My Review of the Disney Dining Plan

As I mentioned in some of my earlier blog postings, my family decided to take advantage of the free dining plan Disney was offering during our trip. For this to happen, we had to check out and check back in as we arrived two days before the start of the free dining plan.

I am not a big eater. I looked at one of the chicken breasts in my dish at the Prime Time and believed it was the same size as my stomach. And with the Disney dining plan, there is a lot of food involved. For the quick service option (which covers any counter service in the parks and hotels), you get the meal, a drink and a dessert. When it comes to table services, you get to choose one entrée, one dessert and one (non-alcoholic) beverage. If you wish to have an appetizer and/or a nice drink with your meal, you need to pay for it yourself. You also can purchase a snack throughout the parks—a drink or chips/pretzel/ice cream. This may sound perfect, but for me, it was too much. I more often than not didn’t finish either my dinner or my dessert—and sometimes, both! The rest of my family was also quite full. My mother and I often commented that we’d have to be rolled to the next attraction and my family teased that I wouldn’t eat anything for a month now.

So, if you and your family are big eaters, give the dining plan a point.

If you aren’t, minus a point.

Our plan allowed us one quick service, one table service and one snack per day. These are placed on your room card. So, if there are two adults in the room, both meals are on the card. At the start of a five-day vacation, you have ten of everything. It’s quite easy to manage your meals and your receipts will tell you how many you have remaining. All you have to do is hand the cashier your card and say “dining plan.” At table restaurants, either your host/hostess or waiter/waitress will ask if you are on the dining plan. 

So, for ease of use, add one point.

Once we started the plan, we also decided to see how much we saved. On Sunday, my sister and I ate lunch in Epcot at the American pavilion. Our meals came to about $30. Our parents, who ate earlier than us at the same location, had a meal that cost the same. So we saved $60 as a family on lunch alone. Later that night, my mother and I dined at the Rose and Crown while my dad and sister ate at the San Angel Inn. Combined, our meals came to about $140. For the day, we saved about $200. We believe we saved about that much over the next five days, meaning we save somewhere over $1000 on food.

So, for saving a lot of money, add another point.

At the end, it seems the dining plan has more pluses than minuses. While I may hesitate just from the sheer amount of food involved, it certainly is worth it for large families or big eaters.