“Is the dining plan worth it?”
This is one of the MOST asked Disney vacation questions. Everyone will tell you the answer is “it depends”. But it’s DEFINITELY worth it when it’s free, right?? Well maybe not. Disney has bounce back offers and other ways to get the dining plan for free. Right now, there’s a deal running for Disney+ subscribers: Enjoy a FREE dining plan when you purchase a nondiscounted 4-night, 4-day Walt Disney Travel Company package that includes a room at a select Disney Resort hotel and a theme park ticket with a Park Hopper option—for arrivals most nights from July 1 to September 30, 2024.
The ”select Disney Resort hotels” means this
Deluxe Villas and Deluxe Resorts get you the Disney Dining Plan (1 snack, 1 quick service, and 1 table service per person per night of your vacation).
Moderates and Values get you the Disney Quick Service Dining Plan (1 snack and 2 quick service per person per night of your vacation).
Both dining plans include a resort refillable mug – which is ONLY refillable at a resort. Not in the parks.
But here’s the thing – you only qualify if you purchase a nondiscounted park hopper package. At the same time this free dining promotion is running, there’s another promotion running to save 10 – 35% on your room for nearly the same travel dates. This also applies for Values all the way up to Deluxe. Higher room category + longer stay = higher discount. And you don’t have to get park hoppers. You don’t even have to get a package – if you already have an annual pass, you can get a room discount. And you don’t have to pay $140/year for Disney+.
I strongly encourage you to do the math on this before deciding on a dining package. Your travel agent can help you (we…kind of love doing the math on these things). But here’s a few questions and points to think about
- Once you know the dates and resort you want to stay at, ask your travel agent to price it out with all discounts and variables. Including park hopper vs. one park-per-day.
- If you don’t use some of your dining plan credits, you cannot get any money back
- Not all restaurants participate in the dining plan (particularly at Disney Springs) and some require 2 credits
- Your dining credits are not flexible. If you only have a table service left, but want to use it for a quick service, you can’t. If you want to use a table service, but don’t like making dining reservations 60 days in advance, well, you might just not be able to use a huge chunk of your dining plan.
- A table service for lunch & dinner includes an entrée, a drink (alcohol counts!), and a dessert. Does each member of your party eat that much food per meal? Or are they small eaters and happy to drink water and split an entrée?
- You can bring food into the parks! You can also order groceries to your resort. Do you need to have snack credits when you’re happy with a bag of grapes and bring your own water bottle (that, by the way, you don’t have to stand in line for)?
Using just a real simple little example. For a family of 2 adults and 1 child staying at Caribbean Beach in a standard view room from July 14 – July 19 (5 nights) that want park tickets for 5 days.
Here’s the Standard price, with no discounts applied just for your reference
Package price with 1 park per day tickets: $3,661.27
+ Park hoppers: $3,948.82
+ Quick service Dining Plan: $4,803.97
Here’s the same thing with the Stay Longer and Save More Offer
Package price with 1 park per day tickets: $3,246.71
+ Park hoppers: $3,534.26
+ Quick Service Dining Plan: $4,389.41
Now here’s the same thing with the Delicious Deal for Disney+ Subscribers
Package price with park hoppers and free quick service dining plan: $4,055.68
Here’s what I want you to get out of this. If you are convinced you want the dining plan, then yes, it’s cheaper (about $330 in our example case) to get the free dining plan vs. getting the discounted room stay and purchasing the plan.
But – you’re paying an extra $521 for the “free” dining plan vs just getting the discounted room stay and paying only for the food you want when you want it! For 3 people for 5 nights, that’s 30 meals and 15 snacks. Ignoring the snacks, that’s about $17/person/meal. And remember all the caveats from above. That child HAS to order from the children’s menu if one is available. And that’s only for 2 meals a day. And you can’t “pay the difference” to do table service instead. And if you have credits left over at the end, you don’t get some of that $521 back.
And here’s another consideration– are you going to park hop? For a lot of families that only visit once every few years, they just don’t want to spend an hour+ of their day walking all the way back out to the busses, waiting for the bus, traveling, and walking all the way back in to the next park, etc. It’s just not an efficient use of time. So if you don’t want park hoppers, your “free” dining plan is about an extra $810.
Bottom line, just because it’s “free”, don’t assume it’s your best option. Talk to your travel agent!