While I don’t have a solution for out-of-pocket spending on Souvenirs (yet!), there is an option that can help curb the cost of all those succulent snacks. Or at least make it sting a little less. And what’s better than a pre-paid dining plan at Disney? Free dining at Disney.

What is a Disney Dining Plan?

The Disney Dining Plan is an optional add on for your Disney World vacation that allows you to, essentially, pre-pay for your meals. There are 2 tiers available, Quick Service which runs about $59 per night per adult and Standard which will cost around $97.79 per night per adult.

Kid’s plan typically run about 30% less, but the exact cost isn’t important here because you’re going to get it for free.

Quick Service Dining Plan

With the Quick Service Dining Plan each person in your party will receive:

• (2) Counter Service meals per night
• (1) Snack per night
• (1) Refillable Drink Mug per stay (it’s good your entire stay)

But you don’t have to use them all in that order. If your family of 4 is staying for 4 nights, you’ll have a grand total of (32) quick service meal credits and (16) snack credits. These credits can be used at any time – splitting breakfast because your group starts the day light, cool. Want to use all your snack credits tasting around an Epcot Festival? Awesome! (and highly recommend)

Standard Dining Plan

Now if you were to upgrade to the Standard Dining Plan each member of your group would receive:

Don't Miss! Best Quick Service at Epcot

• (1) Counter Service meal per night
• (1) Table Service meal per night
• (1) Snack per night
• (1) Refillable Mug per stay

Not only do you unlock table service dining including some of the most iconic restaurants in the parks, but you can stack credits for special experiences. The especially expensive restaurants with fine dining, character meets, and dinner shows actually cost 2 Table Service credits per person. Which can be a great way to hack the system as many of these special occasion fancy-pants places are cheaper on credits than they would be out of pocket.

How to Get Free Dining On Your Next Trip

The Disney Dining Plans can be a great way to rein in vacation spending as it sort of forces you to stick to the plan. However, the upfront cost of these plans tends to be more expensive than if you would have simply paid at the time of service. It really depends on what your plans look like and there are plenty of strategies to get your money’s worth.

But it doesn’t matter, because Disney is offering free dining for select vacation packages in 2025. And we love to see it.

Vacation packages (meaning hotel and park tickets are booked all together) of 3 night’s and 3 days with park-hopper, or more, are eligible for this promotion for stays starting between May 27 to June 26 and July 7 to August 6. If you’re staying at a Disney World hotel and buying tickets for your group during those dates, you can probably score this deal.

What’s the Catch?

The Free Dining promotion is one of our favorites for booking a trip, especially for families traveling all together. But, it can’t be combined with any other offers and is running concurrently with several big room discounts. You’ll want to price out both options, and any others you’re eligible for, before booking.

Folks staying off property, booking through a third party (including a DVC rental), or not purchasing tickets (sorry AP’s) will not be able to steal this deal. Again, sometimes these alternatives can be cheaper so double check. It’s actually a great case to make for using a travel agent when booking your trip, because they’ll know the ins and outs and how to get you the best deals.

Which Dining Plans Are Included?

You ask the best questions! With the Free Dining Promotion the type of dining plan (quick service or standard) depends on which hotel you’ve booked. The Standard Plan is offered for stays at any of the Deluxe or Deluxe Villa resorts. While the Quick Service plan is offered at Moderate and Value resorts.

So there you have it, free dining at Disney that can help you save a bit on a 2025 trip. Have you ever used a Disney Dining Plan before, if so would you do it again?

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This week’s post is on a rather controversial topic…..The Disney Dining Plan! If you follow me on Twitter (and you should) then you know I am not a fan. But I’ll save that rant for another day. Today, I want to help you make whatever decision is right for your group. There are a few key factors to take into account before making this choice. First of all though, let’s cover the basics.

What is the Disney Dining Plan?

Does the thought of spending money to visit a theme park where you will have to spend more money make you cringe a little bit? Do you have adolescents in your party that want to run on their own, but you don’t want to send them off with lunch money? Do you want to know exactly how much money is being spent before packing your first bag? Well, the Disney Dining Plan,  solves all these issues.

The Disney Dining Plan is an add-on option for your vacation package offered by Disney that basically pre-pays for your meals. There are three different tiers, depending on the type of restaurants you are planning to visit. Each package will put a specified number of meal and snack credits into your account, based on the length of your trip and number of members in your group.

There are 3 important types of credits to understand before we go much further.

Quick Service Meal Credit

This will get you and entrée and a beverage at most quick service stops on property. These are places where you order and wait for your number to be called, then find a table – just like how fast food works outside the parks. There are some great quick service places, my favorite is Wolf Gang Puck Express in Disney Springs but there are others as well. New for 2018 you can now order an alcoholic beverage with your meal credit!!

Table Service Credit

This gets a little trickier. If you use this for breakfast it entitles you to an entrée and beverage (including alcohol!) or a buffet. If you use the credit for lunch or dinner you can get an entrée, beverage (still includes booze!), and a dessert, or a buffet. These credits can be used at, as the name implies, most table service restaurants. One caveat though – some character dining, signature dining, and dinner shows require 2 meal credits per person attending the meal.

Snacks Credits

Yay snacks!! Each credit will get you 1 snack or bottled non-alcoholic beverage or, well…a snack! Some highlights include; Dole whip, popcorn, ice cream, or my favorite….Starbucks! There are tons of snack credit hacks – but that’s fodder for another day.

How Much Does the Disney Dining Plan Cost?

There are three different tiers which are Quick Service, Standard Dining, and Deluxe Dining. The different tiers offer credits towards different types of restaurants and a different number of credits.

Quick Service Dining

For 2018 the Quick Service Dining plan is an additional $52.49 per adult, per night. So, for 2 adults on a 5 day trip this would be an additional $419.92. This provides you with 2 Quick Service meal credits and 2 snack credits, per person per night. (so 16 meals and 16 snacks for our aforementioned couple).

Standard Dining

With this plan each member of your party receives 1 table service credit, 1 quick service credit, and 2 snacks per day. The cost is $75.49 per adult, per night. For our couple this would be 8 table service meals, 8 quick service meals, and 16 snack credits. If you are going to purchase a plan and want to dip your feet into the table service pool, this is the way to go.

Deluxe Dining

Deluxe dining will run you $116.24 per person, per night. The package includes 3 meals, of either kind, and 2 snacks per person per day.

Should I Purchase the Dining Plan?

The big question, it depends. There are plenty of people on both sides of the argument. Some, including me, believe that the dining plan gives far too many credits and the price is higher than paying for the meals outright. The opposition argues that they use all the credits and the pricing is fair. Everyone has an opinion. So, I’m going to do my best to provide you the unbiased pros and cons.

Pros

• Meals are pre-paid
• Each party member can use credits with their magic-band
• There are a lot of options
• The Deluxe plan is excellent for making character and signature dining more accessible
• Prices are similar to what would be paid at time of purchase
• Extra credits at the end of a trip can be used for souvenirs

Cons

• Does not save money
• Choices are limited to which restaurants will accept them (not all of them do)
• For some the number of credits is excessive
• You can only take so many Mickey rice crispy treats home with you

Other Important Notes

The dining plan can be a great option for many. My family and I always purchase the package every trip. Yes, even though I don’t like it. We do it because my dad likes to have everything paid for ahead of time, and since he’s paying I’m on board. That being said, we have never used all of our credits. You can check out my much more opinionated article HERE. Before you make your decision I strongly recommend check out THIS LIST OF APPLICABLE Disney Dining Plan RESTAURANTS.

That’s it for today folks! Thanks for stopping by! Let me know in the comments what your favorite Disney restaurant is, or what your most looking forward to on your upcoming trip!

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Quick Service Dining

The quick service dining plan is the most economical choice. It includes (2) meal credits and (2) snack credits per person, per day. Most quick service restaurants on property (hotels, parks, Disney Springs area) accept the meal credits. You can see a full list of participating locations here, some favorites include Wolfgang Puck Express, Dole Whip Stand, Be Our Guest (Breakfast/Lunch) and the Flame Tree Barbecue. Approximate cost: $48/$21 for adult/child per day.

Dining

The standard dining plan provides (2) snack credits, (1) quick service credit, and (1) table service credit per person, per day. Table service credits can be used at nearly all restaurants on property, however some experiences (such as signature meals and shows) will take (2) table credits per person.  Highlights fromt he table service offering include Ohana, Via Napolli, and 1900 Park Fare. Approximate cost: $70/$25 for adult/child per day.

Deluxe Dining

Deluxe dining is just that, deluxe! Included are (3) table service credits and (2) snack credits per person, per day. The additional table credit allows for either a 3rd meal (although with the snack credits, you’ll find it may be unnecessary) or can be used towards 2 credit dining experiences. Approximate cost $107/$39 per adult/child per day.

How it Compares

So, let’s take a look at what it would cost out of pocket for the same adult meals offered on the dinning plan. Now keep in mind that this does not take into account the refillable mug, which gives you free refills of any non-alcoholic beverage at your resort for the duration of your stay.

Quick Service – $48

Snack: ~$5 x2 = $10
Meal: ~$17 x 2 = $34
Total: $44

Dining – $70

Snack: ~ $5 x2 = $10
Meal: ~$17 + $27 = $54
Total: $64

Deluxe: – $107

Snack: ~ $5 x2 = $10
Meal: $27 x 3 = $81
Total: $91

As you can see, the prices are extremely comparable. So why do some people chose a dining package? For some it’s peace of mind knowing that all your meals are covered for the duration of your trip. For others it may be the convenience that each member of your group is able to purchase their meals with their magic bands, and don’t need a parent to do so for them. There are plenty or reasons for the dining plan to make sense for some, but does it make sense for you?

Personal Experiences

I say no, the dining plans are not worth the money and do not make sense. At least not for me and my party. My family of five spent 7 days and 6 nights at WDW earlier this year, and purchased the Quick Service plan. It was great that we didn’t have to worry about paying for our meals, and my niece (7) loved being able to “pay” for everything with her band. However, we won’t be purchasing Disney Dining again.

Problem #1

There are 2 big issues that I have with the dining plans, the first is selection. Sure, there are a lot of locations when you review the participating list but keep in mind these are spread out over 6 parks, 2 out door areas (Disney Springs + The Boardwalk area), and a multitude of hotels. When you find yourself with a hungry family in the 80 degree heat, you want to grab whatever is closest. Not search through a list on your phone for 20 minutes to find which restaurants count. There are so many great places I didn’t get a chance to check out, because they didn’t make the cut. We lived on burgers and BBQ for the most part, and it became pretty monotonous by  the end of the trip.

Problem #2

My 2nd problem with the DDP is the number of credits you receive. It’s just too much food, and for at least most went to waste. This was the 2nd time we’ve used DDP and both times we also had groceries delivered. So that being said we had our own breakfast food and some fruit and chips for the park. We would stop to eat maybe 1 meal most days, sometimes just a snack. We simply couldn’t find time to stop what we were doing, figure out which places we could eat at, wait in line, find a table…ugh. Nope. Not for us.

On the last day we had like 40 snack credits and 20 meal credits, we spent the morning before our flight bouncing around Disney Springs to buy anything we could with the remaining credits. The airport security was not happy about our three huge bags of to-go containers.

So, Should You Do it?

No. Don’t do it, save yourself some money by only buying what you need. Look into grocery delivery as well, it’s a great resource to ensure your family is eating right through the duration of your trip.

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