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’ll be heading down during the last part of the Flower and Garden Festival — I can spend my snack credits at the festival or do I have to have a ticket to the festival to even go to it? I sound like a noob but I’ve never been down there during any type of festival, nor have I ever had the dining plan until this trip. Anyone with experience can answer. Thanks ahead of time.
You can use snack credits for some festival items! And no special ticket needed,just entry to Epcot. Enjoy!
I’m looking forward to it as well, two more weeks! 🙂
We almost always get the deluxe dining plan and count it a splurge. We reserve a signature experience every night and have either a table service breakfast or early lunch. If we have extra snack credits, se stock up before we leave at places like Main Street Bakery. Our meals would easily cost more out of pocket, but we normally don’t eat lobster or steak when we are home.
Exactly us too! We always book the deluxe dining plan for 7 night 8 day stay (14 trips and 15th is booked). We book a one signature meal everyday, either for lunch (Canada) or a late dinner. Except for one day out of our week stay we will eat dinner at The Calm Bake which is one dining credit and that saves us a credit for our check out day. We have never left Disney with unused dining credits and never eaten 3 meals a day. We are Steak and Seafood Folks.
I need some advice on the best dining plan to get for a split stay for a family of 4 with 3 adults and 1 kid. I’m doing bounce back dining included at pop, paid to have it upgraded to regular dining plan(5 nights). The next part of the trip is dvc points for copper creek(4 nights), should I get the quick service plan and pay out of pocket for table service( only 1 night will be a 2 credit show) or get the deluxe for only 3 people and share credits?
From what I’ve been told by DVC, everyone who is in the room would need to be on the Disney dining plan.
Hope this helps someone, We are a family of 5, 2 adults 3 kids, and the grandparents are going 2 adults. Total of 7 people, 2 rooms. We got the Deluxe plan for our room at a reduced cost bc of the kids and then no dinning for my parents. I think it is 7 days. We have enough credits to do 42TS adult 63 TS kids. We are going to use 40TS Adult and 30TS kids which leaves us with 35QS meals for us all to share and 70 snacks. It was actually cheaper to do the one room deluxe vs both rooms middle.
When is your trip? I would love to hear how things worked out for you. I have been contemplating something similar. We are a party of six, four Disney adults and two kids. I’m tired of only having Art of Animation and the Cabins at Ft. Wilderness as options for rooms for us, both with one bathroom. So, I am looking at resorts where we can afford two rooms (two bathrooms!). That made me realize that we could get DDP for only one room, one I would designate as two adults, two kids. That should get us plenty of meals and snacks, and would help with the fact that one of our “adults” is an 11yo who eats as lightly as his younger siblings, and one child, our youngest, a 4yo, still is satisfied sharing a meal with me. (Whereas our teen might bankrupt any buffet we visit.)
GL! Have a good trip!
I did something similar to this on a family trip. Without boring you with the details of how it all worked out, be assured that we were able to feed five to six people every day fairly easily with only 3 actually on the dining plan. We did just as you said…shared with the little one and two adults that aren’t big eaters also shared meals.
Another vote for this strategy. We had 1 family onsite, 1 family off site. Bought deluxe dining plan for the onsite room for 5 and shared among 9 people. It was still too much food!!! But definite cost savings over out of pocket for the same meals. We probably would not have ordered that much without the dining plan so that is another consideration, but it was a nice splurge.
Georgina and Anne
Would you please share the dates of your trips. I’m seeing mixed messages on sharing of Disney credits with folks not on the plan. I want to book the deluxe dining plan but I’m a little concern Disney might not let us share with our friends who aren’t on the plan.
We shared the deluxe dining plan January 2018. At that time the official published policy was that credits could be used for others at the same table who were not on the plan. I saw no posts that the policy changed for 2019, but haven’t personally looked at it this year.
When they made the change to officially sanction shared credits there were a bunch of blog posts about it (along with the dessert/snack change). I would expect if the policy changed to no longer allow shared credits there would be a big flurry of posts, since a new cupcake often gets 1000 words on every Disney news outlet.
In our case we had one of the off site people on our onsite reservation. That way all 9 of us didn’t have to dine together for every meal.
We did the DXDP for a longer trip, and it was a total FAIL for our family. We couldn’t begin to eat all of the food (we didn’t use any of our snack credits, and ended up taking home a suitcase of Mickey rice crispy treats). We weren’t remotely hungry by dinner time, and if we waited until we were hungry, our daughter was asleep at the dinner table.
We felt guilty and wasteful or ripped off if we didn’t eat everything, and stuffed to the gills and slightly bilious if we did. We would have come out ahead just ordering what we wanted wherever we wanted. (Just our experience. YMMV.)
We’re doing the Deluxe plan. I’ve done a LOT of research and planning and looking at menus and making spreadsheets, blah, blah 🙂 and for our 7 day trip we are going to come out roughly $340 ahead – which pretty much covers the tips we’ll have to pay over the course of the trip.
I know it’s a lot of food. And time. For us, part of the vacation experience will be the restaurants, including character dining (2 breakfasts, 1 dinner) and signature restaurants for dinner every night – other than Snow White char meal one evening. I am looking at the time in restaurants as down time – in the A/C – off our feet. Talking and enjoying time with one another. And the character meals are an attraction in themselves for our son.
We won’t go hungry – that is for sure. It remains to be seen if we end up not using a bunch of credits because we hit a food wall – but ultimately – the value to me is having it paid for – covered – done.
We can order the appetizer! Order a glass of wine or fru-fru cocktail at an outrageous price – and not feel guilty. It’s already paid for.
The last thing we want to do on vacation is guilt trip ourselves every time we look at a menu – which is exactly what we would do if we didn’t do the dining plan.
For the most part we’re doing breakfast – skating through lunch using snack credits or getting something small OOP and then finishing with later dinner.
Fingers crossed it works well for us!!!
I completely agree! Having paid for the food ahead of time and having the freedom to choose what you want knowing it won’t cost any more than what you already paid is a great relief. It also means my teenager won’t feel guilty about ordering food he wants, instead of looking at the prices.
Best of all, it lets me choose meals I know my kids will enjoy – for the food/ experience/ timing/ and even in some cases, the show that comes with the meal. My favorite “hack” will always be to schedule a character breakfast (preferably with a ticket for some show or parade later) before the park opens. That way, you get time with your family, chances to meet and greet characters, fed for breakfast, and in the park before the official time, which can lead to some wonderful pictures of the castle when no one is in front of it. 🙂
We love the DDP and this will be our 2nd time adding it to our trip. We only visit Disney every 2-3 years so it’s a splurge we enjoy, as we like to dine at signature restaurants or do a dinner show. We usually do an early breakfast or brunch and then a late dinner with snacks in between. It’s a lot of food which is why we give ourselves plenty of time between meals.
It really depends on what you are looking for during your trip. My daughter and I have gone two or three weeks a year for the last twelve years. Most of the visits included the middle dining package. It wasn’t until we booked dining at Monsieur Paul a couple years ago where things changed. The first couple of visits after that we were using 2 table services from the middle dining plan and just paying for our dinners after we used up pur allotment. Now we do signature dining every night at places like Citricos, Flying Fish, etc.
I’ve found it works best to book your signature dinners a bit later and at or near places that are open later. Something like Flying Fish for 6:30 at The Boardwalk followed by walking to the rear entrance of Epcot near England after dinner on a night it’s open late.
I usually plan to take a Lyft (if i didnt drive down from NJ) as soon as I get to Disney. I go to Walmart for about $20 round trip. I pick up a bunch of breaksfast stuff (cereal, milk, breakfast bars, and lots of water to throw in my backpack for the day).
Here is how we do it.
8am wake-up
Eat light breakfast in the room
Noon at Crystal Palace for lunch with Eeyore
6:30 at Citricos for signature dinner
Back to Magic Kingdom for their late night
8am wake-up
Eat light breakfast in the room
Noon at San Angel Inn for lunch
6:30 at Flying Fish at the Boardwalk being Epcot
Back to Epcot for their late night
Schedule your signature dinners based on their location and when the late night for the park next to it. Works out better.
This is probably a better plan for people who have been to Disney before since we arent going to wait on a line for 3 hours for something we have done 20 times. But you can bwat that stuff too. Why wait 2 hours for Mount Everest when you can go 45 minutes before closing and ride it 4 times.
Wondering if this will work for us… we have 6 people (4 adults 2 kids) split between 2 rooms. We were thinking of adding dining to only the room with 1 adult and 2 kids. Last time we were able to use the credits for anyone in our party just hand to make sure our magic band was swiped. We are going to CRT, Marrakesh, Tusker House, and Ohana. That would eat up all the adult credits and leave 32 kid credits we could use at quick service locations (where they are treated the same as adult credits) + snack credits. At a cost of $1465 for that room that seems like a better deal than paying out of pocket for those TS restaurants which I’m estimating at $1000…..thoughts?
I haven’t done exact calculations for what you have planned, but I can tell you we almost always book a dining plan for just one of the two rooms we take. Table service entrees are big enough to share, so we’ll order only two or three to split among four adults. Keep in mind one QS credit can be used for up to 3 snacks if you order them at the same time. Sharing is the key.
If I did a split stay, 3 different stays, 3 nights each back to back I could book deluxe dining on the first party of my stay and use it on day 4 until midnight (day of check out.)
If I have a value resort the second part of the stay, day 4, 5 and 6 that would leave me with no dining on only two days (days 5 and 6.)
Then on the third part of my stay I could get dining and use it until midnight on the day of check out, which would be day 10. 🙂
Tom,
Do you have any tips for using deluxe dining when I have 3, 3 night stays booked back to back? A total of 9 nights.
Thanks.
We have included the Deluxe DDP on several WDW resort vacations. We enjoy the whimsy of characters dining for bfast, Kona Cafe bfast, Gr FL bfast and signature dining for dinners at the likes of Jikos, Tiffins and California Grill. Snack credits are fun for MIckey Bars, Ample Hills Creamery and such treats. Definitely works well for us.
I have done the deluxe Dining Plan and plan on doing it again in fact very soon next month. When I went to Walt Disney World there was a total of 6 of us. We literally ate at Cinderella’s Royal table four different times one for morning one for lunch and two for dinner all on completely different days of course. I ordered a Rapunzel cake with a tiara a princess balloon to go with our meal I had to make for sure I made that reservation well in advance for placing that order you have to do that through your email then on another occasion for breakfast after they got done I had chocolate slippers with their names written on the plate in chocolate and also white chocolate crowns with their names written in chocolate on the plate given to them that again has to be ordered ahead of time and then on another meal I had had the glass slipper came with the rose petals to give them different experience and something more meaningful and special those extra things were the only thing I needed to pay out of pocket for because they were on my dining credit and I didn’t have to pay a tip at Cinderella’s Royal table . We also ate at Be Our Guest three different times for Breakfast early breakfast so we can be in the park before it opens
You can place your order ahead of time at Be Our Guest so you’re not really waiting at all . We had breakfast at 1900 Park with Alice in Wonderland the Mad Hatter Mary Poppins. We had lunch at the Crystal Palace with Winnie the Pooh and his friends. We had breakfast at Garden Grill with Chip and Dale and we did that first thing in the morning so we didn’t need a fast pass to get on the ride Soarin. We had breakfast at Ohana’s with Lilo & Stitch. We did dinner at Spirit of Aloha at the Polynesian Resort we very much enjoyed the show. We had lunch at theTusker house with Donald Duck Daisy. We had breakfast at Chef Mickey’s with Mickey Mouse and friends. We had dinner at Boma’s . We had dinner atChef De La France I personally didn’t care for it. We also had dinner Akershus Royal Banquet Hall where you take your picture with Bell first and then the other Disney characters. I honestly like this one over Cinderella’s Royal table and at least this one’s only a one table Credit Service .Biergarten restaurant we had lunch at. So for my family for our trip it was completely worth it. We also ate at Hollywood and Vine for breakfast so we can be in the park right away show for Fantasmic Plus the Disney Junior characters for my children were there .we had lunch at the Sci-Fi restaurant and we had dinner at 50 prime time. This time when we go they’ll be a total of 8 of us have a large family my kids like to eat and we don’t feel like waiting in line for characters so this gave us an opportunity to do all table service and to enjoy shows and meet characters. Time when we go we’re adding on some other restaurants we haven’t ate at like coral reef and Tiffins cuz at that time they had just open and I couldn’t get a reservation because they weren’t officially open yet. Hoop-Dee-Doo musical Revue everyone keeps talking about. Along with some of our many favorites. A lot of blogs talk about the Quick Service in the Dining Plan not very many talk about the deluxe Dining Plan and the ones they finally do talk about the deluxe Dining Plan don’t really maximize on what you could truly make of it and how you can really get your money’s worth . If you have a large family like me with lots of kids and you guys like to eat I would recommend the deluxe Dining Plan at least once going to Disney World because it has a lot of pluses when you book restaurants that have shows and character coming to your table and interacting with you. The deluxe Dining Plan gave my family lot
of wonderful amazing memories. My kidd complain about being hungry so those snack credits really came in handy. We really use those snack credits well . And we were surprised by some of the amazing things you can get with your snack credit. We didn’t use it on water because you can get water for free most people don’t ask a lot of people forget over and Epcot free soda . So I say it’s totally worth it if you Having the characters right there just made their day. I say the deluxe Dining Plan is not worth it if you plan on doing a quick service and you don’t have reservations for Table service. And I was on a very strict budget so this help a lot.
I wanted to say thanks for this tip! My family is doing a split stay our next trip due to a deal on points we have at the Swolphin.
We’re a family of four, and we booked our first 2 nights at Fort Wilderness . After reading this, I did the math and added the deluxe dining plan. It cost us about $600. As long as our reservations work out according to plan, we’re going to use 2 credits at Mickey’s BBQ our first night ($200), 2 credits at HDDR our second night ($220), and 2 credits at CRT our third night ($260). So, the plan will cost $600 while those meals would have cost $680. In addition to saving a minimum $80 on those meals (a little over 12%), we’ll get a total of 16 “free” snack credits to share for breakfast and lunch.
For several years we have saved almost 50% with the Deluxe Dining Plan for two adults every year. We do exactly what you mentioned as one way to hack the DxDP. We eat a 1 credit ts breakfast usually a character breakfast in late morning after either sleeping in or spending a few hours in a park. Then we eat a late dinner usually after 8:00 pm at a signature restaurant ordering steaks, seafood and other expensive entrees. We also have always had free dining plan which we upgrade.
Hello,
I have a question regarding this “hack.”
I have a split stay booked for later this summer. Three resorts with the dining plan being part of the 4 night stay in the middle. If my understanding is correct, this effectively gives me 5 full days to use the dining credits as I will be able to use them all day on the day I check in and until midnight on the day I check out. Using them on the day of check out seems pretty straight forward but I have a question about the day of check in. At what point can I start redeeming them? Do I actually have to check in at the new resort and if so can this be done online?
Basically what I am trying to determine is if I am good to book a breakfast reservation at AKL on the day we check out and be able to use my dining credits for it or if I have to actually head over to Pop and “activate” the credits somehow. In which case an 8:00 am reservation loses some of its appeal.
I am having a hard time finding an answer on this specific question through Disney’s official channels so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Here’s what happened to us in December, that should answer your question. We had our dining plan booked for our whole stay and I checked in online before arriving. I was told by Disney (called them and asked) that our credits would be available to us as long as we checked in online. I asked them this b/c we planned on going straight to the park before checking into our resort. Well, that didn’t work! Thankfully, we stopped at the resort first to offload our luggage and grab a bite to eat. The on-site restaurant didn’t show any credits available and told me I had to check in first, at the front desk, before my credits would become active.
If I were you, I’d be sure to check in at Pop before counting on those credits being available. Maybe you could call Pop Century too, and have them add it that morning so you can still do your AKL breakfast.
Thanks for the info. I posed the question with Disney Parks Mom Panel and they said the credits would be available that morning as long as I do the online check in. But I am a little nervous about it.
I ended up changing AKL to Beach Club (my kids are going to be excited about Stormalong Bay!) and have a 9:00 am reservation at Cape May. So now the journey over to Pop to confirm the credits will be good doesn’t seem so bad.
I would like to try this out. I am an AP holder and want to stay 1 night at Pop Century at the beginning of my stay (the other days will be stayed at Disney Springs hotel). Do I book my one night online, then call Disney to add the Deluxe Dining plan? Or call Disney and book the 1 night and add the dining plan all over the phone? What is the best course of action?
Thanks!
Kelly
OK. The Big Question Is…. If my stay is 10 days, can I buy 3 days of the delux plan, 9 table service credits, and the expiration is midnight the day of checkout ???
First unless you split the stay somehow, when you purchase the dining plan, it applies to every night of your stay. Also, even if you do split your stay, what I found out on our trip in December was that the credit associated with the first part of the split stay, expires at midnight of your checkout for that part of that stay. For example; we bought the deluxe plan for our trip to Poly for 2 nights, and then Boardwalk for 4 nights (the stays were back to back with no open night in between). What I was told by Disney before heading down, was that the first 2 nights credits would still be available to us until the checkout at Boardwalk, but in fact, we ran out of credits at midnight of our checkout from Poly. Thankfully, it didn’t cost us anything but it sure could have! The concierge was willing to add 4 snack credits back on for the rest of our stay at Boardwalk and we had a snafu at Poly where a lunch was deducted from our credits, but it just worked out that our credits used those first 3 days were exactly how many we had alloted (I didn’t plan that out that way; it just happened).
Nope, you have to buy it for your whole stay.
We go every couple of years and get the deluxe plan. It was nice to upgrade from free dining. Since no kids involved we enjoy the dining as a fun part of our trip. Last time we did double credit meals at Animal Kingdom Lodge (which was excellent), Wildernesses Lodge (do that one every trip and stay there) and Canada. We eat a lot more than normal but it is a planned part of our vacation. Also, take most of our snacks home.
Thank you for the great post on this, IMO, the beat deal of Disney’s dining plans. For the second year in a row, my family of three (including a 5 yr old) will be using this plan. And the key point as you listed is this plan allows for the booking of multiple signature spots. This way you know you’re getting the (usually) best food spots on property. For our 9 night trip we’ll be sampling yachtsman, boathouse, California, and flying fish while having enough credits for character breakfasts every morning plus table service every night we don’t have signature lined up.
This also allows for a few lunches (hello resort day) and tons of snacks that will come in handy for the flower and garden stands. Alcohol included is the cherry on top as who likes paying premium for a beer or cocktail?