Disney Dining Plans

All three dining plans work by adding meal credits to your account to be used during your stay. You access the credits by scanning your Magic Band at a cash register or having a server scan it at a table service restaurant.

Your credits are immediately accessible upon check in (even if your room is not ready) and can be used up until midnight of the day you leave (even if you’ve already checked out).

The credits are not meal specific, you can use any type of credit at any time of day. Instead, they are specific to the type of venue you are visiting. A table service credit must be used to purchase a meal at a table service (sit-down) restaurant, and a quick service credit must be used at a quick service restaurant (where you pay a cashier and take your food on a tray).

Snack credits are for single serving type items and can be used at a wide variety of places across property from food carts in the parks to quick service restaurants to your resort’s food court to gift shops. You’ll know an item can be purchased with a snack credit because you’ll see the DP logo next to it:

The snack credit is really versatile. Sometimes we’ll use them for breakfast items at the resort. Other times we’ll use them for desserts or snacks at the parks. Sometimes we’ll have a late breakfast and an early dinner and use them in between. One thing we never do is use them for drinks – that doesn’t give you much bang for your snack credit buck.

Here’s a list of the types of items you can get for a snack credit:

Popcorn
Soft Pretzel
Cupcake
Ice Cream Bar
Funnel Cake
Soda
Fresh Fruit
…. You get the idea!

You also get a Rapidfill Mug for each guest on the dining plan. This refillable mug works at your resort for coffee, tea, hot chocolate, soda and lemonade. Plus it makes a nice souvenir!

The Quick Service Plan

With the quick service plan, you get Rapidfill mug, 2 quick service meal credits and 2 snack credits for each night of your stay. You can spread these credits out and use them whenever you like. Each quick service meal comes with one entree and one beverage (can be alcoholic for adults over 21).
In addition to the lower price, one advantage of choosing to only dine at quick service venues is that you’ll be less tied to a schedule since you don’t need to (actually cannot) book them in advance.

The price of the 2019 quick service plan is $52.50 for adults and $23.78 for children 3-9. Those prices are with tax and per night of your stay. With all the dining plans, you must purchase it for your length of stay, and each person age 3 and up in the room must purchase it.

The Plus Dining Plan

This one has never been named well. It’s really just the Disney Dining Plan. Sometimes we call it Plus Dining (like “Magic Your Way package Plus Dining) or Regular Dining. This is by far the most popular plan – as well as the most practical and best value.

With the Plus Dining Plan, you get 1 quick-service credit, 1 table-service credit, and 2 snack credits for each night of your stay (plus the Rapidfill mug).

I discussed quick-service meals already. Table service meals are those served at sit-down restaurants. You’re sat by a hostess and served by a waiter or waitress. Some of these are buffets. All of the character meals use table-service credits.

Your table service meal will include a full entree and dessert (or buffett) and a beverage (again, this can be beer, wine or a cocktail if you are of age). Children must order off the children’s menu when there is one.

This is actually a pretty good value when you see the menu prices for Disney’s restaurants. If you want to eat at a few sit-down restaurants, this is the route to go. 2019 per night prices are $75.49 for adults and $27.98 for children aged 3-9.

The Deluxe Dining Plan

The Deluxe Dining Plan is the most all-inclusive (and of course the most expensive). This plan is more popular with adults traveling without children, or foodies in general, but it can also work well for families with children.

The Deluxe plan includes 3 full meal credits (can be used at table service OR quick service), plus 2 snack credits. And of course the refillable mug.

Another perk is that when you visit a table service meal for lunch or dinner, your meal credit will get you the typical entree, dessert and beverage PLUS an appetizer. For each person. That’s a lot of food!

Because you can use your meal credits at quick-service or table-service restaurants, you’ll obviously get a lot more bang for your buck if you do three table-service meals a day. That might be a bit too much time sitting in restaurants for most travelers. Most of my clients who get the Deluxe plan do so because all the extra credits allows them to do more “Signature Dining.” There are a handful of the fancier places that fall into that category, plus the three dinner shows and Cinderella’s Royal Table. These Signature Dining venues will charge you two credits per person. So if many of those restaurants are on your list, you may want to upgrade to the Deluxe plan.

The Deluxe Dining plan is $116.25 for adults and $43.49 for children 3-9 per night in 2019. Sounds high until you add up what you’d spend at a Signature restaurant. A recent dinner at California Grill ended up costing me $107.50 (for just me). Add a character breakfast at Akershus at $52.19 per adult, and I’m up to $160 – and that’s not including the two snack credits I’ll use in between (around $10 worth) and the value of the mug! So for the right person, it can be a very good value.

If you need more help deciding which dining plan is right for you (or if you need one at all), send me a note through my Contact page. My travel planning service are free to all my clients who book their vacations through me, and there are never any added fees.