1 post tagged “dining plan”

This is part of a series of blog entries that I'm gradually putting together about the holiday we just finished in Florida.

For the last five days of our holiday, we were staying at a Disney hotel - the Beach Club Resort, so I decided to add the Disney Dining Plan to the cost of the package. The way that the plan works is quite simple - each member of the holiday gets a counter service point, a snack point and a table service point per day in the package. Those points can be used up however you like and most Disney food locations participate in the scheme. For a counter service meal, you get an entree, a desert and a non-alcoholic drink. For a table service meal, you get an appetiser, an entree, a desert and a non-alcoholic drink. Gratuities are included as well.

Disney claim that you can save up to 40% off the cost of eating by using the scheme so I thought I'd try to do some sums to see if that claim is valid. It turned out to be quite tricky to do the sums, primarily because very few of the receipts had any values attached to them! Still, here is the working out that I've managed to do ...

The table service meals that we had were as follows:

• Monday: Liberty Tree Tavern (Magic Kingdom).
  This is an all-you-can-eat buffet. The receipt didn't have a value on it, but the WDW Info site reckons that this costs $27.99 a head. By my reckoning, tax seems to be about 6.5% so that comes to $59.62. Adding 18% gratuity from the net value ($10.08) brings it to $69.70.
• Tuesday: Le Cellier (Epcot).
  This is a really good steakhouse restaurant - and not cheap! The receipt did have a value on it and the meal that we had came to $96.40.
• Wednesday: Sci-Fi Dine-in Theater (Disney-MGM).
  The receipt for this meal came to $79.26 but doesn't show a gratuity so that would bring the effective value up to $92.66.
• Thursday: Garden Grill (Epcot).
  This is another all-you-can-eat buffet. The receipt value came to $69.70 including the gratuity.
• Friday: Cape May Cafe (Beach Club Resort).
  We kept the last table service points for the breakfast - another buffet. The receipt value was $47.29 including the gratuity.

I didn't work out the additional cost of the dining plan when I was booking the holiday so I've had to do it using dates in July rather than June off Disney's vacation booking service but I don't think it will affect the cost of the plan. By my reckoning, it costs $389.90 to add the dining plan to a five-day package for two people. Adding up the five table service meals alone comes to $375.75.

Unfortunately, none of the other receipts we got for meals have any values on them. From memory, though, most of the counter service meals were going to cost around $25 for both of us. Adding up the cost of the meal at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, for example, comes to $26.74. Five counter service meals at that cost adds $125 to the spend, bringing the total so far to $500.75 and I suspect that is an underestimate because I've gone for an average cost. On top of that are the snack costs - we typically used the snack points to buy a coffee and muffin or something like that as a small breakfast meal ahead of the main lunch.

In conclusion, then, I don't have enough facts to be able to say categorically that the dining plan scheme has made as big a saving as Disney says is possible. That said, it has definitely made a saving of at least $100 over the five day holiday and, without there being much restriction on how you use the plan, that is a reasonable saving to have achieved. In future, I'd probably stay away from the buffet locations in preference of full menu locations as you get more value then.