One of the big decisions to make when booking your Disney World Vacation can be whether to make the Disney Dining Plan part of your package and is the Disney Dining Plan Worth it for your family? We have had the Disney Dining Plan quite a few times now, and I thought I would take a look at the various options and if it is worth adding it to your Walt Disney World Holiday Package.
To get the Dining Plan you will need to be booking a holiday at one of the Walt Disney World Resorts as the plan is exclusively available to Disney World Hotel Guests (and members of the Disney Vacation Club).
What Is the Disney Dining Plan?
The dining plan is a pre-paid meal plan that is offered by Walt Disney World that allows you to pay up front for pretty much most of your meals (more than likely all of your meals) and covers 2 snacks per day. There are three tiers to the plan and depending on which plan you are on you will be allocated credits for meals and snacks based on the number of nights you are staying.
More on Disney Dining
- Disney Dining and Food Budget Calculator
- Free Disney Dining Plan
- Disney World Without the Dining Plan
- Disney Dining Plan Tips
- What is Disney Dining Credit
Dining Plan Flexibility
All of the plans are flexible in that you can use as many credits in one day as you wish and once, they are gone, they are gone. In theory you can use all of your credits in the first day of your stay, but I’m not quite sure how it would be possible to eat and drink that much.
The credits for the Dining Plan are stored on your Magic Band which you will scan at snack carts and restaurants when using your credits and when you do this you will be given a receipt which will detail what credits you have left. You can also use the My Disney Experience smartphone app to keep track of your reservations and credits.
Below I will look at the following to give you a complete guide to the Dining Plan options to help you decide whether it will be worth including as part of you Disney World Holiday:
- Dining Plan Offers
- Disney Vacation Club Members
- Dining Plan Terminology
- Dining Plan Options
- Dining Plan Prices 2019
- How it Works – Dining Plan Credits
- Tips
- Signature Dining with the Dining Plan
- Advantages of Using the Disney Dining Plan
- Disadvantages of using the Disney Dining Plan
- Will You Go Hungry on the Disney Dining Plan?
- Food Prices at Walt Disney World
- Will You Run Out of Credits on the Disney Dining Plan?
- Our tips are based on our own experiences using the Dining Plan at Disney World
- Our Experience Using the Disney Dining Plan
- What Do Other Disney World Guests Think About The Dining Plan
- Conclusion
Dining Plan Offers
For quite a few years now the Dining Plan has been offered for free as part of a Disney World Holiday. Normally this offer comes out around mid to late April to book in advance but do be aware that it is only applicable to certain times of the year (you want to be able to book a holiday with the Dining Plan included for free if you are looking to Holiday over Christmas for example).
If You are offered the dining plan for free as part of your package it will be part of a holiday package that is being booked at a Moderate or Deluxe Disney World Resort.
Moderate Resort- The Quick Service Disney Dining Plan will be offered (you can pay the difference to upgrade)
Deluxe Resort – The standard Disney Dining Plan will be offered (again you can pay to upgrade to the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan)
Disney Vacation Club Members
If you happen to be a Disney Vacation Club Member, then as part of staying on Walt Disney World Resort using Vacation Club points you are eligible to add on the Dining Plan without purchasing park tickets (a lot of Vacation Club Members are annual pass holders).
Dining Plan Terminology
Before we get into the dining plans further let’s take a look at some of the terminology Disney uses for the different items that make up the various dining plan options.
Snack – A snack is a single item of food or drink that you can find in locations right across the Disney World Resort. You can get snacks from carts in the parks, quick service restaurants, resorts and Disney Springs. A snack can vary from a bottle of water to a very large Mickey Cookie. A dining plan symbol will be located by an item eligible to be used as a snack credit on display boards and menus.
Quick Service Meal – A quick service meal consists of an entrée plus side along with a drink (at some locations this does include an alcoholic drink for adults). There is a wide selection of quick service restaurants throughout Walt Disney World resort offering a wide variety of meals but to make an obvious example – burger, fries and a coke from Electric Umbrella at Epcot would be a quick service meal.
Table Service Meal – A table service meal consists of an entrée, desert and beverage (including an alcoholic drink for adults). You can swap the desert for a side salad, soup or fruit plate. A table service meal will usually be reserved before your holiday (180 days in advance if you are staying at a Disney World Resort) and is a full sit-down meal where waiting staff will look after you. Do remember that tips are not included on the Dining Plan.
Dining Plan Options
Quick Service Disney Dining Plan – with this being the lowest tier of the Dining Plan options at Disney World it includes for each person in your party:
- 2 quick service meals (per night of your stay)
- 2 snacks (per night of your stay)
- A refillable drinks mug for use on your resort.
Standard Disney Dining Plan – very much the standard option for the Dining Plan, this option gives a little bit of everything. This option includes for each person in your party:
- 1 quick service meal (per night of your stay)
- 1 table service meal (per night of your stay)
- 2 snacks (per night of your stay)
- A refillable drinks mug for use on your resort.
Deluxe Disney Dining Plan – the word deluxe is an obvious clue here, this option you will have to pay to upgrade to as it is not offered as a free part of a Disney World holiday package. If you are going to go for this one, I hope you have an appetite as it includes for each person in your party:
- 3 meals of your choice – quick service or table service (per night of your stay)
- 2 snacks (per night of your stay)
- A refillable drinks mug for use on your resort.
How it Works – Dining Plan Credits
The Dining Plan credits do not have a dollar value with each credit being eligible for a variety of different choices (a meal credit or snack credit) across Walt Disney World Resort the value of each credit will depend on your own personal choices. It often widely discussed that a lot of Disney World guests on the Dining Plan will choose the most expensive options when having a Table Service Meal for example and yes you can have steak every day, but it might get a bit boring.
There are three different types of Dining Plan Credits:
- Snacks
- Quick Service Credits
- Table Service Credits
As I mentioned earlier the Dining Plan credits are loaded onto you Magic band where you will scan it at snack carts, quick service restaurants and table service restaurants.
Tips
Tips aren’t included as part of the Dining Plan, so you will have to budget for tips for each Table Service Meal. Some Signature Dining experiences like Cinderella’s Royal Table are inclusive of tips but the vast majority of Table Service Restaurants are not.
At the end of your Table Service Meal your waiter/waitress will bring you the bill with the suggested tip included. From here you can tip, write your tip to confirm and sign. The rest of the meal will be covered by your Table Service Credits using your Magic Band.
For more information on Tipping at Disney World read our article here or click the image below.
Signature Dining with the Dining Plan
One thing to be aware of is that Signature dining restaurants (fine dining) at Walt Disney World Resort will require 2 table service credits per person when using the Dining Plan. Below is a list of all the restaurants that require 2 table service credits per person:
Flying Fish Café, Disney’s BoardWalk (Dinner)
California Grill, Disney’s Contemporary Resort (Dinner)
Citricos, Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort (Dinner)
Narcoossee’s, Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort (Dinner)
Artist Point, Disney’s Wilderness Lodge (Dinner)
Yachtsman Steakhouse, Disney’s Yacht and Beach Club Resorts (Dinner)
Le Cellier Steakhouse, Epcot (Lunch & Dinner)
Monsieur Paul, Epcot (Dinner)
The Hollywood Brown Derby, Disney’s Hollywood Studios (Lunch and Dinner)
The Dining Room at Wolfgang Puck Grand Café, Disney Springs (Dinner)
The BOATHOUSE Restaurant, Disney Springs (Lunch and Dinner)
Tiffins Restaurant, Disney’s Animal Kingdom (Lunch and Dinner)
Jiko, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge (Dinner)
Cinderella’s Royal Table, Magic Kingdom (Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner)
Flying Fish, Disney’s Boardwalk (Dinner)
Il Mulino, Walt Disney World Swan Hotel (Dinner)
Morimoto Asia, Disney Springs (Lunch and Dinner)
STK Orlando, Disney Springs (Lunch and Dinner)
Advantages of Using the Disney Dining Plan
If you like having the cost of meals prepaid then this is a big plus of the Dining Plan.
Being able to book Table Service Meals 180 days in advance is a big advantage too, especially if you want to secure some of the harder reservations to get.
You can find our article on the Best Disney World Character Meals right here.
The addition of alcoholic drinks to the plan has added extra value to the plan. So if you like to enjoy a beer, wine or cocktail with a meal this is now an added advantage to Table Service Meals as well as being able to have a beer at some Quick Service Restaurants.
During some of the festivals at Epcot (especially the Food and Wine Festival) a lot of snacks can be obtained with Snack Credits. The Value of some of these snacks can be up to $10 making the use of Snack Credits really good value.
Basically if you are going to use your credits for higher value snacks and meals for the majority of your holiday you should be on to a winner with the Dining Plan.
Disadvantages of using the Disney Dining Plan
If you enjoy simple dishes that aren’t too expensive then the Dining Plan may not be for you. If you want a steak great but if you eat a lot of pasta dishes of lesser value you might be losing out.
The same can be said for snacks if you keep using snack credits for bottles of water or fruit for example the Dining Plan will definitely work in Disney’s favour. When it comes to drinks we tend to use our snack credits in the various Starbucks located throughout Walt Disney World Resort and go for the bigger more expensive drinks.
If you don’t enjoy an alcoholic drink then the recent addition of an alcoholic drink being added to meals for adults definitely won’t add value.
If you are a vegetarian then you will definitely struggle to find value in the Dining Plan.
Will You Go Hungry on the Disney Dining Plan?
From our own experience of the Standard Dining Plan I would say you will absolutely not go hungry. Two meals and two snacks per day should keep most people satisfied during their stay at Disney World. If you are having Table Service Meals I would recommend booking some buffet style meals as you can have a big meal that can really keep you going for quite some time in the parks.
Also the clever use of snack credits can work really well. Using snack credits for a breakfast pastry before heading into the parks for the day can work really well. You then have your meal credits to use and another snack credit when needed.
Food Prices at Walt Disney World
If you go to any theme park in the world you are going to pay more for food and drink than you will outside of the park. This is no different at Disney World and having the Dining Plan can save you money but others have saved receipts and looked at costs and have said that they have lost out having the Dining Plan (more on this below when we hear from other Disney World guests).
Will You Run Out of Credits on the Disney Dining Plan?
From my own personal experience if you are on the standard Dining Plan (1 quick service, 1 table service and 2 snacks per night of your stay) then I would say no you will not run out of credits. Every time that we have used the Disney Dining Plan, we have had plenty of credits to spare on the last day of our vacation and it is always quick service credits that we have left over. What a lot of people including ourselves do is transfer them to snack credits and then use them for snacks for ourselves or for sweets and confectionary that we can take home with us either to give as gifts or to keep for ourselves. This may not be the best value but it happens quite often to a lot of people on the Dining Plan.
I would guess maybe the same goes with the Deluxe Dining Plan, but I wouldn’t be so sure with the Quick Service Dining plan. I personally find the table service meals more filling than the quick service meals (especially the buffet style meals), so you may not have quite so many credits left if you are on the Quick Service Dining plan.
Our tips are based on our own experiences using the Dining Plan at Disney World:
Free Dining is offered quite a bit by Disney as part of a holiday package. Do look out for these offers, they normally start from late April. We always book our Disney World holiday when free dining is being offered and have done so directly through Disney in the past as well as with a travel agent.
If you are on the Standard or Deluxe Dining Plan, make sure you make your reservations at the 180-day window. Some dining experiences like Be Our Guest and Cinderella’s Royal table can be very competitive to get a reservation, so you are better booking as early as you possibly can.
Try to get as much value as possible when using snack credits. We try not use snack credits for things like bottles of water and go for items of food and drink with a higher value that will last a bit longer. If you are going to get a drink get the biggest one possible from a Starbucks or go for the large chocolate chip Mickey cookie rather than a standard sugar cookie.
Look out for the higher priced snacks at the various Festivals at Epcot. A lot of these snacks you can use a Snack Credit for which is a great way to get value from a Snack Credit.
You can find our article on the Best Magic Kingdom Snacks here.
Our Experience Using the Disney Dining Plan
I personally would always have the Standard Dining Plan as part of a Disney World Holiday package. Having the cost of meals already paid for makes life a lot easier when budgeting for the holiday. Yes, you still need to cover tips for table service meals, but you can budget for those fairly easily. I like the Standard Dining Plan as the Table Service meals give you the chance to have a nice break from the parks (especially when it is busy) and there are so many different dining experiences across Walt Disney World Resort that they become a big part of your holiday too.
We have considered upgrading to the Deluxe Dining Plan in the past, but I really don’t think we would be able to make the most of it. With the dining credits having no dollar value and you can pretty much pick what you want at a Table Service Meal I think I would struggle to have more than one in a single day and the fact you can have a combination of 3 Quick Service or Table Service Meals in a single day, I’m not sure how I could eat all that food and 2 snacks.
You can really fill yourself up at a Table Service Meal, especially if you have a buffet style breakfast in the morning. We have eaten at Chef Mickey’s for Breakfast and then had a snack a lot later in the afternoon with a Quick Service Meal later in the evening and it is more than enough.
What Do Other Disney World Guests Think About the Disney Dining Plan?
I decided to reach out to members of the Walt Disney World Made Easy for Everyone (Not affiliated with Disney) Facebook Group to get a variety of opinions on the Disney Dining Plan. Not everyone thinks it is worth having and I wanted to see what experiences other families have had using the Dining Plan. Hopefully some of these comments will be useful to you when deciding whether to get one of the Dining Plans.
Here is what they think about having the Dining Plan as part of a Disney World holiday package:
Ami Champlain
I enjoy being able to prepay before we go for all of our meals so I don’t have to worry about what we’re spending while on vacation. The Deluxe plan is a must for us, we get to have as many character meals as we want to, and always come home with bags of packaged snacks without leftover credits. Worth every penny!
Miscney Fontlow
I find whether or not a dining plan is worth it is solidly a personal opinion. If you are like myself and want the freedom of not worrying about balancing your vacation budget every night, or keeping track of those gift card balances for meals… then yes, it is totally worth it in my book. If in it to save money, you would have to eat the most expensive item completely every time and use all of your credits for me to say that it does…
Tiffany Tarnoski Worthington
We do the deluxe dining…it turns Disney into what feels like an all-inclusive vacation. I don’t fret about the cost, what or where we eat, or if we leave money on the table. We do higher end dinners and character meals every day. If we have credits left, we gift them to families in line or seated near us if they’re paying cash. Allows us to sprinkle a little pixie dust of our own. But it’s purely preference. (We did quick service and standard plan when we were paying for kids…it’s just two adults now)
Karen Cutting
We used the regular Disney Dining Plan on our trip last month. I added up the cost of the meals and snacks we got using the plan vs. the actual cost of those exact same meals and snacks. We would have saved money if we had paid out of pocket. We won’t use a dining plan again.
Jennifer Eades
It’s only worth it, if you get it for free with a package offer!
Janna Mortimer Jimenez
We used it for the first time this week (5 nights) since it was free dining we decided to try it. For us family of 5, 3 adults 2 kids it wasn’t worth it. We had 29 snacks. 7 TS, and 3 QS left at the end. So ended up with 59 snacks from the gift shop.
Jason Dugger
The value in the DDP is not in any cost savings, hasn’t been for years. The value is in the convenience of pre-paying meals for you and your party.
Kelsey Maurine
The Disney Dining Plan is NEVER a good value for vegetarians.
Kim Tallman
We like it because we go as a family, us, our 2 grown kids and their families (12 in total). It eliminates the bickering on where we’re eating because it’s paid for in advance, we make our table service meal reservations and all join up for a meal together once a day. No grumpy face from Grandpa because someone wants steak when others are eating burgers. Plus when there’s Free Dining offers (ARE YOU LISTENING WDW) we stay longer……
Sherimae Rittgers
We were first timers and enjoyed the dining plan. We were able to prepay over time and not worry about how much to bring for food. My kids could order whatever they wanted, plus leftover snacks make for great souvenirs to give when you go home
Michele Davidson Ditmer
It’s only worth the cost if you utilize it correctly!!! order most expensive items available, most expensive snack credits, otherwise you’re gonna waste money if you are converting credits into candy to bring home….We do deluxe dining when we focus on trying new foods, each order different appetizers, entrees, desserts so we can sample little each, We do quick service when we focus on riding rides, each family eats/vacations different, what works for my family, won’t necessarily work for another family
Jennifer Greenwell Haddow
We don’t like to eat the way the dining plans dictate. For instance, we like mostly quick service with maybe one or two table service during the whole trip. We also like to eat snacks for a meal occasionally. We have one family member who does not want to drink anything with calories. One snack we live in particular, the fruit and Nutella waffle at Sleepy Hollow in Magic Kingdom, is not a snack credit so we’d still have to pay out of pocket. Also two family members are vegetarian so some of their meals end up being a bunch of sides. We just prefer the freedom of knowing we can eat what we want without limits.
Tiffany Howard-Jordan
We love the dining plan and enjoy having all our food pre-paid and not having to worry about looking at prices on the menu and sticking to a budget. We do character dining and expensive restaurants for table service that are more than the average on the dining plan and use snack credits for Starbucks which are $6 or more and expensive snacks. I kept all receipts from our last trip and we would have spent significantly more per day than we did on the dining plan.
Ashley Elizabeth
The dining plan always works in my favour and makes the trip “all inclusive” for me. It all depends how you eat though. For example, I will use a snack credit for breakfast, quick service for lunch, and always do a sit down dinner. This works with my style of vacation. And now that the dining plan includes alcoholic beverages I’m spending less out of pocket when I want to enjoy a cocktail at dinner. However, I do not travel with children but only adults when I go so maybe it’s a deal breaker for families.
Michelle Marchese
It’s worth it for us so that we don’t have to budget money for food while we are there or before going. It makes the trip more all-inclusive for us.
Rick Rogers
I have keep track of receipts and tips and have saved money every time we have used it. One of the arguments I hear is that it’s too much food but funny thing is we do some much walking in the parks that even though I eat more on the plan then with out I lose weight each trip. I call it my Disney diet plan
Dianne Collins McDole
My family of 4 (2 adults, 2 teens) gets the Deluxe Dining Plan. We are foodies and consider dining part of the Disney experience. Having the Deluxe Dining Plan affords us the opportunity to try many different, delicious restaurants on Disney property, without worrying about menu price. It also gives our family a chance to unwind throughout the day, enjoy peaceful fellowship, and recharge for the rest of our Disney day. We saved over $400 using the Deluxe Dining Plan last year when we added up the receipts, and that’s not including the snacks!
Dawn Cowie Powell
We got the quick service plan for the first time last year. I will always get the dining plan. So much easier. I looked at menus online before our trip so I had an idea of where to eat. Each night we would look as a family to plan our stops for food the next day.
Conclusion
The Disney Dining Plan can be worth it if you are willing to get the value out of it. If you just like to have the cost of meals pre-paid before your holiday then get it especially if Disney are offering free Dining which they do quite a bit.
If you enjoy a steak and an alcoholic drink with a meal then you should be able to get value from the Standard Dining Plan. It all comes down to getting the best value for each credit used, so if you can have that in the back of your mind when on your holiday you should be fine. Yes you have to think about how you are using each credit but to truly get good value and come away from you holiday knowing you made the Dining Plan work for you this is what you need to do.
The Dining Plan is worth it if you get the value out of it and it’s worth it you want to get those meal costs covered before you start your Disney World holiday. I would highly recommend trying to get it when Disney offer free dining.
Thanks for reading this article, you can find our previous article here.
About the Author
