is the disney dining plan worth it?

[poohbear]

Assuming two young children and two tired adults LOL is the dining plan really worth it or would it tie us in too much?

we really dont want to have to stay on disney all the time either

[robertcraig]

disney dinning is great but only if you use it all the time if you are going away from wdw it is not worth while

[Mari]

I think its worth it when free diding is around

Otherwise, if you dont plan to stay IN Disney 100% of the time, it will tie you down, plus, there are lots of cheaper and sometimes better eating options outside Disney

[Johnie]

If you want to visit other places, then no it isn't a good deal.

If you plan to stay on Disney property and eat all meals there, then yes it can be a good value. Also with little ones, it can be too much to have a set schedule if you know what I mean.

[Britchick]

Only if it's free. I think it's better value if you have older children, it's going to save me a small fortune.

[Deafjeff]

Hi, I had dining plan for the first time last month and I was amaze at how much money we saved. (We eat at WDW) also it brilliant for collecting drinks in the morning as we buy one of the free refills and get a juice and water each for the day.

When we go back (not if but when!) we will have dining plan again for sure!

[Captain Teague]

The deal with Disney is you have to plan, plan, plan. If you go with the intentions of NOT staying in Disney all the time then it is not worth it.

If it's free then you have to be staying on a Disney property anyways so why not use the dining plan.

If your children are very small then it may not pay off. You can research the restaurants and judge for yourself the prices and come up with about how much you will spend on meals each day out of pocket. Then compare that with the plan and see if it will pay off. it all depends on how much time you plan to be in Disney and then out of Disney.

[Mama Dee]

Does the dinning plan cover all dinning in the hotels?

[CHURCHSTT]

We love it!! We had the DDP our last trip (5 yrs ago!) and I said then that I would never do Disney without it again. We were there for 10 days, spent 2 days at SeaWorld (those days we ate bfk at resort and dinner at Downtown Disney, took at Disney snack with us to SW). We ate great the whole time. We would never have eaten at the sitdown restaurants that we did. Adding up the money on our receipts compared to the amount of money we paid per person for the plan, we saved lots of money.

So excited that we are going in October and the DDP is free!!! woot woot!!!

To answer your question, I think it is worth it!! (even when it is not free)

[Clarkkent]

We've used the Dining Plan twice and paid in cash another time and I cannot remember any remarkable difference in either the service or food quality. If there are mad children running about and being naughty: well it's a Disney Park where they're encouraged to be excited and I tend not to notice (though one did jump the queue when I was trying to get a picture with Tigger at CP, little minx ).
We do tend to go when the children (in the UK) are back to school, so perhaps the parks are quieter and therefore the restaurants can manage more effectively.

One thing we did take advantage of was to book all our meals online via the Disney website a few months in advance, guaranteeing we ate in the places we wanted to. Pretty much all of them waved us straight in without a wait.

Would I use the Dining Plan again? Yes.
Did it save us money? Hell yeah.
Am I bothered that children run around being a little mad: not really.
Is typing questions and answers in this way at all annoying? Probably