I love to eat. I HATE to eat bad food. The last time we visited Disney, we had the dining plan but I did NO preplanning. We decided to wing it. We ate a LOT of burgers. I vowed that would not happen on this trip! Since we stayed at a Disney Resort, we had the option to buy the Disney Dining Plan. We took the plunge and purchased the standard Dining Plan which gives you one quick services meal, one table service meal and one snack per day and an insulated cup that is refillable at your resort for approximately $45 per day per person. At each meal you get an entree, a dessert and a refillable soft drink/milk/etc. There are some nuances within the program but this is the general gist. Edited to add: You have to buy the dining plan for everyone staying in your room for the entire length of your stay. This makes it very difficult to use up if you plan on spending time at places other than Disney (like SeaWorld, etc).
Pros for the dining plan:
- You pay in advance. This is GREAT for budgeting purposes. I am very Type A so I love this facet. I know that our food is covered so there are no surprises at the end of the trip.
- Dessert is covered. The kids loved getting dessert with the meals. It meant that they got dessert without having to ask or begging. Often dessert would have been kiboshed otherwise.
- There are lots of restaurants included on the dining plan so there are plenty of options.
- Table service restaurant meals can be reserved up to 180 days in advance.
Cons of the dining plan:
- You have to make sure you get your money’s worth. If you order the cheapest thing on the menu all the time, you probably paid too much for the dining plan.
- It pushes you to eat things you wouldn’t normally eat and more than you (or at least me) would normally eat. I would NEVER eat dessert with lunch AND dinner but since it’s included….I often did.
- Kids under 9 are required to eat from the children’s menu which often has very limited options (which are often junky “kid food”).
- Table service restaurant reservations can fill up very fast. If you aren’t organized, you may not get into the restaurant you want.
- Having to make reservations so far in advance means that you have to pull out your crystal ball to determine where you will be and when.
- Gratuity is not included on table service meals. We always tip so that’s not the issue….it’s that you tip on the amount that it would have been had you paid cash. Since I would never have bought 5 desserts if they weren’t included, the tip was artificially higher than it would have been normally.
Overall, I was happy with our decision and we used up all our credits except for one quick service meal (we used a snack credit for Evan’s lunch one day). Most of the meals we had were great with only a few duds along the way.
Don’t forget to check out Disney Planning Tips, Disney Park Photos and Disney Restaurants Reviews (including table service, quick service and snack restaurants).
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
We went to DisneyLand last spring and we didn’t get a meal plan. I don’t know if that kind of plan is cost effective for kids who often eat like birds at dinner and graze thru the day? What do you think? What kinds of things were included in the “snack” options?
Great post. Can’t wait to read part deux.
Did you get your stroller back?
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Evan is a bird eater but he was one of our group of 5 so it worked out okay. He rarely finished his meals but his big brother polished them off because he was still hungry. Snacks are pretty open ended with loads of things available from water & chips to fried rice at Yak & Yeti. We had a hard time using all our snack options because we were so full from the meal plan!
Oh..and yes we got our stroller back when we arrived in Calgary.
We always do the dining plan! It helps me with planning so much and like you said no surprises when we get ready to check out. I usually don’t think about how much each meal is costing to see if we are getting our money’s worth because I often feel like we don’t get our money’s worth when we dine out at home. I can’t wait to see more of you Disney vacation!
I know what you mean about not getting money’s worth at home either. I think we did pretty well this time. We really liked most of the restaurants I picked. Check back tomorrow for a full run down of where we ate & what we thought.
We are going in March, no dining plan. We didn’t book through Disney so it wasn’t an option. We are ordering groceries to our hotel from garden grocer. Things for grab & go breakfasts, healthy lunch snacks. I made diner reservations for a sit down meal everyday. I used touringplans.com to pick the best park on each day we are there. I made sure to get one Fantasmic! Dining experience so I can save myself the grief of waiting in line for the show. We have a couple breakfast character dining (Chef Mickeys, Crystal Palace) to entertain the kids and a couple other meals at the places that appealed to me (Boma & S’annaa). I’ll let you know how this goes but I estimate I can break even or surpass the dining plan & eat healthy balanced meals.
We really, really like the Tusker House character breakfast. It’s not as huge as the others. I agree that you will probably come out ahead if you are willing to do the work. With an almost 14 year old boy in the group who eats an amazingly large amount of food, I wasn’t. I could not commit to carrying the amount of food we would need for lunch for a group of 5 around all day.
Do you have to get the dining plan for everyone?
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Yep and for the full time you are there too.
Reading your post gave me a lot of ideas about Disney and I thank you for that! We just planned a Christmas in Disney this year and your post has been a great help for me! Thanks!