One of the questions you will likely ask when planning a trip to Disney World will be: “Is the Disney Dining Plan worth it?” And that’s a very valid question. On one hand, it sounds nice to prepay for your meals and not have to worry about it during your vacation. Thinking about how much money you’re spending on food while traveling can be stressful for some. So this might be a nice solution if that’s the case. After all, you have to get food anyway!
But it’s also no surprise that the dining plan, like everything else at Disney World, can be very pricey. Especially if you have lots of family members! So is it worth it? For our family, we’ve never chosen this option. We thought through our meal preferences, the pros and cons of the dining plan, and potential costs. In the end, it’s not the best choice for us. Of course, Disney will market the plan as a convenient, price-saving method. And that may be the case for some families. But if you’re like us, we actually save money not using the dining plan. Disney hotels and theme park tickets can already be expensive. So we’ll explain below how food is one area we can save money while visiting the most magical place on Earth.
BREAKFAST & BEVERAGES
First, we’ll start with the first meal of the day. When we travel, we usually try to pick hotels that offer a free breakfast, either as a standard perk or available through our reward program status. If that is not an option, we’ll usually pack our own breakfast. This is what we do when staying onsite at Disney. We bring things like instant oatmeal and bagels. There are plenty of easy breakfast options that don’t require a full kitchen to prepare. Whether you bring them from home, go shopping after arriving, or use a grocery delivery service, you’re likely to save a lot of money on breakfast this way.
Secondly, do you typically drink water? Maybe you’re not a huge soda person. Or you don’t drink a lot of alcohol. Then a dining plan might not be worth it. Why pay for beverages you don’t typically drink? We tend to drink a lot of water, while enjoying the occasional soda or beer with a meal. This doesn’t change whether we’re at home or on vacation. Getting water for free at Disney restaurants helps keep our costs low. We do usually buy a refillable mug at the resort because we love quenching our thirst with some Powerade after a hot day in the parks. But we don’t need to buy a refillable mug for everyone, which leads us to our next point…
WHAT IF YOU WANT MORE FLEXIBILITY?
Every guest on your reservation must be on or off the dining plan. This means you can’t just put your kids on the dining plan. Or if someone in your family isn’t a big eater, you’ll still have to put them on the plan if everyone else is. Not using the dining plan gives us more flexibility when we visit Disney World since we only order what we need. Sometimes, we also want to go off-site for a meal. One of our favorite places to go was Sweet Tomatoes, a salad bar restaurant chain which unfortunately shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. We enjoyed coming here to get a break from theme park food and was only a short walk from Disney Springs. If you have favorite non-Disney restaurants in the area you want to visit, you may want to rethink getting on the dining plan.
For some visitors, food is a main attraction on their Disney trip. If that’s the case, the dining plan may be a great choice for them. For us, we’re usually more interested in the rides and shows when visiting Disney World. Because of that, we don’t want to spend too much time at restaurants when at the parks. Many of the dining plans include a table-service restaurant credit. And yes, these restaurants have great food and overall experiences. But we prefer to just grab a meal at a quick-service restaurant. And just because it’s quick-service doesn’t mean it’s only burgers, hot dogs or chicken tenders. There’s plenty of great options, especially at Epcot (our favorite is Tangierine Cafe in Morocco) and Animal Kingdom (be sure to check out the Yak & Yeti local food cafe in Asia).
If we do splurge on a table-service restaurant, it’s usually on a day we don’t visit the parks. One of our favorites is the all-you-can-eat 3-course dinner at ‘Ohana. This restaurant is located in the Polynesian Resort. The best part: you don’t have to be staying as a guest there to be able to dine in the restaurant. What do you get here? Endless appetizers like pot stickers and wings. All the chicken, steak or shrimp off the skewer as you’d like. And don’t forget about the dessert! If you’re lucky, you’ll get a table right by the window to view the Magic Kingdom fireworks during your meal.
OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER...
We’ve heard from many others that the dining plan can also get stressful as you’re trying to use all your credits. The plan offers a lot of food, which is a great idea. But it can be hard to eat that much too, especially with all the snack credits. Many menu items, including those at quick-service restaurants, are large enough to share with another person. Don’t get stressed figuring out how many credits you still need to use before leaving. Or worse, feeling like you wasted money from not using all your credits.
What we do instead is we look at some menus at restaurants we’re interested in possibly eating at (or have reservations for). We then get a sense of how much each person may spend on food. Don’t forget to add a little cushion for unplanned snacks or desserts! Once we have an estimated total, we compare it to the dining plan prices. For us, our estimate is always significantly lower than going on the dining plan.
We then go buy Disney gift cards at Target. And because we have the free Red Card, we can get 5% off! If you are a member of a warehouse club like Costco, you may find gift card deals there as well. Then, we have the same convenience and peace of mind of “we already paid for our meals” as we would with the dining plan. But we were able to save a lot of money at the same time
We know our travel style isn’t the same as everyone else’s. But we hope our experience helps you make the best decision for your family when it comes to Disney dining plans. Be careful when you see offers for free dining plans. Generally, you’re then paying full rack rates for your hotel. Or you may be required to buy the more expensive park hopper tickets vs. the one-park-a-day admission. There’s a good chance you may be able to get an overall cheaper package by using some of our favorite sites such as Undercover Tourist and David’s Vacation Club Rentals. If you want an easy tool to help you decide, check out this Disney Dining Plan Calculator.
Are you a fan of the dining plan? Let us know in the comments below! And check out our other posts on Disney World here.