How We Saved 50% on the Deluxe Dining Plan
For years, the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan has been an unheralded way to save a lot of money at Walt Disney World restaurants. It’s unheralded because it can be totally impractical. For most people, it’s the equivalent of buying 30 pounds of discount mayonnaise from Costco. Everyone loves mayo, but when you buy more than you can use before it expires, your savings are illusory. (Last updated April 2, 2019.)
The same idea applies with the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan. There’s the possibility for great theoretical savings, but the practical reality is that most Walt Disney World guests cannot or will not eat that much. In fact, the high likelihood of many unused credits is a big part of why Disney prices the Deluxe Dining Plan how it does. On a per-credit basis, it’s cheaper than the other Dining Plans, but it’s extremely unlikely you’ll use all those credits, or at least that you’ll use them to their full potential if used over the course of a normal Walt Disney World vacation.
However, there are ways to get clever with the Deluxe Dining Plan. We would know, as we’ve run this same exercise almost every year, and will be doing it again at least a couple of times in 2019. For most people, the easiest route is coupling the Deluxe Dining Plan with one reservation of a split stay (which we covered recently in our How to Do a Split Stay at Walt Disney World post). This allows you to spread out your credits over an additional day, since you have your full check-in and check-out days to use them.
Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If you’re unfamiliar with Walt Disney World’s Dining Plan structure, check out our Ultimate Guide to the Disney Dining Plan post. The Deluxe Disney Dining Plan includes three counter service restaurants or table service meal credits and two snacks per night, plus one refillable mug per trip.
Given the flexibility of those meal credits–you could use them at Electric Umbrella or California Grill–the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan is viewed as something of an all-inclusive Dining Plan (it’s not actually, but for most people, it’s effectively that) or the ultimate dining splurge. You even still get appetizers with the Deluxe Dining Plan!
For our experiment (we’ll call it that to make this sound scientific instead of just like us stuffing our faces nonstop), we opted for a single night of the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan. During that time, we did three table service meals all with alcohol, appetizers, and desserts.
We also used both of our snack credits at the Epcot International Festival of the Arts, and somehow managed to get a few uses out of our refillable mugs. (More importantly, we took them home with us, as we didn’t have this new-ish design.) Even if you’re not visiting during one of the Epcot festivals, there are so many expensive snacks at Walt Disney World now that it’s easy to get bang for your buck that way.
Rather than following our own advice in our Best-Value Table Service Disney Dining Plan Restaurants post, we opted for restaurants that were expensive, but also that we had yet to review. (And also that we were hesitant to pay for out of pocket as we anticipated they’d be poor values.)
As such, we booked reservations for Tony’s Town Square, Teppan Edo, and Coral Reef. Not exactly the heavy-hitters of the Walt Disney World dining scene, but restaurants at which we’ve been wanting to visit or revisit. I’m not going to fixate on our experiences at each restaurant since we’ll have full reviews of each coming later and whether our meals were “good” or “bad” is sort of irrelevant to this post. We could’ve done this same experiment at other 1-credit table service restaurants and had good meals if we wanted.
Instead, we’ll cut to the chase and share the objective results. We spent $232.50 to add on the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan (two adults, one night) to our stay at Pop Century.
That’s undeniably a lot of money. It’s way more money than we spend out of pocket on food during an average day at Walt Disney World. However, here’s what each meal would have cost if we had paid out of pocket:
- Tony’s Town Square – $135.53
- Teppan Edo – $138.45
- Coral Reef – $137.12
- Festival of the Arts Snacks – $40.25
This amounts to a total value of $451.35 (plus whatever value you want to give the refillable mugs–we barely used them), which far exceeded the amount we spent on the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan. It even exceeded Disney’s own advertised savings on the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan since we saved roughly 50%. Still, we spent more than we normally would have per day on food, so that mayo analogy still applies, right?
Well, maybe. The added wrinkle here is that we did these meals over the course two days. The scenario we tested is not practical for an average tourist, but presents an interesting way to ‘hack’ the Deluxe Dining Plan for those willing to work for it. In this test, we did a 1-night stay and spread out our 3 table service meals over the course of two days.
Since the Deluxe Dining Plan credits do not expire until midnight of the day you check-out, you effectively have two full days to use a day’s worth of credits. Likewise, you’d have 3 days to use a 2-day’s stay worth of credits, and so on. This is why we recommend doing a split stay, and purchasing the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan for only one of those stays.
Given that this was all we ate over the course of two days at Walt Disney World, I think it was a good value. With that said, it is disingenuous to tout this as a savings of $200+. Had we paid out of pocket, we would not have ordered alcohol at any of these meals (most of the drinks were bad and overpriced–they weren’t even worth the ~$3 we paid out of pocket for the tips on each one). We also would not have ordered expensive entrees at Tony’s, nor would we have purchased refillable mugs.
On this blog, we normally stress that the Disney Dining Plan is only “worth” whatever value you get out of it, taking into account what you’d eat normally when paying out of pocket, not in the contrived setting of trying to eek as much value out of the credits as possible by ordering the most expensive entrees, etc. I think that’s a fair point that also needs to be emphasized here.
Even with that in mind, we would have ordered expensive entrees at Teppan Edo, moderately-priced ones at the other two restaurants, and outrageously priced snacks at Festival of the Arts. Even discounting the actual value of what we received, we still came out way ahead, saving around $100. The difficulty here is in replicating our “experiment.”
Normally, the best practical way to leverage the Deluxe Dining Plan over the course of a trip is to do a character breakfast, eat snacks midday, and do a Signature Restaurant for dinner. Unless your stomach is a bottomless pit, three table service meals simply is not realistic, and that’s true from both a hunger and time perspective.
If you’re a normal person considering the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan, that’s the ‘best use’ scenario we’d recommend. Even that isn’t totally practical. Character breakfasts and Signature dining are pretty much polar opposites of one another, so unless you’re a party of adults who like to embrace a sense of whimsy and sophistication, or a family with well-behaved and mature kids, even that scenario is pushing the bounds of practicality.
As we do a lot of 1-2 night stays for the sake of hotel updates, it’s easy for us to buy the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan for one night. For those of you doing regular trips, this might seem like a useless tip, but keep in mind that it’s possible to book split stays. You don’t necessarily even have to change hotels for this to work (although we enjoy that aspect of split stays).
Now, we’re not condoning do 7 one-night stays at Pop Century and booking the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan every other night of your trip (to the contrary, I think you might run into problems with the hotel refusing to keep you in the same room because of the hassle you’ve created), but doing a one night stay at the front or back end of your trip and splurging on dining during those couple of days could be a savvy and realistic move.
Ultimately, maybe you’ll be able to leverage the Deluxe Dining Plan in a way similar to what we did here, and maybe this is totally unreasonable and utterly useless for you. Part of Walt Disney World planning comes down to reading different ideas, and distilling the information to determine whether it’s pertinent to you. For some people, this is definitely a terrible idea. For others, it’s great. Irrespective of how it rates for you, hopefully it was at least an interesting read. After all, we made the great sacrifice of eating at Tony’s Town Square (TONY’S!) for you. 😉
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
Have you done the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan? Were you able to get value out of it? Do you agree or disagree with our take on the value of the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I don’t know, as a DVC member I feel like we are just better off getting a Tables in Wonderland card and ordering from Amazon Prime Now for snacks and pop…….I know it is not 50% but since we go just about the same week every year, I can get two week-long trips on one card! Plus, I order what I want verses ordering the most expensive thing “to get my money’s worth”!
We love using this strategy and we’re even taking it a step further for our large family trip later this month. We are utilizing the Deluxe Dining Plan for our split stay, as well as splitting it between our party in two villas. Over the course of 3 days, we’ll be feeding 12 people at two character buffets and a signature restaurant, for about $88 per person. While it may not work for us every trip, it’s definitely worth it for us when it does!
Amy did you have any issues using your credits for those who were not technically on the dining plan? I’ve heard this is possible if credits are available, that they don’t check everyone’s bands, but that it’s not officially allowed. How did it work out for you? Thanks!
Wondering the same thing !
We do this all the time…never a problem. We take friends that live in Florida while we are there and use our credits. We have had older kids in a discounted room, received free dining and upgraded to deluxe to use our credits to take all to dinner.
A big part of my vacation is the joy of eating at these different restaurants. I have been visiting disney world for more than twenty years. In the early years of the dining plan, we did not buy into it. So many posted articles talked of the cost and ‘not worth it’. Finally, we did it. And yes, it was a lot of food. We ran a spreadsheet on the restaurant costs vs. what we paid. We looked at what we might have changed, if not on the dining plan. In the long run, we decided that their were advantages. Like most people, I do look at the price on the menu when choosing my entree. Suddenly, it didn’t matter. We did eat at a 2 credit restaurant, (wolfgang puck –upstairs) and enjoyed a marvelous evening. Would we have done this if we were paying onsite? probably not –the final bill was $380 for two without alcohol. That year, we stayed at PO French Quarter. Even the quick service food was wonderful. I will do the regular dining plan (1 QS + 1 sit down restaurant meal), but not upgrade to deluxe. My next stay is already booked and paid and includes the dining plan. Each family is unique, and each family needs to make their own decision. And believe me, it is not easy. Just remember, it is your vacation!
We just came back and did the Deluxe dining and completely agree with the recommendation to do the character breakfast + a signature dining experience. Three one-credit meals is just way too much food. We traveled with our 3 kids and even had meals where did didn’t use all 5 meal credits (use extras to get a chicken finger & fries “snack” mid-day to split). We did Hoop Dee Doo, Spirit of Aloha and also a few signature dining, utilizing the snack credits to bridge the gap.
Looked this post up – As we added a night to an existing reservation because friends visiting for last 2 nites. Wanted to add deluxe plan to take all out to eat! Excellent value if u do this!! We all enjoy cocktails
With appetizers so I really think this hack will work out. I expect to ‘save’ quite a bit of money.
Hi! I’ve heard that while on the deluxe plan children can order from the adult menu, they come up as meals and don’t differentiate between child and adult meals… I this correct? Thanks
It depends on the server but usually not. While the credits in the account with deluxe don’t differentiate between child and adult or TS and QS (there is just 1 big pool of meal credits), a child at a TS using deluxe credits is officially supposed to order off the children’s menu. We occasionally had a server who offered adult meals to the kids (it was mostly at signatures) but this was the exception and not the policy.
A deluxe credit purchased for a child (at the significantly lower child price) could be used by an adult to order off the adult menu simply because they have no way of telling which credit is which. This is the loophole people are usually referencing when they talk about using a child’s deluxe credit for an adult meal.
We had a lot of servers offer this to my son who is seven. It was offered to him at almost all of the signature dining places we went to (Narcoossee’s was the only one that did not offer). He had huge king crab legs at Paddlefish! The servers seemed to encourage it which makes sense because it makes their top higher!
We’re staying off property 5 nights with a full kitchen and on site 2 nights GF Club Level.
Here’s the plan:
Arrive GF at 6AM check in get our mugs and head to the lounge for breakfast . Grad a few pieces of fruit for snacks in the park.
Day one Arrive Magic Kingdom at rope drop
lunch BOG soup and Pinocchio Village Caesar Salad I’ll use 2 more snack credits for other snacks this day.
(This day Dinner is an OP splurge )
Day two breakfast in the lounge Arrive at Epcot for rope drop – lunch at 11:30 am Garden Grill Candlelight Processional Meal Package (2 credits) – dinner Monsieur Paul (2 credits)
Day three – breakfast in the lounge – rope drop Animal Kingdom late Lunch Tiffins (2 credits) 2 snacks for the airport.
I think we’ll save some money we’ll see
Be Our Guest soup is not a snack credit. Could use a quick service credit for the soup and another credit for the meal.
I’ve never purchased any Disney dining plan, but I am this trip for one night. We added onto our trip, so I needed to book an additional hotel night. This will be a split stay. I’m using my deluxe dining credits over two days. I plan on eating at Garden Grill, Boma, and still debating on a third. It was $508 for my family of 5 (4 adult plans and 1 kid plan). Normally, we don’t eat at the expensive restaurants, so this is a bit of a splurge for us. I figured it was $101.60 per person. I based the value on three table service meals for $33.86. This doesn’t include the two snacks each day. The value of snacks is $12 to me. If I subtract that, then it would be $89.60 per person for food which brings down the cost to $30 per person per meal. This is still expensive for my family. We don’t spend $30 per person per meal. I figured this time, we’d splurge and experience meals we wouldn’t normally order at 50% off. The refillable mugs are a bonus. Since we’re staying for a week, I think the mug will be able to be used at my next resort. That’s how I’m rationalizing spending $508 for one day, but I’m really using the plan for two days.
Where you able to continue to use theug at your next resort? Stephanie
I’ve done a dining plan on a split stay and have not had any issues with continuing to use the mug.
I’m looking at buying the deluxe plan when I go for 5 nights with my two daughters age 2 (turning 3 the following week) and 6. My sister in law is joining us halfway thru the trip so I’ll add her on the room at check-in. Buying the deluxe plan for myself and the 6 year old gives us 15 adult and 15 child credits. After using two per day for each of us, we will have 5 credits for my sister in law to use and 5 for the almost-3 year old to get her own meal at non-buffet restaurants. It will still probably be too much food, but with several character meals on our agenda the deluxe plan will stretch to feed our group of 4 perfectly and save us some money.
Before you decide, figure out where you plan on eating each day and what you will probably eat. You can find all the menus online as well as most of the prices. Once you add all that up you should have a good idea which option would work the best. Upgrading just the two of you to the deluxe sounds like a great plan though!
I read an article with tips for using the deluxe dining plan that suggested a hack that is unpublished. It utilizes the fact that Disney will allow you to use your dining credits to pay for other guests meals. So it suggests for example that if you have friends staying in another room, to buy the deluxe plan for one room only, then use the credits to pay for all of your meals and split the cost of the plan. I’m wondering if anyone has tried this? Would restaurants have a problem with one person paying for all the meals using their dining credits? And I’m also wondering if it actually would result in a savings or are my calculations off?
My scenario:
I have three teenage children. I book two rooms at pop century while there is free dining. Then only upgrade one room to the deluxe plan and my husband and I swap who pays based on which meal credit type we use.
Rough calculations:
Option 1- free qs plan = 10 qs credits per day
Option 2 – upgrade two ppl deluxe plan and not other room = 6 qs per day, 6 ts credits (roughly $500 upgrade for 2 only)
Option 3 – upgrade to standard plan for all = 5 qs, 5 ts (roughly $600 upgrade for all )
Seems like it would allow us some extra credits to play with, for less $ as a family…Tom, I’d love your opinion on this before I take the plunge and try to test this. I’d hate to mess up our trip!
Actually I already see my option 2 calculations are wrong….must be tired! I think it’d be more like $770 for two adults to upgrade. Maybe not such a savings after all 🙁
You don’t indicate how many nights you are staying, so I’m just wondering…how is $770 the difference in cost between the QS plan and the deluxe plan for just you and your husband? QS should be about $58 per adult per night, and Dx should is about $117 per adults per night. I’ve split plans many times, but it’s difficult to give you more info w/o knowing your length of stay.
So my calculations were based on a 6 night stay, and I subtracted the cost of a quick service plan from a deluxe plan based on an article I read on Tom’s site for prices of tiers. But by your numbers, it looks like for 6 nights, two adults it would cost $708 for an upgrade of two adults from the qs plan for 6 days. So I think I calculated the upgrade would be $64 per person per night by mistake. Sorry for the miscalculation!
Amber,
You have a complicated situation which will require much planning. But it seems you have the basic idea, so you should do fine. My only caveat is that you don’t let anyone talk you into booking the dining plans for both rooms. That will cost way too much and give you way too much food. Perhaps not for men or teenage boys, but for most women and girls, one appetizer, one entree and one dessert are perfect to split. For example, on a deluxe plan, we used 3 Deluxe credits for 4 grown women and just paid cash for the extra glass of wine (okay, more than one extra glass of wine!) Just the other day at Tiffins my daughter and I split an app, entree and dessert, paid for one extra app and one extra beverage. We were full for the rest of the day. I have also found the Disney Cast Members to be really helpful when it came to making the most efficient use of our credits. Don’t be afraid to ask them for guidance. Good luck!
We did the deluxe dining plan for the first 4 trips. When you have kids on the plan it saves a ton. One character meal pays for the plan for a child usually or at least close. You can order either kids or adult meals at the quick service and many table service places so you can have plenty of credits. We went with folks who refused to eat quick service so the deluxe plan was certainly a money saver. iF you make sure you eat a dinner the fist night and stay late on check out day then you will do fine. We had family to visit in FL and would stay off site for a night to do the rounds. We would arrive and check in by lunch so we used two credits on that day. We would share the rest to have enough meals. We sometimes had some snack credits left but the kids loved the lollypops. Now that I have all Disney adults we no longer do this plan. We tend to only do dining now when we have free dining.
We were planning on the Deluxe Dining Plan for our family trip in August, and since my mother is staying in another room figured we would cover her meals on our plan as well. One of the reasons we were going Deluxe is I thought kids meals could be redeemed at quick service restaurants for either adult or kids meals, but after just speaking to Disney they said they had to order off the kids menu at quick service as well. Have you been able to order adult meals at QS. My 8 year old may want more options occasionally then just the kids menu, or we thought my Mother could use one of the kids credits at QS. We have enough adult entrees for all our sit down meals.
Official policy is that children need to order off the children’s menu for any type of credit. But the reality is on the deluxe dining plan the credits do not specify if they are adult or child. It is just one big pool of credits that can be used for table service, quick service, adult, or child meals. Therefore if it isn’t obvious you are ordering an adult meal for a child (for example just one adult goes to the window to order for everyone) it isn’t an issue. Some CMs may look at your plan and say “2 adults and 2 children in your room, you can only order 2 adult meals at a time” but most aren’t looking that closely. And if that were the case you could always have 2 people waiting in line, each ordering 2 adult meals.
I even had a server at a Table Service tell me the kids could order off the adult menu if they wanted on the deluxe plan, but that is the exception and definitely not policy. Sometimes our kids wanted to order off the adult menu, sometimes the kids’ menu. Our strategy was to share adult meals when they had a preference for an adult entree, the portions are so large it’s easy to share.
For example one trip we had a split stay with our last night at a new resort with the deluxe dining plan. We had 4 adults and 2 children. We did Teppan Edo, Citricos (signature 2 credits), and ‘Ohana the next day. That would have been 4 credits per person instead of the 3 on the deluxe plan. But we ordered 4 adult meals at Teppan Edo and Citricos using up just 12 credits instead of 18 at those 2 meals and had a full 6 remaining for ‘Ohana. There was more than enough food and we still had leftovers. That 1 night on the dining plan cost $540 and the total of our dining plan eligible bill was over $933 before tipping and we didn’t even order all the alcoholic beverages for which we were eligible.
I should add that $933 was just the bill for the 3 TS meals. I did not keep track of the value of our 12 snacks or 6 refillable mugs.
This will be my children’s first visit to WDW. I have been planning this for a long time now and came toe the realization that character breakfasts are potentially far more valuable than simply the food. I have been able to strategically schedule them to before park openings, effectively giving us a chance at rope drop with no need to take a break for food until lunch. We also have had our character meet and greets, so no need to make those Fast Passes for meeting Mickey and the gang. This not only saves me time in the parks during the meet and greet times, but the Fast Passes saved enables us to ride more. The Deluxe Dining plan works VERY well if you want to meet characters while eating, thereby taking the time issue out of character meets and eating meals and trying to get inside the park early. Additionally the table credits can be used for show tickets. One morning, we have a character breakfast scheduled before Animal Kingdom opens. That day, we will meet the characters, eat break fast, and be in the park before the opening. But in addition to all this, the meal is part of a dining package, so we get reserved seating for Rivers of Light. This saves time at night since we won’t need to scout out and hold a place for an hour to see the show.
If you plan to do a lot of character meals, the dining plans really can save you a lot of time and money.
That is exactly what I was hoping it will work for. We have just purchased a trip in March with our 2 girls and they are all about character meals. So we have a lunch & dinner booked our 1st night at the hotel and are not even going to the park until the next morning. Plus we have 3 character meals booked that are 2 credits each. The added bonus of one at Animal Kingdom that gives us VIP seats to Lion King without having to wait in line. Fingers crossed this is a good deal for us!