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.

It wasnt worth it for us 4 years ago - 1 adult, 1 child. I was rebooking for later this year and wasnt going to bother again. Portion sizes are huge, food is mostly rubbish and there is very little veggie. I was quite disgusted in the resort shop watching people grab at whatever snacks they could before flying home, just so they could make sure they got their moneys worth. Greed.

food is mostly rubbish

spongedog If you do just a tiny bit of research on which are the best QS and TS restaurants out there, and of course which snacks people are raving about, you aren’t going to be eating rubbish food.

As others have already said, you can only get the dining plan if you stay onsite. Your best bet is to book the free dining offer when it’s offered as it makes staying onsite more affordable, especially the more of you there are. There is good calculator here www.distripplanner.com/ to help you determine if it’s worth it. The plan you get depends on class of your onsite accommodation and alcoholic and speciality drinks are included in the quick service, regular, plus and deluxe plans.

WDW has over 200 restaurants, I can assure you there is plenty of very good food - some of the best places I’ve eaten at been at Disney, Jiko at Animal Kingdom Lodge and Citricos at the Grand Floridian are both exceptional fine dining. There are plenty of other excellent restaurants- it’s not all burgers, chips and chicken nuggets (although I do love a Disney chicken nugget!😋)

Eating onsite can be eye watering expensive. It can be loads of food if you don’t use it well, we do lots of character meals and also save table service credits for at least one meal at a signature restaurant each trip. It also saves us a fortune in snacks - our two daughters can eat their body weight in ice cream and slushes given half the chance.

Our trip last year, we spent £280 in total for the 4 of us at Disney in 12 days, most of that was on tips and the rest was on merch. By contrast, we spend 4 nights at the Portofino Bay at a universal and spent nearly £700! 😳