The Dining Plan
In this post, I'm going to talk about the Dining Plan. My goal is not to convince others that the Dining Plan is good or bad. I believe it works well for some families but not for all. I'm hoping that by sharing our experience and the details of our food costs, I might help other families who are trying to decide whether or not to purchase a Dining Plan.
In 2017 we tried the dining plan and felt like it didn’t quite work for our family. I fully believe it works well for some families, it just wasn't the right fit for us. For our family (keep in mind our daughters were 1 and 3 at the time and we had 5 adults in our party), it was too much food, too many leftover credits, and too much feeling like we needed to order more food than we actually wanted to eat. I also felt, as a vegetarian, that I didn’t get the same value as the meat-eaters in our group. A vegetarian meal is often cheaper than a meal that includes meat.
On the plus side, there were things we liked about the Dining Plan - it was easy to use and pay, no thinking about costs when deciding what we wanted to eat, and fun that we could all pick our own dessert after dinner. We had a lot of snack credits leftover at the end of the trip, which meant we got to pick fun snacks to take home.
Despite the benefits that we enjoyed with the Dining Plan, we knew we were going to skip it on this trip. Also factoring into our decision was the cost for a 4-year-old child. DD4 would have been charged the same as a 9-year-old child. And I can promise you she doesn’t eat as much as most 9-year-olds. So it was an easy decision to skip the dining plan this time.
I was curious whether we would actually save any money by skipping the Dining Plan, so I saved all of our receipts in order to do a comparison back home. We were missing out on the convenience factor of the dining plan, but would it pay off? For us, it did.
I calculated that we saved $637.77.
Just to be clear, I recognize that my calculations were based on a few conditions which might have changed if we had the dining plan. If we had the dining plan, it most definitely would have changed what and how much we chose to eat. For example, if an alcoholic beverage was included with every dinner, we might have consumed more alcohol, which would have made the cost savings less. Or ordered more dessert, or eaten more snack credits. And we probably wouldn’t have cancelled some of the dining reservations we had planned because we would have felt like we already paid for those meals. Which might have annoyed us, but again, would have also led to a fewer “cost savings” than the $637 I calculated.
At the same time, not having the dining plan allowed us to eat how we truly wanted to eat. We let ourselves order whatever we were in the mood for – any entrée, dessert, or drink. We went offsite to Panera one night because we were in the mood for their soup. We didn’t try to cut corners to save money, but only ordered what we truly wanted.
For those who like the details, here they are:
- We spent 9 nights at Disney. If we had stayed onsite and bought the dining plan for 9 nights for 3 adults and 1 child, it would have cost us $2269.98 (not including tips)
- We spent $205.69 on “extras” that would not have been covered by the dining plan. This included appetizers and dessert that wouldn’t have been included with lunch. I also included our Dunkin Donuts and Panera meals that wouldn’t have been covered by the dining plan; I recognize we might not have made those stops if we had been on the dining plan, but if we had wanted to eat offsite for those meals, it wouldn’t have been covered.
- In total, we would have paid $2475 in food (not including tips) for the dining plan + extras. In reality, we spent $1838 not including tips. That’s a difference of $637.
- The Annual Pass saved us $98.41 in dining costs; the cost savings would have been almost $100 less if I hadn’t had the Annual Pass. But even if you subtract the "extras" and the AP savings, we still would have saved $334.
- If we had eaten with the dining plan, we would have had many leftover credits: 3 TS, 8 QS and 19 snack credits remaining. Those QS credits would have resulted in 43 remaining snack credits. We might have used more snack credits if we were on the dining plan, but we still would have been bringing a lot of food home!
- For those interested in budgeting, we spent about $220 in tips at 9 sit-down restaurants. We typically tip 18-20%.
In summary, I think the Dining Plan can make sense for some families depending on your eating habits and where you want to eat. With careful planning, you could probably come out ahead on the dining plan. I also see the convenience benefits: not having to take your credit card out at every meal, not having to worry about looking at prices because you’ve already paid, not feeling guilt if you want an alcoholic drink or dessert with dinner because it’s covered. It was even kind of fun to have a few credits remaining last year so we had treats to take home.
But all that said, the $637 we saved was worth it in my mind, especially for our family situation (combination of young kids and vegetarians in the family). It was nice for us to go off site for a few meals since we had a car and could. The flexibility was important to us on this trip.
So there you go! I’m happy to answer any questions.
Now it’s time to start planning our 2019 trip! I’m not sure I’ll do an official PTR, but I will check-in again here with our plans as they are forming. Thank you to everyone who has followed along!