Disney Dining Plan

[I❤️Disney]

I think like everybody else said crunch the numbers see whats best for you are your family. I don't think this is a simple yes or no question as everyone is different. Me personally I don't mind paying a few extra dollars even if we don't get our money worth. For me and my family its about not having to stress about how much the meal is going to cost us. Being able to order what we want (for the most part). Now we don't get to go to Disney every often so that may be another factor.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

I have a simple batch of questions I ask to determine if the plan will save you money, or just be more convenient...

1) Are you trying to get at least 1-2 Character Meals a day out of your trip?
2) Do you have at least ONE child guest that will want to eat off the adult menu? And do you have an adult guest that may want to order from the kids' menu?
3) Do you have party members who will just not survive without massive quantities of food?

The #1 question is really the most important one. Near as I can tell, Disney's restaurants/credits and the Dining Plan system are supposed to work in conjunction to provide Guests with more themed experiences. If you don't care about Character Meals, and you order breakfast food for your hotel room and you eat Snacks and Quick Service only, yeah please do not try to "save money" by using the Dining Plan. If you're eating appetizer-sized portions at Table Service, and you cannot or do not want to bag up the rest in take-away boxes and nibble on it for the next three hours, don't do Dining Plan. Assuredly, if the situation for your family LOOKS complicated in conjunction with the Dining Plan, really, don't get it! Just manage yourself on giftcards or the room account, or OOP.

 

[1st*toright]

I have a simple batch of questions I ask to determine if the plan will save you money, or just be more convenient...

1) Are you trying to get at least 1-2 Character Meals a day out of your trip?
2) Do you have at least ONE child guest that will want to eat off the adult menu? And do you have an adult guest that may want to order from the kids' menu?
3) Do you have party members who will just not survive without massive quantities of food?

Yes- this is a good way to start thinking about it. I did run the numbers before our family trip, and the DxDP worked well for our family. We did a whole bunch of character meals and we had 3 "adults" and one "kid". We shared meals a number of times (at non-buffet places), because it is a lot of food, which meant that we had enough credits for a few signatures as well as everything else. We are definitely a table service kind of family - mealtimes were for resting up in the AC and enjoying each other's company. We often didn't get the dessert that came with our meal (again, we just don't need dessert that often). We ate well, but didn't stuff ourselves, and chose what we liked rather than trying to maximize our spend, and we still came out ahead. Now, if we hadn't been character meal heavy, and if we'd been paying full adult price for everyone, it would not have made sense.

I just did a quick trip with my teen daughter, and the dining plan would have made zero sense, based on our plans and preferences.

I don't see it as much more convenient than buying gift cards ahead and charging everything to your room, but to each their own.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

Yes- this is a good way to start thinking about it. I did run the numbers before our family trip, and the DxDP worked well for our family. We did a whole bunch of character meals and we had 3 "adults" and one "kid". We shared meals a number of times (at non-buffet places), because it is a lot of food, which meant that we had enough credits for a few signatures as well as everything else. We are definitely a table service kind of family - mealtimes were for resting up in the AC and enjoying each other's company. We often didn't get the dessert that came with our meal (again, we just don't need dessert that often). We ate well, but didn't stuff ourselves, and chose what we liked rather than trying to maximize our spend, and we still came out ahead. Now, if we hadn't been character meal heavy, and if we'd been paying full adult price for everyone, it would not have made sense.

I just did a quick trip with my teen daughter, and the dining plan would have made zero sense, based on our plans and preferences.

I don't see it as much more convenient than buying gift cards ahead and charging everything to your room, but to each their own.

Exactly. It worked for us because we are 2 adults, 1 child and my DD is much more adventurous than I am, so she was eating all the sashimi and I was poking at the kids' meal She also grazes so it's two bites, three bites, definitely small portions though, so again, we ate a LOT of take-away TS - often we found ourselves loading up the desserts at TS dinner specifically FOR breakfasts in the morning before we stumbled to the food court We wanted as many in-Park Character Meals as possible and we felt that bringing back an entire suitcase of Main Street Candy was a decent souvenir for the next several months so when we realized we had 42 snack credits left .... ohhhhh boy! /mickey voice

But you know, next time we go? I don't... think we'll use the Dining Plan. I think we crossed some Character Meals off the list, and therefore are free to check out the other restaurants in the Parks!

 

[TheSixOfUs]

It depends on how much you eat, what and where. For us, we rent a 2 bedroom condo with a kitchen. We have a rental car. We buy groceries from Walmart. We eat most of our meals at the hotel or we pack snacks for the parks. This way, it doesn't cost us much more than what we would spend for meals at home. We usually head back to the hotel from about 1:30 to 5:30, which is where we'll have a late lunch or early dinner.

 

[Bete]

We just go when the free dining promo is offered. If we have too many credits left we will do pixie dust to another family.