Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

Have you done the dining plan? Worth it? Pros cons. TIA!

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

Pros:
Meals are prepaid
If you use them correctly (ts only for dinner, cs only for lunch), you will save some money on the food

Cons:
You NEED to make reservations - walk in are not too common anymore.
Tips are not included
Appetizers are an additional cost
If you don't use a credit, you lose it at the end of the trip


There are several related topic threads below as well that may help you decide.

Message edited 9/18/2008 4:22:30 PM.

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

I just came back from there!

Disney plan is very worth the $

All restaurants pretty much require reservations whether or not you have the plan.

The appetizers are included if you get the upgraded dining plan (IMO not worth the extra $)

It used to include the tip, but now it does not. again not the end of the world.

We went for 7 nights 8 days. for each of us it cost $200 for the basic dining plan including 1 counter service, 1 snack, 1 table service a day = $400.

We saved every receipt for everything we used it on. (granted we made reservations prior to a lot of the better places so it did cost more, but was still free to us) and it all totaled over $800.

You do have to use everything no matter what, by midnight on the day of checkout, credit card or no credit card, or you lose it.

The snacks are the part that we always slack on getting. At the end we always have some remaining so we get stuff to take on the plane with us.

We don't do disney without getting it anymore.

Check mousesavers.com and allears.net sometimes they have a promo code for a free dining plan. thats how we first discovered it, through mousesavers.com. they had listed a free code for it, we used it and couldn't believe how well it worked out!

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

It depends. The 2007 plan was a better deal then they made some changes taking out the appetizer, and the tip and only making it $1 cheaper a day. Whether it is a good deal depends on the individual family and your likes.

If you want to eat in a lot of sit downs and don't mind a lot of food than the deluxe plan is probably a good deal for you.

Then it gets more gray area.

This year the plan cost $38 pp for the basic plan - I think it went up to $40 a day for 2009).

For $38 you get:
1 Counter service meal
1 Table service meal
1 Snack

The counter service you get 1 entree or combo meal and a non alcoholic drink (breakfast you get an extra drink) and dessert.

Table service you get an entree, dessert, and non alcoholic drink including tax -TIP is NOT included.

Snack - is something like a drink, a piece of fruit, an ice cream, popcorn etc. You can't get a drink AND fruit for example unless you pay for one of them.

You can always pay out of pocket for anything that the plan doesn't include.

If you are on the basic plan eating at 2 table service credit restaurants aren't a good deal because you still only get an entree and dessert and the meals are generally only $5-10 more than at the one table service places.

If you eat lesser expensive items on the menu and don't want dessert than the plan probably isn't a good deal for you.

The plus of the plan is that most of your meals (or all depending on your plan) are paid for so you know how much your budget is. But you will still need to tip so you will still have to pay something at meals.

I find that they best way to figure out if it is a good plan is to go check out the 1 credit restaurants (which are most of them) and look at what you would order at that restaurant and then add that all up and if it comes out to $38 or more than at worse you break even - or come out ahead.

Now Disney has been offering free dining more often - which means you pay FULL PRICE or rack rate for your hotel and tickets but they give you dining for free. So that is probably a good deal unless you get an great code on a package.

You can add the dining plan I think anytime up to something like 2-4 weeks before you leave for your trip - so you don't have to add it when you book (unless you are using a free dining code) and you can evaluate and add it later.

There have been several posts that disney has been cutting back on their menus and removing more expensive items - with speculation that it is due to more people taking advantage of free dining.

I like this site it has all the menus for table and counter service restaurants so you can literally pick where you would eat and figure out what you think you would order and budget from there.

BTW in 2009 they changed the plans a bit again and added a counter service only plan if you don't want to do any sit downs or buffets only counter service you could check that one out too.

Because of all the free dining codes going around the restaurants are really busy these days - Disney takes ADR (advance dining reservations) which are a combo of reservations/call aheads. They do not reserve ANY tables for walk ups so the only way to get a table without reservations is to pray someone doesn't show up or cancels. It is also getting harder to eat in your choice of restaurants if you don't book way in advance (basically when the window opens to allow you to book).

We are going to disney next weekend and we are doing the basic plan this year - but for us it wasn't as great a deal as it had been in the past - but still worth it to us.


http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

Thanks!

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

We did it - absolutely worth the money!!!!!

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

we always do it. It's worth it for us.

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

We did it in 2007 and it was totally worth it! I'm not sure about the changes made sine then though...

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

We were there in November 2006 for our honeymoon and for us it was totally worth it. We never eat 3 full meals anyway so having to do some counter service and some sit down was not an issue. We liked the choices of restaurants and never had a problem getting in anywhere and we were there during a holiday week.

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

In general, it is worth it as you can save some money and as someone stated earlier, 2 meals out of your day are prepaid.

That being said, if you are a Disney Visa Cardholder, there is a current promotion for specific date ranges up through December 20 which offers the basic dining plan for free (much like the Disney promotion that runs in September).

If you do plan to take advantage of that promotion, understand that most Disney promotions do not stack. So you will need to talk to a travel agent, or do the math yourself to see if the current package deal being offered or the Visa free dining deal is the better value for you.

Muddie

Re: Those that have been to Disney....Dining Plan ?

We are trying it for the first time this time!

We usually subsist on snacks and CS, and TS has been a "treat" but last time we really started getting into the dining, esp at EPCOT, so we are trying it. It may cost us more than we normall spend, since we used to just graze and try to save money...but it'll be worth it b/c we'll have a lot of food.

You can actually add it pretty close to arrival date (we justa dded it a week before), but one caveat- if you were booking a room only package (such as we did as Annual Passholders), when you add DDP it automatically becomes a package, meaning that you have to pay in full at the time of booking and must cancel with 45 days notice (room only is MUCH more flexible)