Many of our articles have examined the changes Disney World has undergone since the outbreak of the epidemic. Fortunately, most of Disney’s most recent adjustments are aimed toward making future travel experiences seem like they did prior to the park closing temporarily in 2020.
In fact, a recent trip left me feeling like “for the first time in forever,” everything at Disney World was rather normal once more.
One offering has been very slow to come back, and some frequent Disney World guests have not been particularly patiently waiting for it: the Disney Dining Plans.
At last, the wait has ended. Disney meal plans for visitors buying vacation packages—including a hotel stay and theme park tickets or resort-only reservations—are accessible as of Jan. 9. This means one price will cover quick-service meals, snacks, and sit-down character dinners.
Although it’s appealing to consider grouping food expenses into your Disney World trip, is it practical enough to justify the expense? Disney dining plans were not available a few years ago, so we tested it.
Before you choose to purchase a Disney dining plan for your 2024 vacation, learn all you need to know about them below.
What Is the Disney Dining Plan?
Using a Disney Dining Plan, you can pay for a predetermined number of meals and snacks for your Disney World trip and get meal and snack “credits” to apply during your stay. The length of your trip will determine how many credits you get overall. For instance, you will have three days’ worth of meals and snacks to redeem if you spend three nights staying and purchase the dining plan.
Apart from the ease of paying for your meals, the Disney dining scheme is rather adaptable. You can use meals and snacks anytime throughout your stay; you are not obliged to redeem a certain quantity each day.
Should a day find you not using all of your credits, you will have even more meals and snacks available the following day. Should you have left-over snack credits at the end of your trip, you can stock up on prepared goodies to bring home and combat the post-Disney slump.
What Is Included in a Disney Dining Plan?
You can get two Disney Dining Plans right now for your trips in 2024. Along with a mug you can use for unlimited soda, water and coffee refills at your Disney hotel—though not inside the parks—each member in your group will get two meals and one snack daily.
Disney Quick-Service Dining Plans center on quick-service cuisine. The Disney Dining Plan offers choices for daily table-service meals. Every Disney meal package will provide you with these:
Disney Quick-Service Dining Plan
- Two quick-service meals per night stayed.
- A snack or nonalcoholic drink per night stayed.
- One refillable drink mug is available at your resort with unlimited refills.
Disney Dining Plan
- One table-service meal per night stayed.
- One quick-service meal per night stayed.
- A snack or nonalcoholic drink per night stayed.
- One reusable drink cup with limitless refills at your resort.
At any qualified quick-service dining establishment, including Woody’s Lunch Box in Hollywood Studios, Columbia Harbour House in the Magic Kingdom or Capt. Cook’s at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, a quick-service meal consists of an entree and drink (alcoholic or nonalcoholic).
These are basically the areas where a waiter doesn’t come to your table. You instead pick your food from the counter.
A table-service breakfast consists of an entree, buffet, or family-style meal together with a beverage (alcoholic or nonalcoholic) at any participating table-service restaurant. Table-service restaurants let you also request a dessert with your entree for brunch, lunch, or supper.
Except for children under three, you must buy the Disney Dining Plan for your whole party before adding it to your vacation; only visitors registered on your reservation qualify to spend dining plan credits. If you buy a Disney Dining Plan for a child between the ages of three and nine, you have to order from the children’s menu at any establishment with one.
On both plans, snacks include single-serve items such popsicles, ice cream bars (including the venerable Mickey ice cream bar), a box of popcorn, a 20-ounce soda, a Dole Whip soft serve, a specialty coffee, a pastry, a piece of whole fruit and more.
Menu items that are eligible for the Disney Dining Plan will be notated with a special icon. Your snack credits can also be used to buy snack bags from your hotel gift shop or other retail venue.
Since it could be one or two credits, participating dining venues should include specifics on their website about which dining plans are accepted and how many credits you will need to redeem to dine there.
A few elite dining establishments, like Victoria & Albert’s at the Grand Floridian Resort and Takumi-Tei in Epcot, do not accept the meal plan.
Also, it is really easy to keep track of your credits. Every time you redeem a credit, you should find your remaining credits printed on the receipt—or on your emailed receipt should you make a mobile order.
The My Disney Experience app lets you also view your outstanding balance. See your remaining balance under the “Resort Hotel” section by clicking “Check Dining Plan”.
How Much Does a Disney Dining Plan Cost?
Your selected plan and length of stay will determine the cost of a Disney meal plan. For adults, pricing begins at $57 a night; for children, it is $23.
Each plan is broken out here in more thorough nightly detail:
Disney Quick-Service Dining Plan
- Adults: $57.01
- Children age 3 to 9: $23.83
Disney Dining Plan
- Adults: $94.28
- Children age 3 to 9: $26.69
When you redeem a credit for a meal or snack, tax is already included, but in table-service restaurants, you will still have to pay out-of-pocket for tips. That will increase the total cost of the plan; hence, consider this whether you are thinking about buying the table-service Disney Dining Plan.
Related Article: While considering the Disney Dining Plan, also explore the latest Disney World ticket prices to budget your entire trip effectively.
How Do You Buy a Disney Dining Plan?
One can buy a Disney Dining Plan either directly or indirectly. When you buy your Disney World vacation package online, over the phone, or via an approved Disney holiday planner, you can include a dining plan. Alternatively, you can add it anytime following your holiday package purchase until the day before your arrival.
Is a Disney Dining Plan Worth It?
Now comes the enjoyable aspect: eating. On the day Disney Dining Plans returned, I went to Disney World to find out how much food you got and whether the plan offered greater value than if you paid for your meals out of cash.
I stayed two nights at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort and bought the table-service Disney Dining Plan for the very wonderful test. Along with the reusable mug, my plan included one quick-service lunch, one table-service supper and one snack each day. My two-night Disney eating plan cost $188.56 overall.
If I had paid the stated cash costs, I would have paid for $224.22 worth of food, but utilizing the Disney Dining Plan, I paid just $188.56. Using the eating plan instead of paying out of pocket helped me to come ahead.
Gratuities are not covered by these totals; they are not included in the price of a Disney Dining Plan. I omitted gratuities from these figures since you would pay them regardless.
If you consume coffee or soda, you might also consider the expense of unlimited refills at your resort if it is something you would have paid for otherwise.
Making the most of my Disney Dining Plan required some research and planning before my trip and completing actions I might not have done otherwise, such as selecting specific menu items to maximize the value out of the dining plan, so factor that in, too.
Tips for Making the Most of the Disney Dining Plan
Here are some tips to help you decide whether a Disney eating plan suits you.
Approximate Value of Each Credit
If you optimize the value of your credits by selecting more costly restaurants and pricier menu items on that trip, you can come out ahead with a Disney Dining Plan. Generally speaking, ordering menu items less expensive than the following estimations will not be worth your money on the meal plan:
- Table-service meal: $63
- Quick-service meal: $25
- Snack: $6
For instance, during my visit, I ordered some water bottles but paid cash rather than using a snack credit. A bottle of water comes at $3.75, so I kept my food credits for more costly purchases like a Dole Whip float ($6.49).
This applies also to entrees, desserts, and beverages. getting beer (for adults) or a milkshake (for children) with your dinner will offer you more value than getting a Coke; ordering a steak or seafood will most likely be better than ordering a chicken or veggie dish.
Know that some restaurants demand two table-service credits even if your heart is set on a character breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table ($69 for adults, $42 for children ages 3-9).
If you know you won’t be using your table-service credits anyway, then utilizing two credits of $63 each ($126 total) for one meal worth $69 is not a good deal solely from a budgetary sense. Remember also that not all character meals call for two credits; hence, be strategic.
Maximizing the Value of the Disney Dining Plan
Limit meal credits for breakfast: Breakfast has limited meal credits since certain foods provide more value than others. Generally speaking, lunch and supper cost more than breakfast, hence using meal credits for those meals will nearly always yield more value. Instead, get a pastry or other snack for breakfast and load your refillable mug with something to drink. Should you have breakfast from a table-service meal, choose a character dish like Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary Resort.
- Reserve special meals: Save special meals for your table-service credits; the Fantasmic Dining Package is one example. I ate at Hollywood and Vine for one table-service credit, ran across my favorite Disney characters, and got priority seating for the Fantasmic evening show at Hollywood Studios. This seemed to be a really worthwhile bargain.
- Use snack credits for festival foods: Save your snack credits to “eat around the world” in the World Showcase if you are visiting during one of Epcot’s yearly celebrations. Many of the things at the festival booths are purchaseable with a snack credit. Starting at about $7, the rates provide a terrific value and a delicious global tour.
- Menu substitutions: At table-service restaurants, you occasionally could find the free dessert replaced with a side salad or soup. If you have no sweet taste, this will enable you to choose something you will truly consume rather than having to sacrifice your budget.
- Share meals: Most restaurants will let you divide an entree; family-style, buffet, or prix fixe meals cannot be split. Should you not be particularly hungry, you can share a meal among your party using one meal credit and preserve your credits. If you are saving for one of those two-credit lunches, this is particularly beneficial.
- Wait for a free dining promotion: Disney routinely runs discounts on hotel stays and vacation packages. One of these offers sometimes comes with a free Disney Dining Plan.
Related Article: Enhance your dining experience with Disney Genie Plus, which helps streamline your park itinerary alongside meal plans.
Should You Buy a Disney Dining Plan?
Think over a few factors to decide whether a Disney Dining Plan suits you.
First, you have to ask yourself whether you really want to eat so much food and drink in a day. Should you not use all of your credits, you are effectively leaving money on the table.
Should you be interested in a Disney Dining Plan, I advise reviewing various menus. Along with helping you figure out the value you would gain from it, this will enable you to better understand the quantity of food involved and whether you really want to consume that much.
Of course, regardless of whether you “break even,” for some people, the chance to not worry about food expenses while spending time in the park is worth the cost of the package. Some enjoy its “game” component as well. I even created a spreadsheet and found it very enjoyable trying to reimburse my money on the eating plan.
Since this was a solitary excursion, I had little trouble tracking my meals. If I had followed the same strategy and been flying with my five-person family, I could have found it more taxing.
Bottom Line
Your budget, vacation style, and eating and drinking tastes will determine whether or not the Disney Dining Plan offers value. Everybody will find the “right answer” different.
Fans of this “all-inclusive-vibe” choice like being able to really live in the “Disney bubble” and leave the real world behind. Disney Dining Plans, however, are only worth the expense if you maximize your credits and guarantee no Mickey ice cream bar, pretzel or beverage is left behind.