Dinner and Chef Mickey's Dinner.

I don't recall the exact price for the dining plan but I think it was around $120 a day.
 
I'm starting to get turned off by Disney. It is getting to the point you have to preplan your trip, a turnoff for us. Kind of reminds you of the title of an old movie "It's tuesday so it must be Belgium."

This last 26 day stay at OKW resulted in eating out at Disney only 3 times.
 
I'm starting to get turned off by Disney. It is getting to the point you have to preplan your trip, a turnoff for us. Kind of reminds you of the title of an old movie "It's tuesday so it must be Belgium."

This last 26 day stay at OKW resulted in eating out at Disney only 3 times.

I wish you would email disney about this. I'm going to take it a step further. We are going in May and I'm going to save my receipts for all purchases and dining I do off site. I will then send a letter with copies of receipts to show the money they lost because of this dining plan. How is it realxing to pre-plan your entire trip based on dining? I used to make ressies the day we wanted to eat out. Now you need to do it months in advance. I won't do it, I'll go off site every night.

I think chuck is right it is a suedo All inclusive experience. I hate those also so probably why I don't like the ddp. We like to actually leave the resort from time to time meeting locals and seeing the sites. This includes all of our trips.
 
Hi,

We have found that the DDP works well for us. DH has one of those metabilisms that I am truly envious of and DS is following in his footsteps. It is alot of food but perfect for him. Even of the DDP is loses weight from the walking. We do however, forgo most of the desserts as we watch our sugar intake.

It is also easy for us and DH doesn't feel like he has to skip a meal when he's hungry because he already spent too much $$. (I am frugal but DH will squezze a penny until it screams :rotfl2: )

If you are a planner like I am the making of ressies is not such a big deal. And if you are going during a non-peak time you may even be able to fit in a quick ressie like I just did (we leave in 8 days). Also when we were there in Sept we missed 2 ressies due to DS taking longer naps than usual and they were able to locate other TS ressies that day for us. It may not have been at the same restaurant but it was something we did like.:goodvibes

Good Luck deciding:thumbsup2
 
Going next December and am going to have to buy park passes (don't want an AP this year) and keep hearing about the different dining plans, etc.
What's the scoop? When I made my ressies the CM tried selling them to me, problem was,we're getting in late and leaving early at the end of our trip and won't be able really use the 'dining plan' those days nor go into the parks, so is it worth it?
Oh, 2 adults, no kids.

Thanks

You would have credits for each of the nights of your reservation and you can use them in any way you chose while you are there so you could use them in a way that would not involve the days you arrive and depart. That said you need to look at how you usually do meals and what you spend for them. Then you can compare the price of the DDP and determine if it will be a good thing for you. If you eat at TS places and usually eat a CS meal a day then it could work. You could use 2 TS credits at the CG or one of the other signature restaurants and the "extra" CS credits for breakfast one day.
Some people who don't normally do TS meals like the DDP for short trips so they can try some of these places and the CS and snack credits are really an extra benefit. Only you can decide if it will work for you and it will take some research on your part to make that decision. You might want to go to the restaurant board and read some of the dining plan threads.
 
You know it's fine that some do not like the DDP. And its fine that some have the opinion that it is has caused a decline in the the quality of dining, as that is just your opinion.

But what facts does anyone have to base the opinion that it is making everyone gain weight? I mean was everyone anti- buffets prior to the DDP. I don't remember a single comment about the fact that buffets were making everyone gain weight.

We enjoyed the DDP and did not gain an ounce. You truly do not know if anyone is over eating due to the plan and it just seems silly to me to keep stating that.

To the OP, we enjoyed the plan immensely. It did not add any weight to us. We had salads many times for appetizers, and fruit for dessert. Or sometimes we did not even order dessert or got it to go.

We loved the convenience, the opportunity to have it paid for in advance and the luxury of sitting down to eat and order whatever appealed to us with no regard to price. A luxury not everyone gets to do on vacation.

As to making ADRs in advance, we have been doing that for years. And even though we made them in advance we changed 80% of them after we got there without any problems whatsoever.

Since we enjoy having at least one TS and one CS meal per day, our schedule did not change at all.

We saved hundreds over what we normally spend. However if you are happy to eat one or two TS your entire trip and mostly CS, then it will probably not save you money.

The plan is not for everyone and since it is not mandatory to get it to visit WDW, I truly do not see what the uproar is about. Don't like it, don't purchase it.
 
I haven't tried the plan yet so I hope it isn't eliminated unti lI get my chance to use it. My family is very excited about it because last trip we spent a fortune on food. We all feel the Disney experience as we get older is all about the ambiance and dining and not so much about the rides. We like the 2 TS places and will probably double up alot of our credits to go to California grill, Flying Fish, Illuminations Dinner pkg . The other nights we will use the CS credits to eat on the run. Snacks for Breakfast on the Boardwalk. Not only will this save us money over previous trips but it will allow us to experience more places with the whole family as before the more affluent ate well and the others ate more in the villa. Now we can all afford the good life.

I always make ADR's for every night of my trip and if we don't use them so be it, we cancel and rebook somewhere else or we wing it. It does take spontaneity out of a trip but I look at a well planned trip as much more fun than winging it. My family always thanks me for getting them the impossible to get dining reservations and the best way to NOT WAIT IN LINE FOR ANYTHING MORE HAN 15MIN. My family thinks that everyone sees Disney the way they do. NOT SO. Alot of people go without a plan and see nothing but the back of someone's head waiting in line and are grumpy. I wouldn't like Disney either if I just showed up and didn't know all the tricks. It can be a very annoying place even for a planner.

If you get an annual pass then the DDE card can be a more flexible alternative but not necessarily cheaper unless you are a drinker. I don't drink much so it will probably not be as good for me.

The quality of food declining isn't something I've experienced as a rule, but then I eat at the high end places lke Shulas, Blue Zoo, CG, Narcosee's, LeCellier, Flying Fish, etc. Never had a bad meal at any of those . I know that the dining plan doesn't include alot of my favorites but it will be nice to try new places and see if the food has declined. I hope not Joan
 
This is interesting I always assumed the DDP was targets at families with kids old enough to turn loose in the park. You give them the DDP so you didn't have to trust them with cash to feed themselves much like dining plans at colleges.

johno
 
I used DDP for the first time recently. It was just two adults and we made out like bandits. You get a lot of food, especially at the table service restaurants and I think the value is good. You also get to try different appetizers and desserts, things I'd normally skip because of the cost. That said, it's best if you are a compulsive planner (I am) and want to have dinner reservations nailed down before you get to WDW. It also helps if you're flexible about times. If you have to have lunch at noon and dinner at 6:30, you'll need to reserve early. If you can eat at non-peak hours (say lunch at 1:30, etc.), you may still need early ressies, but probably not 180 days out.

BTW, I'm going next weekend and just made two dinner ressies yesterday for Saturday and Sunday nights. No DDP, but don't blame DDP for all the woes of dining at Disney.
 
We like the Dining plan, but don't use it one every trip. If you are planning on eating a table service meal for dinner everynight, it may work for you. If you are light eaters, then you may want to reconsider.

We used the plan twice last year, and four times we didn't. The other trips we either eat light fare or did not eat many table service meals.
 
I wish you would email disney about this. I'm going to take it a step further. We are going in May and I'm going to save my receipts for all purchases and dining I do off site. I will then send a letter with copies of receipts to show the money they lost because of this dining plan.

Im not sure how effective your letter will be since I am sure revenue has increased dramatically due to the Dinning plan. Losing one dinning customer would be a drop in the bucket to them. I think that the fact that the dinning plan is selling like hotcakes is most likely giving them the impression that it is extremely popular. There is a reason that dinning locations off site are hurting. If many others dined off site like you plan to do, places like Jungle Jims would not be closed now. It's a simple matter of supply and demand. If there was no demand, Disney would drop the plan. Unfortunately you and others that feel the same are in the minority.
 
But what facts does anyone have to base the opinion that it is making everyone gain weight? I mean was everyone anti- buffets prior to the DDP. I don't remember a single comment about the fact that buffets were making everyone gain weight.

We enjoyed the DDP and did not gain an ounce. You truly do not know if anyone is over eating due to the plan and it just seems silly to me to keep stating that.

Sammie, I agree with you. We used the DDP in December and did not gain any weight either. People lose sight of the fact that each WDW guest walks an average of 4 miles a day. (This is more activity than the average American gets at home).
 
...But what facts does anyone have to base the opinion that it is making everyone gain weight?...
I admit, it's only anecdotal but:

Disney's currently looking to upgrade their fleet of rental ECVs and thus far, the only bid they've received that's able to support the new maximum weight requirement was submitted by Caterpillar.
 







New Posts









Receive up to $1,000 in Onboard Credit and a Gift Basket!
That’s right — when you book your Disney Cruise with Dreams Unlimited Travel, you’ll receive incredible shipboard credits to spend during your vacation!
CLICK HERE













DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest DIS Tiktok DIS Twitter DIS Bluesky

Back
Top