The Disney Dining Plan is BACK in 2025 but is it actually worth it this year? The answer is more complicated than you think.
But don’t worry! You can watch this video for our complete guide to Disney’s Dining Plan.
EXPOSING the Disney Dining Plan
Need to catch up on past AllEars videos? Check out our links below!
AllEars TV
- AllEars TV: 18 Things You MUST DO In Universal Hollywood
- AllEars TV: COMPLETE GUIDE to Disney Springs
- AllEars TV: Why You NEED to “Rope Drop” In Disney World & How To Do It!
- AllEars TV: I Turned Disney World Into a GIANT Escape Room
- AllEars TV: Mickey Tie Dye, Campfire S’mores, FREE Merch & More! – Everything in Disney World in 100 Days
What video do you want to see from AllEars next? Let us know in the comments!
Over the years, I’ve seen the comment about the ‘Free Dining Plan’ can save you money. But when I looked into last year for our April trip, it was not worth it. The reason is (at least in 2024), you only get the free dining plan if you stay at a resort and pay the rack rate. However, often there are discounts on the hotel rooms. When I ran the numbers, it was cheaper to get the discount on the resort and bypass the free plan.
Now, it does depend on when you are staying, how many days you are staying, and what level of resort you are staying at. When I wrote this, the discount plan for summer was 20-30% off if you stayed 5 nights or more (20% at the value resorts, 25% at the intermediate resorts, and 30% at the high end resorts).
In addition, to qualify for the free dining plan, you have to add on the park hopper option to the tickets. If you weren’t planning to add the park hopper just adding the park hopper option can make the ‘free’ Disney Dining plan worth it.
Now, it may still be worth it to pay for the dining plan as an add-on, and save the money off in the resorts and park tickets.
Back in the day, I ran into one case where the old Disney Dining Plan made sense. We had a family reunion trip paid for by our father. Some of the family members were on extreme budgets and had limited or no credit cards. By using the Disney Dining plan, my father could insure everybody ate, but that he didn’t have to give them room charging rights. Each sub-family would typically do their own breakfast, my father and his companion would spend one day with each of the sub-families including lunch, and then we would all get together for a common supper, and maybe shared things after that like fireworks).