Question about Disney World--Meal--Dining Plan

V

valleygirl

Cathlete
Hi, all!
DH and I are taking the children to Disney World this summer, and we can't decide whether or not to purchase the Dining Plan. We've heard pros and cons about it, and apparently they've changed it just this year so that the plan doesn't include tax and tip. Has anyone who has taken a recent trip to WDW with kids have an opinion on the dining plan? We have an eight year old and five-year-old twins, and I don't know if we'll save money with the meal plan or not. Any input is appreciated!
Thanks,
Valerie
 
We are deciding on this too. We are going to Disney in July. We went last May and purchased the Magic your way plus dining package. Pros-easy, you get a card and it tells you how many meals, counter meals and snacks you have, don't have to carry cash. It also seems very economical and you know exactly how much you are going to spend. Cons-you get one snack, one counter meal and one sit down meal. A lot of the places you go it is very unclear what counts as a meal or snack, especially with the kids who have to eat from a kids menu. Also, sometimes you want more sit down meals or more counter meals. I also found that they give you dessert with both meals that day (like you need it) and you end up getting food just because you can. Thats all I know, and I hadn't heard about the tax/tip thing. I think this time we will just put everything on our room key instead.
 
We will be going in the fall and we are going to rent a house or condo that way we have a kithchen. You can eat breakfast before you leave, pack a lunch / snacks and through dinner in a crock pot before you leave for the park. This will save a lot of money and calories.
 
Its gotten more expensive. Its not such a great value as it was, but I still think you save money for what you are getting-if you want 2 complete meals a day-and those disney meals are HUGE. The main downside is that you have to make reservations far in advance to get a decent dining time for your table service meal. Which means you have to know which park you are going to and what time you want to eat that day long before your trip! I found that to be a total pain in the butt, and so for that reason won't do it again. The good thing is that you can use your table service meal for character meal buffets which are really really fun. Allearsnet.com has an extensive section on the dining plan with reader reviews that is worth reading.
Beth
 
We are frequent Disney World visitors and have never got the dining plan. The main reason is that you have to purchase a package (room, tickets, and dining plan) and it's much cheaper to buy things a la carte than as a package. For example I get the park passes free through airmiles, and book the rooms with through Disney reservation using a CAA/AAA room only discount which is 20% off going during off season to the value hotels. So the dining plan would cost money rather than save any.

Also you have to be careful which restaurtants are on the plan and which aren't, what items count for a snack,etc. Always seemed like a big headache. Also my family would never sit down every day for a table service meal as it takes up to much valuable riding time.LOL They just want to grab fast food and keep going. We do a couple of nice meals during the week.

I always bring a suitcase full of breakfast food/snacks and we eat in the hotel cafeteria (they have toasters, microwaves, etc). Great for doing instant oatmeal, cereal, things like that. You can buy 2 pieces of toast and peanut butter for less than $1. Then I have a empty suitcase for bringing home souvenirs.

That's my two cents, but I know lots of families who love the DDP. If you're going at a busy time of year make sure you have reservations for your table service meals as the popular restaurants can get very busy.

Kim
 
We have been to Disney twice and we didn't use the dining plan either time. We are not big eaters. Sometimes we would have a big breakfast(Character) then no lunch just not hungry and then a small dinner. Other times little breakfast and lunch and a sit down dinner. It's hard since you have to book dinners so far in advance. I think Dinsey is a hard ttip to be an a time table. Like the first time we went we had dinner res. at Ohana's at a certain time. Then got asked to be in a parade at Animal kingdom. We didn't know what to do cause we wanted to do both. We ended up going to dinner. Now I wish we had done the parade. We are planning another trip for 09, we aren't going to get the dinning plan.

Steph
 
We went to Disney World the week after Christmas, and we stayed off site, which I won't do again, but we did it because we had a kitchen. We ate breakfast before going to the park, then I packed sandwiches for my two little boys and a big bag of snacks (protein bars, granola bars, goldfish crackers, trail mix, etc.) My husband carried all of the snacks and an emergency change of clothes and wipes for the boys in a big backpack, and I carried a smaller backpack cooler filled with juice boxes and bottled water. It worked out SO well. My boys are picky eaters and they always had something to eat. DH and I splurged and bought our lunch at the park a couple of times, but other times, I just had a protein bar. It was so hot, I wasn't very hungry. We scheduled one character breakfast (Donald's Safari breakfast in Animal Kingdom), and it was amazing. We ate dinner when we got back to the condo. We saved a bunch of money and we felt better because we hadn't loaded up on fast food.
 
Thank you for all your input on the Dining Plan! This will really help us decide whether or not to purchase it. We're leaning toward not buying it because we're not big eaters, especially in the heat and the excitement of WDW! Thanks again for the info!
Valerie
 
We went in January and had the dining plan. We definitely got our money's worth out of it and liked that there was less to pay after the vacation.

We used many snack credits for breakfast.

Sometimes we stopped and had a sit down lunch (reservations usually needed) and then used the counter service for dinner.

We stayed at the Port Orleans and they had a carved meat station for dinner that was excellent.
 
I don't know about Disney World, but we went to Disneyland in CA. The first time we didn't have the pre-paid dining plan and it turned out to be VERY expensive because we went to the character breakfasts and character dining. The second time we took the dining plan and it saved us a lot of money compared to the first time.

IF you want to do the character meals more than 2 or 3 times while you are there, it's well worth it, if I remember it correctly, the character all-you-can-eat buffet for dinner was somewhere around 40+ dollars per person.

My kids LOVED it and I thought it was kind of cute. Try to find out what the regular cost is, think about how many times you want to do it and just run the numbers based on the current dining plan.

HTH Have fun, Disneyland is one of my favorite places and I heard Disney World is even better than that.
 
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