11/1/22

Hey, Remember the Dining Plan… Good Times… Goooood Times

Nov 1, 2022

Ah, The Disney Dining Plan. The DDP is truly one of the most polarizing aspects of a Disney trip among fans. There are some who absolutely swear by it. There are others contending that you are effectively setting fire to your hard earned money if you use it. Of course it’s a moot point currently as it has not been restarted since the closure of March 2020, but the question that everyone has, detractor and stan alike is: when will it return, if ever?

While this is not an “informational” website, I do feel as though I need to give a cliff notes version of what the Disney Dining Plan is and how it works. The DDP was a prepaid meal plan for your vacation. It had a few tiers: The Quick Service plan, the traditional Dining Plan, and the Deluxe Dining Plan. A few months before the 2020 closure, they had added a fourth tier called the DDP+. (Of course it had a “+”) Just blot this from your memory. It wasn’t even around long enough to lose its baby teeth. All of the plans allowed you to prepay for your meals before you arrive on property. These were allocated as credits per day. The traditional Disney Dining Plan had 2 snack credits, 1 quick service credit, and 1 table service credit per day. The quick service Dining Plan had no table service credits but 2 quick service meals and 2 snacks. The Deluxe Dining Plan had 3 meal service credits to use for either table service or quick service plus the 2 snacks.

There were other intricacies involved (signature restaurants using 2 credits, gratuities not included, dicing one credit into 3 snack credits, etc.) but well keep the details to a minimum as that is not what I want to discuss. The prices for the plans were: QSDP - $55.01 for adults, $26.00 for children (Age 3 – 9), DDP - $78.01 for adults, $30.51 for children, and Deluxe Disney Dining Plan - $119 for adults, $47.50 for children. A question you may ask would be: does each credit have a specific dollar amount? No. It will largely depend on how you use them, where you eat, and what you order.

At those price points, I will be the first to admit that it is difficult to get an actual value from any of these plans. To make these programs worth it financially, you must be intentional. Less than 5% of families are going to organically get value from the Dining Plans unless you are eating character meals for every table service meal.  My family has leveraged the standard Disney Dining Plan and gotten value from it, but we had smaller children at the time. We did a LOT of character meals. We would use our snacks in the morning at the food court for breakfast, a counter service lunch, and a table service dinner. It is really the table service meals that will determine if you’re going to get your money’s worth. If you plan to eat at Sci-Fi, The Plaza, Yak & Yeti, Via Napoli, and Teppan Edo – you’re going to lose a lot of money. However, we were doing Chef Mickey’s, Crystal Palace, ‘Ohana, and Whispering Canyon. We actually came out ahead, but not by much. On the old DisBoards I would talk about using the DDP and I would get crucified. YoU ArE lOsInG mOnEy! doN’t yOu LiKe mOnEy?!

To be honest, I believe that even people who know they might not get the full value out of the plans still use them because of the convenience factor. If you had told me that I was going to lose $100 on the whole deal, I still probably would have done it just because it is nice have no stress. I am much more likely to order less expensive items and pinch pennies when I’m staring at the prices in the menus, knowing I’m paying out of pocket. When I’ve prepaid and don’t have to worry about peasant problems like prices, I become very “emperor of Rome” like. I sit next to the lobster tank and say things like “bring me the brown one, he amuses me.” I order the filet. I don’t order water. I stuff my kids until their left arm goes numb whilst still trying to shove tiramisu down their gullet.  You get it? It has that all-inclusive feel. I dig that.

So will the Dining Plan come back? Take it to the bank! I believe staffing and capacity are the only reasons it hasn’t returned yet. As we’ve learned, most people don’t even get close to maximizing the value of the plan, so Disney makes money hand over fist with those plans. As a travel advisor, I am honest with my clients about the challenges with achieving actual value, but also how nice it is to have everything prepaid, especially if you have an Ebenezer in your party. Naturally there is no timeline on this, but as staffing increases and on-property restaurants continue to reopen, you can be certain it’s coming back!