Hi Christian,
Welcome to planDisney!
Talking about dining at Disney is one of my favorite topics! I am delighted to hear that you are considering one of the
Disney Dining Plans. My family loves the dining plans and, as a matter of fact, I am about to add one to an upcoming trip. You can certainly add a plan. When you do, you have to add it for everyone on the reservation. So, for example, if you review the
Disney Dining Plan details, if your kids are three years old or over, you would need to add it for everyone for the entire length of stay.
Since we are always on a budget, I always do a comparison of estimated dining costs with and without a dining plan prior to our trips. And, when estimating costs
without a dining plan, I calculate the cost of beverages since the dining plan includes select beverages with each meal. My family enjoys eating, so we make good use of the dining plan. I also remember thinking on one trip that we would not need a dining plan because we could save money if our girls shared an entrée, but then they always wanted a different entrée so we did not save money!
If you have not yet done so, I suggest doing some estimates. Make a list of the dining locations you plan to visit. Check each restaurant's website and click on View Menu to see menu options and pricing. Also click on the link to View Dining Plans and Discounts on each dining location's website so that you know how many meals would be required at each location and which type of dining plan is accepted should you buy a dining plan. Remember also that you get the resort refillable mugs and each person gets a snack/nonalcoholic drink per night of stay. So, consider how many drinks you might drink at the resort hotel with the refillable mug and then calculate how much those drinks would cost without the refillable mug. Also, remember that on a dining plan, we calculate meals
per night of stay so I always calculate a total number of meals and then decide how/when we will use those meals. For example, we typically eat dinner on arrival day, two meals per day on the days prior to departure, and then breakfast on departure day.
Christian, I am sending you a little extra dining pixie dust as you finalize those plans!
Magic and memories,
Donyell