Is Disney Dining plan worth it? (Florida)

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Contemplating Disney in a year or two (coronavirus dependent of course). One of the things I can't decide on is whether to do the Dining Plan.

The loose (very!) plans atm are villa rental as we will be going with extended family, a short drive to the parks. I would assume therefore that we would breakfast at the villa and then lunch and dinner in the park?

We could of course self cater for cost, and bring packed lunch etc, but I also like the idea of not carting crap around all day. Plus I would imagine dc would love the snacks and counter service foods.

Yes, the dining plan is absolutely worth it. We would never go without it (we go regularly) as the food is insanely expensive.

However, we never pay for it. We always book through the free dining plan offer, but obviously with covid-19 that offer hasn’t come out (yet - they believe it still will).

Whenever we go to other parks, universal/SeaWorld etc., it really makes us glad to have the DDP as the food is just so expensive.

You can't get the dining plan unless you are staying at a disney hotel as far as I know.

We went in February and priced up staying in a villa, car rental and parking at disney against staying at a disney hotel with the free transport to parks, plus we got the dining plan for free. It worked out better to stay with disney. We are hoping to go late next year (corona dependant) and hoping they'll do dining plan for free again.

We priced up what we'd spend on food for 2 weeks for 4 of us though and it is a bit more than dining plan would cost. It's really nice not having to think how much things cost when you're there.

You can’t buy dining plan unless you are staying at a Disney hotel.

It’s a LOT of food. I’ve looked into it and decided it isn’t worth is when paying for it. We also tend to book villas and I like the flexibility of eating off site - amazing breakfasts and dinner at diners (which are much cheaper), or just eating something simple and light at the villa.

You can't get the dining plan unless you are staying at a disney hotel

Ahh that's a shame! Villa is likely non-negotiable as it's linked to our family. However I may well consider a night or two at a Disney hotel and then could use the Dining the following day or two.

The dc will be 8 and 11 (minimum) so I'd imagine we would do a mix of Disney and Universal parks over the holiday.

The dining plan is only available if you stay onsite (unless this changes for next year). It’s worth it for an on-site stay (although we’ve never paid for it, we’ve only ever had it free) but if you’re offsite then, even if you could buy it, I’m not sure it’d be worth the cost.

Oh, we had the quick service plan by the way.

We are planning a few nights at a Disney hotel first to get the extra magic hour and dining plan and then will move into a villa. No way could I eat out for every meal, it’d be a bit too much.

I think you have to stay a minimum of 5 nights on site to be able to buy the dining plan. It definitely used to be that anyway although may have changed.

I’ve never been but it seems people don’t spend all day every day in the parks but rather chill at the villa/hotel pool sometimes so you may be able to have more meals at the villa or offsite than you think

Like others have said you can't book the dining plan if you're not staying on-property.

As for whether it's worth it? It depends on how much you and your family eat.
We've done it as two adults and we mainly order the most expensive things on the menu (steak for example) and dessert. The whole party has to book it, so if you've got a child that eats like a bird for example is not so go value for money.

I think the free dining plan you have to stay 5 days and buy tickets but you can just stay one night and buy one day dining.

I think it probably wouldn't work for me. The hot weather means we eat less and often happy to share lunch

And having to ensure we made maximum value would suck the fun out of it. I tend to be more chicken or veggie meals over steak so value wise I'd lose out.

I may do it for a one night stay when not planning to be in the parks much. As all that eating would also cut into park time.

The food is fairly average, much better at off site restaurants so you'll want to be sampling those more! We stayed in a villa for 2 weeks last year, went to Disney parks every day but usually for around 4 hours so one meal or just snacks while there. Snacks are better than restaurants I'd say, though there's loads of nice food at epcot.

There’s different dining plans so it’s not a case of “lots of food”, but yeah, you have to stay on property for any dining plan.

Food is amazing. Had the medium plan with both table and quick service. It made the holiday. It was the best holiday ever. Loved it soooo much.

We always have it as the teenagers would bankrupt us. Love being able to wander into Epcot for the food and wine festival and use the snack credits there.

We didn't have it and tbh I don't think it would be worth it for us. After a couple of days of eating full meals, the adults switched to child portions for one meal a day as there was just so much of it. The portions were insane. I've spent a lot of time in the US for work but Florida portions were on another level.

Massively worth it for us. As a family of 5 it would cost us roughly an extra £4K without it (assuming it’s free!). It’s wonderful not having to worry about budgeting for meals

There is lots of food and we don’t always feel like a table service meal every day but you can double up the credits and go to one of the signature restaurants, which really are very good.

You can also change the quick service meals into snacks which works well for us to as my as grazers!

we don’t always feel like a table service meal every day

TheOnlyAletheia You can change TS credits to QS credits.

At WDW you can always trade down, but you can’t trade up (ie. you can’t use 4 QS for 2 TS). Signature dining restaurants require 2TS per person rather than one.

What's the food like at the Universal parks?

We do Disney a lot and have never done the dining plan. As others have said, the amount of food (and consequently waste) is massive. We tend to have one meal a day and just have snacks/kids meals for the rest. We stay on site and have a grocery delivery to the room so we can have down time.

Worth pointing out that if you go for the table service plan, you will still be expected to leave a tip for the wait staff. When this is calculated as a percentage it can still add up over the holiday.

Why is everyone paying for the dining plan? It is free if you book the year before unless you are going in block out dates like Easter and Christmas or you are staying in a room that now doesn't qualify (they changed the rules)

Also re the portions, you can share and lots of left over credits can be used against Ghirardelli chocolate that you can bring home. Plus walking 10+ miles a day means you burn a lot of calories.

We have been to both Disney and Universal several times. We stay onsite at both places. We don't hire a villa because we don't want to have to drive a 4 lane highway or make time to get gas, or pay the parking fee at both Disney and Universal parks. But we go just the 4 of us, no extended family. I can see why a villa works in that situation. But the travelling back and forth to the parks would possibly mean you only go once a day.

Re dining at Universal, there are some good places in the parks such as Mythos, most people will head to City Walk where a lot of restaurants are based such as Cow Fish, Bubba Gumps etc. You have to weigh up food quality versus atmosphere. Cinderalla's Royal table is ridiculous money but it is about meeting all the princesses, not the food.

Disney has some incredible places to eat and Disney Springs has the best. Lots of them are on the dining plan including Wolfgang Puck.

Forgot to add, the dining plan is onsite, 5 days or more and with tickets covering that period. So you cannot book a Disney hotel for a week, transfer to another hotel and get dining for both weeks, it would just be the first week because the second week won't have tickets booked. Your original tickets will no doubt be the 14 day ultimate pass to all 6 parks. It is about £1700 for 4 people. Sounds a lot but Magic Kingdom is at least $100 per person per day if you buy at the gate.

Yes, if you have table service meals the usual tip is 18-20% which soon adds up. Disney usually offer a $200 gift card for booking early which a lot of people use toward the tip, but again that is all for onsite stays.

The Dibb is a great and very friendly british forum for all things Disney and Universal. www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=45

Yes but only because we get it when it’s free. We wouldn’t stay on site without it.
I find most of the food good, I’ve a few average meals and a few amazing ones.
For us it means we can do full days at Disney without having to leave and get dinner.