Hi Jennifer! Welcome to the Disney Parks Moms Panel!
I personally love the
dining plans that are offered as part of a Walt Disney World Resort vacation! It's a great way to budget for your trip, since you are essentially paying for your dining in advance, then using your meal and snack entitlements during your visit. With the dining plans, you get a refillable drink mug for sodas, coffee, etc. This is the one element that only works at the Disney Resort hotels, but all meals and snacks on the dining plans can be used in the theme parks, as well as the Disney Resort hotels, Disney Springs and Disney's BoardWalk.
You'll find there are a ton of options when using a dining plan! Here's what a typical day looks like for our family when we are using the
Disney Dining Plan: for breakfast, we use snack entitlements for a pastry, piece of fruit or a coffee from one of the locations serving Starbucks in the theme parks. For lunch, we will dine at a Quick-Service location, also in the theme parks. And here's a tip - download the
My Disney Experience mobile app before your trip to take advantage of mobile food ordering at many Quick-Service theme park locations. By ordering ahead, you will skip the regular lines and you can apply your dining plan credits to the order! At dinner time, we will have an
Advance Dining Reservation at one of the many Table-Service restaurants that accept the Disney Dining Plan. We have kept ourselves energized all day, and the only additional expense we've had was the gratuity for our Table-Service meal! How easy is that?!
Enjoy planning your trip!
Tabitha