Should You Buy The Dining Plan or Not?

Planning Your Vacation For Success Part 6

This is a question that I have been asking myself for quite some time. On our first trip to WDW we did buy the plan. I kept scrupulous records of what we bought with the plan and compared it to what we paid. And do you know what? I made out like a bandit. The Dining plan saved me a gob of money. Happy to have the savings on a very expensive trip, I could not wait to use the plan again and this time with much more experience. The next year they modified the plan by increasing the cost and dropping tips from it (The plan had included tips for table service). The next year they dropped the appetizers from the plan and suddenly the above question became much more relevant. Of course that year we had won free air tickets to Orlando in a contest and fortuitously, Disney decided to increase their attendance by offering free dining. Of course, I took them up on it and it was by far the cheapest trip to Disney World I had ever experienced. After that year numerous articles started popping up saying that the Dining Plan simply wasn’t worth the cost anymore. Since I had benefitted from this to a great degree in the past I found it hard to believe. Plus, I have to admit, I LOVE the convenience of pre-paid meals. Never-the-less, I wanted to find out for myself if the Dining plan was truly worth its cost. First, let me admit, that I find that the amount of food on the Dining plan exceeds what our family actually eats. The Standard plan includes: A Quick Service Meal (Drink, entrée and dessert), A Table Service Meal (Again, Drink, entrée and dessert) and a snack (just one item. Such as fruit, drink, churro, etc.) as well as a refillable resort drink cup. Now days they have many other dining options but the only two that I would really consider is the above and the Quick Service dining plan that includes 2 Quick Service meals (as above) and 2 snacks (again as above) and the refillable resort drink mug. Here’s my problem with the plan. It really only allows for two meals (we eat three generally so one meal is always going to be out of pocket) and we never really order dessert. And if we do, we often will order one or two and share. When they offered appetizers we really were overloaded with food (4 appetizers, 4  entrees, 4 drinks and 4 desserts! WOW!) Now the amount of food is less but the cost has increased by quite a bit. Still the security of having the pre-paid meals nagged at me as well as they Disney hype of saving a huge amount of money by going with a dining plan. But for this trip I was committed to going without the plan and seeing how much money we actually spend on food in Disney World. I started by budgeting the amount that I would have spent on the Dining Plan for food purchases so that I did not feel the need to conserve. I really wanted to buy what we want to buy and compare it to what the dining plan had to offer. However, right off the bat I started to notice that I was flying quite a bit under budget. Again, we just don’t often order desserts. As far as the Standard Dining Plan goes, we really don’t feel the need as a family to eat at sit down restaurants either. I had scheduled one for each night but more often than not we cancelled the reservations as our plans changed. (This is a practice that has been made even more difficult now as Disney is requiring a 24 hour notice for cancellations now.) As a result we only ate at a Table Service twice during the week. This means that for our family the Quick Service Dining Plan is, by far, the better choice. Now let me get to the numbers. The Table Service Plan costs $56.94 for those >10 years of age and older or, $18.16 for children nine and under (per night of stay per person at current rates.) Total cost for 7 nights stay with our family of four would be $1364.86. This is the amount that I budgeted for. But, I’ve already stated that this plan really doesn’t work for our dining habits. The Quick Service Plan costs $37.58 for those >10 years of age and older or, $13.32 for children nine and under (per night of stay per person at current rates.) Total cost for a 7 nights stay with our family of four would cost: $882.42. Now, how much did I spend? Total amount on food for the week was $1122.58. But remember, I ate at Table service on two occasions. My table service total was $298.30. (One of those dining experiences was a Candlelight processional Plan that was more expensive than normal so my spending here was not typical of two meals. It was more typical of three meals and on the Standard Dining Plan would be counted as three meals.) So, had I bought the table service, I’d have really messed up because Not only would I have spent $242 more dollars but I would have wasted 4 TS meals when our plans changed during the course of our trip. (or we would not have been able to change plans due to the loss in the TS credits) But if I’m looking at the Quick Service then I have to compare Apples to Apples and deduct the Table Service totals from my total for a Quick Service Spending on my part of $824.28. The Quick Service plan would have cost $58.14 more than what I ended up spending. Now, I didn’t get all those desserts, so there is that to consider. But believe me, my belt is thankful for the savings. Overall, my opinion is that for us and our dining habits, the Dining Plans are not worth the money unless we are getting them free. I’ll not be paying for them in the future. Your dining habits may be different and if so, you may benefit from it. But here’s the tip that I hear echo’d all over the Disney message boards. If you go with the Disney Dining Plan then consistently order the most expensive items on the menus and eat at the more expensive Table Service establishments and you’ll realize that 30% savings that Disney Brags about. Otherwise, you run the risk of just spending too much. Thanks, Steve