Is the Disney Dining Plan worth it?

My family just came from Disney yesterday and we did a family package that included a deluxe dining plan. I was told that it may we each got nine meals 3 meals each for 3 days and 2 snacks each for 3 days. Which obviously is 27 meals total and 18 snacks.

Pardon my French but there is no way in hell we used all those dinner credits or snack credits and yet on our final day somehow we were down to only three dinner credits. My mother is a light eater and didn’t even eat any meals at breakfast. I’ve been at very upset because I feel like they cheated us out of dinner credits and we end up having to pay out of pocket after paying them all that money.

We went back in 2009 and are going back again this year. We did not get the dining plan and will not get it again when we go this year. Our family includes 2 adults and 1 child. We brought snacks with us and found we really didn’t eat that much during the day at the parks. We usually grabbed a quick service meal for dinner (many times my daughter and I shared a meal). For us, the better option was to get the discount room only and we ordered discount theme park tickets from Undercover Tourist (highly recommend).

We did the dining plan and it worked out well since we have 4 kids and the dining plan amount is alot less for them than an adult. I think if the ratio is higher for adults to kids, it’s probably not a good deal. 50/50 ratio comes out even and more kids than adults is where you save especially for buffets and family service. Also, it does really matter what sit down restaurants you go to. SciFi/50’s is cheap in comparison to Boma or Ohana.

I did the math on the dining and what we would really be eating and this and that. I really did my homework for this Disney trip which is coming up in August. I thought for 2 adults that the price was insane. Especially the way our meals are spaced out. We at times snack then eat one major meal a day maybe 2 you never know with us. So we are totally with you on this one Dad its not for us we opted out.

We have only been to Disney once and we got free quick service dining and upgraded to the plus dining.We loved it at the time but for our next trip we are thinking of paying out of pocket. I have no interest in the refillable mug and I don’t really care about having beverages other than tap water. DH is diabetic and not keen on sugar free desserts so I feel if we get the plan he will be more likely to get sugary desserts since they are already paid for. Why prepay for drinks and desserts we don’t want? If we don’t get the plan he can get an appetizer instead of a dessert for the same money. My only concern is that I will be very aware of the cost of everything I order and I’ll be more likely to get things I don’t love in order to save money. I will still be very thrilled though if we can get free dining again!

Actually, we have found the dining plan saves us a lot of money. We have 4 guys with big appetites with us on most of our trips. If you go to Allears.net and look up the menus from all of the restaurants, you will find that you would actually spend a lot more on just dinner than you paid for the day for lunch, dinner and a snack. My husband won’t eat at “fast food” type places, so we always have a nice dinner at a good restaurant. (Usually in EPCOT) All of the really good restaurants are very pricey, so the dining plan makes it all worthwhile. We also make sure everyone in our group uses all of the credits.It takes some getting used to, but certainly worth it.

We always use the Dining Plan it has so many advantages over peying for each meal
1. You can choose any disney resturant you want thats covered by your plan we usually get the Deluxe or Premimum Plan so we can go to the dinner shows like the Hoop De Do Review and eat at the better resturants like the Brown Durby, Rose and Crown, Crystle Palace Fultons Boat house if you paid out of pocket for a weeks worth of meals at the resturants we eat at you would be out a BIG CHUNK OF CHANGE so yes the Dining Plan Works really well for us if we just ate at the lesser evpensive resturants we would still get the plan to go to the charter dining and dinner shows Thanks and We Hope to SEE YOU SOON 🙂

We recieved the Quick service Dining in 2011 for free, I loved the convience of it. For our 2013 trip I decided to purchase it. We do utilize every credit and any left over credits I use them for the trip to our second trip which this year is Destin for a week. We pay cash for sit down or character meals. I still hope they have free dining and I’ll get a refund, well a girl can dream, right Dad?

Having a little girl we save money simply by using it for character meals and show like Mickey’s backyard bbq

For my family of 4, the dining plan does not work. Out of three trips, we’ve had the dining plan once and that was because we got free dining. On all three trips, I’ve saved all food receipts and added them up when we got back. Our meals were always at least $500 less paying out of pocket that what it would have cost had we paid for DDP. We will never use the DDP unless we get it for free. We always schedule at least one table service service meal per day.

We always use the table dining plan! And the.amount is on the receipt initially until u hand them ur room key(or.whatever u r using).I then put that on our receipt that has all 00’s on it & then at the.end of our visit I add it up we ALWAYS save at least $100 or more! And without the dining plan we would never have got the chance to eat at many of the places to get those experiences in the 1st place& we r free to eat whatever we want off the.menu without the worry of cost! Only thing that u have to worry about is the tip! in my opinion its the best thing but to each his own:)

But you do get a receipt so you know how much to tip!

I agree, sometimes if you don’t pick the right restaurants or use all of your credits, you don’t save money, but I’m confused about you saying that there isn’t a total on the receipt, which makes tipping confusing.

When we went to Disney World in December, we always had a total on our receipts and found tipping to be quite easy, they gave us what 18% and 20% would be, we either chose the 18% total or a little lower depending on what we thought was reasonable and charged it to the credit card that we had linked to our Key to the World. Simple.

We love the dining plan because we find it to be convenient for the most part. It does get tough planning your day around dining reservations, especially if you don’t have Park Hopper and are trying to use Fast Passes, but it doesn’t seem to hurt as much financially when you have your whole vacation paid up front and only have to worry about tips once you get there.

Dad’s Answer

Yes, before you pay the bill the prices are listed, but the bill you get back doesn’t have any numbers on it.

We went with the plan our last trip because we did a character meal everyday but 2, and those days we did sci-fi and Coral Reef (which is pricy). However with my kids getting older they don’t want to do any next time except OHana so it won’t be worth it next time around. When we were there in 07, gratuity was included whichade things easier, this time I alays har to make sure I had cash, and small bills for that matter, on me which was sometimes very hard.