Disney Dining Plan v. Paying Out of Pocket
Walt Disney World’s Disney Dining Plan has become a popular pre-paid “eat what you want” meal plan that some people swear by. It’s especially popular during “Free Dining” season, when it’s offered as part of a package discount (unquestionably the most eagerly anticipated discount of the year for Disney enthusiasts). The Disney Dining Plan is easy to use and if you eat a certain way, or plan well, you can save a lot of money. There’s no question about this, and we even have a number of resources on our site devoted to helping people maximize their savings on the Disney Dining Plan.
What isn’t so clear is whether using the Disney Dining Plan saves you money versus paying out of pocket if you don’t eat the certain way it is designed. If your party consists of light eaters, or you are spontaneous, or are able to use the Tables in Wonderland card, is the Disney Dining Plan right for you?
A lot of guests visiting Walt Disney World just assume the Disney Dining Plan will always save them money, which isn’t always true. In fact, a lot of times it will cost more money than paying out of pocket, and that’s the case even when the Disney Dining Plan is offered for “free.”
Rather than approaching this in the abstract, we decided to do a little “case study,” taking all of our receipts from our most recent 4-day trip to Walt Disney World, adding up our totals, and comparing our out of pocket costs to what we would have spent if we used the Disney Dining Plan. We’ll then examine free dining to explain why that doesn’t always save you money.
Which option “wins”? Let’s break things down…
Case Study
On our recent 4-day Walt Disney World trip, we visited a number of restaurants, both table service and counter service, and had a lot of snacks. Most of our plans for dining were made at the last minute shortly before the trip or on a whim the day of, which meant that we didn’t do the math in advance to determine whether the Disney Dining Plan would have been right for us. Had we booked the Disney Dining Plan in advance, our plans would have changed to better suit the Plan and “save” more money. That said, we ate exactly where and ordered exactly what we wanted while paying out of pocket on this trip.
We arrived mid-afternoon our first day and left mid-afternoon our last day. Here’s where we ate and how much we spent:
Day 1:
Flower & Garden Festival Kiosk – $13.11
Garden Grill – $73.62
Day 2:
Everything Pop Food Court – $7.01
San Angel Inn – $54.92
Flower & Garden Festival Kiosks – $6.92
Artist Point – $120.79
Day 3:
50s Prime Time Cafe – $63.20
Restaurantosaurus – $25.92
Auntie Gravity’s – $5.52
Day 4:
Landscape of Flavors – $10.80
Tusker House – $57.78
Animal Kingdom Snack – $4.25
What We Paid…
Subtotal: $443.84
Tables in Wonderland Proportional Cost: $25
Total: $468.84
What We Would’ve Paid on the Disney Dining Plan…
Disney Dining Plan Cost: $333.54
Out of Pocket Cost: $253.50
Total: $587.04
Unused Credits: 0 Table Service, 3 Counter Service, 0 Snack
Okay, time for a little explanation. How much we spent at each location speaks is the total we paid, including tip (~18%) and less Tables in Wonderland discount. All of these amounts added together form the basis of the subtotal, which is $443.84. Now, since we benefited from a Tables in Wonderland discount, and since that card costs $100 and we take about 4 Walt Disney World trips per year, I’ve attributed $25 of the card’s cost to this trip. That brings the total we spent on food for this trip to $468.84. Follow so far?
Tracking the amount spent gets a little trickier on the Disney Dining Plan. If we were on the DDP, we would have spent $333.54 on the plan alone, which would have given us each 3 credits for table service meals, counter service meals, and snacks (since our trip was 3 nights long).
As for the out of pocket portion there, the Disney Dining Plan does not cover tips, nor does it cover some other things we ordered, like alcohol and appetizers. We also paid for two table service meals out of pocket, since we only had enough credits for 3 table service meals, and we ate 5 table service meals. Here, I made sure to apply the DDP credits in the most efficient manner (so in this hypothetical, I applied a snack credit to a $4.25 cupcake rather than a $2.19 coffee, etc.).
Finally, the unused credits show what we didn’t use. We exceeded both our table service and snack credit allotments, but only had 3 counter service meals, so we would have had 3 credits remaining. Were we actually on the Disney Dining Plan, we would have used all of these credits, and not done one or two of the table service meals that we did. It’s also worth noting that for some meals we ordered appetizers and split desserts (or didn’t order dessert), which wouldn’t have been efficient on the Dining Plan, but we ordered what we wanted since we didn’t have to consider the Plan.
Case Study Conclusion
I normally do this math (very roughly) before each trip based upon menus from places we’re dining to get an idea of whether we might want to use the Disney Dining Plan. The first thing I want to note here is how liberating it was to do things spontaneously and not do this degree of planning (of course, I ended up doing even more work after the fact for this blog post, but whatever) and just eat what and where we wanted to eat without thinking about credits or Disney Dining Plan efficiency.
To that end, I think it’s much more convenient to NOT use the Disney Dining Plan. I say this in our review of the Disney Dining Plan, and I know this flies in the face of why so many people use the Dining Plan, but I don’t possibly see how it’s more convenient to use the Dining Plan than to not use it. Unlike what some people say, you are not “just” paying the cost of the Plan and then forgetting about dining costs and “eating whatever you want.” You’re pre-paying a portion of the cost, then paying another (significant) cost at each meal in the form of tips. Oh, and you can only eat certain things and have to plan the types of meals that work with the Disney Dining Plan, otherwise you waste credits.
When paying out of pocket, you show up where you want, order what you want, and pay for what you ordered. Done. I’m not even going to address the “budgeting” argument, as without extensive pre-planning, you can’t completely budget dining costs with the Disney Dining Plan any more than you can when paying out of pocket. So that’s a wash. Our experience with both paying out of pocket and with using the Disney Dining Plan has been that paying out of pocket is unquestionably more convenient. Any convenience of the Disney Dining Plan is illusory.
More importantly, what about actual savings? Based on my numbers, we clearly saved more money by not using the Disney Dining Plan and instead paying out of pocket and using Tables in Wonderland (we would have saved more even without the Tables in Wonderland card). However, in fairness, those numbers are a bit misleading. As mentioned above, we didn’t eat in a manner that fit the “style” of the Disney Dining Plan, and we had a table service-heavy trip. Honestly, we could have changed our style pretty easily without negatively affecting our experience and that would have made the gap between out of pocket and the Disney Dining Plan a bit smaller. By that, I don’t mean trading Artist Point for a counter service meal (unless there’s an AMAZING counter service restaurant we’ve never heard of, that swap would have had a negative affect on our experience!), I mean not ordering appetizers and instead doing more desserts.
Something that would have negatively affected our experience, but would also have decreased BOTH totals would have been to eat 2 additional counter service meals and 2 fewer table service meals. Obviously, this would have decreased the Dining Plan total more than the out of pocket total since we had the unused counter service credits on the Dining Plan. In fact, my rough math shows that, had we done that, the totals would have been almost even.
My preference is eating whatever I want at any restaurant and dining at the two table service restaurants rather than adding 2 counter service restaurants to the plans, but the point remains. For the sake of fairness to the Disney Dining Plan, we’re showing that a change to our plans could have made a big difference in terms of costs. We don’t want to make it appear that paying out of pocket will always be considerably cheaper than using the Disney Dining Plan, because that’s simply not true. It was true on this one trip we took, but is definitely not always true, even for us. On other occasions, we’ve saved a lot of money by using the Disney Dining Plan! In fact, this article is sort of a “counter-point” to last year’s case study showing how we saved a lot of money on the Deluxe Disney Dining Plan. (Just to show we’re not biased one way or the other…)
This also shows that there is no single answer to the out of pocket versus Disney Dining Plan question in terms of savings. The results can substantially deviate based upon your personal dining reservations, plans, and eating habits. While my numbers illustrate this point, they offer little more than illustration, and are really little more than academic here. The real point is that both paying out of pocket and using the Disney Dining Plan can each be viable options worthy of consideration. In other words, don’t just rely on the numbers presented here–read past them and do your own math if saving money is something about which you really care.
When you do the math, don’t base your calculations on what the Disney Dining Plan provides. Base your numbers on what you’d actually like to eat on your vacation. If you don’t do much snacking at Walt Disney World, but would take home a bunch of bags of Disney candy with unused snack credits if you had to, don’t factor that candy into your calculations. It’s not something you really want, and just because you would use snack credits on the candy (instead of letting the credits go to waste), doesn’t mean those credits are “worth” $4.19 each. Spending more money to “save” more money isn’t really saving money at all–it’s wasting money.
What About “Free” Dining?
I mentioned Free Dining above, and the same principle that the Dining Plan–even when “free”–doesn’t always save you more money. This is something I’ve harped on in the past, and it’s worth sounding like an ornery nag for the sake of hammering home, because many people still don’t seem to understand this: FREE DINING IS NOT FREE.
Walt Disney World almost always has discounts. The place is like the Kohl’s of vacation destinations. No one is paying full price at either place, making full price/rack rates almost meaningless. Since the statement that Free Dining isn’t really free seems to confuse a lot of guests, let’s go through it point by point. Walt Disney World almost always offers discounts on vacations. If you book with one discount, you cannot book with another discount (at least guests from the US can’t). Free Dining is one discount that Disney offers. A room-only discount of 20%/25%/30%/35%/40% off is another discount Disney offers.
It thus becomes a question of opportunity cost. Do YOU save more money paying with free dining and a full priced room and tickets than you do with a room discount and paying out of pocket for food (and with potentially discounted tickets)?
If Free Dining were offered during our visit (it wasn’t), it would have been a far better offer because room-only discounts were meager. Then again, meager room-only discounts partly explain why free dining wasn’t offered. If discounts are meager they are meager across the board, and they are meager because Disney doesn’t need to use them to “persuade” more guests to visit (this is why summer break discounts are so rare). When Free Dining is offered, it’s usually offered in off-seasons when room-only discounts are also usually much more substantial.
It’s frequently true that Free Dining is the best discount. If you have a family of 4 staying in one room, no matter the resort, that’s usually the case. However, if you have a couple staying in a more expensive room, it’s often not the case. Sarah and I frequently staying at Disney’s BoardWalk Inn, which often has a 30% room-only discount or Free Dining when we stay there.
With a 30% off discount at BoardWalk Inn, we save around $125 per night with a 30% off room-only discount during our annual Epcot Food & Wine Festival trip. This is more than the average daily amount that we spend on food, which is why we book the room-only discount at BoardWalk if both discounts are offered. If there were 2 more people staying in the room with us, that would tip the scale in favor of Free Dining. Likewise, a family of 4 staying at a non-Deluxe resort, such as Disney’s Coronado Springs, is probably going to find that they save much more with Free Dining than they do with a room-only discount. I know everyone hates math, but the point, once again, is that you have to do the math for your circumstances to know for sure. Better to suffer through a little math and save some money than just assume based on marketing buzzwords like “free,” be wrong, and end up paying more.
Our example illustrates why it’s important to do some advance planning when it comes to dining at Walt Disney World. You vets out there already know this, but if you’re a first-time visitor or are only really familiar with Disneyland, you may not realize this. Planning your dining is almost as important as booking your airfare. A lot of Walt Disney World restaurants book up months in advance, and the difference in experience between a good and a bad restaurant is like night and day. We highly recommend reading some of our restaurant reviews and checking out menus online before before making your Advance Dining Reservations. Not only will they give you an idea of what restaurants to book, but they’ll help you do the math and figure out whether the Disney Dining Plan or paying out of pocket is right for you!
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Your Thoughts…
Do you typically use the Disney Dining Plan or do you pay out of pocket? What works best for you? I would love to hear what your thoughts are about the Disney Dining Plan, and how it works—or doesn’t work—for you. Share your thoughts in the comments!
went a couple years ago, 1st time with wife and i, and debated back and forth with free dining or 30% off room. stayed in all-star and took the 30% off. doing the math, if i remember correctly, we had a budget (to equal the package price) of something like $900 for food for 6 days, by not taking the meal plan. ate brkfast at resort=cheap, quick lunch=not bad, nice sit down dinner and had drinks=expensive. we would split dinner, as they were very large portions! for snacks during the day i ran out to the grocery store, 1mile run, behind the all-star resorts on the main street and picked up $100 in food. looking back, saved a couple hundred dollars and got to eat what i wanted, where i wanted, and when i wanted. we were happy, as we enjoyed a good challenge to see if we could save money while eating well! this time around we’re going with kids….. uh oh!
My family has used the DDP the last 3 years and found it both convenient and cheaper the not. Now, maybe that is because we have small children who want to do character dining and these buffets are almost equal in price to the daily cost of the plan. so booking a buffet everyday (or almost everyday) the kids get autographs & then the snack/quick service is virtually free.
Everyone is different, but if you would be doing a character dining anyway, the DDP is a better value.
IT’s amazing to me how many different kinds of trips people take, and how many different kinds of groups there are! It seems like the Dining Plan isn’t a good idea for small groups, or couples/ adults, but for my family of 7 (5 kids, 12 and under) it has been a lifesaver! We get to eat at restaurants that we would never even consider if we were paying out of pocket, we get to do character breakfasts (we did Crystal Palace and Cinderella’s Table last time). I know that you are really just pre-paying for the plan, but the absolute freedom of being able to tell hungry kids, “sure, we can have a snack now,” because it’s “included” in the plan, instead of carrying a ton of granola bars, almost does not have a price. I am a complete cheapskate when it comes to eating out at home, and the Dining Plan allows our family to let go, and just enjoy the trip. And we never have hungry kids!!
This is exactly our thoughts on it.
We’re going in April 2016, and got some good discounts, including free dining (we upgraded to Disney dining from the quick dining plan for an additional cost) and $200 to spend at Disney, on anything.
We are very budget conscious people, so being able to order anything we want without constantly thinking about how much we’re spending will take away a huge pressure we normally put on ourselves.
Visiting restaurants we wouldn’t have considered before is a bonus.
Even if it doesn’t save us a huge amount (and the various calculators online suggest we would save a reasonable amount), being free from the pressure of thinking about money on a holiday where you just want to relax and enjoy is worth every penny for us.
we will being visiting in Late Feb 15,Statying at Park 7 days but 2 travel days Family of 5 Kids 12,10,8,
Meal plan has youngest at $23/day but the rest are $63/Day,
That is our conundrum, Do u have to eat at certain places certain days or can you eat anywhere,
Dont really want to have to plan to beat a system,
Want to go and have fun, Pay as you eat seems more beneficial to us considering the older ones age.
Suggestions would be appreciated
I was just looking at the dining plans, and for my family of 5 the Disney Dining package works out to 1543, that’s 305 per person, or around 44 per day. Now, are there limitations on the menu items you can order? Because looking at some of the dinner menus, if you order the steak at Sanaa, well I would say it’s totally worth it! that’s a 40 dinner there alone. So what am I missing here? Where are the “limitations” listed?
We have used the DDP many times as we are DVC members and visit at least once or twice a year. We find it convinient and saves money. However there is one thing that should be changed. The last 4 times we have visited we have had to juggle people and times around because of the really silly rules with DVC. You can get the DDP for your visit but it has to “Per Person, Per Day, for the length of the Stay.” We have had groups of betwee 10 and 19 people in our groups and they all don’t arrive on the same day or stay as long as every one else. If I book a room for 8 for sunday thru friday, and two dont arrive untill Tuesday, and another two leave on Thursday it costs for 3 days that will not be used and people do not want to spend money on things they dont use. I’m sure a system can be developed that will allow persons in this situation to only pay for what they will be there for. LOL Rant Over..
We are going to try this same comparison on our trip next week. We are eating what we want, where we want, and paying out if pocket with TIW. Will tell you how our math works out, although after just a few minutes of math I’m pretty sure I know how it will go… Thanks for all your help!
I want to thank you for your blog. My wife and I are finally able to afford the trip to WDW. We are debating between the dining plan and going with cash. Your blog really helped. I feel the price differences are outrageous. Anyways, thanks again.
Hi all, first thanks for taking the time to write this. I did find something interesting you should also add into your calculations. I am taking advantage of a “winter special” deal they are now advertising for 30% off to stay in a Disney property. I opted for the park passes, hotel, and “Disney Dining Plan” all together (FYI this wasn’t the Play, Stay promotion which they were also offering). I was actually considering taking off the Dining plan but then I realized something interesting: I deducted the cost of my hotel and park tickets, and calculated that the cost of my Dining Plan should have been $1281.89. When I removed the Dining Plan from the deal, I realized that the cost of the Dining Plan was actually only $983.57! At that rate, the Dining Plan would save us around $300.
Even though the deal was advertised as a “30% off of the room offer”, it also discounted my Dining Cost.
I thought this was interesting to mention for those who are buying a package of some sort. Under normal circumstances, I too would opt for paying out of pocket for the flexibility. But in this situation the Plan came out cheaper.
Best to all
Hi Tom,
I have a question after reading your DDP results. We are planning a trip to Disney for 6 Days and will be going to all 4 Parks each day (except 1 day which will be spent at our hotel and Downtown Disney) We have considered using the DDP for the first time although we are not sure if it will be economical for a family of 4 (2 Adults & 2 Kids). We have already made several reservations for many of the restaurants at each park and reservations for our “off-day” at OHanas-Dinner & 1900 Park Fare-Breakfast. You mentioned that you could do a calculation of what would be spent? Can you estimate what it would cost per day for 3 table service meals per park? Thank You in advance!
Miguel
On our trip to WDW in late October 2013, we toyed with the idea of using the Dining Plan. We eventually opted instead to just use cold hard cash, and we’re so glad we did! Almost every time we paid for our food, the cashier would have this look of happy relief on their face. They were so thankful that they didn’t have to apologetically explain what constitutes a snack credit and so on. To me, it just seems easier to use cash. I don’t want to be hungry, waiting in line trying to do the quick math of what I’m allowed to get/not get based on my Dining Plan. Nope, I’ll use cash, and spread some joy to the cashiers. =)
We did the dining plan in February with two teenage boys. I was careful to be sure most of our table service meals were buffets! We also did two character meals- we definitely got our money’s worth! We did the math and it absolutely saved us $ considering how much our whip thin 16 yo can eat!
I’m going with a girlfriend for the food and wine festival and won’t be doing the dining plan- if you don’t like soda and dessert for every meal it’s not worth it at all.
Hi Tom!
I love your website, and I have been using all of your insights to plan our trip for a while now! We have opted to do the dining plan, we are 7 adults traveling without children and I’m hopeful that even if it’s not less money it will be likely in the ballpark.
The only thing I’m having a hard time finding while I’ve been planning my trip is, almost all restaurants on the Disney dining plan specify that some items on their menu are not included in the plan. But I haven’t been able to track down WHICH items in each restaurant are not in the plan. I feel like this makes a big difference in the restaurants I’m booking, but I’ve been kind of fumbling in the dark with this one!
If you could point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated! Not sure if it make a difference but we’ll be there September 14- 20th.
Thanks!
My family just finished a 6 day trip to WDW (June 2014.) The previous year we used the dining plan and had several quick service meals left. This year we decided to opt out of the dining plan and eat where and what we wanted. We ended up saving $400.00. We are a family of 4 ( 2 adults, 2 children.) We ate more sit down restaurants than would have been covered on the dining plan.
I did the DDP mostly because I do NOT want to budget, or save, or look at menu prices. I feel a sense of peace knowing ALL my food is already paid for. Even if I leave a whole half a steak on my plate, I don’t care. 🙂 I have peace of mind knowing this is one less thing I have to budget for. I don’t drink so no worries about high alcohol bills. I don’t order apps so no extra money there. Getting all the ADR’s I wanted and not having to worry about the bill = priceless. 🙂
hi we leave in 2 weeks and we’ve been many other times with our daughter who is now 6. we usually pay out of pocket and skip the DDP (we did DDP on our first trip back in 09 she was still free)
this year i’m bringing my niece and nephew 13 & 9 YO. I had the deluxe and downgraded to the regular one which is 2 counter services. my husband thinks we don’t even need a DDP. I think we should. I’m confused now. Usually the 2 of us share a meal -i think the portions are pretty big. my nephew and daughter can probably share an adult meal since they don’t eat that much and the 13 YO can end up getting the kids meal. what do you think works best? WE are staying at art of animation we’re going for 5 days and 4 nights. we’re going to my families house the first night to and will have dinner there. i’m thinking of asking my cousin to take us to Walmart and get snacks even if we did the DDP. please let me know thanks.
First thing we do when on vacation and staying in a hotel is make a trip to the local grocery store. We pick up on all the essentials, drinks, snacks, fruit, etc. We eat well and only eat out one meal a day. Knowing we’re saving tons of money without making any real sacrifices only improves our experience. When I heard what Disney charged for their plan I was shocked – either their plan is seriously overpriced or the food in the park is. Having a meal plan would only tempt us eat far more than we usually would.
I’m just finishing 4 days, first timer at Disney World. I did the Dining plan but would advise against it. Probably the best thing about it was the plastic refillable mug for unlimited ???? I just used for coffee and hot water/tea and maybe hot chocolate. I don’t drink soda. The sit down meals were all pretty good, BUT the snacks and Counter Service food is basically inedible. All you have to do is see the people willingly eating it and see the results. If you eat healthy and exercise, just a nibble of any of the food I ate (even a salad, pre laden with bobby , fat/salt/sugar dressing) will tell you this stuff is not good for you. DON’T EAT THE COUNTER SERVICE FOOD. Bring your own snacks. And DEFINITELY make reservations in advance for the sit down restaurants.
Hi! I found this review to be very helpful to me. I was debating on DDP vs OOP & I do think for me the better vale would be out of pocket because I am going at the end of May 2014 & we are all either light eaters or VERY picky eaters. with that being said, I do like to get the most out of my $$. Per your comment (See Below)
“With all of the resources available these days on the internet, I don’t see how the DDP helps people budget. If someone tells me their party size and where they’d like to eat, I can give them a dining budget range in about 15 minutes just by glancing at the menus and their price ranges. Pick a number somewhere in that range, and order accordingly.”
Could you if you had time give me some suggestions when you have time. there will be 2 teenage girls & 2 woman. My budget I’m looking at is about $35. Per person for a dinner & I would prefer to spend no more than $10.00 per person. We are all water drinkers for the most part. (BTW loved the “what to bring” blog also). Great tips… I would prefer in the park because we are staying off site, but if you think that it is better off site then I am appreciative on any advice you can give.
I’m actually disappointed that we’re going to WDW during Free Dining. We have a 10 year old who would much prefer to order of the kids menu. I also think having desserts twice a day is ridiculous, and my kids don’t need that much food. On the other hand the room discount at the end of September gives us a less savings than what I would have budgeted for two meals and a morning tea in the parks. Financially it is better for us to go with Free Dining but I suspect a lot of food will be wasted