Is the dining plan worth it for us? College Couple

[Rsj88]

We try to go to WDW almost every year. We started going when we were in college before we had kids. I had to drag my husband there the first time but after that trip he was hooked! We have always stayed at Pop and love it! When we book every year, we seriously look at staying at a moderate but we always decide to stay at Pop because we would rather stay more days. It's just not worth the extra money for us to be in a bigger hotel room. Even before we had kids, we were never in the room but to sleep for a couple of hours. We also really enjoy park hoppers. We got more use out of them before we had kids but we still always get them. I like the flexibility and being able to take advantage of late magic hours. We usually stay during free dinning so I can't say if the dinning plan is worth it or not but I do enjoy not having to worry about money or how much things cost. When we are not on the plan, I eat very differently even if we have plenty of money budgeted. When I see the price for food, it's hard not to order cheap and skip drinks and desserts. Enjoy your trip!!!

 

[Weather_Lady]

Weather_Lady is right about additional days costing less than a Hopper, but I wanted to possibly clarify one bit, as I interpreted it two different ways. The current plan is May 20-26 with 5-day tickets. So I'm guessing that would be parks on May 21-25, with the 20th and 26th as non-park days. (Or some other combination of 5-park, 2-no park days.) If you get 6- or 7-day tickets without the Hopper, you cannot go to more than 1 park each day. You would just have one-park-a-day admissions for 6 or 7 days.

Hope this helps. Good luck, and enjoy!

Oh - now I see how what I said could be taken the wrong way! Thank you for clarifying - that was what I meant (visiting 1 park every day throughout their 7-day visit)!

 

[dreamfinder]

Run the numbers. Look at the menus for the places you want to eat, and then add up the costs for a meal you would order if you were paying. Then total em all up, and see if it costs more or less than the dining plan. There are a bunch of threads on this, do a search, some people have linked to various calculators online you can use to get an idea on cost. Do you eat exactly as the plan prescribes? IE ordering each a soft drink, eating the provided number of snacks each day, etc. If you don't, then you most likely won't save money.

RE other ways to save money, downgrade to non-hoppers right now. You can upgrade them while you are at the parks if you decide you need it, and the cost would be the same. You save money if you don't use it, just keep it held aside in case you do need it. No real reason not to consider downgrading to a value, especially if you are trying to save money. Unless you will be spending large amounts of time at the resort, I don't think you will miss all that much.

 

[danyoung56]

If you switch to a value, I'd strongly recommend the Pop Century. It's the newest of the values, and for me it almost has a moderate feel to it. I really enjoy staying in the moderates, with the Coronado Springs being my favorite. But when money's tight, I'll stay at the Pop in a heartbeat!

 

[LeighM]

You really need to research the numbers and find out what would be best for the two of you. Our first trip there we had the dining plan and we didn't get the full value on it. We were too busy exploring the parks and didn't eat at the more expensive restaurants because it was a last minute trip and I couldn't get the reservations. However, we got the dining plan for every other trip just for the convenience and we always end up either breaking even or saving money because I like to eat at the more expensive family style or character buffets. I also like to eat - a lot LOL. My husband calls me Miss Piggy The main reason I get the park hoppers is in case one park is busy, we can leave and go to another - plus is helps me when doing dining reservations because we have a lot more flexibility with options.

We also always stay at Riverside because we spend more time at the resort and in our room during the times we've been (the heat causes me to need afternoon naps lol). Also, at the end of the day, the two sinks at Riverside really help getting ready for bed quicker and easier without us fighting over one sink. But that's just our preference and what works best for us. My friends stay at a value and apparently they are better at sharing one sink than us lol. However, I would have no problem going to Pop Century if money was tight if it meant I could have more fun at WDW!

 

[SSH]

My husband and I always stay at the values (although one day we'd like to splurge), but we spend so little time at the hotel we don't find the extra money is worth it. We just push the two fulls together so we're at least sleeping closer together. Park hoppers are a must for us because we want to cover as much as we can in the 4 or 5 days we have. This will be our first time with the dining plan and we chose to go with it so we feel like things are "all inclusive" even though we've already paid for it. My husband is a big eater too and it sure does get expensive or feels expensive when he orders a lot or makes frequent snack trips!
Changing your hotel to a value may be the easiest way to save money without cutting anything out, but some find greater value in your resort than we do. Whichever way you go, i'm sure it will be great!

Just seconding above - my husband and I have only stayed at values in all years we've visited. While I'd love to stay moderate and think about it every trip, I inevitably fall back to values as the 75-100+ diff per day really adds up. That's extra money for dinners, yummy drinks, other getaways. I just don't think there's enough incremental value at the mod to justify the price for me personally.

Universal is different - we're using the money I'm saving at WDW to splurge on one of the deluxe Uni hotels because I think the value is considerably better there for what you're spending. Walking distance to parks + free express pass, all for the price of a WDW moderate justifies the extra splurge in my eyes.

 

[Caroline Treacy]

Hey, I'm a Disney virgin and was shocked by the food prices. We like nice, varied food and are staying onsite at POR. We have young kids and are travelling from the uk so the dining plan made sense for us. Picnics, supermarket shopping and driving off site all the time is not my idea of fun after a 9 hr flight with 2 kids in tow. We got the basic plan free and just upgraded for a reasonable fee to Disney dining.
I don't know if I'm just a bit Disney drunk from getting my ADRs today but by my reckoning I'm going to bankrupt Disney by eating 10 times the cost of my dining plan! Yes I'm sure they'll get the money out of me somehow but I've had lots of fun scheduling the most expensive meal in the most expensive restaurants.
Saying all that, when we were young (before kids hit us) we had the best holidays ever on a shoe string... once you have committed just enjoy, I'm sure there are pros and cons to each. I'd definitely change to somewhere like Art of Animation (had great reviews from friends) rather than give up a dining plan that I thought I'd make good use of xxx

 

[dreamfinder]

Yes I'm sure they'll get the money out of me somehow but I've had lots of fun scheduling the most expensive meal in the most expensive restaurants.

Usually thats about the only way to come out ahead. If you order the pasta dish one night instead of the steak WDW got you.

 

[officialtom]

If you're booking a vacation package on a special offer that includes the dining plan, keep it. You're probably getting a good deal and substantial savings.

Honestly, even if the dining plan only breaks even for us, we love it for the convenience. It also "forces" us to eat at nice restaurants rather than eating at less nice ones to save a bit of money. Eating at those nice restaurants is always worth it, and possibly my favourite part of the trip.

As a bonus, in 2017, it includes TWO snacks each per day. It used to only be one each per day. Even then, we always ended up with a dozen or more snack credits left over on the last day. You can use them for souvenir treats, or combine 3 for a quick service meal.

 

[officialtom]

Hey, I'm a Disney virgin and was shocked by the food prices. We like nice, varied food and are staying onsite at POR. We have young kids and are travelling from the uk so the dining plan made sense for us. Picnics, supermarket shopping and driving off site all the time is not my idea of fun after a 9 hr flight with 2 kids in tow. We got the basic plan free and just upgraded for a reasonable fee to Disney dining.
I don't know if I'm just a bit Disney drunk from getting my ADRs today but by my reckoning I'm going to bankrupt Disney by eating 10 times the cost of my dining plan! Yes I'm sure they'll get the money out of me somehow but I've had lots of fun scheduling the most expensive meal in the most expensive restaurants.
Saying all that, when we were young (before kids hit us) we had the best holidays ever on a shoe string... once you have committed just enjoy, I'm sure there are pros and cons to each. I'd definitely change to somewhere like Art of Animation (had great reviews from friends) rather than give up a dining plan that I thought I'd make good use of xxx

Couldn't agree more! I'd switch from a moderate to a value rather than give up the dining plan.

 

[officialtom]

When we are not on the plan, I eat very differently even if we have plenty of money budgeted. When I see the price for food, it's hard not to order cheap and skip drinks and desserts. Enjoy your trip!!!

YES! This is absolutely why we love the dining plan. Makes us feel like rich people who don't care what the food costs, even though we paid up front before the trip!

 

[Ted Daggett]

When my children were younger and more interested in the characters, we would get the dining plan, and make sure that for every meal we had a character buffet, as these are the most expensive of the table service restaurants (Chef Mickey, 1900 Park Fare, Crystal Palace, Tusker House, Garden Grill). We would also grab apples or bananas or oranges to put in our bag for a snack later in the day. Now that my kids are older and we do not need to go to the character meals, we are able to get quality meals for much less money, and the dining plan is no longer beneficial to us. You really need to figure out where you are going to be eating (and get ADRs) and figure out the price. Do you need a $60 per person meal at Chef Mickeys buffet dinner, or can you get a burger and drink for $15 at a quick service restaurant. Due to the popularity at the character restaurants, and other expensive restaurants, there may not be reservations available, and you will be stuck eating at an inexpensive restaurant, making your Dining plan less valuable.

Also, note that the dining plan does NOT include tips. So if the two of you go to Chef Mickeys (and get no alcohol) your $120 meal will be paid for on the dining plan, but you will still be asked to leave a tip. A 20% tip on $120 is $24. You could get a lot of food at a quick service restaurant for the $24, and no tip is required.

The dining plan also gets you 1 snack per person per day. With 5 people in our family, we always end up at the end of the trip having extra snacks available that go unused. We are usually so full from the buffet meals that we go to that we are not hungry for more snacks during the day. The dining plan also gives you a refillable Disney mug. We usually get these mugs, and never use them, since they are only able to be used at the resort, and we are rarely at the resort, since we are at the parks all day.

I think in your situation you should NOT get the dining plan.

 

[andy773]

Check out this website:

www.distripplanner.com

It lets you put in your dates, how you like to eat and pick restaurants and gives you an idea of the costs with and without the dining plan.

I would love to try the Dining Plan sometime but can never get it to come close to economical for how we like to eat.

 

[Ted Daggett]

Check out this website:

www.distripplanner.com

It lets you put in your dates, how you like to eat and pick restaurants and gives you an idea of the costs with and without the dining plan.

I would love to try the Dining Plan sometime but can never get it to come close to economical for how we like to eat.

Wow! This is my new favorite website. I just plugged in our dining itinerary for my December trip and it is saying I save $168.67 by not using the dining plan. I love how it estimates the cost of each of the restaurants. I will have to keep my receipts and see how good of a job it did! thanks

 

[Caroline Treacy]

Andy - that's such a great calculator! It deserves it's own thread... I've never seen it before anywhere.

I just did it using our confirmed table bookings and we'd save $573 if we'd paid for the plan but the basic plan was free and we just paid a bit to upgrade so we're eating $3580 of food for $590. I'm going to pack some forgiving maxi dresses for coming home!

 

[Brianna E.]

Hi everyone !!! So we actually just decided to switch to Pop Century my boyfriend decided that we aren't going to be spending much time there anyway and it's important to him to be able to get the best food! So that is what we are doing! Thanks for all the help