Walt Disney World Trip Planning
Topic: Dining plan worth it?

#	Author	Message
1	Amynleroy Wed 12/20/2006 9:16p	So the dining plan will almosr double the cost of out trip...is it REALLY worth it?
2	sun-n-fun Thu 12/21/2006 5:25a	Although we have never used it, I think it would be worth it if you wanted to try many of the "nicer" sit down places at WDW. We (2 adults and 2 kids)tend to eat at counter service places and share meals, so have never tried the dining plan. We don't think it would be worth it to us. My SIL had it and came home without using some of it. Too much food for them.
3	stitchcrazy Thu 12/21/2006 8:15a	I did the dining plan this past fall because it was during the promotion where it was free. The free deal is amazing. However I'm not sure that I'd ever pay to add it on as it was a ton of food. Really in the end a deciding factor would be how many sit down meals you plan on eating during your trip. If you're going to do sit downs every day or most days its a great deal. If you're going to do counter service fast food most of the time and only do one or two sit downs if any my husband and I for us at least have found the dining plan to cost more than its worth for us. Our last trip we decided how many sitdowns we wanted to do (we did 2 in the end), looked up their cost on AllEars' dining guide, guessed an average on what we thought we'd spend besides that and decided we'd spend less without the dining plan. The nice thing about it is if you have the dining plan you don't have to budget much for food money when you actually get there. But over our trips we've come up with our own ways to save money and that seems to work better for us.
4	davewasbaloo Thu 12/21/2006 10:06a	For us it was totally worth it. We do a sit down a day, and we were at WDW every day of our stay. Therefore, we found it worth while. If you only want a couple of table service or are planning at spending time off site, it is not worth it IMHO.
5	Kennesaw Tom Thu 12/21/2006 5:26p	The actual answer is that it is worth it. I was just as WDW the first week in December and did not to the Meal Plan. I was staying in one of the Downtown Disney Hotels which offered a free all you can eat breakfast buffet. This greatly helped out with the expense of meals. I found the price of food on property to be outrageous. Despite having free breakfast we easily spent at least $70 including tax and tip, or more each day on a quick meal in the parks ( for convience sake and to try a few restaurants we had never tried before ). Granted we did ocassionally have drinks and then there was the midnight cap hot fudge brownie almost each night at Ghiridelli in DtD. The point is you will easily spend $35 per person each day on food. When you are participating in the Meal Plan you don't have to pay taxes on your meals. Those of us who were not participating in the Meal Plan had to pay taxes. One big downside to the Meal Plan is that some parks have very limited sitdown restaurant availability especially the Magic Kingdom. In order to utilitze your Meal Plan you may have to make resevations to eat at time when the sit down restaurant has available seats. In otherwords times that may not be convient for you or your party. And God help you if you can not make your reservations. You will be unable to find other arrangements. I heard someone on this board compare the Disney Meal Plan to eating on a cruise ship. I disagree with this anology. Since cruises have enough seats for each guest during meals. Yes, cruise ships may have to seatings. However, there is always a guarenteed seat. Disney doesn't have enough seats at sit down restaurants in the Magic Kingdom to accomidate every guest utilizing the Meal Plan who might be visiting the Magic Kingdom on any given day. When not using the Meal Plan I found it impossible to be able to enjoy a sitdown restaurant in any Disney park. I think for those who take advantage of the Meal Plan you will find the plan rigid and very inflexable. My advise to anyone utilizing the Disney Meal Plan is to make your resevations well well well in advance and be prepared to plan your vacation around your resevations. As for myself. I will be visiting WDW again the last week in January. My party will not be using the Meal Plan. Since I will be driving I plan on bringing down plenty of quick food items; muffins, yogurt, etc with me. My party has already agreed that we are going to be avoiding restaurants on property so we don't have to reexperience our worst dining nightmare like we did the first week of December. We simply are not going to rely on Disney to dictate to us when we are going to eat. So we will bring our own food. I'm an annual passholder now. And since I recently got back from a trip to WDW. Disney recently sent me a survey and I was very harsh regarding the Meal Plan. Upon on meal, my party had made resevations to eat in Germany for dinner. When we arrived at the Germany Pavallion the courtyard area was packed with guests waiting to eat. Since my party had resevations we only had to wait 10 minutes to get in. Once we got into the restaurant we could easily see that a good 1/3 or the restaurant was not being used. We over heard the staff in the restaurant say that they had called in additional staff to meet the demand. But they still never opened up ALL seating available. They simply only utilized 2/3 of the restaurant. I couldn't help but think that Disney had artificially created this long long wait now for sitdown restaurants. Those guests outside looked tired, hungry and angry. The Disney Meal Plan is all about Disney meeting its needs as it helps Disney anticipate the demand for sitdown restaurants months in advance. Thus, Disney can supposively allocate additional staff ( in theory but not in practice as I found out that night in Germany) when needed. Its not about meeting guests needs. And in terms of the sitdown meals I enjoyed my fist week in December. My party felt like we were being rushed through our meals. In the five days we were at WDW I believe the final tally was over $300 for food for two people ( that doesn't include breakfasts as they were free ).
6	davewasbaloo Fri 12/22/2006 12:17a	"My advise to anyone utilizing the Disney Meal Plan is to make your resevations well well well in advance and be prepared to plan your vacation around your resevations." This is what we did, booking our restaurants 175 days out and planning our trip around it. Sadly, we had to miss our Ohana reservations one day because no one was hungry for lunch until 2 and then that meant we were not hungry at 6:30 when our reservations for. We still had 4 days in the resort, and there were NO slots other than a 9:50 pm seating on our last night. We had to pass sadly. The dining plan is not good for spontaneity - and when travelling with two rug rats and a difficult mother in law, it can make it tricky. But it was increadible value.
7	davewasbaloo Fri 12/22/2006 12:19a	"My party felt like we were being rushed through our meals." Funny, with 10 sit downs, we never once felt that way, and our meal average meal time was probably about 2 hours. But mileage may vary.
8	davewasbaloo Fri 12/22/2006 12:21a	" In the five days we were at WDW I believe the final tally was over $300 for food for two people ( that doesn't include breakfasts as they were free )." If you come to DLP, you better save up. Before kids, our food budget for 1 day was $150 - $200 per day at DLP. And breakfast is also included in DLP hotels.
9	LacyBelle Fri 12/22/2006 11:12a	My experience was similar to Dave's. DH & I enjoyed the meal plan during our trip in early November. Yes, it was a LOT of food. We really didn't need to eat that much, but enjoyed it anyway. ;-) We planned ahead and made ressies five months in advance. DH & I are both planners, so the "rigidity" and timetable aspect didn't bother us. We also didn't feel rushed at any of our table service meals, with each one taking at least an hour and a half. Is it worth it? As others stated, that all depends on your own needs and preferences. DH & I liked the prepaid aspect of it and it became a bit of an adventure to keep track of what we _would_ have spent, so we could calculate our savings at the end. Good luck with your decision. Please let us know what you decide and what your experience is upon your return. Happy Planning!
10	Kennesaw Tom Fri 12/22/2006 11:56a	<<If you come to DLP, you better save up. Before kids, our food budget for 1 day was $150 - $200 per day at DLP. And breakfast is also included in DLP hotels.>> Dave please don't get me wrong. I also don't mind spending money on food when I figure its a good value and its something worth paying for. Thats why I never complain when I'm eating out in Manhattan, Atlantic City or during my trip to Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Alaska. My problem with Disney ( and the hotel where I was staying ) was that I really don't like being charged $7 for a sandwich with lesser quality than one I can get at a nearby Publix grocery store for $5.29 . Don't get me started on the entres in WDW. We ate in France, were rushed through the meal. And quite frankly ( other than the wine, and I prefer California wine over French wine ) the food was kinda bland. I had the veggie lasgana which was OK, but hardly worthy of its hefty $13.75 price tag. When I had gotten home I had some eggplant parmgain I had gotten from my Local Publix for $6.95. It was enough for four people ( I got several meals out of it ). It was also far more superior to the veggie lasgana. Also in terms of pricing of meals at WDW. I found the Big River Grille and Brewing Works to be an incredible value and very reasonable with the best beer I had on property! Given the diverse quantity and quality of the food available in the sit down restaurants, I find some of the meal prices to be outrageous for what you can get at comparable prices elsewhere on property and nearby. After all we are talking about Orlando. Not Taiwan where a can of soda is $7 US. I'm not putting anyone down for participating in the Meal Plan. My complaint is that for those who CHOOSE not to participate in the Meal Plan then I don't understand why Disney is locking us out of the sitdown restaurants? Why punish your guests for not staying on property? Disney isn't dedicating ANY seats for walkins. Disney is takign seating resevations first. And if all their seats fill up, tough luck for any walkins. Why doesn't Disney dedicate even 30% of the seats in their sit down restaurants for walk in? The only winner here is Disney. And Disney isn't doing it for guests convience sake. I already wrote about how at least 30% of the seats were left empty when I was dinning in Germany. No explaination for this and there were many many people waiting to get in.

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