2010 Magic Your Way Dining Plan

Overview

Disney's dining plans accompany its Magic Your Way ticket system and are available to all Disney resort guests except those staying at the Swan, Dolphin, and Shades of Green, which are not Disney-owned or -operated. Guests must also either purchase Magic Your Way tickets, have annual passes or be members of Disney's Vacation Club to participate in the plan. Except for vacation club members, a three-night minimum stay is typically also required. Click here to see a list of participating restaurants

Three basic types of dining plan are available:

Quick Service

Includes two counter-service meals per person per day, two snacks, a refillable drink mug for each person, and one arcade card per room, good for 30 minutes of play at your resort's arcade. Cost is $31.99 per adult and $9.99 per child ages 3-9, per day.

Standard Dining

Includes one counter-service and one sit-down meal per person per day, and one snack. Cost is $41.99 per adult and $11.99 per child for most times of the year; cost is $46.99 per adult and $12.99 per child during peak times.

Deluxe Dining

Includes three meals per person per day, in any combination of counter-service and sit-down restaurants, plus two snacks and one refillable drink mug person. Cost is $71.99 per adult and $20.99 per child, per day.

Additional dining plan variations are available but they're loaded with options that you'll probably never use completely, so they're usually not a good deal. Check the details on those other plans if you're curious.

A counter service meal includes an entree, dessert and non-alcoholic drink, or a complete combo meal (an entree and a side dish – think "sandwich and fries"), dessert, and non-alcoholic drink, including tax. The sit-down meal includes an entree, a dessert, a non-alcoholic drink and tax. If dining at a buffet, the sit-down meal includes the full buffet and a non-alcoholic drink and tax. The plan allows two sit-down meals to be used for one room service meal at Disney resorts, but this is rarely a good deal.

The snack includes items normally sold from carts or small stands throughout the parks and resorts:

  • One 12oz coffee, tea or hot chocolate.
  • One 20oz Coke product, Dasani Water, Barq's Root Beer, Sprite, Nestea Cool, or Mello Yellow.
  • One pre-packaged milk or juice box.
  • A single serving bag of chips, pretezels or popcorn.
  • A single piece of whole fruit (e.g., an apple, orange or banana).
  • One medium fountain soda.
  • Mickey Premium Bar, Butterfinger Ice Cream Bar, King Crunch Ice Cream Bar, Chocolate Rice Treat Chocolate Stick Rice Treat, or Stick Rice Treat.
  • Tapas and small appetizers at Epcot's Food and Wine Festival.

The plan excludes the following items as snacks:

  • All pizza slices and whole pizza
  • Sides of fish, chicken, or beef
  • Swimming pool bars (e.g., beer and wine) because of the gratuity

Disney tinkers constantly with the definitions of "counter-service meal" and "snack," so ask a Castmember if you're unsure what counts. In one case, a reader reported that he was able to use a counter-service meal to obtain three items and a drink at the Magic Kingdom's Main Street Bakery!

Everyone staying in the same hotel room must participate and choose the same dining plan. Children under 3 eat free if they're doing so from an adult's plate, and children ages 3-9 must order from the children's menu if one is available. Tax is included in the prices listed above, but gratuity is not; you're still responsible for leaving the gratuity at any sit-down restaurant or buffet. Also, an automatic gratuity of 18% may be added for groups of 6 or more, and for items such as alcohol that are not included in the plans.

The plans expire at midnight on the day you check out of your hotel. Unused meals are non-refundable. Extra meals cannot be purchased unless you extend your hotel stay.

How It Works

The dining plans provide each member of your group with a fixed number of meals for each night of your stay. Using the standard dining plan as an example, this consists of one counter service meal, one sit-down meal, and one snack for each night of your stay, at participating Disney restaurants. When you check in to your resort, you'll be credited with a one snack, one counter-service meal, and one sit-down meal, for each person in your party, multiplied by the number of nights in your stay. If you're staying for three nights, each member of your party will be credited with three counter-service meals, three sit-down meals, and three snacks.

All of those meals will be put into an individual meal account" for each person in your group. As an example, let's assume Mom, Dad, teenage Sally and seven-year old Mikey check in to Port Orleans Riverside for a five-night stay in the same room. At check-in, each person's meal account would be credited with the following:

  • Snacks = 1 snack per night x 5 nights = 5 snacks
  • Counter-service meals = 1 meal per night x 5 nights = 5 counter-service meals
  • Sit-down meals = 1 meal per night x 5 nights = 5 sit-down meals

Those meals can be used on any combination of days, so you're not required to eat every meal every day. Thus, you can skip a meal any day and have two of the same meal the next. Adults cannot use child credits to pay for adult meals - they're separated out by each restaurant's computer system. It's technically possible to use sit-down dining credits to pay for counter-service meals, but doing so even once may cost you any money you saved by getting a dining plan to begin with.

Disney's top of the line restaurants, dubbed "Disney Signature" restaurants in the plans, resort in-room dining, and all the dinner shows count as two sit-down meals. If you choose to eat at one of these locations, two sit-down meals will be deducted from your meal account for each person dining.

What You Pay For Each Component in the Dining Plans

A frequent question is whether a Disney Signature restaurant, such as the California Grill, makes financial sense when it costs two table service credits to dine there.

To determine that, however, you need to know how much of the plan's nightly cost is set aside by Disney to cover a table service meal, how much is set aside for a quick service meal, and how much for a snack. And if you're trying to figure out whether you'll save money on the new Quick Service Dining Plan or the Deluxe Dining Plan, the cost of appetizers, refillable mugs and arcade time must also be determined. That's a lot of math, especially if your last experience with algebra occurred when Jimmy Carter was president.

Many spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel, however, come with add-in software that will find solutions for these problems, as long as you know how to set up the equations. Fortunately, that part is relatively easy. If we let a cell named "Q" in Excel represent the cost of a quick service meal, "T" represent a table service meal and "S" a snack, the formula for the standard Dining plan is (2009 prices):

  • (Standard Dining Plan) 1Q + 1T + 1S = $39.99

Let "A" represent appetizers, "G" be 30 minutes of game time at the arcades and "M" be a refillable mug, and we have enough to represent the other two plans:

  • (Quick Service Plan) 2Q + 2S + 1G + 1M = $29.99
  • (Deluxe Plan) 1Q + 2T + 2S + 2A + 1M = $71.99

The Deluxe Plan allows you to eat three meals at any table service or quick service restaurant in Walt Disney World. Why do we assume two table-service and one quick service meals in the Deluxe Plan? We figured that due to the amount of food involved, few folks would want to eat that much in a single day. And it turned out that that assumption might just be exactly what Disney's thinking, too.

Letting Excel do the math, we came up with this set of values for each part of the dining plan:

  • $25.44 - The value of a table service meal under any plan
  • $10.08 - The value of a quick service meal under any plan
  • $4.48 - A refillable mug
  • $2.98 - Appetizers
  • $2.53 - The value of a snack
  • $0.30 - 30 minutes of arcade time

(Technical note: the number of alternate solutions to these equations is large, if not infinite. We won't go into detail here on that aspect of the problem, but drop us a line if you'd like to discuss it further.)

A couple of interesting observations come out of these data. One is that the solutions don't work if you eat three table service meals per day as part of the Deluxe Dining Plan. In fact, we think these numbers show that Disney is also assuming you'll eat two table service and one quick service meal per day. Eating three table service meals, however, is how you'd get the most value from that plan.

A second interesting observation is that the refillable mug also includes the cost of Disney buying the mug itself. Clearly Disney buys these in bulk. Even so, some quick research on the web indicates that slightly less than half the value of the refillable mug comes from the cost of the mug itself, not the drinks in it. And you get to keep the mug.

The value of the snacks and appetizers seem to indicate that Disney thinks most people will be using these most of the time. But the value of the snacks and appetizers also seems to include some of the labor costs associated with getting those items to you. In the case of appetizers, it seems to include the cost of the food and the labor to make the appetizer. For snacks, the value seems to include the cost of having a Disney cast member haul out a whole bunch of soda bottles and stand in the sun to give them to you.

Fourth, the low value placed on the 30 minutes of arcade time seems to indicate that either it's very inexpensive to run an arcade, or Disney doesn't think you'll be using that part of the plan. Keep that in mind when you're considering the value of the Quick Service Dining Plan.

If you're on the Deluxe Dining Plan, using two table service credits is a break-even proposition: the out-of-pocket cost of a typical meal is within a few cents of what the analysis above says it's worth, including appetizers and desserts. If you're on the standard Dining plan, it's rarely a good value to use two table service credits for an entree and dessert at one of Disney's signature restaurants.

Is the Dining Plan Right for Your Family?

Since Disney debuted the dining plans, Unofficial Guide readers have been overwhelmingly satisfied with the dining plan's value, convenience, and variety. Many families also like the idea of pre-paying for their meals so they don't have to track spending during their vacation. Generally speaking, the only complaints we hear are that it's a lot of food to eat during a vacation; and it's more difficult than ever to get reservations at the best restaurants.

You should skip the plan if you prefer to always dine at counter-service restaurants, or if your largest meal comes at breakfast. Poor candidates for the plan also include finicky eaters, light eaters, families who can't agree on restaurants, and those who cannot get reservations at their first or second choice sit-down restaurants.

Our research indicates the standard dining plan saves the typical family around $4 to $7 per person per day, assuming the family uses every credit in the plan. However, skipping a single table-service meal during a visit of five or fewer days can mean the difference between saving and losing money. In our experience, having a scheduled sit-down meal for every day of a weeklong vacation can be mentally exhausting, especially on small children and teens who, as a group, tend to care much less about dining locations than adults. One option, therefore, might be to schedule a meal at a Disney signature restaurant (which requires two sit-down credits), and have no scheduled sit-down meal on another night in the middle of your trip, allowing everyone to decide on the spot whether they're up for something formal. Signature restaurants aren't the best value, but having a meal there might be worth the peace of mind.

Because the margin for saving money is so tight, and because many of the most popular restaurants are fully booked as soon as their reservation window opens, our advice is to book your restaurants as soon as possible, typically 180 days before your arrival in Orlando, and then decide whether the dining plan makes economic sense.

The flexibility of the plan, however, coupled with the number of good quality, participating restaurants overall, means that many families can still save money on dining. We've illustrated six scenarios below showing the potential savings the plan can deliver for an adult at the four theme parks. Each scenario counts a medium-size soda as the snack, lunch in that park's top counter-service restaurant and dinner in the park's popular sit-down.

Magic Kingdom Scenario 1

Least Cost Menu Items Median Cost Menu Items Highest Cost Menu Items
Snack Med. Soda $2.19 $2.19 $2.19
Tax $0.14 $0.14 $0.14
Pecos Bill's Entrée $5.19 $7.19 $8.69
Beverage $1.29 $2.19 $2.19
Dessert $1.99 $1.99 $3.59
Tax $0.55 $0.74 $0.94
Liberty Tree Tavern (Dinner) Entrée $28.99 $28.99 $28.99
Dessert
Beverage
Tax $1.88 $1.88 $1.88
Total $42.22 $45.31 $48.61
Plan Cost $39.99 $39.99 $39.99
Savings (Loss) $2.23 $5.32 $8.62

Magic Kingdom Scenario 2

Least Cost Menu Items Median Cost Menu Items Highest Cost Menu Items
Snack Med. Soda $2.19 $2.19 $2.19
Tax $0.14 $0.14 $0.14
Pecos Bill's Entrée $5.19 $7.19 $8.69
Beverage $1.29 $2.19 $2.19
Dessert $1.99 $1.99 $3.59
Tax $0.55 $0.74 $0.94
Tony's Town Square Entrée $16.99 $18.99 $27.99
Dessert $4.99 $5.49 $6.49
Beverage $2.19 $2.19 $2.19
Tax $1.57 $1.73 $2.38
Total $37.09 $42.84 $56.79
Plan Cost $39.99 $39.99 $39.99
Savings (Loss) $2.90 $2.85 $16.80

Epcot Scenario 1

Least Cost Menu Items Median Cost Menu Items Highest Cost Menu Items
Snack Med. Soda $2.29 $2.29 $2.29
Tax $0.14 $0.14 $0.14
Sunshine Seasons Entrée $6.99 $8.24 $10.49
Beverage $1.29 $2.29 $3.69
Dessert $1.49 $2.79 $3.99
Tax $0.64 $0.87 $1.18
Biergarten Entrée $28.99 $28.99 $28.99
Dessert
Beverage 2.75 2.75 2.75
Tax $2.06 $2.06 $2.06
Total $46.64 $50.42 $55.58
Plan Cost $39.99 $39.99 $39.99
Savings (Loss) $6.65 $10.43 $15.59

Epcot Scenario 2

Least Cost Menu Items Median Cost Menu Items Highest Cost Menu Items
Snack Med. Soda $2.29 $2.29 $2.29
Tax $0.14 $0.14 $0.14
Sunshine Seasons Entrée $6.99 $8.24 $10.49
Beverage $1.29 $2.29 $3.69
Dessert $1.49 $2.79 $3.99
Tax $0.64 $0.87 $1.18
Le Cellier Entrée $19.99 $24.99 $34.99
Dessert $5.99 $6.99 $7.99
Beverage 2.75 2.75 2.75
Tax $1.87 $2.26 $2.97
Total $43.43 $53.60 $70.48
Plan Cost $39.99 $39.99 $39.99
Savings (Loss) $3.44 $13.61 $30.49

Disney's Hollywood Studios Scenario 1

Least Cost Menu Items Median Cost Menu Items Highest Cost Menu Items
Snack Med. Soda $2.19 $2.19 $2.19
Tax $0.14 $0.14 $0.14
Starring Rolls Café Entrée $8.89 $9.19 $9.19
Beverage $1.29 $2.09 $3.69
Dessert $0.99 $2.29 $2.39
Tax $0.73 $0.88 $0.99
50's Prime Time Café Entrée $12.49 $17.25 $20.99
Dessert $4.79 $5.49 $7.49
Beverage $2.00 $2.00 $2.00
Tax $1.25 $1.61 $1.98
Total $34.76 $43.13 $51.05
Plan Cost $39.99 $39.99 $39.99
Savings (Loss) ($5.23) $3.14 $11.06

Animal Kingdom Scenario 1

Least Cost Menu Items Median Cost Menu Items Highest Cost Menu Items
Snack Med. Soda $2.09 $2.09 $2.09
Tax $0.14 $0.14 $0.14
Flame Tree Barbecue Entrée $5.19 $8.09 $10.49
Beverage $1.69 $2.19 $2.49
Dessert $3.29 $3.59 $3.59
Tax $0.66 $0.90 $1.08
Tusker House Entrée $28.75 $28.75 $28.75
Dessert
Beverage
Tax $1.87 $1.87 $1.87
Total $43.68 $47.62 $50.50
Plan Cost $39.99 $39.99 $39.99
Savings (Loss) $3.69 $7.63 $10.51

Sample Dining Schedules for Each Theme Park

Below are sample restaurant choices for days spent in each Disney theme park, plus dining options for arrival and departure days, as well as "rest" days in the middle of your vacation. We've listed the dinner choices in order of overall rating, from highest to lowest, according to the latest rankings from the Unofficial Guide. Participating theme park restaurants that in our opinion do not represent good values are not shown.

Arrival Day

If you arrive early in the morning and plan to visit a Disney theme park or water park, follow the sample plan for that park.

If you arrive in the afternoon or evening, use the snack and counter-service meal today at your resort, and save the sit-down meal for a Disney signature restaurant or character meal later on.

Magic Kingdom Day

Epcot Day

Disney's Hollywood Studios Day

Note that you may be better off paying for dinner out of pocket at Hollywood Brown Derby, while the buffet at Hollywood & Vine is probably a break-even proposition. The Unofficial Guide does not recommend dining at the Sci-Fi Dine-In.

Rest/Water Park Day

  • Breakfast
    At your resort, paying out of pocket.

  • Lunch
    Any counter-service restaurant in Walt Disney World.

  • Snack
    Any snack cart or food stand in Walt Disney World.

  • Dinner
    A Disney character meal or dine at a counter-service restaurant, paying out of pocket, and use this meal on another day.

Animal Kingdom Day

Departure Day

All meals out of pocket.

Click here to see a list of restaurants participating in the Magic Your Way with Dining plan