When it comes to the Disney Dining Plan, no question is more often asked than “is it worth it for me?” Since worth is such a subjective value, nobody can truly answer this question. As is often the case, the answer depends on many factors. While I cannot tell you unequivocally whether it is or isn’t, I can do the math, look at the dollars and cents of it, and provide some hopefully helpful context.
What is the Disney Dining Plan?
Before getting too far, first I should say Disney currently has two dining plans; the Disney Dining Plan, and the Disney Quick-Service Dining Plan. The Disney Dining Plan includes 1 Table-Service Meal, 1 Quick-Service Meal, and 1 Snack per night of stay. It also includes a Resort Refillable Mug. The Disney Quick Service Dining Plan includes 2 Quick-Services Meals and no Table-Service Meals with the rest being the same. These end up being credits on your account for your entire party. So, if you have a 4-night trip with two adults and 1 child aged 3 – 9., with the Disney Dining Plan, you’ll be credited with 8 adult table-service meals, 8 adult quick-service meals, 4 child table-service meals, 4 child quick-service meals and 12 snacks. These credits are usable from your check-in day to your check-out day, and once they are on your account, you can use them in any combination by any person with the exception of mixing adults and kids at a table-service restaurant. Table-Service Restaurants and Quick-Service Restaurants are located throughout Walt Disney World parks, hotels, and Disney Springs. Some table-service restaurants that fall into the Signature Dining category, as well as a few of the character dining experiences require two table-service credits, so it is important to always verify the dining plan options for the locations you want to dine. The current cost of the Disney Dining Plan for adults is $94.28 and $29.69 per child, while the cost of the Disney Quick Service Plan is $57.01 per adult and $23.83 per child.
How do you value convenience?
How you value convenience will be the primary driver of determining the worth of the dining plan in most cases. The convenience of prepaying for your meals isn’t often understood until you feel the card come out after every meal. Eating out at Disney is expensive (much like everywhere these days), and when you total it all up it may come as a surprise. Unless you go through all of your receipts after your vacation, without the dining plan, you likely wouldn’t know how much you spent on meals, you’d just know it was significant amount. With prepayment, you are mentally (and emotionally) absorbing that cost and when you are in the park, you aren’t even looking at the prices – unless you are trying to find the most expensive thing (because you can).
Another related factor comes to young children. Young ones often over order, or order something they think they will like and don’t. Paying for a meal that isn’t eaten, for whatever reason, always stings a little bit, and can really add up. Of course, with or without the dining plan, you are paying for an uneaten meal, but when it’s part of the package the sting is taken out a little bit.
Running the numbers
Clearly the other factor you need when evaluating value is cost. To aide in this evaluation, I’m going to focus on one particular scenario as a narrative example. We’ll use a family of two adults at $94.28 per person per night and one child at $29.69 per night. They are staying four nights so the total dining package cost to them is $873. (Now I must mention that this is not a quote for anybody, and it is being provided for illustrative purposes only.) Now we have a total cost for two meals per person per night, but other than it being a large sum of money, how does it relate to what you spend without the dining plan? I’m going to run down one real world scenario to see, but with so many options and so many different ways to take in your meals, it would be a fool’s errand to do an exhaustive study. Also, in the interest of brevity, I’m going to stick to the Disney Dining Plan and the adult menus. Most analysis of the kids dining plan cost of $29.69 show that is a savings from purchasing as you go. That’s pretty believable on its face at that price point so focusing on the adult costs is better use of time. While Disney doesn’t publish how they develop their pricing for the dining plan, its commonly understood that a table-service credit is valued at $63, a quick-service credit is worth $25, and a snack credit is worth $6.
The most variations of menus are going to be the table-service restaurants, and $63 is the highest bar, so we’ll start there. This family has reservations for dinner at the Rainforest Café at Disney Springs, dinner at Biergarten Restaurant at EPCOT, lunch at the Crystal Palace at Magic Kingdom, and breakfast at Garden Grill in EPCOT. Given the price point we are trying to clear, character dining and buffets offer the most value for the credit, so I can tell early on we’ll probably see some good value. Starting off with Rainforest Café, ordering the Jungle Steak and Shrimp for an entrée, the Tribal Cheesecake for dessert (included with table-service meals), and a Cheetah-Rita for an adult beverage comes to about $68 with tax so we are already money ahead. The next meal at Biergarten is a buffet so it has a set cost for dinner and when you add in a liter of beer you are looking at $66, putting us further to the good. The Crystal Palace buffet with a Last Word beverage runs a whopping $79. And the Garden Grill breakfast served family style with a Citrus Breeze evens us out at $63. Totaling this up and adding 6% tax is about $293 for an average of $73 per meal. As long as we can find some quick-service meals for at least $25 and snacks for more than $6, we are saving at least $40 per adult.
Turning to quick-service meals, a potential plan that would follow this same itinerary would be lunch at Docking Bay 7, dinner at Columbia Harbour House, lunch at Regal Eagle Smokehouse, and dinner at ABC Commissary. A Peka Tuna Poke and a Takodana Quencher totals $36. A Lobster Roll and fountain drink (alas, no adult beverage at quick-service restaurants at the Magic Kingdom) comes to $23. At Regal Eagle, a sandwich and a Tennessee Lemonade is $31. Lastly, the Chicken Club with a Watermelon Margarita at ABC Commissary runs $30. This all totals to $127 with tax and averages to $32 per meal. Now we are looking at saving $68 per adult for the trip.
I won’t belabor the snacks to show the value since in this case, even if you didn’t get any snacks and didn’t use the credits, you are still money ahead. However, for reference, a Mickey Bar is $6.50, a Mickey Pretzel with Cheese Sauce is $8.25, and a Starbucks Grande shaken expresso is $6.50. Another factor not calculated is the value of the Resort Refillable Mug included with the plan as that is dependent on how often you would have a fountain drink while at one of the resorts. The retail value of these though is $22.
Taking all of this into account, with this plan, the savings for a family of three are a minimum of $180. The max depends on how well you maximize the snacks, and what quick-service meals the child credits are used for. The table-service meals alone balance out the cost of the children’s dining plan making any of their quick-service meals a complete savings.
However, to save that $180+, you are spending $873. And a family of 3 can certainly eat for less than an average of $175 per day. While this is a lot of food, it is still 8 meals spread over 5 days, so it is not all-inclusive. You still will have other meals, but they will likely be pretty light and quick. And, sometimes those meals can be a crafty use of the snack credit.
Is it savings?
All of that stated, if the $873 price tag for the Dining Plan is too much, then this meal plan would need to change as it would cost more without it. And the plan certainly can change! Dropping the buffets would definitely bring that cost down. Skipping the adult beverages is another saver. But, if you do enjoy those beverages, and you do still want to have one table-service meal per day to have the fixed moment in time to sit down, I think realistically your costs would be around $100 less than the dining plan. Or another way to say that, for $100 more than paying as you go, you could prepay, and order whatever you like off the menu.
If savings are what you’re looking for, you shouldn’t choose these restaurants to begin with. If you want to have these dining experiences though, then the Dining Plan is the way to go. If any of these costs just seem like they aren’t a value, you can also drastically reduce your dining costs by not having a table-service meal every day and ordering groceries for your room. You can pack your meals and take them to the park.
Nobody can unequivocally say the dining plan will save you money. The only way to know is to look at your specific situation and do an evaluation. Your best bet is to ask me or your trusted travel agent to do it for you. That’s what we are here for – and if you haven’t already surmised, this is the type of research I love to do.
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